They pulled out of the station and headed toward Main Street. When Dani saw a group of old rednecks standing in front of the pharmacy, she realized that Friar was right. A black woman wearing a uniform and carrying a badge in this town was going to be a hard sell. She felt her face flush as she imagined all the inappropriate shit the townsfolk would say, under their breaths at first, but over time they would become more brazen about their objections.
Dani gave Nola a sideways glance to see if she could detect a look on the deputy consultant’s face that said she regretted agreeing to take the temporary position. In the shifting of her eyes, she saw a decal on a pickup truck parked in front of Glendale’s Department Store. It was a rebel flag sticking out of the barrel of a gun with a G above the gun and an R below it.
She didn’t even bother parking legally. She slammed on the brakes and clicked on the emergency lights.
“What’s going on?” Nola asked. “Trouble?”
Dani climbed out of the cruiser. “Nothing serious. You hang back with the car. Monitor the radio.”
Nola nodded, her attention split between Dani’s instructions and a gaggle of teenagers on skateboards coming up the sidewalk.
Dani rushed inside the store and was greeted by Little Tom, that’s the ironic moniker Dani knew him by anyway. His name tag simply said THOMAS.
“Dani Savage,” Little Tom said, “we were starting to think you forgot about us.”
Dani scanned the store. “Hmmm?”
“You ain’t been in here in a year. You too good to shop in Glendale’s?”
“What?” Dani asked, not hearing a word he said.
“I said are you too good…Never mind. Wha’cha in the market for today? New dress? Makeup?” He looked down at her clunky boots. “Shoes?”
“I ain’t buying, Lit…Thomas. I’m looking for the owner of that truck out in front of the store.”
Thomas leaned back and shifted his gaze out the door to see what truck she was talking about. “That truck? That’d be Jimmy Cole. He walked to the lingerie section.”
Dani gave Thomas a surprised look.
Thomas smirked and held up a hand. “I do not want to know, Deputy. I do not want to know.”
Dani returned the smirk and quickly set out to find Jimmy Cole. She found him standing next to a bin of panties. He had both hands buried in the mound of Lycra and cotton. The look on his face was pure euphoria. He pulled his cupped hands out, overflowing with women’s underwear, and slowly brought them to his face.
Dani cleared her throat.
Jimmy turned to her with a start. “Deputy!”
She snorted back a laugh. “Jimmy…”
“I was just…I dropped…my phone in the bin…”
“I don’t care, Jimmy. I wanna ask you about a decal on your truck.”
“Decal? You mean like a sticker?”
“If that helps you understand better, yeah, like a sticker.”
“Which one?”
“The one with the gun and the Confederate battle flag sticking out of the barrel.”
Jimmy considered the information. He had more stickers on his truck than he could count, literally. He snapped his fingers. “The one with the G and the R?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“What about it?”
“Where’d you get it? What’s it for?”
He brushed the top layer of panties with his fingertips in the bin without thinking about it. “Can’t say. Come with the truck.”
Dani couldn’t hide her disappointment.
“Asked the dealer about it. When I bought the truck.”
“And?”
“I think he said it was some gun club or something.”
“He say where?”
Jimmy shook his head. “Nah. Truck come by way of a dealership in Titus Grove. If that helps.”
Hearing Jimmy say Titus Grove sent a chill up Dani’s spine. “It does actually.” She was about to leave, but stopped to give Jimmy a scolding. “If you’re gonna snake your hands all through them panties, just wash them first.”
He blushed. “I just like the way they feel.”
She held up her hand. “It’s creepier when you explain it.”
Dani gave Thomas a nod of thanks on her way out of the store. Once under the heat of the day, she saw all manner of teenagers scattering in every direction. A small crowd started to gather around the cruiser. Here we go, she thought.
Dani got out ahead of the approaching crowd and zipped around the front of the cruiser to find Nola with her knee planted squarely in the spine of Buster Spree, a cracker kid who was trouble from the moment he’d grown hair on his balls.
“He groped me,” Nola said.
Dani squatted down to get a look at Buster’s beet-red face. His chin was laced with gravel from the road. “You groped my deputy, friend?”
“Didn’t know she was a deputy,” Buster said. “Thought she was just some dumb nig—”
Nola slapped him in the back of the head before he could get the word out. “What did I tell you about the word?”
Buster screeched.
Someone in the approaching crowd yelled, “Get off that boy, woman!”
Dani stood and ordered everyone to stay back.
One of the old men from the pharmacy protested. “She can’t come in here and treat one of ours like that. Arrest her, Deputy. Arrest her.”
“She’s one of mine,” Dani said defiantly. “Don’t you people recognize a uniform when you see one?”
A series of confused mumbles were exchanged amongst the crowd.
“She ain’t got no authority,” someone insisted.
“She has my authority,” Dani said, tossing Nola her handcuffs.
“Ain’t this something we should vote on?” another unidentified person asked.
“You don’t vote on hires, people. What is wrong with you?” She helped Nola load Buster into the cruiser and ran around to the passenger side while Nola got behind the wheel.
