“That’s fair,” Jo said. “I probably owe you for that.”
“I guess we’re even then,” he considered her for a moment. She was leaning against the car looking preppy and prissy and giving no indication she was toting around a pink gun in her pocket. Maybe Cal was right about her after all. The gun thing was kind of hot. As if she was reading his mind, Jo Beth made her fingers into the shape of a gun and made a shooting gesture directly at his family jewels. Addison flinched. Jo grinned, got in her car, and drove off into the night.
*
“The drugs killed him.” David paced back and forth from one end of the tiny living room to the other. He never had been able to think when he was standing still. A kind of nervous energy seemed to flow out of him and into the room surrounding them. “You don’t hit hard enough to kill a healthy 20-something year old guy.”
Gracie shuddered and shook her head. “I kicked him in the chest, David. He started spitting up blood right after that.” She had curled into a ball on David’s ancient, threadbare velveteen couch. She hadn’t been able to stop shivering even though he’d turned the trailer’s heater on at full blast at her request. David had gone to his bedroom and brought out his ancient camouflage comforter for her to bundle up in. It had only helped a little bit. He had also brought her the bottle of cheap moonshine he kept in his freezer “for emergencies” but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stomach the burning alcohol. The crying had left her feeling strangely numb but still vaguely nauseous.
David paused briefly in his pacing to cast an edgy glance out the back window. He’d parked Austin’s car in a secluded patch of brushy woods at the edge of the backyard. He kept checking outside as if he expected Austin’s corpse to get up and drive away in the car. “You said he was getting really paranoid right before he died. Paranoia makes me think drugs.”
“He was selling pills.” She traced the rings on the surface of the warped old coffee table with her finger tip. “I didn’t realize he was everyone on campus’s dealer until tonight. He kept getting calls and texts the entire time I was with him. He had a big backpack full of pill bottles on the backseat.”
“Nice,” David paused mid-step step and cut his hooded green eyes at her. “The governor’s nephew, huh?”
“Worst mistake of my life.” Gracie sighed and pulled the edges of the comforter tighter around her shoulders.
“Dating him or killing him?” David picked up the bottle of moonshine she’d abandoned on the coffee table. He held it up in the dim light of the ceiling fan and frowned at the clear liquid.
“Both.”
“I wish you had killed someone a bit less politically connected.” David sat the bottle back down on the coffee table without opening it. He rubbed his eyes with his right hand as he sat down on the coffee table. His face was only a couple of inches from Gracie’s, but she kept her eyes focused on a large burned spot on the surface of the table. “You realize they’re going to look for him, right?”
“I guess. I hadn’t really thought about it much.” Gracie wished she could close her eyes and wake up to discover this had all been a bad dream.
“His family has money. If they care about him at all then they’re going to look for him when they realize he’s gone. The Putterlings have enough political power to make the cops look long and hard for their missing kid.”
Gracie fought to swallow the growing lump in her throat. “I really screwed up, didn’t I?”
“Let’s just say that I don’t think we can afford to make any more mistakes,” David reached out and took her hand in his. He pulled her fingers into his lap. “Look at me, Gracie.”
She blinked away tears as she forced herself to meet his eyes. “I screwed up, David. Just say it.”
“For what it’s worth, I think you made the right choice.” He held up his free hand when she started to turn away from him. “Hear me out, kid. Mitchell Putterling got caught in bed with a Congressman’s wife last year. He’s already sitting in some pretty hot water when it comes to this next election.”
“So?” Gracie felt hot tears running down her cheeks. She clung to David’s hand as if she were drowning and he was her last lifeline.
“The Putterlings can’t afford another scandal. You just told me he was dealing drugs. You said he had drugs in the car, right?”
She nodded and he continued.
“If you had called the cops, they would have found you in a car with the governor’s dead nephew and a back pack full of illegal drugs.”
“The drugs were Austin’s. I didn’t have anything to do with them. I didn’t even know he had them until after-.”
“Why would they believe you?” David cut her off.
