A Grant County Collection (119 page)

Lena had seen the tattoo on the underside of Jake Valentine's left arm when he'd lifted his shirt over his head. Just at the base of the bicep was an AB followed by a dash. AB-negative. She remembered the explanation written on the back of a photo in Ethan's arrest jacket:
Symbolizes rank of general in white power movement.
Her mouth moved; words came out that she couldn't control.

'AB-negative,' she said. 'His blood type is AB-negative.'

Sara asked, 'What?'

Lena's brain had frozen, but she felt her adrenaline kick in. She lunged for Valentine's gunbelt on the table, but his reach was longer and he easily beat her to it.

Sara held up her hands as she backed toward the door.

'Stop right there,' Valentine ordered, pointing the gun at her. 'Lena, come around here so I can see both of you.'

Lena didn't move. How had this happened? She had never seen Jake Valentine at the warehouse. He wasn't in any of her logs or photos.

'I said get over here.' He grabbed Lena by the arm and shoved her toward Sara. He reached around for his belt and found his handcuffs, tossed them to Lena.

'Put one on your wrist, one on hers,' he ordered. 'Make 'em tight. I'm not as stupid as I look.'

'No,' she told him, her heart pounding in her throat. 'This isn't right. Call your boss.'

'Who's my boss?'

'Clint.'

He laughed at the name. 'That piece of shit? Clint couldn't boss a one-man army.'

'I talked to him this morning. He said we had a deal.'

'You're right,' Valentine agreed.
'Had
a deal. You keep your mouth shut and everybody just walks away clean. But, that was before you opened your big fucking mouth and brought her into it.' He meant Sara. 'Now put on the handcuffs like I said while I figure out what we're gonna do here.'

Lena did as she was instructed, ratcheting the cuffs down on her left wrist and Sara's right. She left only a finger's width between the metal and their skin, knowing Valentine was watching.

He pulled out a chair and told Lena, 'Sit down.' When she did, he told Sara, 'Finish up with my side so I don't bleed to death.'

'No,' Sara told him. 'I'm not going to help you.'

'You saw what happened to Charlotte,' Valentine reminded her. 'You want the same thing to happen to your friend here? You can watch her burn while you wait your turn.'

'Go ahead,' Lena told Sara. 'Stop the bleeding.'

Reluctantly, Sara continued attending to the wound in his side. The cut was deep, but the bleeding had slowed to an ooze. Lena was no expert, but even she could tell what a sloppy job Sara was doing. If Lena had been able to figure out a way past the gun at her head, she would have dug her fingers into his side until she felt his organs.

'Ow,' Valentine said, flinching as Sara jabbed her finger into the gauze pads. 'You did that on purpose.'

Sara asked, 'What are you going to do to us, Jake? Are you going to hurt us? You need to think very carefully about who exactly you're trying to cross.'

The flash in his eyes revealed that Sara's words had hit a nerve. Lena imagined that over the course of the last few days, the sheriff had figured out that Jeffrey wasn't someone you fucked around with. If Valentine was smart enough to pick up on that, then he certainly knew what Jeffrey would do to anyone who threatened Sara.

'Jeffrey will kill you,' Sara told him. 'It doesn't matter what you do, where you try to hide. He will kill you.'

Valentine took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed a number with his thumb. 'I don't hurt people,' he explained, putting the phone to his ear. 'Clint, it's me. You know that stuff you were gonna set up for me over at the place?' He paused. 'Yeah, I'm at the other place now. We're gonna do it here instead.' Valentine nodded. 'No, something's changed. We'll figure out another way to make that happen. I'll tell you when you get here.' He looked down at Sara, almost with regret. 'And tell our little buddy that his presence is required to take the edge off.' He closed the phone against his leg and dropped it back into his front pocket.

'What are you going to do with us?' Sara demanded.

'Right now, I'm going to have you sit down,' Valentine told her, kicking over another chair. 'Go on.'

Sara hesitated, but she clearly knew there was no easy way out of this. She sat in the chair, her hand on the table so that Lena's rested beside her. Her other hand was fisted in her lap, and Lena saw that she had underestimated the other woman. If Sara saw her chance, she was going to fight her way out of this or die trying.

'Does Clint work for you?' Lena asked, trying to distract him.

Valentine scooted up onto the counter, wincing as the cut in his side pulled. 'Lots of people work for me.'

