Look Before You Jump

by D. A. Bale

  “Like I said, helping a friend.”

  “Clearing evidence of his crime, you mean,” Duncan said, running a finger over the edge of the humidor.

  “He didn’t kill his wife. Why don’t you do a little investigating and actually listen to our conversation from this morning…er, yesterday morning,” I challenged.

  “Because I already did.” A smirk planted firmly on his face just before a knock at the interrogation door. “How do you think I found you?”

  When Duncan opened the door, I felt like the head football coach getting the Gatorade bath at the end of the game. Only this time I wasn’t on the winning team. Tired eyes held flames of fury ready to unleash my way.

  “Duncan,” Zeke greeted.

  “Taylor,” Duncan responded.

  Out of the frying pan and into the fire. I was about to be someone’s bitch alright. Yup, I was so dead.

  ***

  Silence.

  I wasn’t about to be the one to break it. With no sleep for the past twenty-four hours and only one cup of coffee flowing through my veins, synapses weren’t firing in my brain which wouldn’t bode well for my foot-in-mouth disease. Instead I listened to the rumble of his Ford Raptor and watched the sun rise over a new day in Dallas. The day Ranger Zeke saved my sorry carcass from rotting in a Dallas jail cell. The day my account balance with Zeke went so deep into the negative I was swimming in red. He owned my hide.

  And we both knew it.

  “I told you to stay away,” Zeke finally growled.

  “Well that didn’t work,” I responded.

  “Why won’t you ever listen to me?”

  “Bobby needed me to…”

  My body jerked against the seatbelt as Zeke slammed on the brakes with a squeal of molten tires and slid the truck onto the highway shoulder in one tug of the steering wheel. The stench of burned rubber filled the cab. Horns honked and middle fingers were raised in the southern salute, but Zeke’s attention was all on me.

  “Are you ready to join him in jail?”

  “All Bobby wanted me to do was see those letters,” I said.

  “Will you listen to yourself? Bobby this and Bobby that. Do you know how close you were to being booked?”

  In a moment of clarity and wisdom I remained silent.

  Zeke took a deep breath. “Damnit, Vic, I’m trying to help you here, but you’ve gotta start helping yourself by listening to me for once in your life. You’re not going to do Bobby any good sitting right beside him.”

  “Then what should I have done all day? Wait around for you to finish planning security for the governor’s visit?”

  “If I’d known what you were looking for, I could’ve made a phone call. Arranged to meet up with Duncan at the house after I got off work.”

  “Would you have let me go inside with you?” I asked.

  “It’s an active crime scene,” was all Zeke said.

  “Then I’d have never gotten the name of Amy’s dad.”

  Zeke stopped for a second. “Is Juarez really her father?”

  “I’d say it’s a safe bet.”

  We remained silent until Zeke pulled up in front of my apartment building.

  “What about my car?” I asked.

  “I’ve taken care of it. Should be dropped off by ten.”

  “I guess that means I’ll have to stay awake until then,” I muttered, dragging my ragged rump from the cab.

  Zeke rolled down the window after I shut the door. “Remember, I’m still working on things from my end. I don’t want to see an innocent man in jail any more than you.”

  My brain was already shutting down. “Yeah, yeah.”

  “I mean it, Vicki. Call me if you need anything.”

  If my antenna hadn’t been so addled, I’d have suspected more lingered behind Zeke’s statement than an intent to help with Bobby’s situation. The truck idled at the curb while Zeke waited for me to enter my complex and stumble my way past the super’s apartment and up the stairs. In my present state, the only man allowed in my rumpled bed this day was my ball-less and claw-less tabby.

  After all, a girl needed sleep on occasion.

  ***

  Ever have one of those headaches from lack of sleep? It’s different from the piercing headache caused from a hangover, where light and sound are like a hot poker to the gray matter. It’s the kind of ache where your brain feels too heavy for your skull. Disembodied and fuzzy. It takes far too much effort to piece together a single sentence, much less follow through on an action.

