Page 104 of The Lonely Road

He nods gravely. “You could not give Jessup what he wants.”

“And put a bullseye on her?”

A shadow of amusement flickers across his mouth. “Rock and hard place.”

“Look, I do the job, and I get out of Dodge. That’s the way I work.”

He laughs now—and rolls his eyes. “You’re full of shit, Brooks. She’s going to lose the prelim, yes, but the case…she isn’t going to lose that.”

That’s a gift he’s giving me.

“You gonna help her?”

“Christ, Brooks. No. She doesn’t need my help. She’s going to win because she’s a kickass lawyer.”

My chest aches, hollow and sharp. “I know what she is.”

Kaz gives me an exasperated look. “How did you fuck this up so bad when you’ve been playing it clean and cool for eleven fucking years?”

I fell in love.

“I haven’t fucked it up.” Another big fat lie.

He lifts both his hands, palms out. “Whatever you need to say to get your peace, man.” When I am at the door, he calls out. “Mason, I’ll need you at some point when this goes down. I’ll need the evidence I know you have.”

He’s after Jessup.

That’s confirmed.

And he’s given me rope because he’s going to use me to get Jessup. I’m probably only one of the threads he and his team—because with the feds, there’s always a team—is following.

There are others.

With a man like Jessup, who’s corrupt up to his gills, that’s no surprise.

“And here I thought you were just a land developer,” I deadpan.

He grins wide. “Brooks, I’m a land developer like you’re a land surveyor.”

The Meadowlark Motor Lodge is the kind of place that has been exactly itself since 1974 and sees no reason to change. Twelve units in an L-shape, a vending machine with one light out, a parking lot cracked along the seams where the frost heave gets it every winter.

His truck is around the back of unit nine.

Tennessee plates—different from mine, different rental company, same instinct.

I knock on his door.

“Who is it?” Trafton’s voice, still sleepy, demands.

It’s a motel room door, so I just kick it in.

Doesn’t take much effort.

Trafton scrambles.

He’s in his briefs.

Christ!