Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [5]
“Well, it was just talk. Didn’t mean nothing,” Giordano assured him. Christ, what was he thinking, talking like that in front of two strangers? How did he know that one—or both of them—weren’t plants from the D.A.’s office to trip him up? Wouldn’t that be just swell?
“Unless we, like, you know, switch our people,” Archer said.
“What d’ya mean, switch our people?” Giordano studied the younger man. What was this kid talking about?
“You know, like that movie. The one on the train, where these two guys meet and they each agree to whack someone that the other one wants dead—”
“Whoa, buddy. This was just idle talk. That’s all. Just idle talk. No one said nothing about whacking anyone for real.” Even as he protested, Giordano knew that Archer wasn’t a plant from anywhere. He was every bit as dumb as he looked—Vince would bet his life on it.
He wondered if perhaps he just had.
“Sure, it’s just talk. I know that. But it doesn’t hurt to pretend. We got nothing else to do in here right now.” Archer Lowell’s face was as blank as a clean sheet of paper.
“How old are you, Lowell?” Giordano just had to know if the kid was young and stupid, or just stupid.
“I’m nineteen.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Your loose mouth, that’s what.” Giordano felt his anger start to rise.
“No, come on. It’s just a game. A game, that’s all.” Lowell sought to placate him.
“You ever kill anyone, Lowell?” Giordano lowered his voice to ask.
The kid shook his head.
“You, Channing?” Giordano turned to face him and was stunned by what he saw in Channing’s eyes. At that moment, he recognized Channing for exactly what he was, and a chill sped up Giordano’s spine.
Lowell hadn’t even noticed. “If we were going to play the game, then we would each have a list, and we would each promise to do the other’s list when we got out, right?”
Relaxed now—there was no plant here; he was positive of that—Giordano laughed. “Boy, you don’t give up, do you?”
“First, we’d have to decide how to figure out who would, you know, do whose people.” Lowell paused to ponder this for a minute, then perked up. “I know. We could each pick a number between one and thirty and guess which number the other guy is thinking of.”
Giordano laughed again. The kid was so earnestly getting into this. It was silly and immature, and he was wondering just what Mr. Cool Curtis Channing was thinking.
“Okay, you, Channing, you go first.” Lowell grinned. “Think of a number between one and thirty, and me and Vince will see if we can guess. Whoever comes closest to your number gets your list.”
To Giordano’s surprise, Channing merely smiled and nodded. “Let’s keep it simple. Archer takes my list, I’ll take yours, Giordano, and you’ll take Archer’s.”
“Cool.” Archer Lowell nodded with such vigor that Giordano felt it necessary to remind the kid—and anyone who could be listening in—that this was not real.
“It’s just a game, Archer. Just a game,” Giordano said carefully. What if the room was wired? “Just a game.”
“I know that.” Lowell brushed him off happily and, grinning, turned to Curtis Channing. “Okay, tell us about your list, Channing. Tell me about who I’d be going to see.”
“I think we should lower our voices. Just in case someone is listening. Even though it’s just a game . . . and none of this is ever going to happen.” Giordano leaned forward as far as he could.
The kid’s eyes were glowing like a child’s on Christmas morning. “Right, right. Sure. None of this is ever going to really happen. . . .”
Channing took the lead and began to speak softly.
The game had begun.
CHAPTER
ONE
“I’m going to kill him. I swear, the minute his plane lands, I will kill him.”
Amanda Crosby glared at the screen of the laptop that sat open on the cluttered counter near the door of Crosby & England, the antiques shop she co-owned with Derek England, the subject of her wrath.
“Is she sure? Is your sister positive it’s the same