She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,175

but quickly concluded that Caley wasn’t in there, either.

Of course, Lonny Caley would use the last stall. Men hiding from something tended to go to the back of whatever room they happened to be in.

The toilet in the first stall flushed. A moment later a man in his late sixties emerged. He started for the sinks, saw the gun in Preacher’s hand, then left instead. Preacher let him go. He’d be gone long before someone could summon help. As the bathroom door swung open, the shrill of the still ringing telephones filled the room, then muted as the door fell shut. When the second toilet flushed, Preacher hid his gun from the teenager who stepped out. The kid didn’t wash his hands, either—nasty, considering he didn’t have the excuse of an armed man standing between him and the sink.

When the bathroom door swung shut on the boy and they were alone, Preacher again took out his gun and used the barrel to knock on the stall door.

Caley’s nervous voice came from the other side. “How’d you find me?”

Preacher didn’t answer.

“I know who you are. In a strange way, I feel like I know you. Whenever you performed your services for the Lettos, I’m the guy who paid you. They work with three guys like you, but only one they’d trust to come after me. You’re the one they call Preacher, right?”

Preacher didn’t reply.

“They say you know things, like you’re psychic or some shit. When it comes to tracking someone, there’s nobody better. Why do they call you Preacher? I don’t get that. I can’t imagine you’re a religious man.”

Preacher took two steps toward the sink.

Six shots rang out, fired in quick succession from inside the toilet stall. The black pressboard splintered and rained out onto the concrete floor as bullet holes appeared in the front of the stall door.

Caley’s gun clicked empty. “I missed you, didn’t I?”

Preacher stepped to the door and kicked it in. Caley let out a squeal as it slammed into into him, then bounced back out. He was sitting on the toilet, his pants still around his ankles and the suitcase on the floor beside him. Caley had a hand to his nose, and blood oozed out between his fingers. His other hand held the empty revolver. He dropped it when he saw Preacher’s PPK.

Caley nodded down at the suitcase. “It’s all there, an extra two hundred eighty thousand, too—money I saved up over the years. Take it. Keep it for yourself, take it back to them, I don’t care.” His voice sounded nasally. “Just…just, make it quick, okay?”

Preacher holstered his gun, and the man’s eyes lit up.

Preacher then placed his hands, one still gloved, the other not, on either side of Caley’s head, and with one swift twist, snapped the man’s neck. The man slumped forward, his flabby arms dropped to his sides. His eyes glossed over, and his tongue protruded slightly from the corner of his mouth.

Preacher leaned him back against the wall, and when he was certain the large man wasn’t going to tumble over anytime soon, he backed out of the stall and pulled the broken door shut as best he could.

With Lonny Caley’s suitcase in hand, he returned to the east concourse. The phones were still ringing. Crowds of onlookers stood around them, occasionally picking up one of the handsets, then hanging it back up again.

He grabbed the nearest phone with his free hand. “I get the girl back and we’re done, got me?”

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. “It’s not that simple anymore, Dalton.”

“Why not?”

“We think David found Cammie.”

Preacher’s heart thumped. “Oh, hell.”

All the phones stopped ringing then.

7

“You’ve got a phone call.”

Fogel opened her eyes, then closed them again. The harsh fluorescent lights in the small cell the kind officers of the Fallon Police Department placed her in did nothing to help the relentless beating taking place behind her eyes. The pillow they provided wasn’t helping much either. The pillow felt like someone draped a rag over a bag of Legos and declared it head support. Twice during the night, she cast it aside in favor of the less lumpy mattress and metal frame of her borrowed bed.

They hadn’t locked the cell door, she was thankful for that. She wasn’t under the illusion that she could pick up and leave, either. They made that very clear when they brought her in.

Professional courtesy, she had been told. You’re intoxicated and in possession of a firearm. You