“At least fourteen million.”
Wade almost laughed from disbelief.
“Fourteen million dollars of cattle supposedly sitting on my ranch?”
“Not all at once.”
“Rotating inventory.”
“Collateral substitutions.”
“Shipping lines.”
“Your legal description appears repeatedly.”
He looked at the stain.
“Whose blood?”
Marisol went still.
“My coworker, Tomas.”
“What happened?”
“He found these first.”
“He came to my apartment after Hale fired me.”
“He had copies.”
“Two men followed him.”
“He was hurt getting away.”
“Bad?”
“He lived.”
Wade exhaled.
“The stain happened when he shoved these into my hands.”
“Why didn’t he go to police?”
“He did.”
“Then?”
“Someone warned Hale within two hours.”
Wade stared.
Marisol continued.
“Tomas disappeared.”
“Disappeared how?”
“He left Del Rio.”
“Called me once from New Mexico.”
“Said he’d contact me when safe.”
“That was six weeks ago.”
“Nothing since.”
The room seemed smaller.
Wade stood and walked toward window.
He pulled curtain back slightly.
Black land.
No lights.
“Why my ranch?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s what terrified me.”
Marisol stood.
“If your bank forecloses and takes possession, they control the place their loan records claim held the collateral.”
Wade turned slowly.
“They can manufacture proof afterward.”
“Or destroy whatever contradicts it.”
“Maybe.”
Headlights swept across the bedroom wall.
Both froze.
Another beam crossed the ceiling.
A vehicle turned into the yard.
Marisol whispered:
“They found me.”
Wade killed the lamp.
Darkness swallowed the room.
He took the document.
“Satchel?”
“Under my bed.”
“How many copies?”
“This is one.”
“Digital?”
“I photographed most of it.”
“Where?”
“Memory card.”
“Where?”
Marisol looked at him.
“I’m not telling you.”
Under different circumstances Wade might have smiled.
Instead he nodded.
“Good.”
The engine outside stopped.
A truck door opened.
Then another.
Wade moved toward the hallway.
Marisol caught his arm.
“Don’t.”
“It’s my house.”
“That doesn’t make you bulletproof.”
He looked at her.
“Stay upstairs.”
“No.”
“Marisol.”
“I did not travel nine hundred miles to become obedient.”
Footsteps crossed porch.
A fist struck front door.
“Mercer!”
Wade recognized the voice.
Graham Whitlock.
He and Marisol looked at each other.
Another knock.
“Wade, open up.”
Wade whispered:
“The bank attorney?”
Marisol’s expression hardened.
“That answers something.”
Wade slipped the stained document inside the inner lining of his coat.
Then he unlocked bedroom door.
“Stay behind me.”
Marisol gave him a look.
“Beside.”
He did not argue.
They went downstairs.