Thomas Blackhorse's Arc

Chapter 6 of 17

Thomas took the receipt with the address and drove straight to his office. He needed one thing before he knocked on Miguel Roundrock's door: to know if the gray Buick was on him again. If Casablanca was already watching, he would lead a killer to the only witness left. The strip mall was quiet at that hour. He parked the Jeep two doors down, past the pawn shop, and let himself into the cramped storefront. The cactus on the desk needed water. He ignored it. He pulled the second drawer of the battered file cabinet and dug out a burner phone he kept taped to the underside of a manila envelope. Then he called Earl. Earl came in ten minutes, suspenders crooked, coffee in a paper cup. "You look like a man about to do something stupid," he said. "I need eyes on the street. Gray Buick. If it shows up while I'm gone, you call this number and say one word. Rain." Earl squinted at the burner. "And if I don't see it?" "Then I've got maybe an hour before somebody else finds the address I'm about to visit." Earl didn't ask who. He tucked the phone in his shirt pocket and went to sit on the bench outside the dollar store where he could see the whole lot. Thomas drove the long way, doubling back twice. The apartment block sat behind a chain-link fence, stucco cracked, laundry on the balconies. He climbed to the third floor. Unit 314. The door was already open two inches. He drew his weapon and pushed it wide with his boot. The front room was empty. A cereal bowl sat on the counter with milk still in it. A chair was pushed back from the table. On the small kitchen table lay a single sheet of lined paper, folded once. Thomas opened it with the edge of a pen. Same handwriting as the locker note. Three words. I'm still here. Below it, in different ink, a fresh line: "Tell Blackhorse to stop." Thomas stood very still. The milk in the bowl had not skinned over yet. Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty. His burner buzzed in his pocket. He read the screen. Rain. He pocketed the note, closed the door behind him, and took the back stairs down two at a time. Miguel Roundrock was gone. Not dead in the room, which meant Casablanca had taken him alive, or he had run before she came. Either way, the witness was no longer somewhere Thomas could reach. He reached the Jeep as the gray Buick rolled past the mouth of the lot, slow, deliberate. The driver did not look at him. The driver did not have to. Thomas started the engine. Whoever buried this case eight years ago now knew his name out loud. And Miguel Roundrock was breathing somewhere in the dark, on borrowed time, waiting to be found.