by David Thurlo
“DuPree wants to keep the Geigers apart,” Nancy said, standing. “You two ready to roll? We’re going to be busy with interviews and paperwork for hours, so we might as well head back to APD downtown and get started.”
Before long, they were heading east toward Los Lunas and the I-25 ramp that would take them back to Albuquerque. Nancy was driving, and Charlie was seated beside her, up front, holding on to Gordon’s weapon as well as his own. Gordon was in the backseat next to Ray, who was handcuffed, his hands on his lap.
They’d been en route for only a few minutes before Ray spoke. “Take me to the district attorney, or whoever I need to meet to make a deal. All this kidnapping crap and the rest was my dad’s idea. I need to get away from him. He’s trashing what’s left of my life.”
“You’ve already been read your rights, Ray,” Nancy reminded. “You can talk all you want.”
“But you’ll let them know I want to cut a deal, right?”
“Of course. But you’ll also want to tell your attorney.”
“Screw that cockroach. Dad hired him, not me. Give me a public defender, anyone else,” Ray added.
“I’ll pass that along,” Nancy replied, looking over at Charlie, eyebrows raised.
“So then, let me get this out of my system before my pop gets the chance to screw things up,” Ray added. “Ask me anything you want, and I’ll answer as truthfully as I can.”
“Okay, Ray. First, tonight. The ankle bracelet was found in your gym bag in the back of the pickup,” Nancy pointed out, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. “It was still active even after you cut it off. Did you know we were still tracking you? It uses a satellite link-up; there’s no range limit.”
“That’s what I was hoping. I’d cut it off my ankle but brought it along in my gym bag. Dad didn’t know. He thought it was just a change of clothes in there. This was the only way I could make sure you’d be following us,” Ray confessed.
“You wanted to get caught?” Charlie asked.
“Hey, I had to do something to get my life back. I never really hurt anyone, except for that woman, and that was by accident, a lucky shot. Unlucky, actually. All I wanted to do was scare her back into the house. Dad has the bad leg, so he told me to hire BJ and Tony to rob the place and help me grab Sam Randal. His real name is Bill Woods. Dad said the guy ripped him off years ago when Dad was still a cop. Then, after Tony got himself killed, BJ freaked out, screaming about getting his revenge on Charlie.”
“By then, you’d been arrested and had that ankle monitor,” DuPree said. “But then what happened?”
Ray continued. “Dad used a burner phone to communicate back and forth. He kept them amped up, hoping they’d take care of Charlie ’cause he could ID me. He also called up Myers, some gangster he’d met back in Jersey when he was still with the NYPD. When we moved out west, I thought we were done with all that. I worked to get my shit together, but not Dad. Turns out the reason he brought us to New Mexico was to track down Woods. He guessed that Woods had come here after digging through the guy’s trash and finding a tourist flyer for Albuquerque. It was a long shot, but Dad never let go of anyone. Ever since I could walk, he’s been on my back, dogging me about something, always calling me a loser. I’m not about to go down with them. I’ll testify for the state if I can cut a deal.”
“Frank discovered that Sam Randal was really Bill Woods after they ran Sam’s photo in the local paper, right?” Nancy asked.
“Yeah. Then Dad used his contacts on the Rio Rancho police force to find out where Sam lived. Once he had that address, he pressured me into making the kidnapping look like a home invasion,” Ray responded. “Dad said that once we had Sam, his wife would have to pay us off to get him back, and no cops would ever know. Sam couldn’t rat us out without being arrested.”
“Myers was paid to shoot up that crane?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah, to scare Randal so he’d hand over some of the money. Sam knew Dad was behind all this. Then, after BJ ended up getting killed in that drive-by at your house, Dad decided to take the wife. He paid Myers all the money we had left to grab Randal’s old lady. You know the rest,” Ray concluded.
“Who dumped BJ’s body behind our pawnshop?” Gordon asked.
“Myers, I think. He was with him when they shot up your house. I couldn’t take part because of the ankle bracelet—thank God for that,” Ray answered.
The questions and answers continued for the remaining half hour it took to return to APD headquarters. Once there, Charlie and Gordon were escorted to Detective DuPree’s desk and told to wait. DuPree and Nancy still had procedures to follow before they could get together again for more interviews and paperwork.
Tired and dusty, Charlie and Gordon sat in chairs silently for a while, picking stickers and plant debris out of their socks, pants, and, for Charlie, sleeves and shirt collar.
“Looks like you’ve gone organic, Charlie. What’d you do, roll among the native plants to cover your scent?” Gordon teased.
