Downstate: A Novella by Jeffery Deaver

Author:Jeffery Deaver [Deaver, Jeffery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2025-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Ilook great. Just great.

Eddie Young glanced at his face in the rearview mirror of the white Ford pickup.

That woman had really done a number on him. He’d looked up her name online. Constant Marlowe. And found she’d been a professional boxer before joining the Department of Criminal Investigations.

She held titles. Big ones. Not corner gym crap. And a record or two for first-round knockouts in her weight division.

Shit.

Young thought that might’ve been a crime last night—using her fists as deadly weapons. But he was hardly going to press charges.

Beside him, scrawny Begg was playing a game on his phone.

If his jaw and cheek and belly and shoulder hadn’t been so sore he might have laughed at the show they’d put on last night. Being gay lovers, having a fight! Young had an overactive drive, sure, but he took care of that with hookers at the truck stop in Barney—or sometimes with the wife—and the idea of sex with Begg was something from outer space.

“You could’ve jumped in.”

“Sorry, my friend,” Begg muttered. “That trick with the gun in the bag? And her moves? She knew what she was doing. She would’ve killed me.”

True. Begg was a fine shot but he couldn’t handle himself with knuckles.

Well, the acting had fooled her; she hadn’t realized she was the target.

But the plan didn’t end up so well.

And now it was time to fix that. Fix everything.

The vehicle was parked outside R&R Grocery. It was just opening up. Young had never thought about what the second “R” stood for. Raleigh would be one, but the other? He asked Begg.

“What? Oh, don’t know.” Back to the video game.

How could he waste time like that?

Maybe R and R, like in the army. Rest and recreation.

The door to the shop opened, and Raleigh stepped out, cradling two large houseplants. He was wearing jeans and a white shirt and a white apron like an old-time butcher. He set the pots down on a table with a half dozen others. Big bushy things with no flowers or buds. The stand bore the sign Ten Percent Off.

Young had been working with Raleigh for six months or so and he’d never seen a soul buy a plant here. You got beer and sandwiches and Spam and laundry detergent and wine at R&R. It was a grocery store. You didn’t buy plants. There was Home Depot for that.

Or wherever the wife bought the plants.

Raleigh rubbed his hands together, dislodging dirt. He walked up to the truck.

They met here on the street because inside the store, above the counter was a very expensive video camera, which Raleigh pretended didn’t work but that was a lie. It functioned just fine. He’d said it was busted because he didn’t want the police asking for a copy of the clip showing the shoplifting. And he definitely didn’t want any video evidence of this meeting.

Young and Begg reached for their door handles. But Raleigh said, “No, this won’t be long.” The man wore his hair swept back, which made it appear thinner than it already did.

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