“What?”
“Why should the cops believe you?” His eyes were deceptively calm as he asked a question that sent Gracie’s stomach plummeting down into her bowels.
“It’s the truth.”
David laughed. “No one cares about the truth, Gracie. Not once the damage is already done. Your story is that he was on drugs when he tried to rape you, and you accidentally killed him when you fought back. The Putterlings’ story is going to be that a girl on drugs murdered their son. I bet they’ll say you killed him so you could steal his money.”
“What money?”
“This money.” David pulled a thick wad of cash out of his pocket and spread it out across the scarred wooden table. “Your boy was carrying around a little over $8,000. Probably drug money. Not that we could prove it. Drug money and trust fund money look just the same after the initial transaction is done.”
Gracie blinked at him in absolute horror. “You really think they would pin the drugs on me?”
“You think I’m just trying to scare you?”
“No,” Gracie shook her head vehemently. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“Blaming you for the drugs and the murder would clear the Putterlings of any wrong doing. It would turn them into the victims of a crime rather than the family of a drugged=out loser who likes to force himself on girls. A rape scandal would be bad, bad news for Mitchell Putterling right now.”
“Oh God. I’m in real trouble, aren’t I?” Gracie buried her face in her hands. “I mean, I knew I was in trouble when I realized he was dead, but I never thought that they might try to pin his drugs on me. I’d be in prison forever.”
“You’re not going to prison, Gracie.” David gently pried her hands away from her face. “Cal’s supposed to be here first thing in the morning to change out the brake pads on the Chevy. We’re going to take that damned BMW apart one piece at a time until its nothing but sheet metal and screws. No one will ever find that car.”
“Cal?” Gracie hadn’t thought she could feel any worse than she already did until David mentioned Cal. Raw panic burst to life in her chest when she thought about Cal seeing the horrible thing she had done. “No. Please, no. You can’t get Cal involved in this. You can’t tell Cal what I did. He’ll go ballistic.”
“I have to, Gracie. Getting rid of that car is going to be a two-man job.”
“I can help you.” Gracie took a deep breath and tried to steel her nerves. It wasn’t working. A fresh batch of tears escaped from her eyes. “We can handle it. Please. Don’t tell Cal.”
“I don’t have a choice. You don’t need to be involved. You’ve always been a shitty liar. The less you know about what we do, the better it’s going to be in the long run.”
“I can do this. I promise.” Tears were running freely down her cheeks, but she made no effort to wipe them away.
“You can’t drive the wrecker. You can’t lift 100 pounds of scrap metal. I don’t trust you with a cutting torch.” David shook his head at her. “This isn’t negotiable. I can get rid of your boy and his car, but I can’t do it alone. I need Cal.”
“Call Addison. Get Addy to help you.”
“I’m not doing that to him,” David shook his head. “Addison is a cop, Gracie.”
“He’d do it. He wouldn’t turn me in.�
�
“You’re right. He wouldn’t.” David held out his arms in a wide shrug. “What do you think would happen to Addison if something goes wrong and we get caught?”
“I don’t know,” Gracie admitted. She couldn’t get past the thought of how angry Cal was going to be.
“It wouldn’t be pretty. Cops are held to a higher standard than the rest of mere mortals. Cops are expected to know the law. He wouldn’t be able to play dumb the way I can. He’d go to prison for a long fucking time.” David scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t get a choice in this. Addison loves you. He’d go to prison for you if he thought it would save you. I know he would. I’d do the same. So would Cal, even though you don’t want anything to do with him anymore. He still loves you, Gracie. He’ll help us.”
