Page 48 of Triple Threat

“This was Lupe, and Trent. Trent wouldghost ridecars after he stole them. The police, well, they shot him. He died in the back of a squad car.” She wiped at her face with her sleeve.

“Anthony, Mike the Flea, we called him that because of how skinny he was. He overdosed.” She showed me others, more names, more faces, some she didn’t remember. Some had real names, some only had street names or nicknames.

This was worse than I expected.

I felt a little sick.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen worse, I had. I had seen refugee camps in Afghanistan, and places where the Taliban had kept people prisoner. Those people had been forced to sit in their own excrement, given little or nothing to eat, left to die. It had been deliberate cruelty, deliberate evil, and I knew what to do with that. Most of the world knew what to do with that. It had involved bombers, the smartest explosives ever devised, a sky full of drones, and men like Lach and me on the ground, putting boots and bullets into the asses of the people who did things like this.

Sadie didn’t have a bucket for a toilet, but she also didn’t have a violent regime standing on her neck with a high-laced boot, waving machine guns at anyone who didn’t sing their version of theMy God is the Only Godsong. There wasn’t a person or even a group of people who could be wiped out with a JDAM strike, or a called-in artillery. I couldn’t rescue her with a P90 or Walther PPK.

“I’ve got something planned for dinner tonight,” I said, breaking the silence. “Something that is a compromise between plain and over the top.”

“Oh?” She looked up from her pictures.

“Duck.” I smiled.

“Like quack-quack duck?”

“Yes, that sort of duck,” I agreed. “With a cranberry-orange glaze.”

“I was waiting for the other shoe,” she said with a smile.

“Are you ready to go back?” I asked.

“I think so, yeah.” I was relieved. I had considered giving her a second bag. It was stuffed in the boot of the Aston – few changes of clothes, a bundle of cash, and a burner phone. I was going to offer her freedom, let her go. But I had a different notion of where she had been before. I had expected something more Bohemian, more of a romanticized notion of a free spirit unbound by social expectation. I didn’t expect her living in a deathtrap building that was collapsing around her, reeking of dead animals and old chemicals.

Lach had been right without seeing any of this. Taking her into the house, even against her will, had been for the better. I could feel relief running through me like a cold drink on a hot day. My anger at her captivity seemed overwrought, and eventually I would have to talk to her about this.

“Hey, Roan?” Sadie asked as we walked to the car. “Would it be asking too much to get something to eat before going back to the house?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Did you have something in mind?”

“Your food is good, but I was thinking about some of the stuff I was eating before, and this is going to sound strange, but I want some of that.”

“Okay, it’ll be my treat.” I nodded and opened the car door for her. She gave me a sweet smile as she dropped into the passenger seat.

“Burger World?”

“Burger World?” I made a face.

“Have you eaten there?” she asked.

“I generally make a point not to,” I confessed. “Have you seen the articles about how they make their food?”

“There aren’t many food magazines in the dumpster behind Burger World. I want to have one that wasn’t thrown away for being too old to sell,” she said. “And fries that are hot. And salty.”

“As my lady wishes,” I agreed.

* * *

Lach was waitingin front of the garage when we pulled in. I thought that we might have been able to sneak in without him noticing, but how realistic had that been? Not very. He had the McLaren pulled out front, and he was leaning against it. This was an ambush, and I knew it. That charcoal suit, the emerald green and teal tie, the thick cigar in his hand, no different from a tactical vest, body armor, and sniper rifle. He would have words instead of bullets, and those I might not be as well prepared for.

“Have a nice afternoon out?” he asked.

“Roan took me to go get my stuff from the warehouse. I found my photographs. Do you remember these?” She bounced from the Aston to show him the handful of pictures. A smile cracked his face, a real one, not one of those precision-assault smiles. She went through the names, the faces, and there were some that she had forgotten along the way that he remembered. A skinny boy with a shaved head Lach remembered, Bobby, and the girl he called a sister, Dolores.

“Oh my God, how could I have forgotten Bobby and Dolly?” She smiled, but there was a hint of sadness to it.

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