Page 126 of Jagger's Remorse
"What are you doing?"
"Checking traffic cams near his place. Another gift from Diego—he had connections everywhere." Her fingers fly over the screen. "There. Three days ago. Mouse leaving his apartment with someone."
She shows me the grainy footage. Mouse walking with a woman and a young girl. His ex-wife. His daughter.
"I thought she moved to Oregon," I mutter.
"Maybe she came back. Or maybe..." Scarlett's eyes narrow. "Maybe someone brought her back."
"Leverage," I breathe. "Just like they leveraged Tina with money. Different pressure, same result."
"Two rats," Scarlett says. "Fuck. How deep does this go?"
The next day, we run surveillance on both Tina and Mouse without telling anyone except Squirrel.
We can't risk word getting out.
Raven handles Tina, playing the concerned friend. "You seem stressed, honey. Everything okay?"
"Just tired," Tina says, but her hands shake as she pours coffee. "Haven't been sleeping well."
"Since the attack?"
"Yeah. Keep thinking about how they knew exactly when to hit us." Tina's fishing, trying to see what we know. "Any idea how they got in?"
"Squirrel thinks maybe they had help," Raven says carefully. "Maybe someone on the inside."
Tina goes very still. "That's... that's crazy. Who would do that?"
"Someone desperate. Someone who needed money, maybe."
"Well, I hope you find them," Tina says quickly. "Whoever it is deserves what's coming."
Meanwhile, Scarlett and I tail Mouse.
He leaves the compound around noon, heads north.
We follow at a distance in a jacked up truck she got her hands on so he won’t know it’s us, and watch him pull into a storage facility off Highway 299.
"What's he doing?" Scarlett wonders.
We park down the street, watch through binoculars. Mouse enters unit 47, emerges twenty minutes later carrying a backpack. Looks heavier going out than in.
"Making a drop?" I suggest.
"Or a pickup. Either way, he's hiding something."
He drives to a motel on the outskirts of town.
The Starlite—the kind that rents by the hour and doesn't ask questions.
Room 12.
We wait until he leaves, then Scarlett picks the lock.
The room's empty except for the smell of fear-sweat and three burner phones charging on the nightstand.
"Bingo," she breathes.
