“He’s right,” Huck said, glancing out the window. “They’ll be back. We’re sitting ducks out here.”
“In this storm?” The sheriff smiled at Johnny. “Why don’t you go have a seat with Ms. Dunn and I’ll let you know when I reach your parents, okay?”
Johnny looked to Huck for guidance and Huck gave him a shallow head nod. “Okay,” he replied, tentatively walking away.
“This cherry pie is just delicious!” Helen crowed, red syrup pooling in the corners of her mouth.
“Best in the state,” Paula proudly stated, freshening up Nina’s mug.
“Do you sell them to go? This would be perfect for Christmas dinner. Our son just loves his pie.”
“He sure does,” Earl chuckled. “Takes after his momma.”
Huck restrained an eyeroll, knee bouncing a hundred miles an hour beneath the table.
“We sure do,” Paula answered, filling Taylor’s mug next. “You want cherry?”
Stopping a fork in front of her mouth, Helen creased her brow. “What else do you have?”
“Well,” Paula began, attempting to refill Huck’s mug and stopping when he covered it with a hand. “We’ve got pecan, country apple, lemon meringue, coconut cream, custard, French silk, peanut butter cup, blueberry crumb…”
“Enough!” Huck hammer-fisted the table, rattling the forks on the plates. “We need to do something and we need to do it now.”
Taylor shifted uneasily in the booth. “What do you think I’m doing, Mr. Law?”
“I think you’re sitting there eating pie when people could be hurt just a few miles from here.”
Nina set a hand on his leg to calm it and the jukebox picked up the slack in the conversation, flashing and bubbling to Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Bruce Springsteen. Blowing out a beleaguered breath, Huck rubbed his hands together and gained control of his voice. “Look Sheriff, Nina is right; we can’t afford to wait for the state patrol. It’s now or never.”
“They might have some cruisers in the area,” Taylor countered, pushing his empty plate away.
“Yeah, and you have no way to communicate with them.”
“Let me out.” Andrews twisted around in the booth. “There is some weird shit going on here, Sheriff, and I am getting that bag.”
Taylor stared at him with his mouth agape. His eyes moved to the window and stopped, getting lost in the falling snow. Exhaling an irritable sigh, he slid out of the booth and let him go. “Hurry back, for God’s sake,” he said, hitting a key fob that made the truck’s parking lights flash.
“Roger that,” Andrews replied, slipping into a sheriff’s department parka. “I’ll be right back,” he grinned, pulling up a fur lined hood and pushing out the frost feathered door.
“Damn kids these days, think everything’s a fucking movie.” The sheriff’s eyes hooked on Nina. “Pardon my French, Ma’am.”
“How many weapons do you have?”
“Why?”
“Because we can go back to that car wash. I know how to shoot.” Huck watched the deputy disappear into the truck’s tailgate. “We can do this.”
“I’m going with you.”
Taylor smiled at Nina, a fond look softening his eyes. “Ms. Saldana…”
“It’s Nina and, thanks to my dad, I can shoot just as well as anyone else. Johnny will be safe here until help arrives.”
Pressing his lips firmly together, Sheriff Taylor tried his radio again and swore under his breath. “Two cops and two citizens against six or seven armed men isn’t exactly my idea of doing this.”
“Look,” Huck whispered, “I’ve had extensive training with firearms and you have a 4x4. We can do this.”
Clasping his hands on the table in front of him, Taylor pinched his gaze into prying slits. “What’d you say you do for work again?”
Hanging his head, Huck sighed. “I’m a writer.”
“Novels, right? What kind of novels?”
“What’s it matter?”
“Well, if I’m going into battle with a man, I like to know a little something about him.”
Running a hand down his face, he noticed Helen hanging onto their every word. “I write horror books.”
Earl coughed into a fist.
Faintly nodding, Taylor finger combed his mustache. “And this Ambrose guy said your biggest fan couldn’t wait to meet you?”
“Right.”
“So, you must’ve had some success to have a fan like that.”
“I’ve had four books hit The New York Times bestsellers list.”
Sheriff Taylor tipped his cowboy hat back. “No kidding?”
Nina searched Huck’s face. “Seriously?”
