“Any chance you want to take her off my hands?” he grumbled to Horse.
Horse considered the suggestion. “I can put her to work.”
“Take her with you, man. I’m done with her.”
“She got any clothes?”
“Does it matter? She won’t need them where she’s going.”
“She’ll need something to hide her worst features. But I can handle that. What do you want me to tell Pointblank?”
Shady pulled on his soul patch, the only hair he allowed on his body. “Anyone see Ink make the hit?”
“They don’t know for sure. It was a drive-by. Someone might’ve spotted the rental car.”
“They haven’t been arrested, though?”
“Not yet.”
“Have Ink come back as soon as possible.”
Horse shoved his hands in his pockets. “The cops are looking for him around here. That’s why you sent him away.”
“And now they’re looking for him there, too, so it doesn’t improve things if he stays.”
“I don’t think he should be in either place.”
Shady kicked a wrench off his seat. “What do you mean by that?”
“Ink’s becoming too much of a liability. Attracting that kind of attention endangers everybody.”
Horse wasn’t the only one leery of Ink. Ink was crazy enough to frighten them all. “In some ways, he is a liability. In other ways, he’s an asset.”
Pursing his lips, Horse stared at the carpet. “They put the lot of us in prison, who’s gonna take care of business on the outside?”
“It comes to that, we’ll serve him up. We won’t go down because he’s too stupid to know when to keep his pistol in his pants.”
Seemingly satisfied, Horse raised his eyes. “What about Pointblank and Pretty Boy?”
“They stay. Have Pretty Boy find a C.O. by the name of Eddie Glover who works at the prison in Florence.”
Horse walked to the pool table and racked the balls into the plastic triangle. “You think Glover might know where Skin is?”
“If anyone knows what happened to him, it would be Glover. Word is they were pretty damn friendly.”
Studying one cue and then another, Horse decided on a stick. “Skin was friends with a C.O.?”
“Part of his change of heart.” Shady chafed at the fact that he hadn’t been able to convince other members of The Crew that Virgil wasn’t as great as they thought. Virgil was the kind of leader other men naturally followed. But he’d never been one to take orders. He was an independent son of a bitch and refused to back down even when it was in his best interests. That made him difficult to manage and as dangerous to the organization as he was to its enemies. Shady had been worried about Skin ever since he heard Skin might be cleared of his stepfather’s murder. Who wouldn’t be tempted by a clean break? Skin wasn’t the gang type—not at heart.
Remembering how determined he’d been to walk his own path whether the rest of them liked it or not, Shady shook his head. There’d been times when he’d flat out refused a command. Anyone else who’d done that would’ve been killed. But everyone admired a man who could fight like Skin. They let him slide whenever he acted up because he was so damn good when he did get involved.
“How are they supposed to find Glover?”
“I just told you. He works at the prison.”
“A lot of guys work at the prison. You don’t have his address?”
“I can get it.”
“What about a description?”
“He’s five foot eleven, maybe one hundred and eighty pounds. Red hair cut short. Freckles everywhere. That tell you enough?”
“It should. I know someone on the inside who can get me his shift, which will also help,” Horse said. “But what if Glover won’t talk?”
Shady wasn’t about to let Skin make him look like a fool. He had to prove he deserved the leadership role he’d fought so hard to obtain. “Everybody talks,” he said. “You just have to give them enough incentive.”
The pool balls broke with a loud clatter. “How far do I tell Pointblank to go?”
Wishing he could kill Skin himself, end the rivalry between them the right way, Shady eyed the guns in his cabinets. “Tell him to do whatever it takes.”
“Then maybe Ink should stick around Colorado a while longer, don’t you think?”
“Why?”
“He’s already wanted. Might as well have him do the dirty work.”
See? Horse was smarter than he looked. “Good idea. He can fly home when it’s over.”
“And Laurel?”
“Give me a few days. I’ll find her.”
Horse lined up for another shot. “How?”
“I’m gonna call a private investigator who’s done some work for me in the past.”
Closing one eye, he sent the thirteen rocketing into the left corner pocket. “A private investigator who can gain access to the police world?”
“She can gain access to any world,” he said smugly.
“What’s her secret?”
“She doesn’t look like anyone who’d ever be connected to us, and she’s willing to get creative.”
Clearly intrigued, Horse forgot about his solitary game of pool. “Where’d you meet her?”
“She’s a friend of a friend of a friend. Meeting her isn’t the point. Money is. She’ll do anything for the right price.”
“You said she gets creative.”
“She does.”
“How?”
Shady started picking up the objects he’d tossed onto the floor. “You let me worry about that.”
All during dinner Peyton wondered why she couldn’t be more attracted to John. Or not John, exactly—someone like him. Someone without any rough edges, someone easygoing and civilized. Shelley, her assistant, thought he was a real heartthrob. The warden’s assistant tittered about him, too. But Peyton felt none of what they seemed to feel, nothing that compared to the excitement of being with Virgil.
Was it danger that attracted her? Her way of rebelling against the strictures that governed her life? Or was it some kind of self-destructiveness, the tendency that drew some people toward the edge of a cliff?
Trying to make sense of it all, she kept asking herself those questions. But being self-destructive was too simple an explanation. She had no history of falling for bad boys. In fact, the opposite was true. She picked men who fit safe parameters, then tried to feel more than she did.