Harley, Lena thought. Nobody worked for Harley. When she had confronted Clint at the warehouse this morning, the photos of Harley were the ones that sent him over the edge. All of the color had drained from his face, and his hand had shook as he picked up the phone, dialed the number. His voice had gone quiet as he'd explained to whoever was on the other end of the line that Lena was willing to trade the pictures and the logs for their lives. That was all she wanted – not money, not drugs, not anything but their lives. She would hold the originals for safekeeping and the swastika boys could go on their merry way.

Clint hadn't said much on the phone. Mostly, he'd nodded, his eyes locked on Lena's, his fear palpable in the empty warehouse. He'd hung up the phone and told Lena to turn herself in, that the judge was on their payroll and would let her go with a slap on the wrists. Lena had assumed that Clint had called Harley. Had he talked to Jake Valentine instead? Had the sheriff actually been pulling the strings this entire time?

'Hell, I need some aspirin.' Valentine slid down from the counter and started opening the cabinets around him.

Lena knew there were all kinds of painkillers in the first-aid kit, but she wasn't about to clue him in. He had his back to them both, and out of the corner of her eye, Lena saw Sara put her hand on the metal box, move it closer.

Lena asked, 'What did you mean on the phone – something to take the edge off?'

He checked the last cabinet. 'You'll find out soon enough, darlin'.'

Sara seemed to have the box where she wanted it. She told Valentine, 'Your bandage is coming off.'

He looked at her handiwork, sighed. 'Fix it,' he demanded, walking over to her. She lifted her hands but he stopped her, pressing the gun to her head. 'I'll hold this right here so you don't feel the need to grab that metal box and hit me upside the head.'

Sara taped the bandage back into place. 'Jeffrey will kill you.' She said the words matter-of-factly, as if it was a foregone conclusion rather than a threat.

Valentine waited until Sara was finished, then took the box, pushed open the swinging door with his foot, and tossed it into the hallway.

He leaned against the counter, asking Lena, 'How'd you guess it? How'd you know about the tattoo?' She finally realized with this one question that Ethan was not involved in anything that had happened – Hank was back on dope for his own dark reasons. Charlotte and Deacon were casualties from another war. What was happening in this house right now was all about Jake Valentine and the millions of dollars worth of methamphetamine rolling through his county.

For Sara's benefit, Lena explained, 'Hitler's Waffen SS had their blood types tattooed in the same spot. It means Jake is high up the ranks.'

'As high as you can get,' he bragged.

'It's rare to just see one,' Lena commented. 'Usually, they mark themselves up with swastikas and anything else they can think of.' She turned to the woman, willing her to go along. 'Have you ever seen a skinhead – I mean, really seen one, studied their tattoos?'

Sara's eyes locked onto hers. They both knew she had examined Ethan. 'No.'

Lena asked the sheriff, 'Why do you have just one tattoo?'

He chuckled. 'You kidding me? Myra would kill me if I came home painted up like some freak out of a carnival.' He tapped his chest. 'What matters is what's in here.'

'Your wife knows?' Sara asked, her voice going up in surprise.

Valentine leveled her with a gaze, but he didn't answer. Instead, he addressed his words to Lena. 'You were this close to getting away. You know that? And then you had to go and screw up everything. You got the wrong people mad at you, little darlin'. You should've just kept yourself to yourself.'

Lena fought the urge to spit in his face. 'Why did Charlotte have to die?'

'To let you know what happens to people who talk.'

'She didn't say anything.'

'In my experience, addicts tend to be unreliable.'

'She wasn't an addict.'

'Then what was she doing toking up in a meth den with your uncle last weekend?'

Lena lowered her head down so Valentine couldn't see her expression. Charlotte ... poor Charlotte.

Sara asked, 'What does Hank have to do with any of this?'

'He looked out his window when he shouldn't have,' Valentine admitted. 'Some associates and I were transacting a little business at the motel. Him and that stupid bartender of his started asking questions, thought they could ride in on their white horses and clean up this town.' He shrugged. 'Guess it runs in the family, not being able to take a warning.'

'Al Pfeiffer,' Sara continued. 'Is that why he left town? Did you throw that firebomb through his window?'

Valentine just shrugged. 'Things happen.'

Lena asked, 'Is Cook in on this, too?'