“Just the tumbleweeds, and not exactly on purpose. Right now, I need a fifteen-minute shower just to get rid of the stickers and pollen,” Charlie said, knowing that brushing off the little spines was hopeless. They would have to be picked out one at a time.
They sat there a little longer before Gordon spoke again. “I heard from DuPree that Sam, well, Bill Woods is upstairs in a cell. The department is awaiting the arrival of some Feds from back east.”
“Sam played us all, including Margaret, I guess, if you can believe her.”
“I don’t think she knew, not until yesterday. They were actually in love, Charlie, and he wanted the protection for her, not him. As it turns out, the company is in her name. Sam insisted that Margaret didn’t know about that either. Maybe it was done to protect the assets and her financial situation if the Feds ever caught up to him. Wonder what she’s going to do now?”
“You mean, will she stick with him?”
“Yeah. What would you do?” Gordon pressed, “If your wife turned out to be an imposter—and a criminal.”
“May I never have to answer that question, Gordo.” Charlie shrugged. “Knowing you’d been betrayed, at one level, would certainly generate other questions that you might not like answered. One thing for sure, she’d have to be worth the risk.”
“I hear you.”
Charlie heard footsteps, then saw DuPree and Nancy entering the squad room. Both looked exhausted, but he knew they’d probably all be there until daylight—at least.
It didn’t take that long, as it turned out. After learning that Margaret was spending the night at Gina’s, Gordon was able to get his pickup from APD impound. Instead of driving Charlie all the way to his motel room in Bernalillo, they went to Gordon’s place, not far from FOB Pawn, and Charlie crashed on his friend’s couch. He was asleep in minutes.
* * *
Charlie was geared up, taking part in a dawn recon on the same street where his company had come under heavy mortar fire three days ago. The Taliban had either fled the village or repositioned for another attack, but today’s mission was to provoke them into giving away their positions—if any remained in the area. “Live bait,” Gordon called it.
There was trash, rubble, and debris on the streets, and the ever-present dust, mingling with foul odors. The most offensive scents came from those who’d been killed recently, mostly Afghani civilians who’d been in their homes or had carelessly stepped outside to watch the Americans pass through one last time. Some of the dead had been left in place despite religious and cultural beliefs because it was still too dangerous to dig for those who were beyond help with the area still under enemy observation.
The mortar rounds hadn’t discriminated between women and children and the older men. As for the younger males, they were armed, dangerous, and out there somewhere. Just whose side they were on wasn’t clear, which made “trust” a flexible term around the Afghan military and their police.
He recognized the dwelling he was approaching,
or what was left of it, but something in the remnants of the roof looked odd. If someone was hanging a butchered goat to cure in the sun, why put it there?
As he got closer he could see into the shadows and instantly knew what was dangling from the roof beam.
The woman’s head was dotted with flies, but he recognized her face. She was the same teenage girl he thought he’d saved during the mortar attack by pulling her over the wall. Now she was dangling from a noose, lynched in the wreckage of what had been her home. He had to look away, bile forming in his throat.
“What’s up?” Gordon called from behind. His buddy stood there, his M-4 aimed loosely toward the wrecked building. “Oh, shit!” Gordon mumbled. “Is that the…”
“Yeah. Remember how upset the old men were that I’d pulled her over the wall, seen her face uncovered? You don’t suppose…”
“Hey, bro,” Gordon responded. “It probably had nothing to do with you.”
“Yeah. But let’s cut her down anyway,” Charlie mumbled, reaching for his knife. As he stepped through a gap in the crumbled wall, he forced himself to take another look at the woman’s face. It was now Margaret Randal.
* * *
Charlie sat up, his heart pounding through his chest and sweat pouring off his brow. Gordon was standing in the doorway, watching him, and Charlie finally realized where and when he was.
“Easy, Charlie. Welcome back to reality. One of those dreams, huh?” Gordon asked softly.
“Sorry to wake you,” Charlie replied, relieved that it was over for the moment, and that it hadn’t been real, at least not the face at the end.
“Wanna talk about it?”
Charlie’s head began to clear, and he thought about it for a while. “Yeah,” he finally mumbled. “I think that’s the only way to get my thinking straight again and lose this particular nightmare for good.”
* * *
Charlie stood at the grill in Nancy and Gina’s backyard, flipping the burgers as he recalled what had happened last time he’d been standing here. He looked over at the picnic table, where Nancy, Gina, Gordon, and Margaret were chatting as they piled red onions, sliced tomatoes, and Hatch green chiles on the oversized homemade buns.
The conversation was light, he noticed, concerning the possibility of rain, the heat from the supposedly mild chiles, and the benefits of lemon slices in the iced tea. Anything but what had happened over the past two weeks. It was Sunday, the day of rest, but there was a big elephant on the patio, and he wondered when someone would bring up the subject of Sam … Bill. Charlie was betting it would be Gordon.