“What’re you working on now?” Taylor asked.
Huck’s knee started bouncing again. “I’m not working on anything right now. Since my wife’s car accident, I…can’t do it without her. She was my first reader, and the bigger the fight we got into about a book, the higher it charted, but now that she’s gone…”
“Have you tried?” Nina pressed the subject, studying his strong profile beneath the pan-shaped light hanging over the table.
“My publisher rejected my last book so yeah, I’ve tried.”
“I’m sorry, Huck.” Nina looked down to the fingers she was twisting and grew quiet.
“Can we please get back to the part where we figure out a way to help those people so I can go home to my daughter?”
Leaning into the booth, Taylor tried his radio again and Franklin still failed to respond. “No one is going anywhere until we figure out what the hell is going on around here.”
Huck swept his mug off the table, sending it shattering against the black and white checkered flooring and startling the old couple. “Then give me your keys.”
“I’m not giving you my keys, Mr. Law.”
“Look, I understand you’re afraid. I am too, so let your brave-ass deputy and I go take a quick look before those bastards leave.”
“How are they going to move thirty people in a snowstorm?” The sheriff’s right hand slid beneath the table. “They’re not going anywhere and neither are we.”
“Give me your keys.”
“Huck,” Nina said, trying to calm his knee and failing miserably.
“I’m not giving you my keys, Huck.”
“Then I’ll take them from you, Bob.”
Taylor snorted his amusement. “Well now, I’d sure like to see that.”
Huck shot out of the booth and glared down at him. “Get up, you little bitch.”
Blowing out a tired breath, the sheriff calmly slid to the end of the booth and got to a pair of black cowboy boots. Huck slowly tipped his head back as Taylor claimed every inch of at least 6’6” in staggering height. Towering over him, Taylor rested a hand on the butt of a Colt .45 single action army revolver stuffed in a leather drop-loop tied around his right leg.
Huck stared up into the man’s dark eyes and swallowed thickly. “Keys,” he said, holding a hand out.
“I’d be careful if I were you, Mr. Law. You’re treading on thin ice.”
“And you’re treading on my last nerve. Now, I’m only going to say this one more time…
Nina slid out of the booth and planted a hand in their chests. “Sheriff please, these people need our help right now, not tomorrow. I’m with Huck on this. You weren’t there!”
Sighing, Taylor glanced out the window to the old Bronco and Huck made his move, catching the tall man off guard with a right hook that knocked him back into the booth. Helen shrieked in surprise, spilling hot coffee over the edge of the table while Huck dragged the sheriff from the booth and pinned him to the floor. “I’m sorry, Sheriff, but we’re taking that truck!”
The front door opened, letting in the wind and snow. From his back, Taylor called out to his deputy for help but in the end…slow, rolling laughter was his only response.
Chapter Six
Whispers
“Looks like I’m not the only one who wants to kick
your ass, Sheriff.” The voice was gruff and deep with lack of sleep, and sounded nothing like Deputy Andrews.
Gripping fistfuls of Taylor’s uniform, Huck turned his head to the mountain of a man standing behind him.
“DeSean, you and BJ back off!” Paula said, storming out from behind the counter. “All of you just settle down.” She turned to the rectangular server’s window looking into the kitchen. “Bud! You better get out here!”
Wrestling against Huck’s grip, Sheriff Taylor stared past him at the two large men dressed in Carhartt coveralls. “Oh, great,” he grumbled from his back.
DeSean folded his brow and looked Huck up and down. “Damn, I like this Chris Pratt lookin motherfucker already!”
“You the genius who parked a semi in Bud’s Christmas tree stand?” BJ shook out a stocking cap. “Was a dinosaur chasing you or something?”
“Hey,” DeSean said, backhanding BJ’s shoulder. “Let’s not interrupt him, BJ. Can’t you see the man’s busy?”
Huck slammed Taylor back to the floor. “Keys!”
Laughing, DeSean unzipped his coveralls and shook the snow from his shoulders. “And to think we almost kept going back to town.”
“I told you it was time for pie!”
