Page 38 of Backtrack

Duvall turned slowly in place to stare hard at Pink. “You better check it before you wreck it, kid.”

Pink’s hand rested on the butt of the pistol at his belly. “That ain’t an answer.”

“Yeah sure, I stuffed the diamonds down my pants and then hid them in the woods.” His voice rose in pitch and volume. “Then I swung around to pick up your sorry ass instead of shooting you inthe face and leaving you in a shallow grave. I convinced you to come here so we could give this bitch’s panties a toss when I should be digging up said diamonds and flying south to Bolivia.”

“Makes sense,” Pink said.

Duvall shook his head. “Do you really think I’d double-cross you like that?”

Pink stood and looked at him for a long minute, hand still on the pistol.

“Nah,” he finally said. “If I thought you took the diamonds, I’d nail you to the floor and then go to town with this box cutter until you told me where they were.”

Duvall gave a low whistle, impressed. “Damn, kid. That’s medieval shit for somebody your age. You got the right idea, though. I’ll turn you into a real killer. But you gotta learn to trust me.”

“You’d be asking me the same questions if I’d got to the stones before you did.”

Duvall turned his attention to the bureau again. He slammed one drawer in frustration and opened another, pulling out a skimpy black negligee like Pink had seen in the Sears catalog. Duvall put it to his nose, eyes closed. “Shows how much you know,” he said. “If I thought you were holding out on me, I’d have shot you in the back of the head from the get-go.”

Pink laughed. “You kill me, and you’d never get your hands on the diamonds.”

Duvall stuffed the nightgown down the front of his shirt. “I’m keeping this,” he said, resuming his search through the woman’s underwear drawer. “You know, some things are more important than diamonds—like honor and friendship.”

Pink had been around long enough to know Duvall didn’t believe that was true, but it made him sound noble, and he seemed to need that. If any one of them had honor, it was Vince Millner—and that son of a bitch, Cutter, blew him away in cold blood.

“We may have to nail Moffit to the floor and let you go to town with your box cutter,” Duvall said.

The sudden crunch of tires on gravel interrupted Duvall’s life lesson. A car door slammed.

Pink sprang to the bedroom window and peeked around the mini blinds.

“Must be the wife,” he whispered over his shoulder. “What’s she doing home this early in the day?”

A blond woman who made Pink think of that new girl onCharlie’s Angelsopened the door of her Honda Civic. She juggled her purse and a stack of loose mail while she scooped up a paper grocery sack from the back seat. Probably in her early twenties, she was not much older than Pink.

Groceries in her arm, she glanced up suddenly, as if she’d seen a movement in the window.

Pink froze. “I don’t like the look of this,” he whispered. “She’s wacked-out about something.”

“She alone?” Duvall asked.

“Looks that way.” Pink imagined the heat of the box cutter in his pocket.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Duvall hissed. “Let’s go haul her ass inside so you can get to work.” He rummaged around in the drawer, found what he was looking for, and then threw it to Pink.

Pink held up a gauzy black bra.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Wrap it around your face like a mask.”

“Why?”

The footsteps outside grew closer.

“So she can’t identify us.” Duvall wrapped the black negligee around his own face. “Besides, she walks in and sees us wearing these, it’ll scare the piss outta her. She’ll probably faint.”

“From laughing her ass off,” Pink hissed. “Let’s just drag her in here and cut her up some. She’ll tell us what we want to know.”