The crowd converged on the cruiser and Dani switched on the siren, an act that nearly startled the older members of the group to death.
“Drive,” Dani said.
With that, Nola put the cruiser into drive and carefully pulled away from the crowd.
Dani couldn’t help but notice that Nola had a big grin on her face.
“What?”
Nola let a chuckle slip before saying, “This is gonna be fun.”
Chapter 36
It was Spivey’s turn to carelessly enter a dark room. He was preoccupied by the notion that he was on his own in finding Mac. He knew getting any help from his contacts at the ORO was going to be an uphill climb, but he thought they would at least listen. He thought the brass would at least consider making an exception because of Mac’s impeccable service record. She was the best agent they had. He should have known better.
The sound of a plastic cup tipping over in the bathroom caught his attention, but he didn’t acknowledge it beyond a quick lift of his brow. He made a point to show a muted reaction. Instead he made his way to the dresser and started emptying his pockets, both in an effort to look like his guard was down, and also to give him a clear view of the mirror over the sink in the bathroom.
A dark outline of a person slinked back toward the shower. These were the times Spivey regretted his decision not to carry a gun. He started whistling a random tune to appear even more relaxed. His pockets empty, he moved to the clothing rack across from the bathroom door and started unbuttoning his shirt, whistling all the while.
The shadowy figure shifted from one foot to the other and caused the floor to creak, and then the intruder let out a soft breath of disgust.
The floor creaked again, and Spivey could sense what was coming. He quickly removed one of the heavy wooden hangers from the rack and turned to a fast-moving blur barreling toward him. Spivey swung the hanger and caught the assailant on the ear.
“Goddamn it!”
Spivey recognized the high-pitched wai
l of his attacker and quickly flipped on the light.
Nola was bent over holding her right ear. “You hit my fucking ear. Do you have any idea how bad that shit hurts?”
“Yeah,” Spivey said, “that’s why I did it.”
She stood up straight. “You got any ice? This shit burns.”
He shook his head. “Soak a hand towel in cold water,” he said, motioning toward the bathroom sink.
She sighed in pain and took his advice.
“You wanna tell me what you’re doing in my motel room?”
She snatched a folded hand towel from a shelf over the toilet and ran it under cold water. “You’re smart enough to figure that out.”
He smirked. “Still would like to hear it from you.”
“Let’s just say you fit the profile,” she said, placing the wet towel to her stinging ear.
“For?”
“The shooting.”
He shrugged. “One small problem. I was with Deputy Savage when the shooting happened.”
“Didn’t say you were there.”
“You think I ordered the hit?”
“Ordered it. Organized it. Whatever you want to call it. I just think you’re somewhere in the mix. You’re a stranger. You work way too hard to appear like you’re a passenger.”
“Passenger?”
“Like you’re a victim of circumstance. That aw-shucks-I’m-just-curious crap.”
He smiled. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, I call bullshit on your claim that you’re not former military. You served. You got that hollowed-out look of someone who sweat shit out in-country.”
Spivey crossed his arms. “Never said I wasn’t in-country. I said I wasn’t former military.”
Nola eyed him as she considered all the roles people played in the war on terror. She settled in on one possibility. “Tell me you weren’t a gung ho gold digger?”
He laughed. “We prefer private security contractors.”
She shook her head. “You motherfucker.” She stepped past him and quickly moved to the bed, where she sat down. “Well, I take it back. You didn’t have anything to do with the shooting. Never knew a gold digger that was smart enough to pull that kind of operation off.”
“Says the grunt,” Spivey said. “You realize everything that you said that made me a prime suspect can be applied to you, right?”
“Except I know why I’m in Baptist Flats. I don’t know why you’re here.”
“Looking for someone.”
“That makes two of us.”
Nola pulled the wet hand towel away and massaged her ear. “So what do we do?”
“About?”
“Us. Neither of us trusts the other one.”
He sat next to her. “Well, I’m tired of beating the shit out of you.”
She laughed.
“We could work together.”
“Yeah, how?”
“I’ll help you find your somebody, and you help me find my somebody.”
Nola looked at him cockeyed. “Never figured you for the type to ask for help.”
“Never figured I’d need it.”
She placed the hand towel back over her ear. “I’ll do what I can, but there’s no need to help me. I found who I’m looking for, or a way to him anyway.”
“And that way is?”
“Dani.”
He grumbled knowingly. “I’m starting to think she’s the way to finding who I’m looking for, too.”
Nola stood and walked to the door. “It’s Baptist Flats.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s a magnet for lost people.”
“I don’t think the person I’m looking for ever stepped foot in Baptist Flats.”
She opened the door. “Whoever you’re looking for ain’t the one that’s lost, gold digger. You are.”
Chapter 37
Dani stood in the open doorway and gave a smile as warm as she could muster to her visitor, Jack Spivey.
He handed her a bottle of wine without ceremony. He clenched his teeth, and his taut, rounded jawline flexed underneath the cover of his beard as he subtly watched her take the wine even less ceremoniously.
She examined the bottle and tried to look appreciative.
