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We leave the house and make our way down the drive to the front gates. There’s already a crowd of my people set up on top of the wall and just inside the gates, all armed and ready for the raid that has to be coming. Iris is already there, gun in hand. Paul is at her side- I don’t think he’s left it since they collided last night.
At some point, Iris and Paul and I are going to have a conversation about how and when and why they’re together.
But right now, I’ve got much more irritating fish to fry.
Iris must hear my footsteps on the gravel, but she doesn’t take her eyes off of Derrick, standing by his car where it sits a safe distance outside the gate. For a moment, I’m shocked at the sight of him. I’m so used to the politician’s smile on TV ads and billboards, that even though I did the damage to his face myself, it’s hard to take in.
His face is covered in bruises. There’s a split in his lip that’s still red. His left eye is black and swollen shut, and his nose is crooked.
And still, he’s smiling, showing off his perfect teeth.
Damn, I should have hit him until I knocked an incisor loose. Hindsight.
“He’s cute,” Raleigh says dryly from my left. Clara lets out a strangled little sound on my right.
“Good morning, Thomas!” Derrick calls, raising a hand in a far too cheerful hello. At least he’s smart enough not to step away from his car. “I appreciate you coming to see me.”
“Are you talking about right now, or last night?” I can’t help but ask.
Derrick’s lips close, but he’s still smiling. “Either? Both?”
“You’re thirty seconds from becoming an unfortunate accident in the headlines,” I tell him. “What are you doing here?”
“I just thought I should congratulate you,” Derrick says, as if I’m being thick. “I heard that there was an unfortunate fire and a series of accidental explosions at Morgan Speare’s estate across town. It seems like the fire department got there too late to save any part of the structure. I can’t imagine anyone here will be surprised when they find Mr. Speare’s body under the debris.”
I only remember Clara’s still holding my hand when she squeezes it in a vice-like grip.
“All right, you’ve said your piece,” I tell Derrick. “Now unless you have a warrant, I’m going to have to ask you to get off my property.”
“Whoa, hold on, hold on,” Derrick chuckles. “If that was all I had to say I could’ve left a voicemail. No, I wanted to make sure you understood that my services are still very much at your disposal.”
Is he fucking serious?
“And why, precisely, do you think I have need of you anymore?” I ask, struggling not to grit my teeth around every word.
“Well, we never did get around to those co-op raids, did we?” Derrick asks, and I suddenly wonder if he’s trying to convince me to kill him. “There are still plenty of pockets of Speare influence in the city. Thanks to your shared roots, these stragglers have insider information on your people, information that Morgan was using to make cracks in your walls. Who’s buried in the worst gambling debts, who’s having an affair, who’s accidentally killed someone- those kinds of things. And maybe these people aren’t called Speares anymore, but that doesn’t matter. By the end of the week, they’ll be following a new boss. You cut the head off the hydra, but a dozen more will come back in its place.”
I can’t believe I’m hearing this. “And?”
“And you need my help to track them down. So why don’t we let what’s past be past, and work together toward a brighter future?”
This, listening to Derrick fucking Lindman not only reiterate the logic behind my own plans back to me- plans he ruined by stabbing me in the back- but also compare us to each other, is exactly too much.
And yet, I called a truce with Morgan Speare for the sole purpose of giving myself more time to build up men and weapons so I could crush him for good. That, I suppose, makes us similar enough to make me uncomfortable.
I won’t make that mistake again. And now I’ve got a second chance to do what I didn’t last night. I could shoot Lindman right here, and, as I warned a minute ago, it’s well within my power to make it look like a tragic accident.
But if I did that, a new Sheriff would need to be elected, and how likely would it be that I could find a second Derrick Lindman? A man ambitious enough to share my vision but spineless enough to accept bribes? Not to mention a born politician who can lie so goddamn convincingly.
No, for now, it does me more good to keep Derrick around, if on a much shorter leash. Besides, it’ll gall him to know that he was in my mercy not once, but twice, and I spared him.
“Crawl back into your hole, snake,” I say, as airily as I can. “And I suggest you pray that I don’t call on you again.”
Derrick is quiet for a moment, no doubt calculating whether to push his luck or take the loss. When he recovers, he only smiles and throws me a jaunty salute. “Always a pleasure, Thomas,” he says, and climbs back into his car.
“Please let me shoot out his tires,” Iris murmurs, as he starts up his car. Quickly she amends, “Tire. Just one. He’ll still be able to drive away.”
“Next time,” I promise.
