Full Ratchet: A Silas Cade Thriller Hardcover by Mike Cooper Read Free Book Online

hills.
    “You just hire on?” said the waitress, taking my plates away. “Saw you walking over from Annie’s just now.”
    In the city, wearing a suit, people assumed I was a businessman. Out here everyone looked at me and saw an Okie well digger. Context is all.
    “Family business,” I said, same as at the motel. Simple, consistent lies are the best.
    “Nice day for it.”
    “Couldn’t be better.”
    Back at the cabin I collected my toothbrush, dropped a couple bucks on the bed, and ran a damp washcloth over the door handle, sink taps, table edge—it took only a few minutes to clean the room, and basic precautions make good habits.
    But when I found myself wiping down the masonite key fob, I realized I was stalling.
    Second thoughts, now that I was so close.
    There was no reason I
had
to follow through and see Dave Ellins in person. He’d reached me through my Vegas mail drop—a guy out there does me a favor, forwarding the occasional letter, but he thinks I’m New Jersey mob, and he doesn’t have anything but an uptown PO box number. Anyway, the whole story was ludicrous: long-lost brothers, given up at birth to different families? A tabloid fairy tale. Dave, whoever he was, might have duped my last set of foster parents, good-hearted and rather dim as they are. That didn’t mean I had to go along.
    I walked out, closing the door with my hip, and walked around back, under the pines. I stared through the trees, thinking.
    The problem was, if he found me once, maybe he could find me again.
    And if he could, so could someone else.
    Fine. Best get it over with—find out who Dave really was and what he wanted. I walked quickly to the Malibu, settled the Sig’s holster as comfortably as I could in the driver’s seat, turned on my phone and got going.
    My mood improved. Making a decision always makes a difference.
    The route went by quicker the second time, daylight and familiarity bringing everything closer. As the hills closed in, dark patches appeared on the road, then puddles—it must have rained harder farther up. Mist drifted among the trees, rising from damp ground. The morning sun would dry it all out, but the hollows were still half in shadow, the night cool lingering. The last bits of town dwindled away. Occasional barbwire and fading NO TRESPASSING signs were nailed to the trees; gravel pullouts had broken gates or nothing at all.
    It felt like leaving civilization. I’d really become a New York urbanite, my natural environment no longer the woods and backlands of my youth.
    —
    Dave had company.
    Three men stood in the muddy lot in front of Barktree Welding.
    The discussion was exuberant, or maybe an argument. Hard to tell as I drove past. Hands thrust and pointed and gestured. I didn’t catch the words, and it was hard to say how serious they were. One might have been laughing.
    I didn’t slow down, looked over once and then returned my face to the road ahead.
    A few hundred yards farther I pulled over. Overcast hung so low it hid the tops of the steep, wooded hills rising all around. I’d stopped at what looked like a building site; the ground had been roughly prepared, raw dirt graded more or less flat. A muddy flatbed carrying a large stack of cinderblock was parked in the middle. Steel bands securing the bricks to pallets were cut and hanging loose, and a few of the bricks had been unloaded onto the ground.
    But no one was around. The truck’s wheels were sunk a few inches into the dirt. They might have started the job yesterday or a week ago, impossible to tell.
    I closed my eyes and reviewed the mental video.
    One younger man, two older. Barktree Welding looked even shabbier in daylight, the paint peeling and stained. The pickup was still there, not moved from last night—it was a Ford, hard used, shocks done in. Split wood tumbled into a heap near the back of the building. The three bays were open now, doors pulled up, but shadowed inside and I didn’t see much.
    A canvas-top Jeep was