I just hoped it’d be enough to spare myself in the process.
Exhaling a rough breath, I squared my shoulders and walked with an outward confidence toward the simple, wooden front door. Knocking again, I glanced around the perimeter, a move I’d learned from my time with Carrera.
The simple whitewashed siding of the ranch style house was blackened with weathered time and carelessness. Overgrown grass hinted at a recluse who had better things to do than lawn care, and long-dead flowers lay dark and flattened next to the porch. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the place had been vacated long ago.
But I knew he was in there.
And he knew I was outside waiting.
The question hung immobile in the air, waiting for one of us to relent. I sure as fuck wasn’t going anywhere. Irritated, I pounded harder on the door again, raising my voice.
“Open up, Lachey. We both know why I’m here. You can talk to me, or you can wait for the Houston PD to drag you out.” Letting my anxiousness get the better of me, I counted my steps as I paced the porch. Moments dragged by before the door cracked open, and the disheveled shell of Elliot Lachey’s face appeared. To his credit, he didn’t back down under my glare.
I couldn’t decide if he was brave or stupid.
When he sniffed and rubbed his nose vigorously, I knew the answer. The base of his nostrils was caked with white residue.
He was high.
“What do you want?” he asked, wrinkling his nose at a rapid pace.
I smiled tersely and stepped over the threshold of his home. Before he could protest, I raised a hand, silencing him. “Don’t ask me questions you already know the answer to. And wipe your damn face. It’s not smart to greet the man who holds your life in his hands with cocaine all over your face.”
Lachey wiped under his nostrils and stepped backward, his black athletic pants and Texas State t-shirt a far cry from the put-together look I remembered from a few years ago.
I placed my hands on the kitchen counter, grimacing as my palms touched a sticky substance I assumed had lived there for days. The entire house looked and smelled like shit. Pulling out a handkerchief from my pocket, I wiped my hand and pinched the bridge of my nose impatiently.
“You’re pathetic.” I shook my head at him as lines of surprise wrinkled his forehead. “You get caught buying that shit and you still snort it? What kind of moron does that?”
“You don’t know anything about me, Brody,” he countered, his eyes wild and dilated from the drugs. “You don’t know what it’s like to be me. Stress is killing me.”
Opening the cookie jar on the sticky counter, I pulled out a fresh eight ball bag of cocaine and threw it at his chest. “No,thisshit’s killing you.”
The old man’s eyes were vacant. “What does it matter? I have nothing left. If I’m going to jail, I might as well go high.”
“What about your kids?” Thoughts reverted to the morning and the sadness in Eden’s eyes. She kept a shell tucked around her like an emotional shield in an invisible gender war. No matter how hard I tried to break through it, she kept me at arm’s length, giving me her body but never anything more. I wondered if her determined distance had been caused by her bastard of a husband or the detachment of her father?
“He’s much better off in San Antonio where he can do his charity work.” He paused, rubbing his mouth as his eyes misted. “And Eden stopped caring a long time ago.”
I could’ve argued with him. I could’ve forced him to see what he’d done to his family and business, but I didn’t have the time or the desire. I’d come here for one reason.
“You don’t have to go to jail today, Elliot.”
His jaw clenched, and he eyed me with distrust. “Oh? Are you sending me on a vacation instead?”
I tried to hide an amused smile. “No, more like an adventure.” Refusing to waste any more time, I pulled a box from my pocket and held it up. “Know what this is?”
“I may be high, Brody, but I’m not blind.”
Smartass.
“Inside this box is a DEA grade tracker. You’re going to call your Carrera contact and make another buy with this device on you. You’re going to find out the warehouse locations and how they get their shipments through the Corpus Christi ports.”
Elliot laughed, walking away then turning back with disbelief painted across his face. “You think they’re just going to hand over that information to a buyer? Are you crazy?”
I was beyond the point of giving a damn about his life anymore. Someone more important depended on what he did after I walked out of this house. “I don’t give a shit how you get it,” I said, shoving it in his hand, his fingers barely touching the edges as if it burned him, “just do it. It’s either this or the Houston PD gets a delivery of a video starring you and known drug dealers doing some business in the second ward. It’ll be out of my hands then.”
The stunned look on his face might have made me feel a bit sorry for him if I didn’t already know he’d bled the hardware store dry. His selfishness caused Nash to leave his job in San Antonio and Eden to work two jobs just to keep it alive.
