Decker didn’t blink. ‘I guess you don’t. I don’t have any reason to do so, though.’
‘You want Burton’s job,’ Ken said, watching Decker’s eyes fill with easy agreement. ‘You stepped right in and took over when Reuben disappeared this morning.’
‘I like to be on the front line. I hate working in Accounting.’
‘But you’re supposedly good at it.’
A shrug of Decker’s massive shoulders. ‘I’m good at a lot of things I don’t like to do. I signed on to be a bodyguard, not a pencil pusher. I do, however, respect the chain of command.’
‘But if a hole opens up in the front line?’
‘I step in. That’s who I am.’ Decker still hadn’t broken eye contact, but he made no sudden moves. ‘With all due respect, sir, I don’t want your job.’
Ken nearly smiled. ‘Why not?’
‘From what I can see, you sit behind a desk all day. I’d go crazy. I was going crazy sitting in Accounting crunching numbers. I’m not happy Reuben disappeared, but I’ll take up the slack and hope I do a good enough job that you don’t send me back to pencil-pushing hell.’
‘And if I do?’
‘I’ll die of lead poisoning from stabbing myself in the eye with the damn pencil.’
Ken laughed. ‘Well, soldier, let’s take it a day at a time. Burton is next in line for Reuben’s job. Can you work for him?’
‘Yes. He seems like an honest man.’
Ken frowned. ‘That’s an odd thing to say.’ He injected a light note into his tone. ‘You do realize this is a criminal enterprise?’
Decker finally smiled. ‘Yes, sir. But that’s the relationship the organization has to its outside contacts – the suppliers, the customers, the government. Within the organization, relationships need to be transparent and dependable. Like a military. Soldiers kill people. It’s their function. Depending on your point of view, that’s criminal or patriotic. If you’re the enemy, it’s very criminal. But within the ranks, you have to know the soldier next to you has your back. I believe I can trust Burton with my back.’
It was an interesting perspective. Ken leaned one shoulder against the wall outside the spare bedroom where Demetrius lay. ‘What other skills do you have, Decker?’
A slow, sly grin. ‘I’m pretty handy with the woodchipper.’
‘O-kay.’ Ken wasn’t sure if that was Decker’s sense of humor or a touch of insanity. He wasn’t certain that he cared. ‘I’ve had a long day. I’m going to grab some shut-eye while Sleeping Beauty in there sleeps off the ketamine. Wake me when he comes to.’
‘You want me to extract any information from him?’ Decker asked quietly.
‘No. He’s my friend, my responsibility. I’ll get what I need.’ With that, Ken turned away and walked down the hall to his own bedroom. Once inside, he closed the door, exhausted. He was glad Demetrius would be under for another few hours.
Ken had killed two people today and ordered the deaths of four more. Drake Connor’s sister and Reuben’s wife had been taken care of. Drake and Marcus O’Bannion were still out there, causing trouble that Ken didn’t even want to think about. He’d lost his security chief and found out that Reuben and Demetrius had been stealing from him. Maybe even working together.
He’d been told by his own daughter that he was getting too old for his job. Maybe she was right.
Because he didn’t have the energy to extract information from Demetrius at the moment. In the quiet, his heart hurt. He and Demetrius had started out as a couple of grad students selling weed to their peers and together built up a company worth millions, serving customers in more than forty-two countries. Selling them just about any perversion they desired. He wasn’t ashamed of that. There would always be buyers for that sort of thing, so there would always be sellers. Might as well be me.
He stripped off his shirt and stood in front of his mirror. Yesterday he’d been proud of his reflection. Now . . .
His cell phone began to buzz, and he prayed it wasn’t Decker saying Demetrius was awake. Luckily it was Sean. ‘What’s up?’
Sean sighed. ‘Dad, I just heard something on the police radio you need to know about.’
Ken sank down to sit on the edge of his bed, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘What?’
‘An unidentified woman was found in a cheap motel about twenty minutes ago. The front desk says they have no record of her having checked in, that she broke into the room, OD’d on a sedative and went to sleep. Description matches Reuben’s wife, Miriam.’
‘She’s dead, right?’ Ken had given her the sedative himself and Burton had taken her to the motel to die.
‘No. Unconscious, but not dead. The chatter said the police were responding to an anonymous 911. Just thought you should know.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Ken pinched his nose harder. ‘She got picked up twenty minutes ago? But she should have been dead hours ago. I gave her enough sedative to take down Reuben, for God’s sake, and she weighs half what he does. If he’s still alive,’ he muttered. ‘If Miriam is alive, somebody pumped her stomach.’
‘Or made her throw it all up.’ A pause, then a tentative ‘Didn’t Burton drop her off?’
‘Yeah,’ Ken said flatly. Burton who hadn’t wanted to kill her to begin with. Reuben’s second-in-command had history with Reuben’s wife. Burton hadn’t allowed her to die. He’d arranged for her to be saved, putting them all in jeopardy. Especially me. Because Ken had forced Miriam to drink the damn sedative.
‘Do you want to buy me out?’ he asked Sean abruptly. ‘Alice said the two of you did.’
‘Maybe. We’d have to clean house.’
Ken huffed bitterly. ‘If we keep on losing people, cleaning house won’t take too long.’
‘Do you want me to find Burton?’ Sean asked quietly.
‘I know where he is,’ Ken said. ‘And I know that you’re aware of my phone trackers.’
‘I wouldn’t have been a very good IT person if I hadn’t known,’ Sean said reasonably. ‘I don’t hold it against you.’
Ken was quiet for a long moment. ‘Can you handle Burton? He’s a big guy.’
‘No, but Alice can.’ It was said with no bitterness or ego. Sean actually sounded proud of his sister, who’d gotten the lion’s share of Ken’s athletic genes.
‘She’s not . . . you know . . . with Burton too, is she?’ Ken asked with a grimace. ‘Not like she is with DJ.’
Sean chuckled. ‘You really want me to answer that?’
Ken shuddered at the image. ‘No. Just get Alice, find Burton and bring him here. I’m not sure where she is. She said she was going to finish off O’Bannion.’
After ending the call, Ken kicked off his shoes and lay on his bed, too weary to take off his pants. The image of Stephanie Anders doing it for him flashed in his mind like unexpected fireworks.
‘No thank you,’ he whispered to himself. Stephanie Anders was not anyone he would ever take to his bed – and on top of the day he’d had? Ludicrous.
But maybe that was his subconscious trying to tell him it was time to get out. Once he fixed this mess, he’d take his personal bank accounts, along with those of Demetrius, Reuben and Chip Anders and he’d retire.
Once he fixed this mess.
Twenty-five
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 11.30 P.M.
Marcus rubbed his mouth, his lips still tingling from that kiss in the hospital parking lot. Finally, he thought. After nine months of telling himself that he’d only drag her down with him, he’d finally silenced that voice in his head.
There was only one small wrinkle – she hadn’t asked him about the kidnapping and Matty. He wondered if she’d had a chance to Google what he’d told her to. She’d been a tad busy, after all. Maybe she hadn’t had time. He didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to know if she had. Because if she hadn’t and if by some chance she had forgotten, he didn’t want to bring it up.