Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) by Karen Rose

            This was why he didn’t drink often. He’d woken to find he’d thrown up on Smythe’s floor, the empty whiskey bottle next to him in bed. Not a drop remained.

            He didn’t remember finishing the bottle, which was alarming. He’d quickly checked all of his devices to be sure he hadn’t e-mailed or texted or posted anything damning, nearly wilting with relief when he saw that he had not.

            He was never going to drink again. Which wasn’t going to be a problem if he didn’t figure out a way out of this mess. Right now, he was one guy with a bum arm, a rifle, and a handgun. And a laptop, which wasn’t worth jack shit, because Kowalski didn’t show up in any police reports, and according to the Internet, he owned no land or vehicles. He did, of course. He owned several vehicles, but DJ had never seen a legit license plate on any of them.

            Not a surprise. Kowalski had been the one to teach him to use a 3D printer to make fake license plates. None of the addresses DJ had visited with Kowalski were registered to any real people. Like DJ’s house in Yuba City was owned by “John Derby.”

            He hit dead end after dead end. None of Kowalski’s associates were traceable, because none of them used real names, either.

            The cell phone charging on the nightstand pinged with an incoming text. DJ grabbed it to silence it but stopped when he saw the screen.

            This was Nelson Smythe’s cell phone and the man had missed at least five calls and twenty text messages from his wife while DJ slept. This latest one read: Answer me or I’m calling 911. Did you have a stroke? Are you there? ANSWER ME!!!!

            “Shit,” DJ muttered. He’d been good about keeping up with the woman’s texts, providing one- or two-word replies, such as Yes, No, Maybe, I’ll check, and Love you. Those were pretty typical of Smythe’s replies over the past six months, so DJ felt pretty confident that the woman hadn’t been suspicious.

            Except then he’d drunk an entire bottle of whiskey and missed a whole assload of texts.

            Groaning, he descended the stairs to the garage, where he grabbed a hair dryer and lifted the chest freezer’s lid. Ice crystals had formed on Smythe’s face, just like they had every day after he melted them off the day before.

            Turning the hair dryer on, he blew warm air over Smythe’s frozen face until it was ice-free, then held the phone over his face until the screen unlocked. He hadn’t been that concerned about the texts until now, but if she called 911, it would suck. He needed a little time to pack his printers and the few belongings he’d taken from the Yuba City house.

            I’m fine, he texted back. Not dead. 24-hr bug. Feeling better. Love you.

            Glad u r not dead! The message was punctuated by heart emojis. Will call tonight. Miss u.

            “Fuck,” he muttered. If she called and he didn’t answer, she might call 911. That was what he needed to avoid. Miss u, he replied.

            He’d get the truck loaded up with his stuff, just in case. But he’d use some of the time to print more license plates. What he hoped for was to get Kowalski to back off and stop trying to kill him, but he didn’t think that was likely. So now he was focused on finding Kowalski’s hangouts. What he really wanted was Kowalski’s weapons stash, but if he stumbled on a vehicle along the way, he’d take it, because the Lexus was too dangerous to drive now. The BOLO on him listed the car’s make, model, and color along with the note that it would have fake plates.

            Assholes. He was putting the blow dryer away when another text arrived on Smythe’s phone. It was a photo of some really cute kids all lined up, mouths open like birds. They were singing.

            The next text read: Liam was the very best!

            Liam, DJ had deduced, was the couple’s grandson, the event a concert at the kid’s school.

            Send video, DJ typed back, because that was what Smythe usually said. DJ had wondered why the man hadn’t gone with his wife, but had realized through reading their texts that Smythe and his son-in-law did not get along.

            He was lowering the freezer lid when a memory tickled his brain.

            Concerts. Children.

            “Oh,” he breathed.

            Kowalski had a kid. A little boy, around six years old. On Wednesday, the kid had done a recital at his school. It was a private school, because DJ remembered Kowalski complaining about the cost of tuition when they’d been negotiating with a customer who’d wanted a break on the price of the kilo of coke they were selling.