man with a brush cut stood talking to someone on his cell phone, gesturing emphatically in a wood-paneled room.
“That’s McNaught,” Charlie agreed. “Wonder who he called.”
“Reggie,” Brian pointed out.
“Probably,” Nick said.
“No, I mean, he said ‘Reggie’ back there.”
Charlie said, “There’s no sound.”
“I lip-read it.” Brian squinted at the guy on the screen. “I’m pretty sure I’m right.” He glanced up to see Charlie and Nick looking at him. “What?”
“Can you read anything else?” Nick asked.
“Can’t you?” Wouldn’t that be a skill cops are taught? But both of them shook their heads. “Oh, well, I can try. It’s hard on the small screen.”
“I can download it.” Nick jumped up and began hooking the phone into Brian’s open laptop.
He became aware of a noise on the stove. “Oops, kettle’s boiling. Hang on.” It was steadying to be doing something simple, pulling the steam-blasting kettle off the heat and making the coffee. He wasn’t sure why he needed the break, but by the time he carried three mugs back over, he felt more solid. Nick had the laptop set up on the worn coffee table in front of the couch. Luger had jumped up beside Nick on the cushions and was peering at the screen, doggy head cocked. Brian set the mugs down and snapped his fingers. “Bed, Luug.”
When the dog had gone to his mat, Brian sat down in the space he’d vacated. The squished seat tilted him toward Nick, so he went with it, letting his shoulder press against Nick’s. “What do you want me to do?”
“Tell us anything you can get from this.” Nick started the footage from his phone running.
Brian frowned, staring at the big guy. “He says, um, ‘damn it, Reggie.’” The parts where the guy obviously got loud and hand-wavy were easier to figure out. “I can’t tell that bit ’cause he turns away. Um. ‘If he tries…’ Something. ‘Stick with…’ Can you run it again?”
“Sure.” Nick started it again.
“‘Damn it, Reggie… If he tries to…’ I still can’t get the rest of that. ‘Stick with…’ I think that’s got to be ‘Stick with the plan.’ And then ‘No’ and he hangs up.” Brian rubbed his eyes. “Sorry. I’m not very good at it.”
“Better than we are,” Charlie said. “You’re positive he said ‘Reggie’?”
“Eighty percent sure?” Lip-reading was something he’d worked on, for fun and because knowing what people were saying at a distance across a noisy bar had sometimes been very useful. He’d practiced with movies and gotten pretty good at it, but people in real life mumbled more and didn’t have useful close-ups of their face. It was always guesswork.
Nick said, “Question is, what next?”
“We can keep pushing Sam,” Charlie suggested.
“You don’t think McNaught put the fear of God in him tonight?”
“Maybe, but Sam was real drunk, so his memory of it may be blurry. He’s really not smart. And he’s greedy. And probably a firebug who wants to do it again.”
Nick nodded. “Or we could skip the middleman and make McNaught think Sam’s double-crossing him.”
Brian saw their eyes meet, and a similar, evil-tinged smile spread across each face.
“We could,” Charlie agreed. “And what would McNaught do then?”
Brian said, “He’d go after Sam, don’t you think? One way or another. He has too much to lose not to.” If Marston had thought someone like Sam was double-crossing him, Sam’s lifespan would have been measured in days, or possibly hours. Brian realized that Marston would have called on Damon, and on his pet Finder, to get the job done. He gritted his teeth against bile. “He wouldn’t do anything himself, would he? He’d have people.”
“Maybe, but Reggie and Roy are related to Sam. Could he trust them?” Nick’s forehead creased, hazel eyes narrowed. “He might take care of the problem himself.”
“We can’t let him murder Sam,” Brian protested.
“Of course not,” Charlie said. “Sam might be a slimeweasel who likes setting fires, but he hasn’t killed anyone yet. We’d have to keep him safe.”
“Anyway,” Nick pointed out, “we don’t know McNaught would go that far. Murder’s pretty extreme, even for a crooked cop.”
“Can’t we tell the sheriff?” Brian knew he sounded like a wimp and Damon would be laughing his ass off, but he really wanted to hand McNaught, with his size and rank and power, over to other cops, not Nick and Charlie…
Who exchanged looks. Nick said, “We can try, but if she doesn’t believe us and asks McNaught to explain, then we’re out of luck.”
Charlie nodded. “All McNaught has to do is close things down,