  The tequila bottle rested in my hand as I tried to remember if I’d actually poured it in the glass on the bar a second ago or if I’d dreamt it. The music warbled around me as if coming from a tin can. I tossed in a measure of tequila – just in case – threw a lime wedge on the edge and called it good. Thank God this night at the bar remained slow.

  After spending the eventful morning with Duncan and then Zeke, a nap had sounded like the perfect fix to a not-so-perfect day’s start. But after collapsing into my bed and drifting faster than a racecar at Daytona, Janine’s call for updates got my brain going again – however briefly – as I replayed my visit to Bobby’s home and my almost trip to the slammer. Certain discoveries I kept to myself, namely the probability of the chromosomal contribution to Amy’s genetic makeup. If it’d concerned Bobby enough not to reveal the name through a recorded jail line, it’d behoove me to hold it close as well and not reveal it to outsiders.

  “Well if it isn’t my favorite mind reader.”

  My brain snapped awake so fast at the familiar voice it almost gave me whiplash. “Hey there, Radioman.”

  Cornflower-blue eyes sparked in the ambient bar lighting. The amber hair sported the perpetual indentation from wearing headphones all day. Yeah, I’d love a chance to fix it by ruffling my fingers through it. Or tousle it when he kissed me. Oh hell, why not just tangling it as he made wild and passionate love to me. With his silky and sultry radio voice, I’d let him talk dirty to me all night long.

  Nope, I no longer felt tired at all. In fact just call me the energizer bunny.

  Radioman chuckled. “Where’d that moniker come from?”

  I popped the lid off a Sam Adams and handed it over. “I made it up the night we first met when you came in with your two buddies.”

  After a long pull, he sat down on a stool. “It’s better than Bruce, that’s for sure.”

  “As long as your last name isn’t Banner or Wayne, and you don’t go running around in the night all green and enraged or caped and cowled, we’ll call it good.”

  “You can call me whatever you want,” he growled with a smile.

  My legs got a little noodley with that pitch, and I leaned against the counter to stay upright – even though all my happy neurons wanted to go horizontal. “What brings you out without the entourage?”

  He leaned forward and rested his elbows on either side of his beer. “The chance to see a lovely lady again.”

  I followed suit and leaned near, loose strands of hair tumbling over my shoulders and pooling on the bar. “Are you flirting with me, Mr. Radioman?”

  “I might be.” He wound a strand around his finger and gave it a test tug. “You free on Saturday night?”

  The spicy scent of his cologne wafted beneath my nostrils as he came in closer for the kill, licking his lips and lowering his lids to half-mast. I sucked in a breath. Why didn’t he get it over with and take me right there on the cold, hard counter?

  “No she’s not free,” Grady interrupted. “She’s a working girl.”

  Exhaustion washed over me again. Radioman pulled away to a more respectable distance – damnit – as Grady sidled up behind and draped an arm across my shoulders like a dog marking his territory. Pheromones flew thick before I shimmied out from underneath the boss’ arm, grabbed a towel, and started taking my frustrations out on the counter.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “But yeah, I’m working Saturday ni
ght.”

  Radioman wasn’t so easily deterred. “What about tomorrow night?”

  “She’s gonna be out of town,” another familiar voice called out.

  Zeke flanked Radioman, set his black Stetson aside and tapped the bar in front of him. I knew what it meant, but I ignored him on principle and fumed instead.

  “What do you mean, I’m gonna be out of town?” I groused.

  Grady poured a dark ale from the tap and set it before Ranger Taylor. “Need some alone time with your girl, Zeke?”

  “I’m not his girl.”

  “If it’s not too much trouble, Grady,” Zeke responded.

  “I’m not his girl,” I corrected again for Radioman’s benefit.

  “How many days you gonna need her?” Grady asked Zeke.

  “I’m standing right here, guys.”

  “Tomorrow’s all,” Zeke continued, completely ignoring me.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” I broke in.

  Radioman’s head toggled back and forth through the ridiculous conversation, quietly drinking his beer and seeming to enjoy the show about me that didn’t include me. The slight lift at the corners of his mouth said he was actually enjoying my pain.

  Men.