“Stand by for a platter full of burgers, cooked to perfection by the Beef Master,” Charlie announced, placing the last of the batch atop the Santa Fe–style stoneware.
“Shouldn’t that be Chuck?” Nancy teased, taking the heavy plate with two hands and setting it in the center of the checkered tablecloth. “That’s a beefy term.”
“You still hate being called Chuck?” Gina asked him, a grin on her face. “You did back in high school. You’d only answer to Charles or Charlie.”
“He was called Chuckie by some of the guys in our platoon during our first deployment,” Gordon offered. “Like the big doll with the bigger knife in those movies.”
Charlie laughed. “Better than Chuckles the Clown. Or Upchuck.”
“He got airsick the first time we were in a helicopter,” Gordon explained. “We’re about to eat, so I’ll skip the details.”
Margaret laughed for the first time today, spearing a hamburger with a fork and placing it atop a bun slathered with mustard. “Thanks for small favors, Gordon.”
She took a long sip of iced tea, then clinked the glass with her spoon to get their attention again. “I appreciate the invitation today, and the friendship you’ve all shown, even before our rescue, what, two Sundays ago? You all put your lives on the line for my husband and me more than once, and you looked over us like we were your children.
“Now it’s time for me to be up front with you,” Margaret added. “I hope I haven’t lost your trust in me, and I’m guessing you’re curious to know what I’m going to do now. Especially when you’re my attorney.” She nodded toward Gina.
Charlie looked at Gina, who shrugged.
“Sam—well, I suppose I need to start calling him Bill—is going to be in the hands of federal and Connecticut authorities for several days at least, probably more, as the investigation into his past crimes is completed. He’s answering all their questions and describing his previous activities in detail. He told me, during our only telephone conversation—they wouldn’t let me be there in person—that he never stole any funds from investors he thought to be honest.”
“Wouldn’t that be hard to know?” Gordon asked.
“He admitted that. But with people like Frank Geiger, who had much more cash coming in than their salary provided, he had an idea it was illegally obtained. Those individuals apparently gave themselves away by requiring secrecy, overseas accounts, fake names, and such,” Margaret explained.
“So he can identify several of the criminals he worked with,” Nancy said. “That suggests that he has even more enemies who might be interested in finding him.”
Margaret nodded. “I’m worried about his safety, of course. He’s been assigned a security detail and isn’t being kept in a local jail. Some military brig, so I gather, but that location hasn’t been given out, not even to me.”
“Hopefully he’ll be able to cut a deal, identifying those criminals in exchange for reduced charges,” Gina said.
“He mentioned that possibility to me,” Margaret replied. “I’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out.”
She stopped, looked down at her plate, then took a bite of hamburger.
They all started to eat, not speaking for a while, passing around the big bowl of potato salad and buttered corn on the cob.
“Okay, I’ve waited long enough. What are your plans, Margaret?” Gordon asked.
“I’m not legally married, am I?” Margaret asked Gina.
“That’s what I’m trying to sort out. With so much business conducted with the Randal name, it’s taking time to determine who owns what,” Gina replied.
“Okay, so it’s sufficiently vague at the moment,” Margaret said. “Gordon, I’m going to arrange for Jeff Candelaria to take over day-to-day operations unless a court order comes in to shut down the company. As for me, I’m still trying to decide what to do with my life. I love Sam—sorry, Bill—but I’m not sure who he really is, and what is true about him anymore.”
“He loves you, that’s the truth,” Nancy suggested.
“Yeah, and that’s what sucks. If I didn’t love him back, I’d just walk away and start all over,” Margaret managed, tears in her eyes.
“But you’re going to try to work things out,” Charlie concluded, thinking of his sister, Jayne, who had a boyfriend she was still trying to save from himself.
Margaret nodded. “You’re exactly right. Now let’s eat, people, before these wonderful burgers get cold.”
About the Author
DAVID and AIMÉE THURLO have, together and separately, written more than seventy novels. Their books have been sold worldwide in more than eighteen countries and have received the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, a Willa Cather Award for Contemporary Fiction, and the New Mexico Book Award for Mystery and Suspense. Aimée Thurlo was born in Havana, Cuba, and passed away in 2014. David Thurlo was raised on the Navajo Nation in Shiprock. He now lives in New Mexico with his two standard poodles. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
&
nbsp; Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
ROB THY NEIGHBOR. Copyright © 2016 by David Thurlo. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover photographs: background © Getty Images; knives © Shutterstock
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-07889-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-9143-2 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466891432
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
First Edition: August 2016
