Lethal (Lee Coburn)

“Be stingy with the water.”

“I will.” Then she asked him the questions that had been plaguing her. “Were you able to reach your man? Hamilton?”

“I tried. Same woman answered. I demanded she put him on. She insisted that I was dead.”

“What do you make of that?”

He shrugged and bit into a cookie. “Hamilton doesn’t want to talk to me yet.”

“What do you make of that?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not worried?”

“I don’t panic unless I have to. Wastes energy.”

She stored that for later rumination or discussion. “Did you check Fred’s cell phone for stored numbers?”

“There were none, which is what I expected. And only one call in his log, that last one to his brother. This phone was a throw-down.”

“A burner,” she said, remembering the term he’d used before.

“No records. Disposable. Virtually untraceable.”

“Like yours.”

“Saved for a rainy day. Anyway, my guess is that he used this phone to stay in contact with his brother and The Bookkeeper, and that he immediately erased numbers from the call log. If I ever get it into the hands of techies, they can tear into it and see if possibly there’s any intel to be had. But for right now, Fred’s phone isn’t of much help to us. All the same, I’ll keep the battery out of it.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t kept up with the technology, but I think there are experts who can locate a phone even if it’s turned off. All they need is the phone number. As long as there’s a battery in the phone, it’s transmitting a signal.”

“Is that true?”

He shrugged. “I’ve picked up buzz.”

“How long would it take? To locate a phone, I mean.”

“No idea. That’s not my area of expertise, but I’m not going to take any chances.”

Forty-eight hours ago, she wouldn’t have imagined herself having a conversation about intel and burners and such things. Nor would she have imagined a man like Coburn, who could eat Chips Ahoy at the same time he was discussing a man he’d killed only a few hours earlier.

She didn’t know quite what to make of Lee Coburn, and it was disturbing that she wanted to make anything of him at all.

Changing the subject, she asked, “Where’d you get the truck?”

“I got lucky. I spotted a rural mailbox with lots of mail in it, a dead giveaway that the residents are away. House sits way back off the road. The truck keys were hanging on a peg inside the back door. Just like at your house. I helped myself. Hopefully the owners will stay gone for at least a few more days and the truck won’t be reported stolen.”

“I assume you switched the license plates with another vehicle.”

“S.O.P.” Reading her blank look, he said, “Standard operating procedure. Remember that if you decide to pursue a life of crime.”

“I doubt that will happen.”

“So do I.”

“I don’t think I’m cut out for living on the edge.”