Page 46 of Catch Him

“Listen to me. I do not have time to dick around with you. Here is the deal. I find the guy who took your product and tell you where he is. What you do with him after that is your problem. My fee is twenty-five percent of whatever your take is.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Sinead held out her hands as two scales. “Seventy-five percent of something. One hundred percent of nothing. Your choice.”

“Twenty percent.”

Sinead’s jaw dropped. “Are you fucking negotiating with me right now? I am not playing. You want your guy, I’ll get him, but you’re going to do what I tell you and pay me what I tell you. Let’s just say I have people in my life who know how to collect on debt. Right now I need some details about your wife.”

Huntley’s lip twitched and Sinead got that feeling again. Like it wouldn’t be out of the question for this guy to make a fist and punch her.

Instead he said, “You’re a real bitch, you know that?”

She knew it now. Because she felt bitchy and mean and angry. But feeling all those things was a whole lot better than feeling powerless and destroyed and sad.

“Let’s keep it simple,” she said. “What’s your wife’s name?”

He sighed. “Mary.”

“Last name?” Sinead pushed.

“Gallagher. But I don’t get why any of this is important.”

Sinead watched as he ran his hand through his hair. His brow was damp with sweat. Yeah, this guy was in something up to his eyeballs. At least three weeks, Sinead thought. Three weeks at least since she’d been gone. Not with her husband. Not here at home. Gone. Along with all her clothes, makeup. Not even a body wash a woman might use. Sinead had to buy all of that when she started staying over.

Garrett Huntley was not a good man.I’ve corrected an injustice.

“You have no idea where she is right now, do you?”

He slumped. “We had a fight and… she left. No, I don’t really have any way of getting in touch with her right now. But I know her, and she’ll be back. She loves me.”

“As you keep saying. Where was she from? Around here?”

“No, I met her back on the east coast. We were lawyers, working for the same firm in DC.”

“Anything else you can tell me? Her favorite restaurant in DC? Maybe a coffee shop she always went to? Some detail about her.”

Garrett shrugged and looked away from her. “I don’t know why you care. This has nothing to do with Mary. Someone jacked my safe. This is a drug transaction. Clean and simple.”

Sinead didn’t say the word, but it popped up in her head in big bright shiny letters.

LIAR.

Finally Garrett threw his hands up in the air. “She was born in Ireland. Raised there until she came over to the States. Does that count?”

Lovely Irish name. Do you spell it correctly?

Yeah, Sinead thought. That counted.

“I find him. I get twenty-five percent.”

“Fine,” Garrett said. “Deal. Whatever. You seriously think you can find him?”

Sinead smiled. “I think I already know where he is.”

* * *

Garrett watchedas Sinead got in her car. She was texting something to someone, then she started the car and drove off.