Silence hummed on the phone.
“You go to the cops, I’ll start cutting and your boy will die.” He gave warnings, so it wasn’t like the deaths were his fault. If people couldn’t follow simple instructions… well, they hurt themselves—and the ones they loved.
“Wh-what should I do?” Slayton asked, the fear breaking his voice.
“Wait for my call, and start getting your money ready.” He disconnected and grinned down at the phone. So easy. He strolled over the bridge ahead, hunching his shoulders against the cold swipe of the wind. When he was dead center on the bridge, he tossed the cell into the murky water and never stopped walking.
The watcher would keep an eye on Warrant. Usually he had two watchers per prey, but this time, he’d split his resources.
Now it was nearly time for the big finish.
The faint glow from the computer screen lit Samantha’s face. Max walked into the room, deliberately making his steps loud so she’d know he was coming. She was in the bedroom that they’d been assigned. His bedroom, not that he ever stayed there.
Frank was down the hallway, not dosing on sleeping pills tonight, but, from the sound of things, f**king Beth.
Max closed the door, locked it, and stared at her. “Find anything?” He knew that she’d gotten access to every computer in the place as he’d shielded her from prying eyes. She had Quinlan’s laptop again, and he wondered what she’d found on his brother’s system.
She looked up at him, and he saw the hesitation in her stare.
“What?” He stripped off his shirt and tossed it toward the chair. Almost two-thirty in the morning, and he was still wired. Christ, he’d never get to sleep at this rate.
How can I sleep when I don’t know what the hell is happening to Quinlan?
“You know Beth is your brother’s lover, too, don’t you?” Samantha asked.
His arms crossed over his chest. “I didn’t.” He didn’t move closer. He didn’t want to scare her. Not again. “But I’m not surprised. He’s the one who introduced her to Frank.” If Frank had thought his son was sleeping with Beth, then, yeah, in his mind, that was all the more reason to screw her.
Frank was a real dick.
But not nearly the worst guy that his mother had picked in her life. She’d sure been good at choosing losers.
Don’t go there.
“Your brother gambles.” Samantha’s fingers curled around the laptop screen. Her legs were stretched out on the bed with the computer nestled on her thighs. “It took me a while to find it, but there’s a code system in here.” A quick swipe of her tongue made her lower lip slick and kissable. “He gambles a lot, Max.”
Her admission had him blinking, then shaking his head. “Gambling?” Drugs—yes, he knew about them. But gambling?
“He deleted the e-mails. But they were easy to recover,” she added under her breath. “The gambling has been going on for a while. And he seems to bet on everything. Playoffs, horses, fights.”
“No wonder he wanted me to hit Frank up for an advance on his trust.” Max huffed out a breath and paced toward the window. A million-dollar view that was worth nothing. “How deep is he in?”
Silence. Then… “He asked for money before he disappeared?” A soft click as the laptop closed.
Stars glittered over the lake. The first time his mother had seen the lake, she’d been blown away. She’d called him, talking about how beautiful it was as it reflected the stars. But now, when he looked at it, all Max saw was just black water. “Yeah, Quinlan needed money, and he wanted me to do the asking. He never could stand up to Frank.” Tension had an ache building in the back of his neck. “Like it was gonna make a difference that I was the one coming with my hand out.”
He glanced over his shoulder and found Samantha watching him, a faint line between her brows. “How much?” he asked. “How deep was he in?”
“About two hundred grand.”
Fuck. “I’ll pay it.” Quinlan should have just come to him. “When we get him back, I’ll clear it up. I’ll make sure he stays out of that mess. Everything will be fine.” If he said it enough, it might make it true. When we get him back.
She eased to the edge of the bed and stood slowly. “Does Quinlan have a lot of problems that you have to help him with?”
She still wore that borrowed dress, one that was a little too loose across the top of her chest. One that gave him a tempting glimpse of flesh when she leaned forward. He took a breath and could almost taste her. “You already know about the drugs, don’t you?” he asked. The woman seemed to know everything.
She knows about me. Knows and can’t stand for me to touch her.
Max glanced back at the lake. His fingers pressed against the cold pane of glass.
“When I saw him before…” She cleared her throat. “Uh… Max, is he using now?” Worry thickened her voice.
Hell, probably. “He’s been in a half-dozen rehab centers. He got hooked after—after my mother became sick.” All I’ll say now about her. He’d laid his soul bare enough for one night. “Just when I think he’s clean, the drugs pull him right back.” And it didn’t help that Frank didn’t seem to really give a shit what Quinlan was doing.
“It’s hard to watch someone you love fight an addiction.” Her words were so quiet—and it sure sounded like she was talking from experience.
“You can’t fight it for them,” she said, and the hardwood creaked beneath her feet as she came closer to him. “No matter how much you might want to.”
He squared his shoulders as he faced her once more. “Who was it for you?” He asked.
“My mother. It took a long time, one hell of a long time, for her to drag her way out of the bottle.” Samantha gave a sad shake of her head. “Her friends weren’t any help. She was just partying, right? What was wrong with that?”
Samantha pushed back her hair. “But they didn’t live with her. They didn’t see her drinking at breakfast. Didn’t see her stumbling in after midnight, all but crawling up the stairs, and they weren’t there the day—” She broke off, sucking in a deep breath of air. The smile that covered her lips then was grim. “It’s hard,” she said again. “Very hard.”
He just stared at her. “They weren’t there the day—what?”