hope I never have a reason, then,” Joshua said.
“Nah, man,” Eddie said sagely, shaking his head. “You’re gonna have a reason one day, trust me. But you better hope that when you have one, that boat doesn’t sink.”
8
Sitting in the ice-box cold Chevy around the corner from the house, Dexter used his prepaid cell to call Javier at an agreed-upon number. He answered on the second ring.
“Yo,” Javier said. “Wassup, boss?”
“It’s gone.”
“Huh? What’s gone?”
“My money.”
“What?” Javier nearly shouted.
“All of it. Gone.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Where’d you put it, man?”
Javier sounded genuinely shocked. He would be. He hadn’t stolen the cash. He was loyal.
“It was in the house,” Dexter said. “In a floor safe in the kitchen. It’s all gone.”
“Fuck.” Javier made a grunt of disgust.
When Dexter had gotten convicted, Javier had offered to store the money for him until he either was released, or broke out. I’ve got it under control, Dexter had told him. Besides, if IAD had opened an investigation into their narc squad activities—always a possibility—not even Javier, as trustworthy and cunning as he was, could have guaranteed the safety of Dexter’s savings. The floor safe had served perfectly for a decade.
“She took it,” Dexter said. “Probably hired a locksmith to crack the lock, paid him by sucking his dick.”
“You told her about it?”
“Use your motherfuckin’ head, man. I didn’t tell her shit.”
“I didn’t think you did. She musta peeped it some kinda way, took it when you got sent downstate. How fucked up. Jesus.”
Dexter clenched his gloved hand into a fist. It was worse than fucked up. It was, as the saying went, FUBAR—fucked up beyond all recognition.
The secret stash that he’d built represented ten years of backbreaking, dirty police work. Bribes from suspects. Under-the-table payments from hip-hop stars who toured in the city and wanted dependable security from an off-duty cop. Loot he and the other narc cops scored from shaking down drug dealers. Money they earned from stealing cocaine from evidence rooms, replacing it with Bisquick, and reselling the product on the street to the highest bidder.
His rationale for accumulating the money was simple: The system was rife with corruption, from the courts all the way down to the beat cop on the corner, and he was going to get his, by any means necessary. His long-dead dad, a smalltime hustler and pimp in his day, had lectured him about how to acquire anything you desired. You couldn’t just do your job and expect that because you were a nice, honest guy, you’d get the raise you deserved. No, if you wanted something—money, women, power, anything—you had to do what real men had been doing since time immemorial.
You had to take it.
It was why he’d become a cop, and not a hood like his old man. Dad had always been running from the law, always coughing up payments to cops so he could stay in business. Dexter didn’t want to be the guy on the run paying bribes. He wanted to be on the receiving end of all those sweet fringe benefits—using his badge and any amount of force necessary to take whatever he wanted.
Turned out he was damned good at it. Thanks to his leadership, Javier and the other members of the old team would retire from the CPD with a helluva lot more to fall back on than a cop’s pension. With incarceration jamming up his own retirement plans, he’d intended, upon his escape, to use the money to fund his exodus overseas. Many African nations lacked an extradition treaty with the United States, and in such a country, the sum he had earned would have allowed him to live like a sultan.
But once again, the bitch was going to try to rob him of his freedom. He didn’t doubt that she, and not someone else, had discovered the money. She’d never been loyal to him, and where there was smoke, there was fire.
“I was going to track her down anyway before I left,” Dexter said. “Now she’s given me all the more reason to find her ass.”
“Explains how she vanished into thin air like she did,” Javier said. “She had your loot backing her.”
“With one point seven mil, I’d say the bitch could go just about anywhere she fucking well pleases.”
“One point seven? That much?” Javier whistled. “You need any funds in the interim, man? Something to tide you over?”
“No more favors. I’ll handle it.”
“What’s your plan then?”
“Everyone who helped her get away…everyone she loves,” Dexter said, “I’m going to fucking kill them. It’s a simple matter of respect, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah, man.” Javier paused. “But what about her?”
“What do you think I’m going to do to her?” Dexter said.
“I…I guess I don’t wanna know, boss.”
“The bitch better have my money—down to the last dollar. After she gives it to me, I’m gonna make her wish her mama had used the fucking coat hanger.”
9
That evening at home, Rachel cooked dinner. She was an excellent cook, and Joshua loved to observe her at work. As he sat at the dinette table, skimming the newspaper, he watched her.
Dressed in a flannel shirt, lounge pants, and slippers, she flitted around the kitchen like a hummingbird around a flower garden, adding a sprinkle of spices here, tasting the sauce there, all the while singing in a soft, soothing voice. Under normal circumstances, she derived great pleasure from cooking, and that night, she seemed to be in an especially buoyant mood.
It puzzled him. Earlier, he’d been convinced that she was keeping something important from him, and he’d planned to watch her closely at dinner, just to be sure nothing was wrong. Eddie had advised him to let it go, and he wanted to—but he couldn’t. Not while the uneasiness lingered in his gut like an undigested meal.
“Dinner’s ready,” Rachel said, taking silverware out of the drawer. “Go wash up, baby.”
He pushed away from the table. He nearly knocked over the chair, and caught it before it hit the floor. Coco, who’d been resting nearby, scurried away and hid between Rachel’s legs.
“Sorry, Coco,” he said. “Scared you half to death, didn’t I?”
He glanced at Rachel, habitually expecting a rebuke for his clumsiness, but she only smiled—a smile of unconditional love and infinite patience. Not the smile of a woman who nursed deception in her heart.
Maybe his
