Page 59 of The Children of Eve (Charlie Parker #22)

CHAPTER LIX

Clemmie Dolfe joined her father in the kitchen, where he was brewing mint tea to help him sleep. Alcohol might have done the trick better, but Donnie Ray Dolfe had never been a drinker. He’d seen the damage caused to generations of his family by alcohol and had resolved not to perpetuate it.

“I’m not getting an answer from either of the Swishers,” said Clemmie.

“It’s late. Maybe they don’t answer their phones past a certain hour so long as they’re together.”

“Should I send one of our people over?”

Donnie Ray tasted his tea and worked through various options and outcomes. He’d killed people—fewer than rumor had it but more than many knew—and it was draining, even without inflicting the kind of additional suffering Emmett Lucas had endured. Whoever dispatched him must have been tired out after; they wouldn’t be human otherwise. Nobody went around murdering folk that way on a nightly basis. It got to resemble hard work.

Also, Clemmie was right: Lucas’s body had been left as a message, an ultimatum just short of dumping the remains on Donnie Ray’s doorstep. Somewhere, Blas Urrea’s agents were waiting to see how he would respond, hoping the murder would induce him to hand over his prize without a fight. If they were watching the Dolfes, sending a search party to the Swisher house would only lead them to the children.

“I find it’s always best to sleep on a problem,” said Donnie Ray. “Let’s wait until morning, see what the dawn brings.”