Sandra Marton - Raising The Stakes

Kitteridge hung up. Gray let out a breath, checked for nonexistent traffic and drove across the road to the diner.

Almost twenty minutes later, he was nursing a cup of inky black liquid the waitress had poured him when the door opened. A man stepped inside. He was maybe six-three with a rugged, work-hardened body and a face Gray figured men would call nasty and some women would call strong. The guy shook himself like a wet dog as the door swung shut, thumbed an oily-looking lock of black hair from his forehead and scanned the room even though Gray and the waitress were the only people in it.

“Coffee,” he barked in the general direction of the counter. He walked toward Gray with a loping swagger. “You Baron?”

Gray got to his feet. “Yes.” He forced himself to hold out his hand. He had the irrational feeling he’d want to wipe it off after Kitteridge shook it. “Harman Kitteridge?”

Kitteridge looked at Gray’s hand as if he’d never seen a lawyer’s hand without a subpoena in it before. Then he grasped it and fixed his eyes on Gray’s.

“That’s my name.”

He squeezed Gray’s hand hard. Harder, when Gray didn’t flinch. What Gray really wanted to do was laugh. Was he actually being invited to have a pissing contest in a run-down diner on Main Street, U.S.A.? He was going to have some interesting tales to tell when he got back to New York.

Kitteridge grunted. Gray wasn’t sure if it was a sign of dissatisfaction or pleasure. He let go of Gray’s hand, slid into the opposite banquette and sat back while the waitress served his coffee. He poured in cream, added half a dozen heaping teaspoons of sugar, stirred the coagulating mess and licked the spoon before dropping it on the table.

“What’s this all about, Baron?”

“It’s about your wife’s grandfather’s estate.”

“What about it?”

“Sorry. I can’t discuss it with anyone but her.” Gray looked past Kitteridge, as if he expected to see Dawn standing near the door. “Where is she? I told you to bring her with you.”

Minutes passed. Kitteridge’s stare was filled with venom. Finally he drank some coffee, then put down his cup.

“She ain’t here.”

“Where is she, then?”

“Listen, man, my wife is out of town. You want to waste this whole trip?” Kitteridge grinned, showing off sharp, yellowing teeth. “Or you want me to think you always hang around places like this diner and Queen City?”

Okay. Kitteridge wasn’t really stupid. Gray could only hope he was greedy, greedy enough to swallow the story he was about to tell him. It was one part truth, nine parts fantasy, and—he hoped—sufficient to get information without giving any.

“Well, I guess it won’t hurt if I fill you in on some of the details. This is about Ben Lincoln.”

“Who the hell is Ben Lincoln?”

Gray reminded himself that losing his temper and telling this asshole that he was an asshole would be counterproductive.

“Your wife’s grandfather,” he said calmly. “On her mother’s side.”

“What about her mother?” Kitteridge’s eyes narrowed. “Who you been talkin’ to?”

Definitely an asshole, but he needed him. Take it easy, Gray told himself, and just keep smiling.

“Nobody. I’m trying to give you some background, make sure you understand the importance of this conversation.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got that. Go on. What’s the deal?”

“Your wife’s grandfather left her something in his will.”

Gray could almost see the dollar signs light up in Kitteridge’s eyes. “Dawn’s got money comin’?”

“The inheritance isn’t much. Not by most standards. Look, I can’t actually discuss it with you, so if you’d just tell me where I can find your wife—”

Kitteridge shot out a hand and grabbed Gray by the front of his shirt. “Listen here, Mr. Lawyer, I’ve about had it with your games. How much is comin’ to her? I’m her husband. I got the right to know.”

Gray closed his hand around Harman’s wrist and pressed his thumb against a pulse point. He could see the shock in the other man’s face as he began exerting pressure. When he was a kid, he’d worked his father’s pathetic excuse of a ranch, branding cows, neutering bulls, breaking the few horses Jonas usually let Leighton buy for next to nothing each year. He’d played rugby at Princeton, soccer at Yale, and as soon as he found himself chafing at the sedentary boundaries imposed by his profession, he’d taken up handball, racquetball and Japanese aikido. His body was honed and hard, his grip strong and unyielding and he knew, with a little rush of satisfaction, that the prick seated across from him had not expected any of it.

“Let go of the shirt, Kitteridge,” he said softly. “Right now, or you won’t be able to use that hand for a month.”

Kitteridge stared at him through eyes flat with pain and rage. After a minute, he smiled. It made him look like a Halloween mask designed to scare the pants off kids who had seen one horror movie too many.

“Sure. No harm meant.”

Kitteridge dropped his hand to the table. Gray let him settle his shoulders back against the cracked vinyl of the banquette.

“Guess we got ourselves off to a poor start, Baron. It’s just that I don’t like somebody comin’ around, askin’ about my wife without me knowin’ what’s up.”

Gray nodded. He could still feel his blood pumping hot and fast through his veins but he was here for information and beating the stupid son of a bitch across from him to a pulp wasn’t the way to get it.

“Yeah. Okay. I understand, but you need to understand my position. I’m legally charged with seeing to it that your wife gets what’s coming to her.”

“Trust me, Baron. I want her to get what’s comin’ to her, too.”

Harman saw the lawyer’s eyes narrow. Stupid, he told himself, stupid, stupid. He had to watch what he said around this slick bastard. The guy wasn’t from around here. He was from a big city, Phoenix or L.A. or even someplace on the East Coast. He wasn’t as easy as he looked, either. He had a lazy smile, clean fingernails, a way of talking that made him sound as if he’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he also had an iron grip and a hardness to him that had been a surprise. And what in hell was this talk about that bitch, Dawn, and some kind of inheritance?

He still had trouble saying Dawn’s name, even thinking it, without wanting to put his fist through the wall. Goddamn slut, taking off in the middle of the night, walking out on him as if she had the right to do whatever she wanted. He should have slapped her around more often. That would have kept her in line, same as it had done for her mama.

And all these damn fool questions about Dawn’s grandfather. She’d never talked about a grandfather. Hell, she hadn’t talked about her own mama much, never mind anybody else, and now, from out of nowhere, she had a grandpa who had left her money? Hot damn, that was something to think about. Some dead presidents would go a long way toward making up for what the bitch had done to him, leaving him with an empty bed, leaving him to cook and clean for himself, stealing his son even though he’d been able to see, even four years back, that the kid was going to grow up soft, like his mother.

Well, he’d have changed that. He’d still change it, when he found Dawn. And he would. He’d always intended to; he’d be damned if he’d let her think she could get away with walking out on him. But now, if there was money on the line, there was more reason than ever to find his sweet wife.

If she had money coming, it belonged to him. A man had the right to be king in his home. Dawn had never understood that but she would, once he got her back. He’d bring her home to the mountain, beat the crap out of her and the kid, too, until they both understood he was the one law in their lives.