  “Just a cotton-pickin’ minute,” I yelled and turned to Grady. “You won’t give me Friday or Saturday off to go on a date, but Ranger Boy, who by the way is not my boyfriend, comes waltzing in and you give me tomorrow night off to spend in his company? No questions asked?”

  Grady shrugged. “He wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Besides, you’ve been so grumpy tonight I figured you could use some entertainment.”

  “Humph,” I muttered as I confronted Zeke. “What’s so important that you need to take away my earning potential on a busy night?”

  “Need you to take a trip down to Austin with me.”

  “Austin? Why the hell would I need to go to Austin tomorrow? Can’t it wait until Monday?”

  Zeke guzzled the ale and stood, sliding his hat from the bar to his head in one smooth motion. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  “Seven?” I asked his retreating figure. “As in A.M.?”

  “Yup.”

  Grady and Radioman smiled at me in unison. My brain simply glazed over. Too many early mornings in a row. Why me? Someone just shoot me now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Don’t talk to me,” I muttered, squinting behind my sunglasses and ducking beneath the ball cap bill to avoid the early morning sun.

  Might as well call me a vampire ‘cause at this rate I’d shrivel up the moment the rays touched any part of my physiology. Early mornings and I have never gone together in any sphere, universe, or alternate dimension. I’m a mistress of the night – yeah, we all know by now, in more ways than one, right? Bite me.

  “Good morning to you too,” Zeke offered as I swept by him and stormed across the parking lot to his extended cab.

  When I tried to open the door, resistance sent me reeling toward the asphalt until Zeke stopped my backward progress. Arms I’d once found delightful wrapped around my body. But not today. Like an inebriated date, I jerked from his embrace and stumbled against the frame. The click of locks hardly concealed Zeke’s chuckle as he peeled me aside and opened the truck door.

  “Asshole,” I muttered, inspecting a couple of broken nails.

  “Coffee’s on the dash.”

  That sent me scrambling up into the truck faster than you can say chocolate. I barely tasted the brew until I’d drained over half the extra-large cup, and Zeke had us dodging traffic along I-35 headed south. With my brain beginning the journey toward semi-consciousness, I checked around the floor and console.

  “What? No breakfast?”

  Zeke threw a glance over his shoulder before nudging between two rigs barreling down in the left lane. It felt like we were a soft, gooey center about to be smashed between two hard cookies ala Oreo.

  “I wanna get clear of the worst of this mess first,” Zeke said. “We’ll stop at a café between Hillsboro and Waco.”

  “Oh huh-uh,” I said. “I know what between means to you, Zeke Taylor. If you don’t want your precious truck wearing a revisit of the coffee I’ve already swallowed, you will not make me wait ‘til Waco.”

  “Lean back and take a nap then.”

  “After drinking an extra-large Big Z special blend that’s strong enough to rot a hole through my empty gut?”

  “Why’d you drink the damn thing so fast?” Zeke punctuated his frustration with a sharp mash to the brake to avoid sliding beneath the leading rig’s undercarriage.

  I braced against the dash to keep from becoming road kill. “Because with the way you drive, it’d end up wasted on the floorboards otherwise.”

  “Before or after the revisit?”

  “I need food,” I demanded. “Sooner would be better than later.”

  Mutterings punctuated with a word or two unfit for feminine ears emanated from the driver’s seat. Taking a brief opening in traffic, Zeke weaved the Raptor to the right between a flashy little Lexus and an RV on its last lug nut. A couple of miles down the road, and he’d successfully maneuvered into the far right-hand lane to exit near the great metropolis of Italy, Texas. The truck stop sat at the edge of no-man’s land. The only thing that stared back at us – besides livestock – was an enormous sign large enough for the International Space Station to read Earth’s current gas prices and a great big, yellow M.

  “Oh, hell no,” I exclaimed. “You are not taking me to eat at that Mickey D’s.”

  “Well I sure as hell ain’t sittin’ here waitin’ for the steakhouse to open for lunch,” Zeke responded as he pulled into a parking spot and shut off the engine. “It’s the golden arches now or you can wait until Waco, princess.”

