He had a gym bag slung over his shoulder-the meth, no doubt. He wasn’t stupid enough to leave it in the truck, even for a quick bathroom break. She saw him log her, then check his perimeter as he approached, the same as she had checked hers, his head swiveling, confirming there was no one else here, this wasn’t a hit or a heist. And once he realized it was just a petite, pretty Asian woman out for a ride, his shoulders relaxed. He smiled and rolled right up to her, just as she’d hoped.
“Little engine trouble there?” he said over the wind, when he was about ten feet away.
“Nothing I can’t handle, thanks.” She could see the bag was unzipped. A safe bet he had a weapon inside it. She was glad. If he thought he could access a weapon, it would relax him, increase his confidence. While at the same time, making no difference. She was already holding the Glock on the other side of the engine. He couldn’t see it, but it would sure as hell be faster than anything he might try to pull from the bag, or from anywhere else, for that matter.
“You sure?” he said, coming closer. “I’m pretty good with engines. Nice Ninja, by the way. I’m strictly a Harley man myself, but hey, it takes all types to make a world.”
She looked at him over the seat of the bike. “You really don’t remember me, do you?”
He frowned. “Remember you?”
“Yeah, remember me. I mean, how many thirteen-year-old girls have you kidnapped and brought to Llewellyn from Portland by barge?”
He stared, squinting, and she could see the recognition. And the fear.
Then his expression hardened. “What the hell’s this about?”
“Then you do remember me.”
He glanced around. “I don’t know if I remember you or I don’t.”
“Then why are you looking over your shoulder?”
He hesitated for a moment, then said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. So excuse me, but I’ve got places to be.” He took a step in the direction of the truck.
“You mean meth to deliver?”
He stopped. She saw what he was thinking and raised the Glock over the Ninja so it was pointing at his chest.
“Don’t. Seattle PD.” She pulled her badge from the jacket pocket and held it up so he could see it.
He lost a lot of color and started breathing rapidly. She realized he might panic and do something stupid. That would be catastrophic. He’d be useless to her dead.
“Be cool, Weed,” she said. “I’m not here to arrest you. I just want to talk.”
“What is this?”
She glanced at the picnic table. “Why don’t we sit over there? It’ll be more comfortable. We have a lot to catch up on, right?”
He shook his head. “If you think I’ve got anything to say to you, you’re crazy.”
She returned the badge to her pocket and stood, the Glock still pointed at his chest. “You know I have probable cause to believe you’ve got meth in that bag. Along with a weapon a felon like you isn’t legally permitted to carry. But I don’t want what’s in the bag. I want what’s in your head.”
He glanced at the pistol, then at her eyes, then held up his hands, palms forward. “All right, look. It was a long time ago. I told the AUSA back then, I didn’t know anything. I didn’t, and I don’t.”
“You don’t seem to understand. Right now, I just want to talk. If you tell me what you know about how I wound up on that barge, I’ll be grateful, and that’ll be the end of it. If you want to dummy up, I’m going to arrest you and search that bag.”
There was a pause. She could see the gears turning in his mind as he weighed the options, the risks.
“All right,” he said. “You win.”
She nodded toward the picnic table. “Over there.”
He hesitated, then started walking. She grabbed the helmet with her free hand and followed him, keeping behind him and to his right. If he went for a weapon, he’d have a hell of a time acquiring her from there before she dropped him. Though she hoped he would be more sensible than that.
When they reached the picnic table, she said, “Set down the bag on the far side of the bench. Then sit opposite. Your back to the parking lot.” She wanted the tactical view for herself.
Again he hesitated.
“Weed,” she said. “You just did sixteen years. You have a wife and daughter and a lot to live for. Do you really want to die today, in the parking lot of some highway shithouse? I’m not here for anything more than confidential information.”
He looked at her and shook his head disgustedly. But he did as she directed.
She circled around to face him. “Now, palms on the table. Good. Keep them there, where I can see them.” She straddled the bench, left leg under, right leg out, a flexible, mobile position. The benches were integrated with the table, and sitting the way he was, Weed didn’t have a move. But that didn’t mean she shouldn’t seize every advantage, either.
She held the Glock under the table. If anyone showed up at the rest stop, she and Tyler would look like just a couple of people taking a break from the road and chatting under the pretty blue sky.
A gust blew a snack wrapper past them and shook the pine trees. She paused for a moment, almost afraid to ask, afraid that after so long, what she thought would offer the way to Nason would be revealed as a dead end.
Come on, Livia. Do it.
“All right,” she said. “I want to know who hired you for that boat.”
He sighed. “Like I just said. I told the AUSA I don’t know anything. I didn’t handle any of the arrangements. That was my brother, and the cops killed him.”
She glanced over at the bag, then back to him. “Last chance. Then I search the bag.”
There was a long silence. Then his shoulders slumped and he sighed. “It was a Thai group, all right?”
Her heart started pounding, but she kept her expression placid. “Which one?”
“Which one? I don’t fucking know which one. The one we always dealt with.”
“The one you dealt with. Not just your brother. You.”
“Yeah. All right.”
“What was your contact’s name?”
“He called himself Kana.”
“What did he look like?”
Tyler shrugged. “Tall for Asian. Big cheekbones. Kind of a bony face. Okay?”
Her heart beat harder. “That’s the guy who handed us over to you? Kana?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he look different compared to when you’d seen him previously?”
“Different? No. Well, I mean, his face was bandaged. Actually, one of his guys was cut up, too. They said a steel packing strap broke loose and whipped across their faces. Sounded like bullshit, but I didn’t ask.”
“Bandaged how? Where?”
“His eye. It was, you know, like an eye patch.”
Skull Face. It had to be. He was telling the truth. So far. She took a few slow and steady breaths, working to ease her rampaging heartbeat. She so hoped she had cut Skull Face’s eye out. Yes. Please that.
“Why you? What was the arrangement?”
“No arrangement. Just… look, I’m cooperating, okay? Like you said, I have a wife and daughter. They’ve been waiting a long time for me. I give you what you want here, and you let me walk, right?”
“I want the truth. All of it. You give me that, and you walk. But only for that.”
He nodded. “We’d never done a shipment of people before, okay? And I didn’t want to. It wasn’t something I wanted to get mixed up in.”
“Then why did you?”
“Why do you think? Kana offered a sweet deal.”
“Sweet compared to what?”
“Compared to dope. Up until then, it had always been just marijuana. I mean, where do you think I got my gang name? The Thai dope was super high quality, much better than the domestic or Mexican. They tell me these days you can buy Thai and a lot better in any Washington State cannabis store, but back then, the profit margins were crazy. Like what you’d get for coke. That’s what we moved for them. Just ganja. High-quality Thai ganja.”