I can call her right now. She's got a spare room and she doesn't talk.
"Does she know Clay Mercer?" Grim asked.
"She's lived in Laughlin for 30 years."
She doesn't know anyone who lives on this side of the river. Grim looked at Sarah.
That work for you? I don't want to put anyone else in danger.
Sarah said immediately. That's not what I asked.
A beat passed. Then yes, that works.
Millie was already moving to the phone. Ethan had been standing slightly apart from his mother during this exchange, listening with that unsettling total attention he had.
Now he spoke up. "He's going to find us in Laughlin, too," he said.
Not pessimism, just fact. "He found us everywhere else."
Grim turned to look at him. That's because every other time you were working with what you had, and he was working with more.
Tonight, the situation is different. "How?"
Grim was quiet for a moment.
The question deserved a real answer, not a placating one. And the boy deserved to know he was being taken seriously.
Because this time, Grim said, "He doesn't know what I know." Ethan looked at him steadily.
"What do you know?" And that was when Danny came in through the back.
He came in fast the way Danny moved when fast was required, and the expression on his face was one Grim hadn't seen on him in several years. A combination of controlled alarm and barely suppressed excitement that meant he had found something.
And what he had found was significant. "Outside.
Now," Danny said. Grim followed him out the back without a word.
The cold hit immediately. The rain had eased to a drizzle, but the temperature had dropped and the parking lot was lit by a single buzzing light above the back door.
Marco was standing at the edge of the lot, and beside him was someone Grim didn't immediately recognize. A young man, early 20s, in a denim jacket, thin, nervous, the kind of nervous that runs deeper than just the present moment.
The kind that's been living in a person for a while. He came up to Marco on the road, Danny said.
Said he needed to talk to you. Grim looked at the young man.
"Who are you?" The young man swallowed.
"My name's Jesse. Jesse Tarant."
"I work for Clay. Ran deliveries for him."