“He’s going to hate me,” Gracie sobbed. “You don’t understand. I miss Cal. I miss Cal so badly that sometimes I feel like I’m just going to die of a broken heart. I miss him so badly that it hurts to breathe. I’m failing all of my classes because I spend all my time staring out the windows hoping I’ll see his Chevy pull up outside. I keep waiting for him to show up and save me from myself, but he never does. If he finds out what happened tonight, he never will. He’s not going to want to marry a murderer. Cal’s squeaky clean, David. He’s a goody-goody. He’s not going to love me if he thinks I killed someone.” She was bawling now. The sobs came so hard and fast that they made her chest ache. David pulled her into his arms and held her tightly against his chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck without thinking about it. She buried her face in his chest and let the sobs flow for the second time in less than two hours.
“Cal’s my best friend.” David spoke calmly and slowly. “Cal is not half as pure as you think he is. He’s going to be pissed off, but he is not going to hate you. I know him better than that.”
“You promise?” Gracie blinked up at him through her tears.
“Everything’s going to be okay.” He almost smiled at her as he used his thumb to wipe the tears off of her cheek and pushed several strands of long blonde hair away from her eyes. “I promise.”
He was still holding her against his chest when the front door of the trailer crashed open and Cal came stumbling into the room.
*
“Damn it’s hot in here.” Cal kicked an empty whiskey bottle and Addison’s uniform boots out of the doorway. He grabbed onto the cracked wooden doorframe to keep from falling as he made his way into the dimly lit living room of David’s trailer. The pain in the knee he’d broken playing high school football had gone from throbbing to burning during the last mile or so of his unplanned early morning hike.
The combination of pain and alcohol consumption had slowed his perceptions enough that it took him a minute to process that David was standing in the middle of the burning hot living room with his arms wrapped tightly around the waist of a more or less naked girl with long sexy legs. David’s jaw was hanging open, and the expression in his eyes made him look like a deer caught in the headlights of a freightliner.
“Oh shit, man. I’m sorry.” Cal struggled to comprehend the sight in front of him. “I didn’t know you had anyone here.”
David released his grip on the girl and jumped away from her so quickly she stumbled backwards. Her shin hit the coffee table and she spun around. She would have fallen if Cal hadn’t caught her arm and pulled her upright.
Which brought him eye-to-eye with a pair of very familiar turquoise=colored irises. His heart damn near stopped beating in his chest. Cal wondered if he was hallucinating. He had to be hallucinating. He must have passed out drunk in his truck on the side of the road, and now he was imagining being at David’s.
He released his steadying grip on Gracie’s arms. Her eyes were huge as she blinked at him through wet, dark eyelashes. She wasn’t wearing a shirt. Her bra was black, lacy and see-through with red ribbon trim. The Confederate rose tattoo on her hip was exposed by her low riding skirt. Damn near all of her creamy, soft skin was bare. Her cheeks were flushed.
God it was hot in here.
“Cal, it’s not what you think.” David’s voice cut through his intoxicated denials like a knife.
Cal was sober in an instant. Gracie was damn near naked in the middle of David’s living room. He’d just walked in on the only girl he’d ever really loved and his best friend. Neither of them had on half the clothes they should have.
The heat in the trailer made him feel like he was suffocating.
Gracie reached for his arm. He felt the tips of her fingers brush against his skin.
“We need to talk.”
He watched her mouth move but he didn’t hear most of what she was saying. His brain was filling in the blanks on its own. Not that there were very many options for explaining why your best friend and your ex-girlfriend were playing two man strip poker in the middle of the night.
David might as well have sucker punched him in the stomach. It would have hurt less.
Gracie was holding onto his arm. He brushed her off with a rough shrug. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said flatly as he turned to walk back out of the trailer before he completely lost control. The blood was rushing so fast in his head he could literally feel it boiling in his veins.
David took two steps and caught him by the shoulder. “Cal, I’m serious. This isn’t what you-.”
Cal didn’t give him time to finish the sentence. He snatched hold of David by the throat and threw him through the open doorway of the trailer and out onto the porch. The ancient wooden railing buckled when his weight hit it. David went crashing down into the yard and landed on his back amidst chunks of time-rotted 2x4.
He was on his feet before Cal made it to the bottom of the stairs.
“Don’t be stupid,” David snarled as he stepped directly into Cal’s path.
