“He got to use the phone yesterday,” he says. “He called the same man who visited him in prison.” I wait for it. “He wants to wipe the slate clean.”
“That’s good, right?” I ask. “Means he’s ready to ‘fess up.”
“Not exactly,” Derek says. “Someone put a price on your head.” I look at him and then at Casey, not sure I understand.
“What does that mean?” I ask, waiting for someone to answer me.
Casey is the one who answers me. “It means there is a contract out there to end your life.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Casey
I watch her face when I say what Derek told me not even thirty minutes ago. I watch and see the words sink into her, and then I watch her crumple in front of me.
“Why?” she asks, lips quivering while she does it.
“We have the FBI on their way here,” Derek says, “and when I get the computer, I can see if something is on there. But bottom line. You have something that they need and now they are done waiting for it.”
She shakes her head and gets angry. “I don’t fucking have anything.”
“I know you don’t,” I say, and I don’t say that my parents’ house is under surveillance; I don’t say that Jacob and Kallie are staying at my house because they are set up with cameras, and that Jacob feels safer having eyes all around him. I don’t say that my mother is beside herself with worry for her and wants her home because I’m afraid that she won’t go. Instead of going where she is going to be safe, she’ll run away from it to make sure the people she cares about are safe.
“All of this.” She gets up now and starts to pace. “All of this has nothing to do with me. Not one thing.”
“I know it doesn’t,” I say, getting up now. “But …” I’m about to say something when Derek gets a ping on his phone.
“He’s using the phone,” he says, and then I look at him as he presses the button, and you hear ringing.
Someone answers the phone, and the operator comes on, “There is an inmate from a correctional facility.” You hear the sound of someone pressing the button.
“Hey,” Dominic says, and I look over at Olivia who stands there. “What’s new?”
“Nothing. I’m in Atlanta,” the guy on the other line says. “It’s hot as balls, but a lot better than the fucking South.”
“Did you clean up the place?” Dominic asks, and I want to spend five minutes with him and wring his fucking neck. I actually need two minutes alone with him, just two minutes.
“I tried,” he says. “Can’t get close enough.”
“You need to just erase it all,” Dominic says.
“She’s kept under lock and key. She has that cowboy trailing her like her pussy is the missing link.”
“Trust me, I’ve been in that pussy. It’s cold as ice.” I want to tell Derek to shut it down.
“Maybe if your dick stayed hard longer than thirty-five seconds, my pussy would be warmer, you piece of monkey shit!” Olivia shouts. I can see something in her change, and she looks over at me. “I want to do whatever I need to do to make sure that he dies.” She folds her hands. “I mean, I don’t want anyone to kill him, but I want to.” She tries to think of the words.
“You want to bury him?” Derek says with a smirk, and Dominic’s voice cuts in.
“Just get what we need, or else I’ll be the next one hanging in my cell,” he says, and I look over at Derek, and he nods.
“It should be taken care of tonight,” he says. “Call me back tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Dominic says and hangs up.
“Who was that?” I ask Derek, and he goes to the computer and types something, and the man’s face comes onto the screen.
“Meet Peter Bostrov,” Derek says. “Also known as ex-KGB.”
“What is that?” Olivia asks from beside me, and the need to hold her hand rips through me.
“It’s ex-military for Russia.” I look at her.
“Oh, perfect. I have an ex-Russian spy trying to kill me. God, and I thought today would be a good day.”
“It started out good,” I say, and she smiles at me.
“It might end with me dead.” She tries to joke, but it gets to me. “I mean, not literally.”
“This is the man who broke into the house, and who was setting traps on your property,” Derek says, and now it’s my turn to look at him. “What I didn’t tell you until I got confirmation was that he was setting up traps at your house. He was going to light it all up.”
“Oh my God,” Olivia says from beside me, and whatever strength and fierceness she had ten minutes ago is gone. “Your parents.” She looks over, and the tears are running down her face. “And the horses and your house.” The sobs rip through her, and she folds over. I grab her now in my arms.