He touched his throbbing cheekbone with the heel of his hand. The skin hadn’t split, but it was swelling. “That hurt like bloody hell.”
“Don’t expect an apology.”
He removed the battery from Mickey’s phone, but as he slid the two components into one pocket, he withdrew another phone from his other pocket. Recognizing the Extravaganza logo on the case, she sat up at attention.
“That’s mine.”
“That’s right.”
“You told me you’d hidden it.”
“I retrieved it this afternoon while you were asleep.”
He opened the back of her phone and inserted the battery. “By powering it up, I’m taking a chance that the signal will be triangulated and bring the law right to us. But I want you to see something. Your fate really is up to you.” He clicked the phone on. When he got to her call log, he turned the screen toward her.
“Last night, nine twenty-three, incoming call. No ID, no number. But you called it back three minutes later, and again at nine forty-seven. I’m guessing that call was made while you were driving, because your house is several miles from that bar out in the boonies. At roughly ten o’clock you walked in and took a bar stool, looking as out of place as a frosted cupcake atop a pile of cowshit.
“Only one person would get you to a honky tonk like that in record time. Now…” He bent over her, bringing his nose to withi
n inches of hers. “Where is brother Josh?”
She wilted. “That’s my saving grace?”
“That’s it.”
“Then I’m dead.”
“That’s entirely up to you. You die or you live. I either take Panella’s measly two million, or you direct me to Josh and his thirty.”
“I can’t! I’ve told you a hundred times that I don’t know where he is!”
“You also told me that nobody called you to that bar,” he shouted, shaking the cell phone near her face. “You lied about that, you’re lying now.”
She sat back and folded her arms across her chest. He noticed the red marks and bruises on her wrists left by the cuffs, and that gave him a pang of regret, but he didn’t let it stop him.
“Josh put in a distress call, didn’t he, Jordie? An SOS. He asked you to come pick him up at that out-of-the-way bar.”
“No.”
“And drive him to a hiding place?”
“No.”
“Or maybe he didn’t have a hiding place yet and needed your trusted input. Were you going to have a brother-sister confab and discuss options?”
“No.”
“Was he going to leave a message for you at the bar, let you know where he was headed?”
When she didn’t reply to that, he tilted his head. “Was that it?”
“No.”
“Where was he going?”
“I don’t know! Stop with the questions. You’re only wasting your breath. I haven’t talked to Josh. He didn’t call me last night.”
“You’re lying.”