Page 158 of Lone Star

“Hands behind your heads, gents. That’s right. Thank you kindly,” Fox said behind him, as Albie dug through the drawers of a tool chest until he found something that would work: a roll of duct tape.

He returned to the center of an open garage bay, where Fox already had all the cartel lackies in a line on the floor on their knees. One sported a fat lip, another a rapidly-swelling eye that would turn into an impressive shiner in a few hours. All their weapons lay a few paces away, out of reach, magazines ejected and bullets flicked out onto the concrete.

Albie would have been lying if he said it didn’t give him a dark pulse of satisfaction to move down the line and bind their hands together with tape, more roughly than was necessary; he twisted their arms until he heard little grunts of pain. As he bound them, he was close enough to smell the sour bloom of fresh fear-sweat.

Oh, you can kidnap girls, he thought, digging his fingers viciously into the tendons on a skinny forearm as he wound the tape as tight as it would go.But someone shoves a gun in your face and it’s all over. Fox kicks you in the head, and you’re ready to piss yourself.

That had been a good image, that kick. Only rarely, Albie let himself envy some of Fox’s more superhuman fighting tricks, the spins, and ballet moves, and kicks, and martial arts flourishes. He got by fine with his fists and his guns and his knives, but Fox could disarm a crowd with a few seconds and a bit of panache, and it never failed to impress.

“Okay, then,” Fox said, footfalls ringing across the concrete. “I’m going up to check those offices. Look after the kids, will you?”

Albie looked between his retreating brother and their captives. “By myself.”

Fox threw a wink over his shoulder. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Then he started up the stairs two at a time, metal clanging loudly.

Albie realized that, in Fox’s own strange way, this was a sort of gift.

First, he double-checked that they were all bound at wrists and ankles, and couldn’t wriggle free or slide a knife loose. Then he went to look at the truck.

The cab was full of trash: fast food wrappers and empty drink cans, greasy- and stale-smelling, and full of prints and DNA for the lab people. So they could, what? Run tests, search for matches, eventually slap the results up on projector screens in a courtroom when it all went to trial? Leverage it for plea bargains, and cut all these goons sweet deals in an effort to get to the monster at the top of the food chain? He was an outlaw, and he knew how the law dealt with criminals like these.

He slammed the driver door and went around back to lower the tailgate. Shined his flashlight into the camper shell-covered bed. There was no bedliner, only dinged-up, cold metal. Clumps of earth, an old rake, a sledgehammer, a few crumpled beer cans.

Something caught the light, glinting faintly, a thread of gold.

Heart pounding through every inch of him, trying to punch through his temples and throat, Albie leaned forward and picked it up between two gloved fingers: a hair. Long, faintly curled, blonde. The girls had been in here. This was how they’d transported them, back here in the dark and cool, like disposable things.

He let the hair go, and then wished he hadn’t, stomach lurching as he watched it sift slowly down, feather-light, to land on the garage floor.

Then he dragged the sledgehammer out of the bed and stalked back to their captives.

All of their eyes widened gratifyingly.

Albie put his light away, and lifted the hammer in both hands, propped it on his shoulder. It was heavy, almost too heavy, but it feltgood. This was why it had always been Mercy Lécuyer’s weapon of choice. He wished – fleetingly – for Mercy Lécuyer’s muscle mass, so he could swing it and keep swinging it, for as long as he wanted.

But he wouldn’t need it. He was strong enough. Even with the unhappy nerves firing in his bad arm.

“Tell me about the girls,” he said, drawing to a halt in front of them, weight swaying back and forth, hands tight on the hammer. Ready.

They darted looks to one another, faces paling; darted looks to the hammer.

“I know they came here in that truck. And they’re not in it now. Where are they?”

One man, the largest, shifted, testing his bonds. There were more darted looks, quick headshakes and tightly-pressed lips.

“Where are they?” he repeated, a growl in his voice.

Still no answer.

He was furious. He was glad of their silence. Adrenaline surged through him in a whipcrack; he swore he heard the snap of it as his fists tightened on the hammer, and he strode forward. One, two long steps, a tightening of all his core muscles, and the head of the hammer crashed down, down, onto the big one’s shoulder.

Albie heard it dislocate; the wet-chicken-bone snap of the joint popping loose. The blow was hard, perhaps harder than he’d meant to deliver thanks to the heaviness of the hammer, and the force of it juddered up the handle and into his arms. He felt it in his teeth.

The man screamed. A belly-deep scream that spoke of the brightness and heat of the pain. He retched, and pitched forward, spitting blood where he’d bitten his lip. Ugly wet sobs getting caught in his throat.

The bound men on either side of him tried to shuffle away from him on their knees, like a smashed shoulder might be catching.

The struck man didn’t lift his head again; his shoulders sat horribly lopsided.

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