Page 58 of Hard Rain

Axel grimaced. “Clear left.”

Whip peeled toward the kitchen, and Axel swept the living room.

Dirty dishes and spilled beer cans littered the low, dark-brown coffee table. On a small cracked mirror, drugs sat in plain sight, a rolled-up dollar bill next to a line of white powder.

Four days chasing Cutter, and somehow, he always ended up standing in somebody else’s bad decisions.

Frank Delany was missing, and his place had been empty.

But other leads kept coming in. Some good. Most probably bullshit. Either way, every one of them had to be followed.

Hence the reason he was facing the two sketch heads sitting on a ripped, broken-down couch.

The woman launched to her feet as if to make a run for it.

“Sit your ass down.” Axel pointed his gun at her.

She spat at him from across the room, glaring through long, tangled black hair that hadn’t been washed in God only knew how long.

“That’s a felony,” Axel warned her.

She gaped at him. Too skinny to be healthy, with open sores across her jawline. The drugs were winning. Scratching at her arm, she dropped back onto the couch beside the man who hadn’t moved.

The guy wasn’t much better. Both looked like they’d lost a fight with life years ago.

“What the fuck?” the woman hissed.

“Hands where I can see them,” Axel said.

“The fuck you doing in my house?”

“Federal marshals.”

“Fucking feds!” she spat.

“Marshals,” he corrected her.

She glared, the hate clear in her washed-out pale eyes.

Axel rubbed at his chin. Four days of search warrants, interviews, and dead-end leads hadn’t improved anybody’s attitude, and this couple was no different.

The guy blinked at him slowly.

“You got a warrant?”

Axel leaned over and dropped the folded warrant onto the coffee table.

The guy picked it up and squinted at it.

“Do you know where Clay Cutter is?”

The woman barked a laugh.

“Christ, another one?”

Axel paused.

“Another one?”