“You’re not a wine drinker.”
“That a question or a statement?” Dani asked.
“It’s a fact.”
“Okay, so why the bottle of wine?”
“Because you keep drinking that paint thinner that passes for whiskey and you won’t be long for this world.”
She stepped back and let him enter the house. “I thought you were from Maiden Falls.”
“I am.” He stood just past the doorway and surprised himself when he noticed Dani’s sweet smell swirl around him when she pushed the door shut behind him. He wasn’t usually affected by that sort of thing.
She moved around him on her way to the kitchen. “Thought you folks in Maiden Falls prided yourselves on drinking whiskey?”
He was momentarily distracted by the sway of her walk. “We…Yeah, that stuff you have ain’t Maiden Falls–worthy.”
She stopped and twisted around with a look of disbelief. “Did you just say ‘ain’t’?”
He looked horrified. “What? No…Shit. I did.”
Dani laughed. “I guess you can’t take all the country out of the boy.” She continued on into the kitchen.
He hesitated before following. Her uniform was discarded in a heap on the living room sofa, and for some reason, he thought it sexy. He knew full well that she was clothed. He had just seen her in her jeans and Baptist Flats High School Football T-shirt. But to know that she had stripped down and changed just a few feet away was entirely too intoxicating to him. He was definitely off his game.
Dani poured wine into two coffee cups. “Sorry, no wineglasses.”
He scooped up one of the cups and took a sip. “So, why did you call me here?”
She dashed to the kitchen table and returned with Parnell Carson’s diary. Flipping through the pages, she found what she was looking for and turned the page over to Spivey. “You ever seen this before?”
He looked at the drawing of the rebel flag sticking out of the barrel of a gun with the letter G above it and R below it. He ran the image through his memory banks. “I wanna say no, but I gotta admit there is something familiar about it. Why?”
“It’s come up a few times. Keeps coming up in regards to creeps and shitheads in these parts. This notebook belonged to the hickbilly who had the ATF ID.”
Spivey became increasingly interested.
“Ran across a boy today who had this decal on his truck. A sticker, you know?”
“Yeah, I know what a decal is.”
She shook her head, feeling stupid for clarifying something so simple. “Yeah, right…Anyway, this boy said the sticker—decal—came with the truck.”
“Okay…”
“And the truck come from Titus Grove.”
He looked at her with a deep fold forming on his forehead. “Titus Grove?”
“I’m not out of line, right? I mean, that’s a crazy coincidence. Almost too crazy.”
He tried to be rational. “It is strange, but…”
“Wait…wait. Before you dismiss me, this boy with the truck.” She tapped the image on the page with her index finger. “He says it’s a gun club.”
Spivey felt the moisture slowly evaporate in his mouth.
“ ‘Gun’ being the key word. Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t the F in ATF got something to do with guns?”
His mouth dropped open just a hair as he took the notebook from Dani and examined the drawing more closely. He’d seen it before. He was sure of it, and he racked his brain trying to figure out where.
“So, go ahead, tell me I’ve skid off the tracks, and I’m way out of bounds on this. Tell me there ain’t no dots to be connected.”
He peered at her over the notebook. “There are definitely dots to be connected. The problem is once they�
�re connected, they can’t be unconnected.”
She considered his point. “You reckon this is all one and the same, your missing ATF friend and the shooting?”
He nodded. “I do reckon that, yes.”
She took a big swig of wine and said, “Then let’s connect the fucking dots.”
Chapter 38
Ceaseless. It’s the mode in which hell runs. The Gray Rise recruits were learning firsthand just how ceaseless it was. The rain came down in a drizzle, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy the sadistic sons of bitches running hell that day. So two trucks with nine-thousand-gallon tanks were brought in to soak the grounds and the men as they were forced to train. One of the trucks was filled with water, the other with sewage. The latter would be reserved for the end of the day when the recruits would be corralled into a pit and given the orders to beat the hell out of each other. Full Gray Rise members would watch from an elevated and safe distance, of course.
The Shit Pit, as it had become known, was the best part of training for Gray Rise members. There was nothing more entertaining than watching recruits slog through literal crap and hammer each other into submission.
Harley sat in a lawn chair in the spot with the best view of the pit with a megaphone in hand, directing various recruits to get off their asses and deliver some goddamn pain. The day would end when there was one man left standing to crown king of the Shit Pit.
One of the high-speed recruits with special-ops pedigree was cleaning house. He’d knocked four men unconscious before he caught the attention of Harley. Harley nicknamed him Kong because he was as big as three recruits put together.
Kong thrilled in the attention the men circling the pit gave him. They chanted his name as he disposed of one fellow recruit after another.
Harley stood and directed the giant man like a conductor leading an orchestra. He surveyed the men on either side of him and delighted in their savage response to the violence below, all but one. One Gray Rise member stood on the edge of the others and looked down on the scene sullen and scared. GC One Oliver Payne could not hide his look of disapproval.
Outraged, Harley barked into his megaphone that he wanted silence. “Shut the fuck up!” he exploded.
Savage Rising Page 19
