Chapter 227

Rourke gave them one usable thing before they took him downtown – a drop location, a mailbox rental two towns over where the payout had been left in cash, no camera coverage, no forwarding address on file, the kind of dead end that would have stopped most investigations cold if Elias hadn’t spent months learning exactly how men like Carver structured their money trails.

Zeke insisted on running it together.

Neither of them says it out loud, but Elias understands the reasoning without needing it explained. David wants this contained to the smallest circle possible, and right now that circle consists of exactly two people with the skill set to actually work a stakeout properly, and one of them happens to be a man the other one still doesn’t trust.

The first night in the car is almost entirely silent.

They sit parked a block from the mailbox facility with a clean line of sight to the entrance, coffee going cold in the cupholders, and for six hours the only so