"How did you know that was the next step?" "Because it's what I would do," Jesse said simply.
"If you freeze the accounts, Clay can't pay anyone.
And the people he uses, they work on payment. The whole network runs on payment.
You dry up the money and the loyalty goes with it." He poured himself coffee with slightly unsteady hands.
"He's going to panic."
People who panic reach for the thing closest to them, which, in Clay's case, is violence. "Violence," Danny said.
Jesse said, "It's always been violence, but the money gave it structure. Without the money, it's just..."
He stopped. "It's just the violence."
The three of them sat with that for a moment.
Then Grim's phone rang again.
Different number this time. An area code he recognized as Wikieup-adjacent.
He didn't know the specific number, but he knew the geography of it, and the geography told him enough. He picked up.
There was breathing on the other end. Then a voice he didn't recognize.
An older woman, shaking slightly with controlled anger rather than fear, spoke. "Is this the man who got Sarah Cole out last night?"
"Who is this?" Grim said.
My name is Patricia Guerrero. I live three properties down from Clay Mercer.
I have for 11 years. A pause.
I have a video on my phone from this morning. Clay left his property at 6:15 and he was not alone.
And I know where he's going because I heard him say it on his phone before he got in the truck and he didn't know I was outside. Grim's hand tightened on the phone.
"Where is he going?" "He said Laughlin."
Patricia said he said he needed to get to the woman before the morning was over. The bottom dropped out of Grim's stomach.
Clay knew where Sarah was. He looked at Danny.
Danny read his face and was already standing up, already reaching for his jacket. Mrs. Guerrero, Grim said, keeping his voice level and clean of everything he was feeling.
I need you to send that video to a number I'm going to give you right now and then I need you to go inside your house and lock your door.
"I've been locking my door for 11 years," she said., "What I want to know is whether this is going to stop, whether this actually stops." "Yes," Grim said.
"It stops."