“Huck, come on!” Nina pulled on Huck’s arm, giving the sheriff just enough freedom to punch him in the jaw. Shaking it off, Huck got to one knee and cocked a heavy right back. There was a loud clang and stars shot across his field of vision. Dropping to both knees, he clutched the back of his head before turning a scowl to the round man standing behind him.
The old cook raised the frying pan into the air, stretching the stained apron strangling his beer gut. “That was just a love tap compared to the next one, hotshot.”
Huck pulled his hand away and stared at the blood on his fingertips, rage replacing the stars in his eyes.
“That’s enough, Bud.” Rolling to his boots, Sheriff Taylor snatched his hat up from the floor and banged it against a leg. “We are going to get to the bottom of this, Huck; I promise you that, but first you have to calm down.”
DeSean’s laughter rose above the jukebox. “Oh, I’ve heard that one before!” Swiping a blaze orange stocking cap from his head, he ran a hand through a frizzy head of hair overdue for a good cut. “One too many times.”
Taylor tugged the hat back down on his head. “Stay out of this, DeSean. This is none of your business.”
“And here I thought you only didn’t help black folk.” DeSean cracked his knuckles. “Glad to see you’re at least becoming fair and balanced, Bob.”
“You want the next one?” Bud gestured with the frying pan, sobering the playful grin on DeSean’s face.
The big man stepped forward, dwarfing the cook in his shadow. “You gonna take a swing at me next, Bud? You feelin brave like that?”
“I won’t stand for anyone disrespecting the law in my diner! You wanna do that, go back home.”
“You call him the law!” Sweeping a hand out, DeSean glared at the sheriff. “The one who didn’t lift a finger to find my baby girl?”
“That’s bullshit and you know it!” Taylor spit back, straightening the silver star pinned to his chest.
DeSean’s jaw tightened so hard Huck thought his teeth would splinter. “What I know is, you let Cassie slip through your fingers because you don’t think black lives matter.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Taylor groaned, rolling his head in disgust. “We did everything we could to locate her but there was nothing to go on. No witnesses. No clues. Nothing!”
DeSean began counting on his fingers. “I lost Cassandra, my job, and my wife. In that order!”
BJ nodded his unwavering agreement, eyes bouncing between them.
Stepping closer, DeSean stood nose to nose with the sheriff. They were remarkably equal in height, but DeSean tipped the scales when it came to pure mass. He balled his hands into sledgehammers, biceps stretching his coveralls and snow melting into his beard. “You gave up on her and I lost everything.” He glanced at the dimly lit parking lot outside. “Everything but a part-time gig driving a snowplow in the middle of the goddamn night!”
“Middle of the goddamn night!” BJ parroted, rapidly nodding his head.
“I’m not the reason Holly left you,” Taylor said in a cool voice. “You and your drinking are.”
DeSean chest bumped him, prompting Bud to raise the frying pan. “I tell you what, Bob, why don’t you and I continue this conversation outside like grown men? There’s no need to frighten the white folk.”
Releasing an exhausted sigh, Taylor stepped back and held his hands up in a show of surrender. “Look, you’re preaching to the choir, DeSean. Nobody wants to find Cassandra more than I do. This is my community, and your family is just as big a part of it as anyone else.”
“It’s been two years!” DeSean blurted, spraying spittle across Taylor’s face.
“Two years!” BJ cried, rolling his shoulders.
Running a hand down his face, Taylor wiped his palm on his uniform slacks. “Go eat your pie,” he said, sidestepping around him.
DeSean blocked his path and whispered softly in his ear. “Think you’re a real badass Wyatt Earp lookin motherfucker with that big bad gun, don’t ya?”
The hint of a grin touched the sheriff’s lips, curling his mustache up at one corner. “I don’t need a gun to get the bulge on a tub like you.”
“Oh, I’m real scared, Bob.”
“Goddamn right you are,” he replied, resting a hand on the firearm hanging at his side. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“Only thing I’m scared of is never seeing my little girl again. Do you know what’s that’s like, Bob? No, you don’t, because you failed your ex-wife just like you fail everything else.”
“Don’t blame me for your lack of parenting skills.”
