Page 56 of Silent Ridge

“I don’t talk to nobody. I mind my own business. I stay indoors just like the damn judge… excuse me… like the judge ordered me to. I keep the ankle bracelet on and have to stay near the phone. It’s hard taking a damn shower—excuse my language—with that thing on my ankle. I can’t even pull my jeans up over it half the time.”

“Mr. Moriarty,” Ronnie says, like a patient parent to a child, “you didn’t answer my question.”

“No. I haven’t had any strange calls. Unless you count you people checking up on me all the time. I have to take the phone to the bathroom with me. I’ll be glad when this is all over.”

“So no hang-up calls? No wrong-number calls? No salespeople?”

“Well, sure. Those damn telemarketing people drive a man crazy. All the numbers are from New York or Texas. It’s always some damn foreigner wantin’ to sell me Viagra. I don’t know anyone outside of Washington and I quit answering numbers I don’t know. Unless they’re local from you guys. Why? Am I supposed to? Am I in trouble?”

“You’re not in trouble unless you’re not being honest with me.”

“I swear I’m telling the truth.”

“You have a good night, Mr. Moriarty. If you have any problems, call the Sheriff’s Office and report it right away.”

“Should I ask for you?”

Ronnie looks at me and I shake my head.

“No. Just the Sheriff’s Office. Good night.”

She disconnects. “How did I do?”

I give her a thumbs up. I’m trying hard not to laugh. I was afraid to go and talk to this guy. Now I’m glad we didn’t. But I think Ronnie could have handled him either way.

She turns in her seat, looks at me and I swear she looks like she’s sixteen and going on her first date. “Megan, what do you think about me being hired?”

I don’t know what to say. “I’m happy for you.”

“No. I mean, how do youreallyfeel? Am I cut out for this work? I know I didn’t get off on the best foot with you. And I don’t always wear the appropriate clothes. And I may be a little too friendly with some of the guys. And—”

“Cool your jets, Red,” I say, and smile so she knows I’m not making fun of her. “You will do fine if you look, listen and learn. So far I’ve had very few things to criticize you about. And you’ve learned from those things. You may want to tone down your attire because each day is a surprise. I wear crap business clothes because of what I’ve done and seen. You might have to go in a house with a dead body that is crawling with maggots and flies, or arrest someone with lice or crabs, and not the kind that come from the bay.”

She chuckles at my unintentional humor. It makes me lighten up a bit.

“What I’m saying is you’re going to be fine. I’d work with you any day. I think I was a little harsh at first myself.” I hold out a fist and she bumps it. I can see her eyes begin to water and it makes mine start. It’s like seeing someone yawn and you can’t help but yawn. I bite my tongue to distract myself. I’m her mentor, after all, and I can’t show weakness.

Actually, shewillbe fine. She’s seen me at my worst and kept her counsel. Not because she’s a suck-up but because she believes in the job the way I do it. Almost. I still will keep her at a distance about some things. I won’t ask her to do the hard things. When I kill Michael Rader, she won’t be party to that.

Forty-Nine

She watched the Taurus stop on the road earlier and considered killing Rylee then, but the redhead was in the car with her. She knew she could take Rylee but they were both armed. She hasn’t gotten this far by taking unnecessary risks.

Rylee is a killer. She overcame Alex and his wife, killed them outright, and at first she put that down to dumb luck. Rylee is anything but dumb.

She herself found Michael Rader’s motor home a month ago and has kept an eye on him. He really should have installed a better lock on the door. But he mistakenly believed if the police came for him they would have to play by the rules. A bunch of them would show up and sit for an hour or more waiting for troops to arrive. Then an hour or more waiting for a search warrant before making entry.

She isn’t a cop; Rylee is anything but a cop. The badge doesn’t change the killer in her. Rylee has the instinct of a hunter. It is an instinct she saw in her old country. She has that instinct herself.

She saw Rylee break into the motor home. She watched her bring out the little plastic bags of planted evidence. She watched her find the syringe in the grill outside. All of it went just as she had planned.

Watching Rylee work over the last couple of years has changed what started out as pure revenge and turned it into something else. She doesn’t want to believe someone got the better of Alex. She believes Rylee just got lucky. She hates Rylee but she is coming to respect her. When Alex died, it was all she could do to not go after Rylee and kill her. Something, call it instinct, made her wait and watch. That instinct has kept her from making the same mistake Alex did with Rylee. Rylee is a force to be reckoned with. But then, so is she. It will be interesting to see Rylee realize she’s been outmatched and to watch her die slowly and painfully.

She wonders what Rylee thought of the pictures she sent to the lumberjack.

“What do you think, Michael?” she asks the body lying in the shallow grave. “What? Nothing to say? You were so chatty when I caught you sleeping. You were offering to help me kill the bitch and then begging for your miserable life.” She kicks Rader’s severed head into the grave. “You were nothing like your brother. Always losing your head.”

She kicks the scalp in with the body. “You might need this.”

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