by Carolina Mac
DRAWING DEAD
THE BLACKMORE AGENCY: BOOK 4
Carolina Mac
Copyright © 2017 by Carolina Mac
DRAWING DEAD - 1st ed.
ISBN 978-1-988850-38-2
All rights reserved
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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To poker dealers everywhere
I was quiet, but I was not blind.
―JANE AUSTEN
CHAPTER ONE
End of June
VEGAS WAS COOKING. Hot as Hell on a holiday. Annie sat quietly in seat five and sized up the other players. The eyes of the men were on her, burning brands into the cleavage her sparkly black top was meant to accentuate. Barely enough fabric to contain her considerable assets. No other women at the table. Just the way she liked it. She leaned forward the slightest bit to push her folded hand to the dealer and heard an intake of breath from seat nine.
“Come on, Judge, you can’t be serious.” Darryl Wise had been card dead all evening. The more Jack and Coke he consumed, the more belligerent he became. A large man in his late forties with a redneck persona, fortunately for him, Darryl was smarter than he looked. His wealth had been built capitalizing on land deals and building shopping malls all across the country, beginning in North Carolina and expanding westward. He leaned forward and dared Judge Rumford to call him. “You don’t want to call my all-in, Judge. Huge mistake on your part.”
Peter Rumford smiled. His years on the bench had given him a generous helping of insight into human behavior. He could read people. He raised cold blue eyes and radiated an icy chill across the table at Darryl. His voice, dry and gravelly from too many years of smoking, came out like the croak of an old bullfrog. “Call.”
“Turn em up,” said the dealer as he burned a card.
Darryl Wise flipped up pocket kings and the Judge turned over a pair of black eights.
The flop came, deuce, six, queen.
Darryl smiled.
A six came on the turn and Darryl continued to grin like a sick monkey. He puffed out his chest and tested the buttons on his plaid shirt. “I told you not to call, Judge. Just being polite and doing you a favor. Now you lost yourself a whole pile of cash.”
“Not yet, I haven’t,” barked the Judge. He pointed at the dealer. “Let’s see the river.”
Miguel, a big Hispanic lad with a thin black moustache, burned a card and slowly flipped up the last card. Eight of hearts.
Darryl jumped out of his seat cursing the air blue and Rudy, the poker manager, edged a few steps closer. Darryl held up a hand, made a valiant effort to control his temper and stomped off to the men’s room.
On the opposite side of the table, Annie watched Miguel push the huge pot to Judge Rumford. “Nice hand, Pete.” She gave the table a pat in his direction.
“Thank you, Annie dear. Seems the players they let in our game don’t have manners anymore.” He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and began sorting and stacking his chips.
While Darryl Wise cooled off in the men’s room, the other players verbally replayed the hand the way they always did, chewing over scenarios that didn’t materialize. With the action at a temporary stand-still, Annie stood up, picked up her purse and stepped away from the table to check her messages.
One from Declan. ‘Ready for dinner. Are you?’
‘Yes. I’ll come down.’
Annie pointed to her seat as she headed to the door. “I’ll be back, Rudy.” She winked at him. “Try to keep the boys under control while I’m gone.”
Rudy smiled. A senior pit boss from the casino floor, he was a sturdy, handsome Italian who ran the high stakes private games in one of the penthouse suites. Players participated by invitation only. “I’ll try, Mrs. Powell, but with this lot, you never know what will happen.”
Below, on the twentieth floor, Annie inserted her card into the slot and waited for the green light. She walked into the suite wearing a big smile. “You get better looking every day, sugar pop.” She grabbed Declan in a bear hug and let her tongue find its way into his mouth.
“Mother Mary,” he whispered, when Annie came up for air, “did you miss me that much?”
Declan O’Connor, one of the black Irish, had worked for Annie for several years in a medical capacity, taking care of any and all illnesses and injuries occurring on the Coulter-Ross Ranch. A skilled medic and loyal to a fault, he and the boss were currently in a hot relationship. A rebound thing after her two-week marriage to Jesse Quantrall went for a crap. Dec was smart enough to know it was a rebounder and Annie knew that Dec knew.
“Course, I did. Can’t stand to be away from you while I’m working.”
“Making any progress?” Declan pulled two Coors out of the bar fridge and poured Annie’s beer into a glass.
“None so far, but I’ve only been here a couple of days.” She took the glass Dec handed her and chugged half of it. “Where do you want to go for dinner?”
“BLACKMORE AGENCY,” Lily answered the phone politely. There was only one way Lily Duke did things—the right way. “Hey, boss is that you?”
“Yep. Tell Carm I can’t make it home for dinner, would you? Jesse wants to see me, and I have to drive out to Giddings to his ranch.”
“Sure, boss. Is the baby okay?”
“He didn’t mention her, so I think it’s something else.”
