Page 101 of The Woman with the Wallet

We’d all been on stakeouts before.

But that didn’t mean we were immune to the boredom and frustration. It only took the first hour for us all to catch up with one another’s lives.

So then it was just… waiting.

Shifting in seats.

Complaining.

“Yeah. Feel like the place must be a sausage fest,” Nico said. “What woman would feel safe without at least one other human to hear her if she needed help?”

We’d seen three people coming and going so far.

All of them had been men.

“How much this going for a night?” Brio asked.

“Almost six hundred,” I told him.

“Six hundred. And no one to call to bring you a fresh towel or meal?”

“I think the place is for bragging rights only at this point,” I said. I’d scrolled their social media on my burner in the secondhour of sitting around. Their account was tagged in endless pictures of the rooms that were surrounded with TV screens.

I imagined the only thing that happened in those rooms were men with their hands around their cocks and porn playing all around them.

“How’s he paying for this shit if he hasn’t unloaded the diamonds yet?” Nico asked.

“Probably running up his cards,” I said, shrugging. “Thinking he will pay ‘em off when he gets the cash. He—“

“Wait, got some movement,” Brio said, sitting up in the passenger seat. “That him?” he asked. “He’s limping.”

Sure enough, through the windows that took up nearly the whole front of the hotel, I could see a man exiting the elevator. There was a distinct lameness in his gait as his hand reached into his back pocket, pulling out a small box.

His cigarettes.

Not even a bullet in the leg could get in the way of his next smoke, it seemed.

All the better for us.

“Let’s hope he goes around the… yep,” Nico said, nodding. “Predictable.”

With that, he put the car into drive and took us down the side street Devon was moving toward, smoke curling around his body as he hunched forward in the cold night air.

“Get ready,” Nico said as he pulled just in front of Devon.

Brio and I flew out of the SUV.

Brio was faster than I was, clamping a hand over Devon’s mouth and wrestling him toward the car.

I jumped in the back, reaching for Devon and dragging him in.

Brio jumped in the other side, grabbing his gun, and bringing down the heel of the gun into Devon’s head. The position was just right, making the bastard go still in an instant.

“He won’t be out long,” I said as his dead weight settled half on me.

“Doesn’t need to be,” Brio said, shrugging. “Besides, I can hit ‘em again. What’s a little concussion when he’s gonna be dead soon anyway?”

He had a point.

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