Page 125 of Backtrack

He looked out the window and pondered his options. A thousand feet below, the unmistakable white form ofThe PolarStarhad already made the trip up the icy waters of the Taiya Inlet and docked at the Skagway docks.

CHAPTER 56

By the time they met Leo at the baseball fields north of Skagway,Shayna had about decided to hit Ricky over the head with a two-by-four to calm him down. He had a plan. She had a good plan. Somehow, she had to make him see reality.

For either plan to work, they needed guns. That was where Cousin Leo came in.

The ball fields were out of the way, nestled in the trees off the Klondike Highway. The perfect place to meet this time of morning in a city with a population of eight hundred that swelled to over ten thousand when three cruise ships were in port. They were maybe two miles from the docks and certainly not worth the walk when you could see places like the Red Onion Saloon and brothel museum or the Yukon Route and White Pass Railroad.

Ricky Pink was a convicted felon, unable to buy or possess a firearm without breaking the law. But that was the thing about convicted felons. They were felons. They tended to view any law as a suggestion, especially if their lust for revenge was so great they didn’t give a shit. Pink had practiced with Shayna’s .38 Special revolver at an old gravel yard outside Canton more than a dozen times after he got out of the halfway house. It worried her that he would get in trouble, but he joked that they tested him for drugs, not gunpowder residue. He was a damned good shot. Fast and accurate. Shayna suspected his fitness level helped. His arms were a couple of concrete fence posts—sexy concrete fence posts to be sure, but hard as rocks. Beyond fitness, he’d told her that he’dmanifestedshooting D Wayne Cutter every day since their fight out at the lake.

Shayna needed him to start manifesting fifteen million in diamonds.

Leo stuck a Ritz Cracker box upside down on an old shovel and leaned it against a fir tree to give them something to shoot at.

Glocks had come out after he went to prison. If they were going to face the marshal, he needed a little practice. There were a few houses on the other side of the trees, but Leo had solved that by grabbing a silencer for one of the pistols.

Leo screwed the suppressor on the end of one of the pistols while Shayna loaded magazines with hollow-points. Four mags took an entire box of fifty and a couple more. She smiled at that.

“Now,” Leo said, putting on his officious cop voice that annoyed Shayna like a paper cut. “This suppressor will quiet things down quite a bit, but it’s not gonna be mouse-fart quiet.”

Ricky reached for the gun. “That’s fine.” He slammed a magazine home and took aim at the Ritz Cracker box, ten long paces away. He fired once, testing the feel of the weapon, then four more times in rapid succession.

The slap of each round was plenty loud enough to worry Shayna about passersby, but not so loud as to hurt her ears.

Three of the shots hit the picture of the same cracker. The other two less than an inch low.

He ran the gun dry, missing only once—which he blamed on the ammo. Neither Leo nor Shayna argued the matter. It wasn’t smart to disagree with Ricky Pink under the best of circumstances. It was downright suicidal to do it when he was holding a suppressed pistol.

“This is going to work just fine,” Pink whispered, surely thinking over his own plan and not Shayna’s.

Shayna handed him a full mag, then glanced at Leo while Ricky continued to practice.

“Okay,” she said. “What else did you find out about the ex-wife’s schedule?”

“She’s on a train ride this morning,” Leo said. “Should be back before noon because she has lunch and a tour of that Red Onion Saloon and brothel museum at one thirty.”

“The ship doesn’t leave until six,” Shayna said. “What’s she doing for the rest of the day?”

Air whistled through her broken teeth. They hurt like hell, though still not as bad as they looked like they should.

“A hike out to a Gold Rush cemetery and some waterfall.”

Pink lowered the Glock, still half full if Shayna had counted correctly.

“I know Cutter’s name’s not in the ship’s system, but did he follow her on the train or is he waiting here in town?”

Shayna closed her eyes, wishing she hadn’t given him more bullets.

“Here’s the deal,” she said. “It looks like Cutter and his partner stayed in Juneau.”

Instead of yelling, Ricky got very quiet, lip quivering like he was about to sneeze.

“He what?” Intense, like a rattlesnake.

“He stayed in Juneau,” Leo said. “After Malosi was killed and—”

“You mean after you killed him.”