Blaine’s partner, Jesse Quantrall, had been withdrawing more and more from Agency business since his near-fatal heart attack and the arrival of his baby daughter—two unrelated incidents. Jesse continued to do what he could but had a monumental workload of his own to contend with—a seventy-five-hundred-acre cattle ranch, the number one Appaloosa breeding operation in the state of Texas, along with the corporation he and his brothers had inherited—Quantrall Oil. Even with his two younger brothers, Tyler and Paul doing more than their fair share, Jesse seemed snowed under.
Blaine steered his big Ram diesel down the long, treed laneway into Quantrall territory wondering what Jesse needed to talk to him about that he couldn’t tell him over the phone.
Guess I’ll soon find out.
He parked next to Jesse’s new Range Rover and paused to admire the vehicle for a moment before mounting the wide steps leading onto the wrap-around porch.
The five Quantrall boys lived in a lavish two-storey Spanish-style mansion their father, Lou Quantrall, had built for them when he struck oil years before. Cream stucco walls, wrought iron grated windows and a red clay tile roof were a few of the features.
Blaine knocked once, and Jesse’s bloodhounds raised a ruckus on the other side of the door. “Shit, I hope I didn’t wake up the baby,” he mumbled to himself.
Tyler opened the door and waved him inside. For a minute, Blaine thought he was Jesse, they looked so much alike
.
“Come on in, Blacky. Jesse is upstairs with Charity, but he’ll be down in a minute. Want a beer?”
“Sure, Ty, I could use one.”
Tyler headed for the fridge in the kitchen and Blaine followed. “Hard day?” asked Tyler.
“Not so bad. Just cleaning up a few reports from our last case. Hope we don’t get a new one for a while. I could use a break.”
“Don’t think y’all are gonna get one.” Tyler handed Blaine a hard stare.
“What do you mean by that?”
Ty shrugged. “I’ll let Jesse tell you.”
Blaine and Tyler were settled in comfy dark green leather chairs close to the fireplace when Jesse descended the circular staircase with the baby in his arms.
“She’s a lot bigger than the last time I saw her,” said Blaine. “Don’t know if I’ve seen her awake before. Look at those big brown eyes—she looks a helluva lot like you, partner.”
Jesse grinned. He’d been smiling a lot since Charity arrived. Blaine had never seen him so happy. “She sleeps less now that she’s eight months old, and guess what? She can sit up all by herself. He gazed adoringly at his daughter.
Tyler was unmarried and five years Jesse’s junior, but in spite of his good looks and part-time musical career, he didn’t have much of a social life. He’d helped with the baby since the first day she arrived. Blaine studied the brothers and decided they looked enough alike to be twins. Medium length dark hair, brown eyes and dark complexions—they resembled their father more than the other three boys.
Tyler tipped up his beer, drained it and set the empty on the table in front of them. He motioned to Jesse to give him the baby. “She’s so smart, Blacky, you wouldn’t fuckin believe it.”
“I don’t know much about babies, Ty.” Blaine grinned.
“All you gotta do is read the book and follow directions,” said Ty. “All there in black and white. Ain’t hard.”
“Have you read the book, Jesse?” Blaine asked with a smirk on his face.
“Didn’t need to.” Jesse winked at Blaine. “Ty’s got it memorized.” He gave Charity, dressed in pink overalls to his brother and waved towards the hallway. “Let’s talk in the office.”
The office that Jesse used had been Lou Quantrall’s study when he was alive. Richly paneled in rosewood and lined with hand-crafted bookshelves, the room was cozy and welcoming.
“Can’t wait to hear what you have to say, Jesse. You’re being kind of mysterious about it all.” Blaine sank into one of the leather chairs near the window, stretched out his legs and crossed his Harley boots at the ankle.
Jesse pulled a chair up close and sat facing him, his elbows on the knees of his worn Lee jeans. “Thought about it for a couple of days wondering if I should open up this can of worms or let it lie. Then I decided it was up to you if you wanted to pursue it or let it go.”
“Okay. Go ahead and tell me.”
“Last week I was up in Dallas at an oilmen’s meeting and by pure chance, I met someone. He was the salesman who sold me the Range Rover, nice guy and friendly, but when I bought the vehicle we only talked business. He recognized me at the Marriott where the meeting was held and gave me a shout out. He wasn’t there for the meeting, just hanging around waiting to speak to a customer who was buying a Jag. We got to talking, he asked me about being an investigator, and it just came out—like I was meant to know or something.”
Blaine frowned thinking the look on Jesse’s face had become way too serious. “And? I’m still not getting why you’re telling me this.”
“His name is Arlo Maznik, Blacky. He knew your father.”
CHAPTER TWO
“MARY HAD A…” he hummed as he loped around the corner of the building.
Didn’t mean to kill you, Mary. Honest to baby Jesus, I didn’t.
Mist hung heavy over Austin that morning. It could have been an identical morning to a myriad of others, but how would he know? Without the bars on his window slicing his view into sixths, this morning looked different than all the others. He was on the outside.
From where he sat on an iron bench near the back gate, the old place, huge and white as snow, shrouded in tales of ghosts and murderers—real and fantasy—had never looked more ominous.
