Full Ratchet: A Silas Cade Thriller Hardcover by Mike Cooper

pushed the drape open a few inches. Daylight, momentarily dazzling.
    Johnny keeps a little money of mine in a beneficiary account. We talk, now and then, usually on the phone. Once a month maybe we have dinner, often in the middle of the night when Johnny finally leaves his trading room. We don’t have many friends in common.
    What I mean is, it’s not an
obvious
connection. Not the sort of lead you’d run down after canvassing friends and neighbors. But given Johnny’s profession, it might seem like an important one to someone worried about my involvement in top-drawer corporate finance.
    Say, some shady, multimillion-dollar improprieties at a Pennsylvania manufacturer.
    “What’d you give them?”
    “Nothing. We haven’t talked for weeks, I have no idea where you are or what you’re doing.”
    “Were they happy?”
    “Didn’t seem to care much, actually. She asked a lot of questions but never reacted particularly.”
    The motel’s parking lot was emptier now, the tractor trailers all gone, maybe a fourth of the spaces still occupied by other vehicles. Nothing seemed out of place.
    “I have to ask, why did they . . . why did you talk to them at all?”
    “I don’t know.” He paused. “They didn’t threaten me or anything. They were just kind of implacable. Like we were absolutely going to have a discussion no matter what, so don’t even bother objecting.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Also, the woman—” He stopped.
    “What?”
    “I’d say . . . she’s
really
good-looking.”
    I had to laugh. “Sounds like she ought to be on the floor. If she can turn
your
head, she can probably roll traders all over the market.”
    A door slammed outside. A man walked past my window, coming from another room, and got into a silver two-door parked down the row. He sat for a moment, then the brake and running lights came on, and the car backed out.
    “What else?” I asked.
    “Nothing. They left.”
    “Did anyone else see them?”
    “I suppose, but you know how it is—they were paying attention to their screens, not some visitors they didn’t recognize. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
    “I’m not sure. I did a job this week at a company division in Pittsburgh called Clay Micro.” I gave him the thirty-thousand-foot overview. “So it looks like simple housecleaning, though the management here might have a few more dirty diapers than most. It might not even be related. The kind of people visiting you and Zeke are just . . . disproportionate.”
    “Clay Micro is part of Clayco?”
    “Yeah.”
    “They’re majority owned by Sweetwater Investments.”
    Figures he’d know that. “Yeah,” I said again.
    “So in effect, you’re on the clock for Wilbur Markson.” Johnny laughed. “What’d you do, cheat on the preemployment personality test?”
    “Apparently, someone really doesn’t want Markson finding out how deep into the swamp Clay Micro is.”
    “But they
hired
you.”
    “I know. Could be the Clay Micro CEO instead, trying to clean things up . . . it’s confusing.”
    We went round at it another minute, until Johnny got bored. I didn’t have any new ideas.
    “You’re there now?” he said. “In Pittsburgh?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Maybe you should stay a little longer.”
    First Zeke, now Johnny. “Why?”
    “I said they didn’t threaten me.” He paused. “But the woman did threaten
you
.”
    “How?”
    “Like they weren’t going to stop looking. The sooner they found you, the better. But all unemotional, like she was talking about grocery shopping. That made it almost . . . scary, you know? ‘We’re going to tear this city apart, there’s nowhere he can hide’—as a simple statement of fact.”
    “Hmm.”
    I heard some clacking at Johnny’s end. He was probably getting back to work, drawn by the irresistible pull of the screens.
    “Let me know if you hear anything about Clayco,” I said.
    “I’ll ask around.”
    “And Johnny? I’m taking you serious and