Shoot the Woman First (26 page)

He sat back, took off his glasses. “
Señora,
I have no problem taking your money, you know that. And I'll always be grateful to my cousin Hector”—he crossed himself—“for introducing us. But I have to ask: The other two aren't good enough? You need a third?”

“You're an artist, Emilio. The best. But this one I want for a specific purpose, and one purpose only. And no passport this time, just a driver's license, birth certificate, and credit card. They need to hold up to a general background check, though, so they have to be solid.”

He picked up the paper again. “I don't even know what a Texas license looks like. I'll have to do some research.”

“I'm sure you can work it out.”

He set his glasses on the desk. “I've never thought of you as a customer,
señora.
More as a colleague.”

“Likewise.”

“But I can't help be concerned. Every time I take on one of these, it increases our risk.”

“That's what the money's for.”

“
Si.
But it's not just about the money. When I worked for the DMV in Newark, I could run off licenses all day. No one cared as long as the supervisors got their cut. But these days, no one looks the other way. It's a federal thing. Prison, maybe.”

“Risks we take.”

“And you're only going to use it for one thing?”

“And one thing only,” she said. “Four times a year. Five at most. Only one or two people will ever see it. I just need to keep it separate from the others. Those are for emergencies.”

He nodded. “I'll do the best I can for you, Miss…” He looked at the paper. “Patrick?”

“That's right,” she said.

“Shana Patrick, from Austin, Texas. That's a good Anglo name. I like that name.”

“Let's hope it's a lucky one,” she said.

 

TWENTY-SIX

The line moved slowly, the guard at the door checking IDs against the clipboard he held. There would be two more inside, a man and a woman, to do the pat-downs, search the strollers. She was tired from the flight, the drive down from San Antonio, and as the line moved forward, she felt the knot in her stomach tighten.

The blacktop was soft under her feet, the heat coming up through her sneakers. In front of her, a black girl barely out of her teens rocked the child she was holding. It was a little girl, maybe a year old, pink bows in her hair. She looked over her mother's shoulder at Crissa, reached. Crissa put out her hand, let the girl take her finger, squeeze. The mother patted the girl's back, turned to look at Crissa and smiled, and then the line was moving again.

When Crissa reached the guard, she handed over her driver's license without being asked. He took it, matched it against the names on the approved visitors sheet, said, “Cap and sunglasses.”

She took off the baseball cap, stuck it in the back pocket of her jeans. Her hair was cut short, dyed black. When she removed her sunglasses, the guard held the license up to her face, looked at both, and handed the license back to her without a word.

Inside, a female guard patted her down, pointed to a Plexiglas window with a metal shelf. There was a desk beyond the glass, a black woman there talking on the phone. On the shelf was the spiral ledger that served as the visitors log. There was a cheap plastic pen beside it, taped to a piece of string tied to one of the spirals.

The room was already half full. Mostly women, mostly black or Hispanic, small children in tow. Black and white checkered floor, vending machines against one wall. Cameras high in every corner. Two guards at the door and two more standing around, watching.

She signed the log the way she'd practiced. A guard pointed her to an empty table in a corner. The table and benches were all bolted down. She sat with her back to the wall, facing the security door on the other side of the room. Sunlight came through the window above and behind her, lit dust motes in the air. She put her sunglasses back on, closed her eyes.

She tried to slow her breathing, listened to the noises around her. The security door opening and closing, soft conversations in Spanish, babies crying. But she was drifting. In her mind was the glow of a fire in night woods, muzzle flashes in a dark kitchen.

She heard the security door buzz open, felt him before she saw him. She opened her eyes, and he was standing there in front of her, black hair combed back, streaked with silver, more than she remembered, a lopsided grin. She took off her sunglasses.

“Hey, darlin',” he said.

 

ALSO BY WALLACE STROBY

Kings of Midnight

Cold Shot to the Heart

Gone 'til November

The Heartbreak Lounge

The Barbed-Wire Kiss

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wallace Stroby is an award-winning journalist and a former editor at
The Star-Ledger
in Newark, New Jersey. This is his sixth novel, following the acclaimed
Kings of Midnight
. He lives in New Jersey. The Crissa Stone novels are in development for a TV series by Showtime.

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

SHOOT THE WOMAN FIRST.
Copyright © 2013 by Wallace Stroby. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein

Cover photographs: Detroit at night © Matthew Minucci; woman by Steve Gardner

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-1-250-00038-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-02247-9 (e-book)

e-ISBN 978125022479

First Edition: December 2013