Page 38 of Risky Passion
As I stepped over a rusted chain half-buried in the cracked concrete, I kept my tone calm. “Border Force spotted the boat and took some photos. Diego panicked and dumped the bags overboard.”
Walsh let out a low whistle. “Jesus Christ. What a clusterfuck. So I guess there’s no point in me hanging around here, then.”
Walsh had a simple job: meet Diego and the crew at the rendezvous point, oversee the transfer of the cargo to the waiting truck, and make sure the crew got paid. But with the product floating somewhere in the open water, Walsh thought he could go home and play happy family.
“I need you to do another job,” I said, determined to get ahead of his complaints.
He groaned, predictably. Walsh always acted like the work I gavehim was a personal affront, as though it were some moral line he had to wrestle with before crossing. Deep down, I suspected he still had a conscience, though it clearly wasn’t strong enough to stop him from pocketing my money.
“What now?” he grumbled.
I glanced at my watch, and my mind raced. Time was slipping away. “This isn’t a request, Eddie. It’s an order.”
“Of course it is.”
A gull screeched overhead, circling the skeletal remains of an abandoned trawler that had been moored alongside the wharf for at least twenty years. “Jaxson Foster found the pilot before Diego did. I need you to eliminate both Jaxson and the pilot, Tory.”
“As in Jaxson Foster, the cop from Rosebud?” His voice was laced with unease.
“That’s right. Got a problem with that?”
“You know I do,” he snapped, anger and fear vying for control.
I exhaled sharply, my patience fraying. “Look, Eddie, I don’t have time for this bullshit. I’ve got enough dirt on you to bury you alive, and you know I’m not afraid to use it. So save the moral fucking crisis. Find Jaxson and Tory, and make them disappear.”
“How the hell am I supposed to find them?” he shot back. “This swamp is a goddamn maze. I’m not a bloodhound!”
“You’re a detective, for fuck’s sake. Figure it out.”
“B!” he barked into the phone, his frustration boiling over. “You paid me to meet the shipment. Not this! This is way out of scope?—”
“For fuck’s sake,” I cut him off. Money was always the focus with these people. Every last one of them was a greedy, spineless parasite. “Fine. I’ll double my offer.”
“It’s not enough,” he said, defiance creeping into his voice. “You want me to take out two people? One of them I know personally, and the other’s a goddamn Border Force pilot. Both of them are tied to the force. This is way bigger than the shit I usually clean-up for you.”
“A hundred grand,” I said, my voice low as I glanced toward the new wharf in the distance, aware that it would be the last time I ever saw it with my own eyes. “That’s my last offer, Eddie. Take it . . . or you’ll never see your daughteragain.”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.
“Don’t you fucking dare touch my daughter,” he growled, his voice trembling with rage.
“Who said anything about touching Clara?” I let the threat hang in the air like smoke, thick and suffocating.
I could almost hear the gears grinding in his head, the frantic calculations of a man cornered. But he would take the deal. He always did.
He made a noise like he’d been punched in the gut. “I’ll do it,” he said finally, his voice hollow.
“And make sure their bodies don’t turn up,” I said, scanning the shadows ahead as I walked to the far end of the warehouse alley that hadn’t seen any business in decades.
“Understood,” he said.
“Good. Send me photos when you’re done.”
“You don’t trust me, huh?”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
He scoffed. “Must be hard to live in your shoes.”
