Page 107 of Nash Falls

“I don’t really care what happens to me. I just want to get Maggie back.”

Shock wouldn’t look him in the eye and it slowly dawned on Nash.

“They… they can’t let her go now, because she would tell everyone that what she said was a lie. She’s probably already—”

“Look, I can’t tell you one way or another for certain, but the probabilities do lie there. I will never sugarcoat things, Walter, I told you that before. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

Nash slumped back against the wall. “This is all my fault.”

“No, this is Victoria Steers’s fault and the dudes you work for. You and Maggie were just collateral damage.”

“If they hurt Maggie, or…” He glanced up at Shock. “I will kill them. All of them. Can you… teach me… how to do that?”

“Whoa, now, I think you gettin’ way ahead of yourself.”

Nash persisted. “Will you, if it comes to it, Shock? Because I’ve got nobody else to turn to. Nobody.”

“Walter, you’re a good man with all the best intentions. But you are a normal man who ain’t never seen the part of the world you’re askin’ me to dump you in. It’s not a good place, for nobody. Even dudes who got all the skills in the world, mean and cruel as shit, belly fire that never goes out? They get eaten alive there every minute of every day by people like Victoria Steers, just how it is.”

Nash just stood there and stared at him. “Please,Isaiah.”

Shock’s large brown eyes gleamed. “Okay, Walter, if it comes to it, I will teach you how.”

CHAPTER

52

THERE HAS TO BE ANOTHERway,” said Rhett to his father as they sat in the latter’s office at Barton’s mansion in the hills. It was well after midnight. Paranoid beyond belief right now, Rhett had left his car parked down the street and scaled the back wall. He didn’t want anyone to know he was here, and there were security cameras posted everywhere and men on duty around the clock to watch them. But he knew where the gaps were. Rhett had quietly let himself in through a side door, roused his father from his room, and they were now meeting over Maggie Nash’s disappearance.

“She’s totally innocent of anything. Not even twenty years old, smart and beautiful with her whole damn life ahead of her. I mean, come on, Dad!”

His father shrugged. “The police think it’s Nash. I saw the video. He molested his daughter? This probably has nothing to do with Steers.”

“Have you asked her?”

“I’m not in a position to ask her anything.”

“You must have been pretty damn desperate to hitch your wagon to her. And then drag me into it.”

“If I hadn’t you wouldn’t have had a pot to piss in, boy. The gravy train had no more gravy in it. And my competitors were just fine with seeing me go right down the crapper. And Maggie looked okay in the video, so what’s the problem?”

“Do you really think that video was legit?” said Rhett. “Do you actually think Nash molested his daughter and then killed the guy Maggie said she told about the abuse?”

“Look, maybe Walt was too good to be true. You’ve had teachers and preachers and people beyond reproach who later turn out to be scum. Maybe he’s one of those.”

Rhett shook his head. “Judith told me that Maggie and Nash were discussing him financing her influencer business. And yet he was screwing her? I just don’t see it.”

“So why would Steers have taken his daughter?”

“Walt tried to jump ship.”

Barton exclaimed, “I know that, boy, stop wasting my time.”

“Only the firm he wanted to jump to turned him down. You said it was because of you. Did you call Zuckerman at Black Cliffs and tell him to back off?”

“No, I told you that. I didn’t have to. They know to fear me.”

“You think that highly of yourself?”