The Last Kind Word (Mac McKenzie #10)

The Last Kind Word (Mac McKenzie #10) Page 32

Only Skarda and I had remained overnight. When he wasn’t looking, I took the grocery bags filled with checks and receipts and stashed them beneath the cabin.

Early in the morning, we went fishing, using the late owner’s boat and equipment; he had a nice Shakespeare rod and reel outfit and an impressive tackle box. Yet despite Skarda’s promise of fish, we were both skunked. While we were on the lake, I unceremoniously dropped the Glock overboard, making sure Skarda saw me do it. When he asked why, I told him there was an unsubstantiated rumor that it had been employed in the commission of a felony and I didn’t want the authorities to get the wrong idea should they find it on me. “Never keep the gun, Dave. Never.” He nodded his head in agreement as if my advice had come straight from the mount. ’Course, I didn’t mention that I dumped the Glock to make sure nobody discovered it had been loaded with blanks. (You had to give Bullert credit; he didn’t leave much to chance.) By the time we got off the lake, the Iron Range Bandits were already gathering on the deck. I went inside and changed clothes. I didn’t have much to choose from, just the stuff we had tossed into the nylon bag in the back of the Explorer before staging the escape. I thought I was the only one in the cabin until Josie appeared.

“What are we going to do after breakfast?” she asked.

“It’s like I told Jimmy last night. We need to find an armored truck and follow it around for a few days. Armored trucks generally have a tightly choreographed routine of stops and starts—supermarkets, bank branches, department stores, casinos, anyplace with an ATM. What we’re looking for is a weakness, something we can exploit. I remember there were these two armored car guards working outside San Francisco a couple years ago. Turned out they always stopped at the same coffeehouse. They’d stop there at different times of the day, but it was always the same coffeehouse. One afternoon a crew met them at the front door with guns, took their keys, forced them back into the truck, drove to a prearranged location, looted the truck, and left them tied up in the back. Feds said the crew got away with the proverbial undisclosed amount of cash. I’m here to tell you that it was nearly eight hundred thousand dollars.”

“How do you know?”

“How do I know what?”

“How do you know…” Josie was watching my eyes. They told her to stop asking questions, so she did.

I’m getting good at this, I thought.

“Where do we start?” Josie asked.

“I’m not familiar with the area, so I’m going to need someone to drive.” I pointed at her.

“Me?” she said.

“Can’t use Dave. He and I are still wanted, and while it’s unlikely that anyone will recognize me, Dave is known up here. All things considered, I think it’s best that Roy and I keep our distance as much as possible. The old man—with due respect, he’s too old for what I have in mind, and Jimmy, he’s a little too enthusiastic. That leaves you.”

“Jillian…”

“I want her kept out of this. She should never have been involved in the first place.”

“You seem to have taken quite a fancy to her.”

“She’s the little sister I never had.”

“Is that it? She’s quite beautiful, you know.”

“I make it a point not to lust after any woman who hasn’t voted in at least three presidential elections.”

“I don’t think Jill’s voted in any yet. Besides, she’s married.”

“There’s that, too.”

“If you need a woman…”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying…”

“Josie, are you offering yourself to me?”

She blushed, actually blushed—you don’t often see that in a grown woman. Her eyes grew wide, her freckles sparkled, her mouth opened, and she took a step backward.

“No,” she said. “I should say not. I mean—I meant a married woman, Jill is a married woman, and Roy—Roy has a temper and, and there are others who would be willing, that you can, but not—dammit.”

She spun on her heel and quickly walked out of the cabin, letting the door slam behind her.

“Oh, well,” I said.

I joined her on the deck a few moments later. The Bandits watched me expectantly. I didn’t want them to think too much, so I told them what I had in mind.

“Josie will be my driver,” I said. “Jimmy, you’re the tech guy.” Jimmy grinned widely and jumped up from the picnic table as if he had been chosen first in a game of dodge ball. “I want you go to your computer and locate all of the cash-intensive businesses you can. I don’t mean in a ten-mile radius, either. I mean throughout the Iron Range. Compile a list. Afterward, I want you to mark their locations on a map of the area. A big map.”

“I’m on it,” he said.

“Roy, you’re my procurement officer. We’re going to need vehicles, coveralls, gloves, masks, nylon restraints like the kind cops use, weapons, of course—I’m not sure exactly what we’ll need, but I need you to think about where we’re going to get this stuff, anyway.”