Page 80 of Drilled

I followed him, not willing to let up.

“Well, that’s fine then. Because you’re not the one that’s gonna be doing the talking.”

I’d managed to back Sandy up against his own apartment door, trapped on the narrow, square landing. I was about two steps away from his threshold, not quite close enough for it to flag as inherently hostile, but I also wasn’t letting him snake his way out of this. My own back was precariously close to the edge of the uncarpeted wooden stairs I’d just climbed, with nothing but a low, vintage spindle railing separating me from the drop down to the main floor.

Glancing back over the low banister caused a wave of dizziness to hit me. The depth looked twice as deep in the dim light, making my head spin with the realization that there was no safety net.

I lightly shook those thoughts from my head. I didn’t have time for random on-set vertigo, not when I had Sandy right on the ropes. I reached into my tote and pulled out a fat folder that had his name on it. When I handed it over, he hesitated to take it.

“You’re gonna wanna give this a look, trust me,” I said. “Open it.”

If looks could kill, I’d have died twice over already. Sandy looked mad as hell, snatching the folder from me. As he leafed through it, the rage on his face started flickering, and a deep-set panic lay beneath.

“Page four has your signature next to the April syndicate payouts. Page seven shows the ledger logs from my basement. It’s actually impressive how much info was available, you know? If only you paid just as much attention to covering your tracks as you did to misusing your statutory board powers,” I told him, keeping my voice almost friendly in its delivery. I knew that would piss him off even more.

He continued fumbling with the pages, eyes bulging with each turn and his face flushing red. “You stupid, meddling bitch…You have no idea who you’re messing with! You should learn to stay the hell out of things that don’t concern you.”

“It concerned me the second you used my home as a drop house,” I replied. “You know what happens next right?”

Oh, he did. Sandy had played around with red tape enough to know what his cards were. If I took all of this to the FBI, his life was as good as over. I could see the sheer terror he was trying to hide beneath insults and fury. It was textbook.

“It’s not looking great for your case. But don't worry, I have a deal I’d like to offer if you’re interested,” I said, opening my tote again to take out another document.

“I don’t suppose I have much of a choice, do I?” he ground out.

“Not really. But this is the best deal you’re gonna get,” I said, handing over what would be the final nail in the coffin of his scheming. “Look familiar? That’s a quit-claim deed.”

He eyed it warily with a knowing frown.

“You sign over your written HOA power, you sign this written confession, and I forget that we even had this conversation,” I said.

“You expect me to think you’ll stick to your word, you parasite? Absolutely not,” he spat. His breathing was getting heavier and his hands were starting to shake. “I’ll ruin you first.”

“You can try. But this isn’t the only copy lying around. We’ll see what you can pull off before I drop that little folder off at the FBI office,” I said.

Snatched between pure panic and rage, Sandy violently scribbled his signature on the deed using the doorframe as a hard backing. Instead of handing it back over though, he shoved the document so hard against my chest that my heels caught on the lip of the molding. My balance shattered and I fell backward into the open air of the short stairwell, my hands clawing frantically at nothing and the last thought I registered before my back hit the landing below was that I was lucky I missed the banister.

31

Bear

It felt good to be driving my Ford again instead of the Cornerstone truck. Had me feeling more like myself, which, given the last few weeks, was starting to get a little murky. And unlike the work truck, this baby ran smooth. The only sound was the tires chewing up the gravel, and that was exactly the type of quiet I needed to think.

I pulled into the old iron yard, cutting the engine a few feet from our designated meeting spot. I looked around quickly before getting out. The place still smelled like wet rust, diesel exhaust and cold grease. It was a graveyard of rotting pallets and twisted rebar, the type of place that you’d immediately think of when someone mentions they know a place where you can hide a body.

I zipped my jacket all the way up and climbed out, glass and gravel crunching under the soles of my boots. After a few minutes of waiting in the frigid wind, I finally saw them; Dax’s mother and brother emerged from the shadow of a rusted shipping container, moving with a slow slouch. His mother pulled ahead with her arms tightly crossed over a faded winter coat. The brother trailed behind like a leashed dog, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

I noticed his beady eyes kept darting back to my truck. I clenched my jaw.

“You sure know how to keep an old lady waiting,” his mother chided immediately and I raised a brow. “It’s freezing out here, for God’s sake.”

I didn’t point out the fact that they clearly spent some of that time hiding in the container. She had a condescending way of making you feel like shit without having to be explicit about it. I couldn’t stand people like that but it was fine. I wasn’t here to make friends, anyway.

“Here,” I said, handing over the envelope I’d kept tucked in my jacket. She looked at me with suspicion, but eagerly opened it anyway, and when she saw the number I’d scrawled down, her eyes popped.

I dipped my head towards the check in her hands. “That’s enough to get your son out of debt and then some. I added a bonus on the condition that you stay out of Dax’s life from now on. Is that understood?”

Hearing that, the spell cast by the check violently broke. She gave an ugly laugh of disbelief. “You think this little check of yours is enough to dictate what I do with my own son? I will not be told how to handle my boy, especially by some thug who does his dirty work for him.”