Page 18 of Devil's Due: Sarge

There’s a rustling on the line and then I hear my stepfather’s voice. “Greer.”

All it takes is my name. I can hear the entire conversation in my head without him saying another word. “Listen, you dirty little bitch, you want trouble to quit following you, youbetter give us what we want.”

What he actually says with my mother in the room with him is, “We’ve been worried sick about you. If something has happened, if you don’t want to come home, we’ll come meet you.” Yeah, I bet he will.

“She fucking puts her life on the line for you and you just keep letting her.”

“Go to a different room,” I order him. “Tell my mom you’re going to get her a drink to help her calm down.”

Then it sounds as if he’s put his hand over the receiver because his words are somewhat muffled, but I still hear him do as I asked. “Sweetheart, you have to calm down. Wait here. I’m going to go get you a drink. Once you’re calm, I’ll let you talk to Greer again.”

The crying becomes softer and softer in the background until I really can’t hear much of it at all. I do hear glasses clinking, so he must be pouring her a glass of scotch from the special reserve. “Right, we’re alone now. All we want is the art back.”

I don’t believe him as far as I can throw him and I can’t even lift him off the ground. “You’re saying if I meet you, you promise to leave me alone and let me live my life?”

“Yes,” Drew says. “We just want the art back – oh, and drop your mother a Christmas card from time to time telling her why you’re too busy to come home.”

“She doesn’t know?” I ask.

“You know your mother. She sees what she wants to see. Even after the house was raided. The house was clean. None of the computers confiscated from the house when they raided us held any illegal information.”

“How is that possible?”

“Stephen. While you were making the handoff, he was switching them out and making them disappear, as I figured a raid wouldn’t be far behind. I had no choice but to tell your mother you’d fallen in with some bad people while living out in California.”

“Wait – you told herIfell in with bad people?”

“She’s my wife. I sleep next to her every night. I could hardly tell her the truth, now could I? It was the only plausible explanation. I won’t lose my family because some little whore decided to stab me in the back – ”

“I didn’t stab anyone in the back, and I’m not a whore. I got pulled into all of this against my will. Those FBI agents threatened to go after Mom if I didn’t help them. What was I supposed to do?”

“It doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done. Now, where are we meeting?” he asks.

I know where I left the art, in the trunk of a car parked in long term parking. But what I’m unsure of is where to meet them. I don’t trust Drew or his sons. As seconds tick by, I realize that there’s only one place that I’m familiar enough with to make the exchange without any unwelcome surprises finding me. God, I never thought I’d go back there again, but I need a place without people.

“Meet me in three days. There’s a little town called Halfway. It’s smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, Texas.”

“And where shall I meet you in this Halfway?”

“Well, since it literally only has a bar, a grocery store, and a post office that also doubles as a gas station, take your pick.”

“Greer…” He sighs my name. “Why must you always make life more difficult?”

“I don’t see how I’m making it difficult. You want the art; I want to give you the art – but seeing as I don’t trust you, I also want to make it so I walk away from this exchange with my life. So again, where do you want to meet? The bar, the gas station, or the grocery store?”

“We’ll meet at the bar. Noon. Three days from now.”

“Great, see… I love these special father-daughter bonding moments. Please tell my mother that the phone was about to die and then I will call her back as soon as I’ve charged it.” And then I hang up. I just… I just can’t with him anymore.

Sarge is going to be so upset with me. But at this point, I’ve run out of options. Once they have the art, there’ll be no reason for Drew or his family to bother me anymore.

I just hope I can get Sarge to understand.

“She fucking puts her life on the line for you and you just keep letting her.”

Not anymore.

8

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