Solitude Creek (Kathryn Dance 4)

"Delaware. But how's this? It's registered to layers of shell corporations, including an offshore."

"Really? Interesting."

"I've got teams on the way there. Rolling up silent."

"You know the place? There're two lots. Have them stage in the bottom one. Out of view from the hotel."

"Already ordered it," he said.

"I'm ten minutes, Michael. I'm moving."

She turned to her father and daughter, to see Stuart already on his feet, reading the recipe on the back of the Bisquick box.

She laughed. He looked as serious as an engineer about to power up a nuclear reactor. "Thanks, Dad. Love you both."

Chapter 59

As he walked to Starbucks to meet Wes, Donnie Verso was thinking about their friendship.

The kid wasn't like Nathan or Lann or Vince or Peter. He wasn't that stand-up. And he wasn't quite thinking right, like mind-set, the way he ought to if he wanted to hang with the Defend and Respond crew. Not muting his phone and alerting the bitch cop just as Donnie was about to crack her skull open and get her gun. Your phone, dude? Seriously? (Though, afterward, he thought maybe that had worked out for the best.) Yeah, yeah, he was good backup, a good lookout--he'd saved Donnie's ass a couple of times, warning him that somebody was about to see him tagging a church or stealing a watch from Rite Aid.

But Donnie just couldn't get Wes to go the extra step.

Oh, he wanted to. That was obvious. Because Wes was mad. Oh, yeah. Totally mad. Wes was as pissed off at his father for being dead as Donnie was at his for being alive. That kind of anger usually pushed you dark really fast. But the dude was hanging back.

He was sure the kid could do it, if he wanted to, even though they'd known each other only a month. Donnie would see the twelve-year-old around middle school from time to time, and didn't think anything of him. A church humper? Probably. Science club? Probably. Another time, Donnie might've whaled on him. (Or Donnie and Nathan together, since Wes wasn't small.) But there were other, easier targets at school.

He was thinking of the first time they'd really spoken. One day after school Donnie and Nathan had gotten this pussy grade-schooler down by Asilomar and fucked him up a little, nothing bad. While they were doing it Donnie looked up and saw Wes standing there. Like he was curious was all.

Wes had watched then pedaled off, not fast, not scared, like no worries.

The next day at school, Donnie'd cornered Wes and said, "The fuck you were looking at yesterday?"

And Wes said, "Nobody special."

"Fuck you," Donnie'd said. Not being able to think of anything better. "You tell anybody what you saw and you're fucked."

Wes said, "I coulda told somebody but I didn't. 'Cause, duh, you're here and not behind bars."

"Fuck off."

Wes just walked away slow, like he'd biked away the day before.

No cares...

Then a couple of days later Wes came up to Donnie in the hall and gave him a copy of Hitman, the video game wh

ere you could go around fucking people up, killing them for assignments and even strangling girls. He said, "My mom won't let me play. But it's a good game. You want it?"

Then a week later, Wes was sitting outside and Donnie came by and said, "I couldn't play it, I don't have Xbox but I got Call of Duty. I traded it at Games Plus. You want to play sometime?"

"My mom won't let me play that either. At your house, yeah."

It took a couple of weeks of games and pizza and just hanging out before Wes said, "My father's dead."

Donnie, who'd heard, said, "Yeah, I heard. Sucks."

Nothing more for another week. Then Donnie sat down at the lunch table and they talked about shit for a while and asked, "Your dad. I heard he was FBI. Somebody killed him?"