Killer Fame (Stella Knox FBI Mystery Series Book 9) by Mary Stone

Author:Mary Stone [Stone, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mary Stone Publishing
Published: 2023-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

18

Joel Ramirez dug his right hand into the pocket of his summer jacket and retrieved a small leather pouch. It was about the size of a trifold wallet. The patina had cracked and faded over the years so that what had once been a dark chocolate was now the color of milky coffee, and it was as creased and worn as the lines on its owner’s face.

He placed the pouch in his lap and untied it with a yank on the leather tie that kept it closed. In his other hand, he held a strip of cigarette paper, a deep crease ready for the spread of the tobacco leaf.

Samantha waited. Joel had said nothing since the Ford Explorer had sped away from the bridge, its tires leaving skids of burnt rubber that even the Memphis Police Department couldn’t miss. They’d turned off the main road, disappearing down a country lane as straight as a gun barrel and not much wider than the vehicle itself.

In the front seat, the driver kept his eyes on the road and his foot hard on the pedal. Should another vehicle appear on that empty landscape, topped with blue skies and cotton-wool clouds, Samantha was sure the driver would make no reaction.

He’d keep his foot down and challenge the oncoming traffic to drive into the surrounding pastures or collide head-on with their SUV. He’d do that whether they came face-to-face with a cyclist, a tractor, or a ten-ton truck loaded with grain. Nothing was going to push him out of his path, and nothing was going to make him slow down. That was how Joel liked his drivers. How he’d always liked them.

Joel pulled the strands of tobacco leaf from the pouch and gently prodded them with thick, gnarled fingers across the sheet of cigarette paper. He rolled the cigarette closed, licked the edge, and sealed it firmly. A small thread of tobacco hung from the end of the cigarette, as wiry as the bristles on an old man’s beard. He pulled the leaf out, flicked it onto the floor of the car, then offered the cigarette to Samantha.

She hated Joel’s habit. He’d told her once that he’d picked it up in Miami. He’d never told her what he’d done in Florida, but he couldn’t live without his loose leaf now, so he said. She rolled the cigarette gently between her fingers and waited while he made a second for himself.

With the tobacco spread and the edges sealed, he jammed the cigarette into the side of his mouth, carefully rolled and tied the pouch, and slipped it back into his jacket. From the pocket of the seat in front of him, he removed a box of matches, lit the cigarette, and threw the match out the car window before tossing the box to Samantha.

As she lit up, Ramirez released a cloud of sharp tobacco smoke into the car.

“It’s good to see you, Samantha. Even better to see you free.”

His voice was deep and coarse, the result of too many smoky conversations with too many Florida scrap-metal merchants.

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