On to the topic of Kasey…Yes, let that sink in a moment—on to the topic of Kasey.
Ana’s spine stiffens a moment and then she leans forward and rests her chin on her hands in obvious anticipation. My hand goes to her back, flattening there, silently letting her know I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere, ever again. The recording continues.
You’ll find the one Kasey was delivering highlighted. The buyer won’t know who the big boss was, because there was a front man. That would be our boss, Ana. Mike is the one who pulled me into this. He laughs. See, I said I wasn’t going to talk about the when, where, and how or any of that bullshit, but turns out I have to in order to get you this information.
I repeat, Mike is the front man. I’ve given you plenty enough to put him away for life, but he’ll end up dead before he sees a week in jail. These people are powerful. Don’t move on this until you have the head of the beast. Don’t move on this personally, either. Keep your name out of it. They’re international. Take these fuckers down in another damn country. Get Luke involved, Ana. That bastard has skills and they just multiply. He laughs again. Yes, that’s a play on an old eighties tune, you know how I loved the eighties. And Luke loved you, and Kasey…well, Kasey wasn’t a good guy. I know you know that, but I also know love is blind and shit. He was your brother.
Something to keep in mind.
That list of buyers includes some of the richest people in the world. They’ll have money and resources to kill any effort to destroy this operation. But if you get the right ones behind closed doors, maybe they’ll help you rather than hurt you, just to save themselves a hell of a lot of trouble from law enforcement.
Last but not least, I made a wad of cash, because they wanted you and your family monitored and to keep your nose out of Kasey’s business during delivery windows. It seemed like easy cash. Kasey was going to do what Kasey was going to do anyway. Yes, I was betraying you, but I thought Kurt could handle himself and Kasey, so it was all good. Mike hates Kurt, by the way. It runs deep. There is something there between those two, something deeply personal.
No, I don’t know what.
Anyway, my paycheck got bigger after Kasey died and that package disappeared. Trevor never had it, but they killed him so he couldn’t talk. He had loose lips and you know how loose lips get you dead. Actually, they say loose lips sink ships, but they aren’t us, now are they? For reasons I don’t understand after Kasey died, and the package disappeared, they doubled my pay to report on your activities. At one point, they thought you had the package but I convinced them that if you did, you didn’t even know you had it. I tried to get them to tell me what it was so I could look for it and get the heat off of you. They wouldn’t tell me.
Something happened last week, though. Mike took a phone call. I managed to get pieces of it. Someone was trying to sell whatever was in the package. It had resurfaced. They didn’t know who, but the big boss felt like a fool. He looked bad to his client. He was pissed. People had to die. I guess I was one of those people.
Okay, that about sums it all up.
I suck. I did you wrong. I get that. Maybe you should have dated me and kept me in line. I’m not kidding, but you know, it is what it is. We didn’t happen. But I do have one last parting gift. You’ll figure out what it is. Keep looking. Hasta la vista, baby. Okay, probably not. I’m pretty sure I’m in hell. You better not show up here.
The recording ends.
Ana doesn’t look at me. She digs through the box and finds an envelope with her name on it, lifting the flap to pull out a card. She reads it and hands it to me, pressing her hands to her face. The card reads: Ten million dollars in cash. It’s buried at the coordinates below. You could always just walk away, Ana. And that’s what you should do.
Holy fuck.
“Ana,” I say.
She pops to her feet and turns to face me. I’m standing with her when she says, “We have to go back. We need to—”
My hands come down on her shoulders. “Wait out the storm, go through all the information, and then get on a secure phone call with Blake.”
“I need to do something, anything. I need to fix this. We need to go get that bastard Mike talking. I need to know how Kurt was involved and I need—”