Page 70 of Skin Game
Althea crossed to where Randy lay, now curled up in as much of a ball as he could manage, and kicked him. He screamed and writhed again.
“Answer me when I’m talking to you.”
“Nothing, there was nothing,” Randy gasped.
Gabe didn’t think it was his imagination that the tiny bit of sky he could see through the cracked-open door looked infinitesimally lighter. The trees outside were less dark, which meant it could be after six a.m., maybe even close to seven.
Gabe just hoped Elton and Casey had an idea of where he was although he didn’t know how they would. He didn’t even know where he was.
Gabe also hoped they’d bring coffee with them.
Out the still open door, Gabe thought he saw movement. Movement that wasn’t tree branches dancing in the wind. Beforehe could focus on it, whatever it was faded away. He blinked. Was he hallucinating? Not out of the realm of possibility.
“So, I think I’ve got this sorted out, at least a rough draft. I’ve had hours to think about it, after all. Your sisters pulled off a heist fifty years ago and you knew about it, maybe you helped. At the very least, you were jealous they’d come up with the idea. Something went sideways, maybe there was disagreement? The art went poof. Into thin air. My mother was the smart sister, wasn’t she? I’ve long suspected we came from a family of grifters, and I think I’m on the right track.”
Too many grifters in the kitchen ruin the con, Chance.
Althea made an indeterminate grunt that Gabe interpreted asgo ahead and keep talking. He was going to keep talking because he’d seen the movement again and was certain there was a person, maybe more than one, just outside. The gun was still pointed at him, and Gabe was ready for it not to be.
“Moving right along. Way back when you came back to Heartstone, you got into bed with Eli Rizzi for reasons only known to the two of you. Maybe he knew something or you had something on him, it doesn’t matter now. Last fall, he fell from grace and now you risk exposure. All you have to help you get out of here is maybe some artwork that my mother may have left to me.”
Gabe was enjoying this in spite of himself. Now he knew how those detectives felt at the end of the show, when they gathered the suspects and laid the crime out in front of them.
“Time’s running out. You can’t keep your deeds hidden from Eagan and the investigators she brought in. So you’d come up with this locket scheme so you could search my house, I guess, except that I didn’t have any of Heidi’s things at that time. Was Mia acting on her own? Or was that a contingency plan? I still can’t figure out that part.”
“Why’d you kill her, Auntie?”
“Fuck off with the Auntie bullshit, Randall. Even after the Crevans went AWOL, I thought I’d finally escaped this backwaterby marrying Frederick Martine. But then Carla and her kid died, and I was stuck with Randy and Mia. Raising kids is expensive these days. I deserve the money from that artwork. Mia agreed to approach you, see what she could find out. When you sent her away, she came crying to me. At the station, believe it or not, like the utter moron she was.”
Althea turned back toward Randy, her gun hand slightly lower than it had been, and three men burst in through the door. One took Althea to the ground and relieved her of the weapon, then spun her onto her front and used zip ties to secure her. The second headed for Randy, kneeling beside him, and set down a boxy first aid kit.
The third, Ranger Man, headed straight for Gabe. He’d never seen anything more magnificent in his life.
“I’d stand up and lay a kiss on you, Ranger Man, but I’m kind of tied up.”
TWENTY-FIVE
CASEY – FRIDAY, EARLY. UP THE VALLEY
Etienne and Paul had beaten them to Denny Pritchard’s place, of course. But after much back and forth on the sat phone, they’d agreed to keep their eyes out and wait for Casey to arrive. While Casey drove like a man possessed, the couple scouted the property and discovered Gabe and friends in Denny’s massive storage unit.
“The action is in Denny’s storage structure back of the house. There’s a lot of talking, but we can’t hear everything clearly. The older woman has a gun and doesn’t look afraid to use it. She shot one of the accomplices, looks like she got him in the arm. How far out are you?”
“Under ten minutes.”
“In that case, we’ll hold before we go check on Denny. If things go sideways ahead of your arrival, we’re going in,” Paul said. “To be honest, Etienne and I are kind of enjoying being flies on the wall. We’ve been listening to—Gabriel, is it?”
“Yes, Gabriel.” Casey confirmed.
“We’re listening to him verbally torture his kidnappers. He’s quite impressive. Oh, hang on, the other one is making a run for it. We’re going to intercept him.”
The connection ended so all they heard over the speaker now was fuzz. Casey pressed the gas down, pushing the Wagoneer as hard as he dared. Behind them, the headlights of Shay’s Lincoln bounced. At least the rain had finally stopped, for now anyway.
“I think we’ll learn that Althea was a Pritchard before she married Fred Mortine,” Elton said to Casey as they bumped over another exposed rock and forded a small river created by the storm. He sounded disappointed and Casey couldn’t blame him.
Casey grunted his agreement; they’d started this conversation a few miles back, going over as many different scenarios as they could using the puzzle pieces they had. It all came back to who knew Gabe had Heidi’s stuff, and process of elimination had led to Althea.
The only explanation was that Althea was a Pritchard and wanted whatever she thought Heidi had taken. Ahead he finally spotted the access road to Denny’s property. Slowing to a crawl, he turned off the headlights in case there was someone keeping an eye out. Behind him, Shay did the same.