One last look and a silent goodbye to his friends inside—real and imaginary—and it was time to go.
The whir of a motor made him crank his head around to see if it was possible. Yep, the gate was creeping opening to let the first of the doctors in to start their day talking to crazy people. Another day of hopelessness—trying to cure the incurably insane. Zach shook his head and wondered why they did it day after day. They were crazier than he was. Had to be.
He inched along silently, hidden in the trees and bushes near the ten-foot fence. Nobody walked the grounds this early. One guard at the gate. Sneaking as close as he dared, Zach crouched under a bush and watched the doc’s car come through the gate. Slowly, slowly, McIntyre drove through the opening, waved at the guard and he was in.
The guard turned his head and pressed the button inside the little house to close the gate. That nanosecond was all the time Zach had. The dark gray Toyota passed him, and he jumped out from under the bush and squeezed through the gate—so close his hand made contact with the back bumper of the car. The gate swung closed with a swishing sound and the heavy wrought iron brushed the back of his pantleg. His heart almost stopped beating.
He ran. Faster than he could ever remember running. Behind him, he heard the clang of metal on metal as the gate slammed shut. Then the sound of the guard’s voice, yelling for him to stop.
Zach didn’t stop. He picked up speed and then smiled as a new sound filled the air. His lungs labored, and his heart hammered wildly in his chest as he ran without direction, listening to the sweetest sound in the universe—the siren. He’d heard it a few times from inside and always silently cheered for whoever was brave enough to try.
His smile blossomed into laughter as he ran. Another whack job on the loose. This time it was him.
BLAINE’S CELL signaled a message from the man. His phone was set up with a special alert. Instantly recognizable and at the same time requiring immediate attention and total focus. No time this morning to research the solitary clue Jesse had given him about his father the night before. He’d filed Arlo Maznik’s card in his wallet for safekeeping, but it would have to be on hold until he had more time. Finding the key to his past and his family—something he had always wanted to do—would have to wait.
He sat on the side of the bed and read the text.
‘State Hospital. Now.’
He read it for the second time hoping it was different and no dice. “Fuck.”
What the hell is going on over there?
He struggled to his feet and staggered half-asleep into the shower. After five minutes of hot water pelting down on his tired, aching body, Blaine toweled off, used an extra towel on his long black hair and dressed in torn black jeans and a Harley shirt. He grunted, easing into his shoulder harness. His muscles protested, and his joints seemed stiffer than usual. Shit, he was only twenty-three. Should he skip the harness and ram his Beretta into the waistband of his jeans instead?
State Hospital? Crazy people were harder to catch. A fact.
“Jesus, I don’t want to do this.” He grabbed his black leather jacket to cover the gun, picked up his wallet and keys and headed out.
On the way along the bedroom corridor he opened the door to his foster brother’s room. “Farrell, get up and meet me at the State Hospital. Wake Travis up.”
“What’s up, boss?”
“No clue. I’ll text y’all.”
“We gonna need the dogs?”
“Might. I’ll find out and let Jesse know. He can run them into the city if we need them.”
“I’m up.” Farrell called after him.
Farrell Donovan had been rescued from a bike gang in San Angelo along with his younger brother Neil. Annie brought the boys to live at h
er ranch and raised them with Blaine and her own small son, Jackson. Brothers all.
In the kitchen of the huge estate where he was now living—temporarily or permanently—hadn’t been decided, Blaine passed Carmelita, already working on something fantastic for breakfast that he wouldn’t have time for a single bite of. Why was he so hungry? Was it because he didn’t have time to eat? The day got worse by the second. “Traveler,” he mumbled in Spanish and pointed at the coffee maker.”
“Si, no time for breakfast?”
Blaine shook his head listening to his stomach growl.
Quick as Martha on crack, Carm made toast and covered the slices thickly with peanut butter and strawberry jam. She wrapped them in waxed paper and handed the packet to him.
“Gracias.” Blaine hugged her, kissed her cheek and headed for his truck.
ON THE WAY OUT the gate, he gave a wave to Greg, one of the Junkers on duty. The man had deemed it necessary to move him and his crew onto a secluded estate in the country where security was at a max. The men assigned to Blaine arrived in a cube van disguised as a junk truck, and they wore black ‘junker’ golf shirts. A counter-measure. Blaine’s methods had a strong vigilante quality to them more often than not and were not always politically correct. His don’t-fuck-with-me attitude had a tendency to ruffle feathers and inspire powerful enemies into taking retributive action at an alarming rate.
North on route seventy-one, he ate his toast that still held a hint of warmth and drank his much-needed caffeine. Then he began winding through the city streets to the State facility—home of the incurable and the criminally insane. Morning traffic began to increase as he slowed for each red light. On city corners, he noticed election signs popping up. Only June and they’re gearing up already? There would never be a Governor as good as Prescott Richardson. The man had given his life to serve Texas.
Blaine had never heard of the candidates on the signs, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have to work with one of them in the future. He better find out who they were and what they were all about—as soon as he had a spare minute.