  The loud protestations of my belly cinched it. Grumblings of frustration joined those of my hollow portions as I climbed from the truck and punctuated my irritation by slamming the truck door before stomping into what was loosely referred to as a restaurant.

  See why I don’t get up before ten? I’m usually a nice human being. Honest. It’s just multiple early mornings in a row with little more than a couple of hours sleep in between have left me severely depleted. The bitchy needle was firmly lodged in the red zone. Then there’s the whole thing with Bobby in jail for murder hanging over my head. Couple that with spending an entire day in the presence of my ex-boyfriend – can I get a little sympathy now?

  Two heart attack platters and a couple of scorching-hot coffees later, Zeke and I launched back onto the interstate, heading south toward our goal. Our goal? Hmm. A reasonably comfortable tummy and a bloodstream pumping with enough caffeine to put down a rhino had awakened me enough to ask some reasonably non-bitchy questions.

  “I guess I should’ve inquired earlier, but why exactly am I going with you to Austin?”

  Since traffic had grown a bit more reasonable so had Zeke, all slouched in the seat with his Stetson pushed back, one arm resting lazily on the steering wheel and the other on the seat between us. In the old days, I’d have been in that spot where his hand sat – or propped on the edge of his lap. My pulse took a slight uptick at the memory. Maybe it was the caffeine flood. Yeah, that’ll work.

  “Gotta job for you,” Zeke said.

  “Better not be a blow job,” I mumbled.

  He winked. “We’ll save that for later.”

  “Ain’t gonna be a later when I leap from this cab.”

  “Grab what’s between your legs.”

  “Excuse me?” My squeak could’ve cracked the windshield.

  “Lord Almighty, woman. Underneath the seat.”

  Who was bitchy now? I reached beneath the seat and produced a soft-sided brown briefcase. This was interesting. Zeke Taylor, Mr. Cowboy Extraordinaire, carried a briefcase?

  I chuckled. Then I cracked up. Warm tears trickled down my cheeks and my abs felt like they’d endured too many crunches before laugh
ter subsided. Maybe it was the sleepy sillies. “When did you start getting so important you had to get a briefcase?”

  “Just hand it over.” Zeke pointed to the seat between us. “I always carry one when I have to travel.”

  “It doesn’t match your hat or truck,” I observed.

  “I didn’t want a hard case, and this one only came in brown.”

  With his knee in the driving position and one eye on the road, Zeke rummaged through the case. A glance through a couple of folders, then he pulled out a manila envelope from one.

  Zeke has an incredible poker face – it’s what makes him so good at his job. It also makes him a formidable opponent in the card game. When we’d dated, he was the Company ‘B’ Ranger Station poker champion. Played for the prestige, folks. No money changed hands.

  But when you get personal and in touch with every inch of someone – and I mean every inch – you pick up on more than just physical tells. You can feel it when something’s not right.

  “What’s all that?” I asked, pointing at the briefcase full of folders.

  “My job,” Zeke grunted, handing me the envelope.

  “Oka-a-ay, what’s this?”

  “Your job,” he explained. “While I’m hammering out some security details about the governor’s visit next week, you’re gonna have a pow-wow with the vital statistics office.”

  “Vital statistics? You mean like birth and death certificates? Marriage and divorces?”

  “Yup.”

  I stared at the envelope in my hands then up at Zeke. “You’re not getting any weird ideas here, are you?”

  “Just look through the damn envelope. Jeez!”

  A signed waiver from Bobby. A court order authorizing a search of Amy’s records. I shivered.

  “Amy’s birth and death records?”

  “Stick with the birth record,” Zeke commanded. “We both know how she died.”

  That shut me up tighter than a sinner on Sunday.

  ***

  I’m not sure how much sleep I got, but when I peeked through one slit to see a myriad of state government offices, I knew we’d arrived in Austin – minus my skull. A short nap when the need was so great left my body begging for more and amplified the misery. It would’ve been better if I hadn’t succumbed to Mr. Sandman.

  A sweaty bottle of Dr. Pepper clouded my vision. “Rise and shine, princess. Take this dripping caffeine fix before I toss it.”