by Nora Kane
Margot had to think about this for a second; all she’d seen was a man in a hoodie walk into an RV that used to belong to Mal’s brother. All she could think to say was, “I’ve seen enough.”
“Okay, where is he?”
“He’s staying in an RV that used to belong to his brother Marv. Instead of hanging around known low-life housing, he’s blended in with the tourists and the local surfers.”
“Okay, give me an exact location.”
“First, you need to know how I want this done.”
“That’s not really up to you.”
“It’s not, but me telling you is.”
“Okay, tell me what you want.”
“I want to talk to him first.”
“Talk?”
“Yeah, talk. I want you to back me up and after we talk, you can arrest him but…”
“You want to give the bastard a chance to live through this.”
“I do.”
“Even if he killed Ames and Burke? Even if he shot Radcliff?”
“If he did those things, I want justice, but that doesn’t mean I have to be the judge, jury, and executioner.”
“All right, not everyone will agree, but I’d rather do it your way than not get it done at all. Tell me where.”
“I’m at the harbor. He’s in a Winnebago parked in the Northeast corner of the free lot. I parked in the lot by the beach, but I’m currently on the sand where I can see the RV I think Mal is in.”
“Do you mind telling me how you came to this information?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I’m on my way.”
Chapter 16
As Margot waited, the RV remained dark. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she saw Shaw was calling. She was answering the call as she saw Driver’s unmarked cruiser pull into the parking lot and park next to her Prius.
“Hey,” she said, “Can I call you right back? I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”
“Yeah, but don’t forget—this is something you need to know.”
“I won’t, thanks.”
She jogged back to the parking lot. Driver got out the car. And so did Cranston.
“You could see the RV from the beach?” Driver asked.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go check it out then,” Driver said.
“Or we could just call in SWAT,” Cranston suggested.
Driver shrugged to Margot as if to say he wished Cranston hadn’t come.
“Then we spook him and we get a bloodbath,” Margot told him.
“I’m fine with that,” Cranston said. “I didn’t make any bogus promises like my misguided partner.”
“Except he’s in a parking lot surrounded by families on a surf vacation,” Driver said. “We couldn’t pick a worse place for a shootout. Let’s at least get a look at what we’re dealing with and then we make a decision.”
“Alright,” Cranston said with a nod, “let’s check it out.”
They walked along until they reached the spot Margot had scoped it out from before.
“It’s the Winnebago in the back corner,” Margot told Driver. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the waves.
“I see it,” Driver replied. “Do you see it, Cranston?”
“Yeah, we’ve all seen it. Now what?”
“What we agreed to earlier. I do the talking, you two back me up,” Margot said.
“That’s not up to you,” Cranston told her.
“I know, but consider this: without me, you don’t have jack shit.”
“She’s got a point,” Driver conceded.
“Okay, then what’s the plan?”
“Well, first I take you out of the situation,” Driver said to Cranston.
“What?”
Driver pulled out a gun from behind his back and shot Cranston right between the eyes. While he was falling, Driver pointed the gun at Margot.
“I told him not to come along, but he insisted,” Driver said calmly as he took aim at Margot’s face.
“What the hell?” Margot exclaimed.
“Sorry, I guess I didn’t have to do that, but I kind of wanted to and it will make this next part easier if he’s not around.”
“Next part?”
Driver didn’t answer, but the familiar-looking man who joined them was answer enough.
Margot recognized him as the man who met Mr. Dithers the night she’d tailed him.
“You’re going to need to come with me,” he drawled.
“Mal has to go, and we need to know where you stashed Cassandra Cole,” Driver added.
“I don’t think so,” Margot said as she put her hand in her purse.
Driver held up the pistol he’d used to kill Cranston. “I don’t think it’s in there.”
“Is that my gun?”
“Sure is. Kind of cool how that worked out. I think when it’s all said and done, everything will seem like it’s your fault.”
“You took it out of evidence?”
“I never put it in. Don’t be stupid, Margot.”
“Speaking of stupid, are you really dumb enough to think I only own one gun?”
The thug tapped his own gun against his leg to let Margot know it was there and then said, “Does it matter?”
Margot didn’t want to admit it didn’t, so instead she looked at Driver as she pressed the button on the recorder in her purse and said, “You broke into my house?”
“That was to get Cassie, if it makes you feel any better.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Speaking of Cassie...”
“She doesn’t have a source in the cartel.”
“That was Mr. Clean’s issue, not mine. Where is she?”
“Both of you shut the hell up. I’ll ask her that later,” the thug said. “Take your hand out of the purse and let’s go.”
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?”
“No,” the thug said.
“What the hell did Radcliff and Ames do to you?”
“Who said it was about them? Last chance.”
“If I tell you where Cassie is, will you let me walk away?”
“Sure.”
“Bullshit.”
“I guess you’ve got me there. Any last words?”
“Fuck you.”
“Kind of fitting.”
Three gunshots rang out, only they weren’t from Driver or the thug. A bullet took off half the thug’s face, and Driver looked down to see two holes in his chest. He looked more confused than hurt when the third shot hit him in the back of the head.
Margot drew her thirty-eight as Mal stepped into the moonlight.
“I was kind of expecting a thank you,” Mal said as he looked down the barrel of Margot’s pistol. The Colt Python .357 was in his hand but pointed at the ground instead of Margot.
“Put the gun down.”
