Page 4 of Skin Game
“The Colavitos didn’t send you this way, did they?” he asked.
He still had the duffle bag hidden away with a substantial amount of cash remaining, and he knew that Larry and family had been put away for a very long time. But would prison stop a man like Larry Colavito?
She frowned at him, her hand on the doorknob. “The who?”
“Never mind. Come back if you come up with a better story,” he called after her.
The door slammed shut behind Juliet. Gabe moved back over to the front window and watched her get behind the wheel of her tin can of an automobile and drive off way too fast. Bill was going to be pissed if he was still outside.
Keith chose that moment to saunter into the living room, stopping and staring at him in a very catlike way.
“What the fuck was that all about?” he asked the cat. With a hoarse meow, she padded over and wrapped around his ankles in a blatant effort at assassination.
He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Now that we’ve sent ‘Juliet’ on her merry way, I have that job to do. But first, breakfast for you, coffee for me.”
As for the new-to-Gabe fake daughter, this was going to be a great story to share at the next death-match cribbage night over at Elton’s. Because dammit, Gabe wanted a rematch.
TWO
GABE: MONDAY MORNING: PART TWO
Shivering slightly in the too-thin jacket he’d decided to wear that morning, Gabe peered out the Honda’s mist-coated windshield. He’d already cracked the driver’s side window an inch or so to try and keep the glass from fogging while he waited, but the heavy mist surrounding the town of Westfort and this particular hill was cold, cloying, and persistent.
Gabe was fucking freezing. But a favor was a favor, and Gabe was particularly suited to this one.
The address he was focused on sat across the street and to his right, at about one o’clock, maybe one fifteen, and Gabe was just a guy, sitting in his car, watching a house. As one does. Doing his best to appear unremarkable and commonplace. Not casing the joint. Not waiting for the creep inside to leave.
“Come on already. You’re going to be late for work, dude.”
Maybe Gabe’s idea of being on time and this guy’s were wildly different. Possibly it was fine for Randy to show up whenever he dragged his ass in. Gabe’s own job history was not the nine-to-five version, and he suspected that he also might not have excelled on a set schedule, but one thing Heidi had impressed upon him was being on time. A few more cold minutes passedbefore the front door opened with a loud scrape and rattle, as if it didn’t fit the frame properly.
“Finally,” he whispered.
A youngish man Gabe recognized from a selfie that Althea Mortine had shared with him emerged. Gabe lifted his cell phone to his ear, pretending he’d pulled over to answer a call. Randy Witherspoon didn’t appear to notice that he was being watched from the Honda.
In his late twenties, Witherspoon was of average height and carried a not-quite-to-term paunch that bulged under his blue Mariners hoodie. This was the springtime uniform for many of the less fashion-forward in the Pacific Northwest. The only things missing were sandals and black socks. Instead, he wore a pair of battered leather sneakers and socks that were possibly gray.
Gabe hoped he wore socks because wearing sneakers with no socks was truly disgusting and having that color of ankles was even more so.
Gabe shuddered.
Blissfully unaware there were eyes on him, Randy pulled the door shut with a slam that echoed across the street and proceeded to lock it with a key he then shoved into the front pocket of his jeans. Althea had given Gabe a key, one that was supposed to fit the back door. He hadn’t asked where it came from, but the likelihood that her granddaughter had provided it was high. She was the reason Gabe was there, after all. Which had him wondering if she suffered from self-esteem issues because, based on what Althea had told him via Elton, Randy W. was no prize. He pushed those thoughts away for another time.
Tucking one hand into the pocket of his hoodie, Mr. Oblivious traipsed across the ragged green-brown lawn to the sidewalk, his attention held by something on the cell phone in his other hand. He then turned to his right, heading toward Westfort’s downtown area. While he walked, he shoved his phone away andpulled his hood up, presumably with the belief that the material would protect him from the misty rain. It would not.
Gabe knew where Randy was going but wanted proof he’d made it there before letting himself into the house. Technically, he wasn’t breaking in since he had a key, but he certainly hadn’t been invited.
Potato potahto.
“It is,in fact, breaking and entering,” Casey had sternly informed Gabe the night before.
The thing was, Gabe never cared much aboutpossiblybreaking the law when Casey crossed his arms over his chest in that way he did. Ranger Man’s biceps were always distractingly sexy.
“But is it? Is it really, if the key fits and all that?” He’d held up the key, waggling it so the light hit it. Thepossiblebreaking and entering was a favor for Elton’s woman-friend, Althea Mortine, and Gabe would never say no to Elton.
Ranger Man, on the other hand, was pissed at both of them.
He’d been rewarded with a long stare and then a shake of the head. Casey should’ve known that Gabe would do just about anything that Elton—and, by extension, Althea—asked of him, even enter an empty house that he wasn’t maybe invited into in order to retrieve personal belongings.