DeSean slammed him up against a wall, knocking an autographed picture of Ronald Reagan crooked. “I took my eyes off her for fifteen seconds! Fifteen seconds, Bob! So fuck you!” Cocking a big black fist back, a gun hammer double clicked in his ear. Slowly rotating his head around, DeSean stared down the stainless-steel barrel of Deputy Andrews’ Colt Python. The deputy stood like a cross with another .357 Magnum pointed at BJ – a tin star cowboy holding it down in a smoke-filled saloon.
“Let him go Kimbo Slice or I’ll blow your ass straight to hell,” he said through gritted teeth, a black duffel bag resting at his feet.
Studying him for a handful of indecisive seconds, DeSean released the sheriff with a shove and held his hands up. “Everything’s cool, Deputy Dawg.”
“Tell your brother to get his hand out of his coveralls.” Andrews turned to BJ and cocked the hammer back on the Python in his left hand.
“Show him yer hands, Billy Joe.”
Moving like molasses, BJ pulled his hand out. “See? Nothing up my sleeve.” His sly grin made Andrews tighten his grip on both revolvers. “But don’t let that stop you from shooting me, Point Break.”
“That’s enough!” Paula slapped an order pad on a table and set her hands on her hips. “All of you just stop it and I mean right now! This is a diner; not Tombstone. Have some couth, for the love of God!”
Smiling politely, DeSean drifted over to the Christmas tree and stood by his brother, drawing both of the deputy’s weapons. “Barney Fife to the rescue again.”
Chest heaving, Sheriff Taylor looked from the frightened eyes of Ramona and Johnny to the upset elderly couple in the booth. “Lower your weapons, Deputy.”
Andrews set his jaw and steadied his aim, a snarl bending his lips.
“Go ahead, pig,” BJ shouted. “Do it!”
His hands began to tremble.
“Deputy Andrews!”
Crying out in anger, he holstered the guns but not the scowl. “Like this night isn’t bad enough already,” he said, slipping out of the parka and hanging it next to the sheriff’s coat. “Now, we have to deal with these clowns too?”
“Where the hell have you been
?” Taylor shouted, throwing his hands out. “I’m getting my ass kicked all over the place in here and you’re out playing in the snow!”
Andrews released an uneasy breath, eyes drawing to the front wall of windows, voice rolling out on a shaky cloud. “I heard something out there.”
Glancing at Huck, Taylor frowned at the deputy. “Something like what?”
“I-I don’t know,” he replied, throat clicking when he swallowed. “Whispers or something.”
Huck’s heart skipped a beat. He exchanged a troubled look with Nina and Ramona and knew exactly what they were thinking because he was thinking it too. It wasn’t their imagination back in the semi; it was…
“Whispers?” Shifting in his worn boots, Taylor followed Andrews’ gaze outside. “What do you mean?”
The deputy stared out the window through far-off eyes, Adams apple bobbing on his neck. “They were…all around me.”
“Hey, still no body cams, huh Sheriff?” DeSean traded a smug look with his shorter brother. “Why don’t that surprise me, baby bro?”
“Shit,” BJ grunted. “They get body cams and Andrews won’t be able to beat on black folk no moe.”
“Fuck you, BJ,” Andrews snapped, hanging a thumb from an oval belt buckle. “If you people spent half as much time grooming your neighborhoods as you do running your mouths, you’d barely see us.”
BJ stepped forward. “You people?” he growled, cocking his head to the side. “The fuck that supposed to mean?”
“It means thirteen/ninety.” His blue eyes jerked to DeSean. “Sound about right?”
DeSean grinned. “Hey good for you, Deputy, I can make up bullshit stats too, like ninety percent of serial killers are white. Cept, that ain’t bullshit. That’s the real deal Holyfield.”
“The FBI doesn’t make up stats, they investigate.”
“Shit!” he laughed, backhanding his brother’s chest. “A jealous woman does better research than the FBI.”
Andrews tipped his chin down and pressed his lips together. “Like Holly? I heard she was doing some solid research down at Tyrese’s Barbeque these days.”
DeSean burst forward and BJ stopped him. “Talk about her again and I’ll put you through a wall, homeboy!”
Vampire Nation Page 5