'Don?' he snorted. 'Don doesn't know jack. He's just holding down that desk until his retirement kicks in.'

Sara asked, 'Is that why he ran for sheriff?'

Valentine smirked. 'Wouldn't do for me to run unopposed, would it?' He grinned. 'Poor old Cookie let it go to his head – actually thought he could win.' There was a knock at the back door. Valentine called, 'Who is it?'

'Me,' a voice called back.

Valentine pushed away from the counter and opened the door, all the while keeping his gun trained on Sara and Lena. Clint stood at the door holding a large cardboard box.

He saw Lena and shook his head. 'You're worse than your fucking uncle, you know that? Can't keep your goddamn nose out of anything.'

'We had a deal.'

'Yeah,' Clint agreed, reaching into the cardboard box. There was a FedEx pack on top. He tossed it toward Lena. She saw her own handwriting, Frank Wallace's address at the Grant County police station. She had sent the packet to Frank from Kinko's the night before, thinking that if things went bad, Frank would have enough evidence to take down the operation. The original photos and logs were tucked up under the front seat of Hank's Mercedes. Her insurance was gone.

Clint told her, 'We've been following you since you got into town. You think it's just coincidence we happened to have Charlotte with us the night we ran your car off the road?'

Lena felt her mouth open, but nothing would come out.

'You could've gone peacefully a couple of weeks from now. Needle in your arm, suicide note talking about how sad you were that your uncle was dead.' He glanced at Sara, shook his head, sad. 'You almost made it, too.'

Valentine snapped, 'Stop wasting time and get started.'

Clint put the box on the counter and walked over to the stove. He pushed Hank's pamphlets off the burners and tried the knobs. None of the burners would come on, probably because Hank hadn't used the stove in twenty years. Still, Clint didn't give up. He turned one of the knobs and leaned down, sniffing for gas. Satisfied, he took out a box of matches and struck one. The flame whooshed as the gas caught. He turned off the burner and tried each one in turn. Two lighted as easily as the first, but he had to take off the grate and use his thumbnail to clean the fourth before enough gas came out of the valve to catch flame.

Sara asked Valentine, 'What are you doing?'

He didn't answer as he took various items out of the box Clint had brought and lined them up on the counter. Acetone, rubbing alcohol, ammonia, lye.

'Shit,' Lena hissed. 'Meth. They're going to cook meth.'

'Don't worry,' Valentine told her, opening and closing cabinets until he found Hank's coffee mugs. They were old, handmade in Mexico – so fragile that Hank only used them on special occasions. He held up one of the cups, smiled. 'It won't cook for very long.'

No, it wouldn't. Once the ingredients got too hot, the ceramic would break. The liquid would explode the second it touched the open flame, burning chemicals sticking like hot wax to everything they landed on – walls, carpets, skin. Cooking meth was so dangerous that only meth-addled junkies attempted it, and the ensuing explosions could cause massive damage not just to people but to property. Most states considered meth labs weapons of mass destruction and had asked for funding to clean them up under the Homeland Security act.

'Is that the business you were doing at the motel?' Lena asked. 'Hank saw you cooking meth?'

'I told you we were meeting with some associates,' Valentine answered, taking small cans of Coleman fuel out of the cardboard box. 'Some very important associates.'

'What associates?' she pressed. 'Mexicans? Skinheads?'

Valentine stopped unloading the box, annoyed. 'You wanna know the story? You wanna know what happened?'

Now that she had the answer within her grasp, Lena wasn't sure whether or not she wanted to hear it.

Valentine started to turn back around, but she stopped him. 'Yes. I want to know what happened.'

He leaned against the counter, propping his gun hand up at the elbow. 'Hank tried to go around me, hook up with some boys at the state.'

'The GBI?' she asked. Why had Hank gone to the GBI instead of asking Lena for help? He hadn't wanted to get her involved, of course. He'd tried all his life to keep Lena out of the thick of things, just as she'd worked steadily to keep herself right in the middle.

Valentine said, 'Fortunately, he went to somebody who was a friend of ours – somebody ready to move up north and take a long vacation.' He smiled at the simplicity. 'It wasn't too hard getting Hank hooked again. You know meth's only got a twenty-two percent recovery rate? And most of them never stop wanting it. Mind over matter, I guess. Clint had a couple conversations with him, shot him up a few times. Pretty soon he was paying for it.'