Page 16 of Rogue

The second name on my list took me just down the road to Port Angeles.

With a population of about twenty thousand within an area of fourteen square miles, more than a quarter of which extended out into the Salish sea, Port Angeles wasn’t exactly a large city.

Built upon the deep natural harbour, the Spanish explorer Francisco de Eliza had named it Puerto de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles in 1791. Francisco landed there on his return trip to the Spanish base at Nootka Sound after a failed expedition of the Georgia Strait and had immediately claimed the land for Spain despite it already being well populated by the indigenous people. From then on until the mid-nineteenth century, it was largely a trading port between the native tribes and Europeans travelling through the area. Ship by ship, caravan by caravan, the travellers settled the area and transformed it into a shipping and whaling town. Developers followed, and before the turn of the century, its population had bloomed from three hundred to over three thousand. The USA incorporated it in 1890 and over the next century, its focus had switched from fishing, to logging, and now to tourism.

Professor David Riley hadn’t adapted to the latest change too well.

He owned a fishing and game sporting goods store just off the 101. A convenient location for business, but one that came with steep rates in the current economy. Also, in a society where public opinion was switching from trophy hunting to conservation, shooting was no longer good business.

He was also a part-time professor of archaeology at the University of Washington. A minor role in the faculty that required him to hold a minimum of three lectures a week, but one that allowed him to pursue his lifelong passion for the past. A passion that, like so many others, he had allowed to spiral out of control and lead him down a road of endless trouble.

His adventures had unfortunately led him to Ritter’s door and Ritter to mine. With my arrival, the circle was complete, and the journey written, although the destination remained to be seen. Compared to earlier, this should be a walk in the park.

Riley wasn’t like Jasper. He didn’t have muscle to call in and put the frighteners on whatever poor bugger came to collect their due. He was a professor, a learned man, a talker. He’d try to talk his way out, appeal to my sense of reason or compassion, but he wouldn’t fight. Maybe he’d try to run, but I rather doubted that.

He was the sort that wanted to pay his due.

The sort that just needed a little help to adjust their priorities.

And that’s where I came in.

Google said that Riley’s store, Wild Frontier, was open until seven in the evening.

By the time I pulled into the car park of the storage warehouse next door, the clock on the 911’s dash showed that it was a little past two thirty. So, I just shut the engine down, reclined my seat back to stretch my legs out, and waited.

It always helped to know a bit about the target before confronting them, and a little observation could tell you an awful lot about a target’s situation.

Debt collection wasn’t all twisting arms and breaking windows until the deadbeat coughed up with the cash they were hiding under their mum’s mattress. Only thugs treated it as a carte blanche to deal out beatings, and they were rarely in the business long. It was essential to have a brain for this sort of work, not just muscle. You had to get the measure of your mark, had to be good at reading people and judging how far you could push them. You also had to know which just needed a slap and which required motivation.

As a rule of thumb, everyone who borrowed money had what they owed in their possession when the time came to pay it back, in one form or another. A warehouse full of last season’s stock. An expensive luxury watch hidden in the sock draw. The diamond earrings the mistress didn’t wear anymore. Even the car just sitting there in the drive when there was a bus stop just down the street.

They had the money. My job was to make them see it, and then get their priorities in order.

After all, what was more important? Pawning their parents’ wedding rings and paying off their debts, or keeping the gold hidden away in the mattress and losing the use of their knees. They didn’t always like my solutions, but most saw sense and their debts got sorted.

Yet, as I watched the slow trickle of pedestrians walking by the Wild Frontier’s big window displays, my mind kept wandering back to the events at the Whale in Distress.

That look on the girl’s face when I asked if she was alright.

Had I terrified her that much?

I hadn’t held back, sure. Those baboons sure weren’t pulling their punches, so why should I? But the violence hadn’t been worse than anything she’d have seen before.

Then again, why did it even bother me? It wasn’t as if I’d ever see her again. I didn’t even know her name. What did it matter what she thought of me?

All the same, it bothered me. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

I’d tried to help her, but she ran away and left me looking like a right arsehole.

I didn’t know whether I should go back and apologise, or be pissed on general principle.

Oh fuck it, it wasn’t my problem anymore. I needed to quit thinking about her. Distraction was the number one cause of all fuckups in my line of work, and if I fucked up, it would turn into a real bad day, real quick. I was working. I needed to be professional and keep my mind on the job.

So I did, but time can have a habit of dragging its feet whenever you’re waiting. My disobedient brain jumped back to the scene about a dozen times before the alarm on my phone started going off, warning me it was a quarter to seven. I hadn’t needed it. In my restlessness, I’d checked the car clock every five minutes or so, but it never hurt to have a backup.

Silencing it with a swipe of my thumb, I climbed out, grabbed my jacket from the parcel shelf where it had been drying in the sun, and pulled it on. The 911 locked with a click of the fob and I crossed the semi-deserted convenience store car park to Wild Frontier’s porch. The store logo, an oval depicting the outline of mountains behind the shaggy silhouette of a brown bear, was stamped on both of the sliding doors and embossed on the enormous sign that stretched across the top of the storefront.

Someone obviously believed it paid to advertise.

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