Side by Side

49

Clayton Able knew exactly where Dixie Smoot had called her father from, but he wasn’t going to share that with anybody except the Major. Winter Massey was, as Clayton had insisted from the start he would, proving to be difficult to control. It appeared that if Massey was left to his own devices, he could make a very large mess of things, and generate complications they didn’t need.

He turned to Antonia. “We have to stop Massey.”

“Slow him down,” the Major answered. “It isn’t necessary to do anything so rash. Massey can’t get anything done before tomorrow, and then it’ll work for us. He can die as planned while shooting it out with the kidnappers. No need to change the plan.”

“Randall is hot over what happened at Click’s house. Says we should have warned him that Massey was there.”

“Screw Randall. He didn’t tell us he was going there. This is a two-way street. Max had better not forget who’s calling the tune. Where’s Alexa?”

“Coming here.”

“Good.”

“Massey’s on his way to Laughlin’s.”

“And Laughlin won’t be home. So Massey will go back to see the Smoot kid and-”

“I’ve seen this happen a hundred times and I know in my gut when something is about to go up in flames,” Clayton insisted nervously. “If you don’t let me handle him, I’m not going to stay with this. I’m not going to spend my golden years in prison. We need to let Randall deal with Massey now.”

He heard her exhale loudly. “Go ahead. But it means a change in plan. I’ll work out an alternate with Alexa. Make sure Max understands that Massey’s body can’t be found until Monday. We’ll have to play some hocus-pocus with the forensics. No biggie, since we’ll be controlling the evidence-gathering process and reports.”

“I’ll make the call. You are paying me for my experience with these sorts of matters. It’s the right thing to do,” Clayton said, smiling. “The smart thing is the correct course.”

“It had better be, Mr. Able. It sure as hell better be.”