“Come on. You’re not going to shoot me. You wouldn’t do it even if I hadn’t just saved your life.”
“Do you remember what you told me last time we talked?” Margot asked him, referring to the fact he’d told her that, if she got in his way, he’d treat her like anyone else.
“How could I forget.”
“I feel the same way about you.”
“So, if I don’t put down the gun, you’re going to put me down?”
“If I have to.”
Mal lifted his hoodie and put the revolver in a holster clipped to his belt. He dropped the hoodie and held out his hands.
“This better?”
“Better but…”
“If I reach for it, shoot me. Otherwise, I’ll see you around. Since I kept those assholes from killing you, maybe you give me a few minutes before you call your new friends in the cops?”
“Tell me about Ames and Radcliff.”
“What about them? Ames is an asshole and because you and Radcliff are having a fling, I’m not going to express an opinion.”
“Ames is dead and Radcliff is in the hospital.”
&
nbsp; “I didn’t know. What happened?”
“Someone shot them and another cop coming out of a room at the Sand Piper.”
“It can be a rough place.”
“They were there because they got a tip you were there.”
“Obviously, I wasn’t. I never was.”
“Did you shoot them?”
“No, the only cop I’ve shot lately is the one bleeding on the sand, and I think we can both agree he had it coming.”
“Were you working with him?”
“The dead guy? No.”
“How’d you know we were here?”
“I saw your car—you should have known I’d be checking the lot—and then I saw them arrive.”
Margot wasn’t sure how to respond.
Mal turned around.
“Don’t.”
“Sorry, Margot. I’m not ready to go to jail, and we both know you're not going to shoot me.”
“What about Cassie?”
“What about her?”
“You found her for the cartel, and they were going to kill her. Is murdering innocent people your thing now?”
“I didn’t murder Cassie.”
“You told a killer where to find her. Same damn thing.”
“So?”
“So, that’s something I could kill a man over.”
“Even one who saved your life?”
“If I have to.”
“Then you're going to have to shoot me in the back.”
Mal took another step and Margot pulled the trigger. Sand kicked up by Mal’s feet, but he kept walking. Margot aimed for his back instead of the ground this time but didn’t pull the trigger. He walked back to the RV and drove away while Margot stood there watching him.
She called Rodriguez and this time, she answered. She told her what had happened and then sat in the sand and waited for the police to show up. While she waited, she called and left a message for her lawyer. Since the cops hadn’t arrived, she called Shaw back.
“What is it you wanted to tell me?”
“Don’t trust Driver. No one on the OC task force ever had enough to go to internal affairs, but most everybody thought he was on somebody’s payroll.”
Margot looked over at the dead body and in the sand and sighed. “I’d say they were right.”
Chapter 17
“How’s Radcliff?”
Rodriguez sat down across from Margot in the interrogation room. Margot was handcuffed to an iron ring that was welded to the table. She motioned towards Margot’s shackled wrist and said, “Maybe you should be worried about yourself.”
“I’ll do that later. Have you heard anything or not?”
“He’s asking about you.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“It’d be better if you were there.”
“That part is kind of up to you.”
Rodriguez nodded and then said, “You seem to attract dead bodies.”
Margot didn’t know how to respond to that. She certainly couldn’t deny it.
“We found a witness who backed your story and no one doubts it was Driver on our recording. Which was a good thing since your gun killed a good cop.”
“A gun a bad cop took from me.”
Rodriguez didn’t disagree.
“Did Driver kill Ames and Burke?” Margot asked.
“I’d say he was involved. We assumed Ames and Radcliff got the tip, Mal was part of their case and Burke joined them, but after we talked to Radcliff, we realized it was the other way around.”
“Burke got the tip?”
“Yeah. He knew Mal was part of Ames and Radcliff’s case, so he brought them in. It looks like they were collateral damage.”
“Was Driver with the cartel?”
“Maybe.”
“I’d like to know who it was, especially since they’re targeting me.”
“You should leave that up to us. I don’t need you killing any more people.”
Margot knew she was right, but she also knew it would be hard to leave it alone. Instead of addressing that she said, “You know I didn’t kill anyone tonight.”
“Not tonight.”
“If you’re going to arrest me, you should get on with it. If you’re not, you need to let me go.”
“Do I?”
Margot didn’t answer.
After a long moment of silence, Rodriguez took a key out of her pocket and unlocked the handcuffs.
“Go see Radcliff.”
Margot stood up and Rodriguez added, “I don’t want to see you again.”
Margot didn’t want to see her again either.
Chapter 18
“When did you get here?”
Margot opened her eyes and looked over at Radcliff. He was still on a lot of heavy medicine, but he sounded a lot more like himself.
“I don’t know, sometime after they let me out of jail. I got here and you were asleep again, so I sat down and must have fallen asleep myself.”
“You were in jail?”
“You say that like it’s an unusual occurrence.”
“You know, I always figured between the two of us, it’d be you getting shot. I always figured I’d be the one in the chair and you’d be the one in the bed.”
“Maybe next time.”
“Let’s not have a next time.”
“That’d be fine by me.”
“Good to hear. After losing Ames, I don’t think I can handle losing someone else.”
“You’re not losing me,” Margot said, hoping it was true.
Someone still wanted her dead and even if they didn’t, there was no way she wasn’t coming after whoever was behind this. She’d let Mal walk, so she figured they were even for him saving her life. Next time, she wouldn’t be shooting sand if he tried to walk away.
