Page 94 of Redemption

“The excuse of a Midwest, flyover state is our security blanket. Maybe we’re not that small, and we profit off highway traffic and the commerce that comes through here—”

“Profit? Is that what we’re calling it these days? Not legally profiting,” Victoria said.

“How about a small-town feel with big-city problems?”

“I can agree to that.”

“Sweet Hills has a Main Street and a little itty-bitty police department looped into our county sheriffs and judges and court systems, but the reason why we have bounty hunters and private investigators is because we have the MCs and drug trafficking and gunrunners. And you know that as much as I do.”

Victoria cracked open the top of her water bottle and took a sip. “Lee is a dick.” Right about now, that was all Victoria would say.

“Lee is also commercially successful at the same thing you are. Our little town with the brochure that shows perfect, charming little Main Street and our perfect school system with the blue skies and the green grass, and everybody happy—if that little town is able to support the two of you?” She laughed. “And me because trust me, there is no shortage of work for me and the folks I deal with. Don’t make Sweet Hills out to be some holier-than-thou place that’s too perfect to sustain someone who’s been through the hell you’ve been through.”

Victoria rolled the bottle between her hands. “Did you want to talk about the MC? Or what? Tell me who I need to avoid so that you can tell me what I need to know.”

“Yes, but not before I say one more thing.”

“You certainly are chatty this morning, Lenora.”

“Because it’s important. And I don’t think anybody’s told you this.”

“Nobody’s told me anything,” Victoria said.

“That’s because you’ve been hiding. I had to hear it from somebody I had on payroll at the airport that you were back in town.”

“Not true,” she corrected the attorney. “I went to my office, the Perky Cup, the diner.” Victoria smirked, annoyed that her baseball hat and quick getaway didn’t help. “I havenotbeen hiding.”

“Fine. This is what I want to tell you. I hate that you were raped. I hate who took you. If you didn’t have something to trade for this information, I’d still find a way to get it to you.”

Victoria almost jumped back. No one outright said rape to her face.

“The second I knew something, even if it’s not much, I had to tell you. You would do the same for me. And that’s what I wanted to say.” Lenora folded another edge of the wax paper over her sandwich and turned it over so that none of the edges would crinkle. She leaned over and pulled a small envelope from her purse. “These are the bounties you will ignore.”

Her manicured fingers pushed the expensive linen envelope across the cheap, chipped table with smudged grease marks decorating the plastic.

Victoria took the envelope and unfolded the flap, extracting the piece of paper and reviewing the information. Both those boys were worth a lot of money. One of them, she might even recognize. Easy money fast.

“Now why do I want to do that?” She folded the envelope and put it in her purse next to the subcompact nine mil.

Lenora took a sip of her coffee and seemed to gauge whether or not she would finish the cup before replacing it unfinished on the table. “Vashchenko runs the Russian guns. He hasn’t left town because he’s protecting Yuri Maysak.”

The mention of Maysak’s name turned Victoria’s stomach even if she’d been ready to go after the bastard again before Ryder arrived. “Okay.”

“Lee Marrow didn’t pick up Maysak’s bounty, and he’s gotten quite comfortable outside of Sweet Hills. The MC is using a trucker outfit to run a new drug supply up and down Highway 35, and they’ve struck a deal with Vashchenko.”

Vashchenko was the head of the Russian gunrunners, the head of everything Russian and criminal for a hundred miles in any direction. “I heard guns. You’re saying drugs.” Why would the mayor want drugs ignored? Wasn’t that the shipment he and the sheriff were playing games with? The one that landed her at the Ice House?

“It’s both. But that’s not important.”

“You’re telling me a whole lot about an asshole I don’t care that much about, and now none of it’s important.” When really, all of it was important.

“The two brutes who knocked you out work for Vashchenko,” Lenora said too casually. “Protecting Yuri is under his order.”

“Glad you know the gory details.” Victoria hated how the attorney kept acting as though they were friends, as though it might be more than a business deal, and kept jabbing her with sharp bits of knowledge meant to shock and stun. She tried to keep her face a blank slate. “Every Russian works for Vashchenko. Got it. You’re not telling me anything I don’t know or care about. So far, knowing this isn’t worth ignoring them.” She pointed to Lenora’s list of Mayhem members she wanted ignored.

She pursed her lips. “It is.”

What was Victoria missing? “You have to give me more, Lenora, because I don’t care. The guy has no money on his head. I’m sure the sheriff could track him down if he wanted to; I’m not going to go narc on the guy for what? Any number of the laundry list of federal transgressions?”

---