The man who called himself Vince Keller stood outside the screen door with his hands raised, thumbs hooked behind the straps of an oily canvas rucksack. He smelled of creosote and spruce, like someone who had slept two nights in a drainage culvert.
“I didn’t bring iron,” he said through the mesh, his voice thin and dry. “I didn’t bring powder, either.”
Mara Vale stayed behind the oak desk, fingers on the cold brass casing of the register. Through the service hatch she could hear spoons clattering in the kitchen where Gideon dished out broth, and further down the breezeway, Luis’s murmur as he sat with the child in Room 11.
“State your name,” Mara said.
“Vince Keller. Born in Dent County, hauled diesel for the maintenance pool out of Rolla.” He glanced at the brass plate beside the frame. “I know where the Mercer girl is sleeping, and I know how to get her past the wire.”
Mara’s spine stiffened. “People who come with names they didn’t earn usually want something they haven’t priced.”
“I’m pricing it straight,” Keller said, leaning closer. “Four county-sealed storm-glass canisters. Six units each. Twenty-four total. You give me the cells, I bring June Mercer across your cattle guard before Thursday midnight.”
