Angels (Nevada James #3) (Nevada James Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF Page B

to, I’ll drive you to the Greyhound station instead.”
    “Okay,”
she said. “It’s a deal. Bring money, though. Is…is a thousand bucks okay?”
    That
wasn’t the most I’d ever paid a confidential informant for information, but it
was close. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the money, though. “I can do that,” I
said. “If you tell me something interesting, anyway. I really want to believe
you’re not wasting my time, or…” I stopped. I’d nearly said setting me up to be robbed . I wanted to believe Krystal would never do that, but I
wouldn’t have put it past her. “Anyway, I just don’t know.”
    “I’m not
wasting your time,” Krystal said. “I promise. Angel Nevada, I promise.”
    That
kind of talk was getting old in a hurry. “2:00 pm tomorrow,” I said. I’d never
been a fan of getting up early.
    “Okay.
I’ll be here.”
    “No,” I
said. “I don’t want to go to your place.” I couldn’t ignore the possibility
that this was a robbery plot that was both desperate and imaginative. I thought
about it. “There’s a McDonald’s about five blocks south of there. Across from a
laundromat. They’ve got a big sign with a happy washing machine or something.
You know it?”
    “Yeah. I
know it.”
    “Meet me
there at 2:00. I’ll buy you a hamburger.”
    “Okay,”
she said. She hesitated. “Um…that’s on top of the thousand, right?”
    “The
burger’s on me,” I said. “We good?”
    “Yeah.”
    “See you
then.” I hung up and looked at the burner phone. I had a habit of throwing
these away after one use, but that call hadn’t been anything that was going to
come back and haunt me later. I had every right to call Krystal. Dan Evans had
given me the number himself.
    I threw
the phone away, anyway.
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 4
     
     
    I woke up
late the next morning, which was as per usual. There were advantages to not
having a real job. I could sleep as late as I wanted. My ankle was still sore,
but not bad enough that I’d probably have trouble getting around. I popped two
Advil anyway and washed them down with a Diet Coke. I’d never been big on
eating breakfast. My stomach had never tolerated food early in the morning back
in my drinking days, and my appetite had never really recovered from that.
    After an
hour of screwing around on the Internet I went into my bedroom and opened the
closet. I had two suitcases in there. Both were full of cash. Some had come
from working for the gangster I’d done a job for last year. Unsurprisingly, he
hadn’t wanted to pay me with a check. The rest had come from Anita Collins, my
client on the last “job” I’d had. That had been an unmitigated disaster. Anita
had screwed me over, killing a man she’d paid me to find for her. She’d
promised me when I’d taken the job that she’d let the legal system take its
course, but she’d been lying and I’d fallen for it. She’d tried to make up for it
with money, but I was still angry about it. Anita was currently under house
arrest, her murder trial having been stalled with every legal trick her
high-priced lawyers had been able to engineer. She’d probably walk, in the end.
I didn’t have much faith left in the justice system. The money came in handy,
though. I’d never have to work again, so long as I didn’t lose my mind and start
buying myself fancy cars. Or maybe a private jet or two.
    A
thousand dollars meant next to nothing to me. I counted ten hundred-dollar
bills into an envelope and stuck it in the pocket of my damaged leather jacket.
If Krystal actually let me get her into a rehab I’d need more, but that was
fine. I’d been making small deposits into a bank account I kept for nearly a
year now. They were never big enough to raise questions with the IRS, but they
gave me a way to deal with larger expenditures. Most places didn’t want to
accept an envelope full of cash as payment, but a wire transfer would do just
fine.
    I waited
until 1:30 and