Cal reacted without thinking. His anger and frustration mixed with the liquor and boiled over as he swung his fist directly into David’s face. He heard his best friend’s nose break with a loud, sickening crunch. Blood spurted out of David’s nose as he kicked Cal’s legs out from under him and they both toppled to the ground, punches flying.
Even as the anger took over, Cal could dimly hear Gracie pleading with them to stop. He was aware of the coppery taste of blood in his mouth when David connected a solid hit on his jaw and rattled his teeth.
He just didn’t care.
He grabbed David’s shoulder and threw him to the ground again. This time he felt a surge of white hot pain shoot out of his bad knee as he overbalanced and landed with all his weight on the barely functional joint. The pain only served to feed his fury and hurt as he landed another punch directly into David’s chest.
David returned the favor by kicking him in the stomach with a size 13 work boot and they rolled across the yard again in a flurry of kicks, punches and swearing.
Cal finally grabbed a hold of David by the throat. He slammed him backwards into the side of the wrecker and drew his fist back, preparing to land another blow when Gracie threw herself in between his fist and David’s chest.
Cal pulled his punch at the last second, slamming his fist into the steel side of the truck. A large dent blossomed in the metal.
“Goddamn it, Gracie. Get out of the way.”
“No,” she had tears flowing freely down her cheeks as she pressed her back against David’s bare chest. “Please stop. Please. Don’t be like this. You have to understand.”
“I don’t want to understand,” Cal spit blood into the dirt at his feet. He leveled a cold and glare in David’s direction. It figured Gracie would protect him. It just fucking figured that he hadn’t been good enough to keep her but that she’d come back from college for David.
“Are you drunk?” David demanded with a snarl. He had gotten to his feet behind Gracie. Blood was running from his shattered nose like water from a broken faucet. He made an irritated attempt to wipe the blood away from his face, scowling in disgust as it smeared across his arm.
“Not anymore. Seeing you with her sobered me up.” Cal jerked his head at Gracie. He yanked the polo shirt off of his own back and thrust it into her hands. “Put some clothes on, will you?” he growled.
Gracie swallowed visibly as she took the shirt in trembling hands. It fit her like a dress when she pulled it over her slender frame. “Cal, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he glared at David.
“If you’d just fucking listen to what I’m trying to tell you.” David ignored the blood that was now running most of the way down his chest and landing in fat drops in the dirt at his feet. His eyes flashed dangerously in the dim moonlight, daring Cal to swing on him again.
Cal met his stare as they sized one another up for another round. Cal flexed his shoulders lightly and took a step towards David. He wanted him to swing again. “Don’t test me right now, Breedlove. I’ll kill you.”
“It’s not worth it.” David shook his head abruptly and took a step back. It was the first time Cal had ever seen him turn down a fight.
“Should have thought about that a little sooner,” Cal snapped. He was trying in vain to keep the anger from being replaced with a bone deep weariness and hurt. He felt vaguely sick as he took in the blood that was running down David’s face and chest. There was fear in Gracie’s red rimmed eyes when she looked at him. He turned away from her abruptly. He doubted he’d ever be able to look at her the same way again.
“Go inside,” David told Gracie. She opened her mouth and looked between him and Cal as if she had something to say. David shook his head at her. “Now. Just let me handle it.”
Gracie’s lips quivered for a moment and then she looked to Cal. He refused to meet her eyes. David made a shooing gesture at her. After one more agonizing minute she turned and began to walk back towards the trailer. Cal pretended he didn’t hear her start to cry as she walked away.
“I need you to listen to me,” David told him.
“I’m not listening to a damn thing. I’m done with you,” Cal snapped. He stepped backwards away from David before he gave into the urge to knock the shit out of him just one more time. The knee he’d shattered playing varsity football was on fire. He locked his jaw and squared his shoulders. He was determined not to cry as he began limping back down the driveway towards the road.
Feeding Gators: Book 1 in the Shiner's Bayou Series Page 9
