Joker Joker (The Deuces Wild Series Book 2)

by Irish Winters

  Tate might never know what his angry outburst did for her, but she found herself relying on it now. “Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit,” she whispered, one more time for good measure, only louder. “Bullshit!”

  How delightful! When at last she sank to the edge of the tub to towel off, her hands trembled, but that was a good thing, wasn’t it? She was on her way, still a little weak, but growing stronger every minute. She could feel it.

  Back in the room, she dressed as quickly as she could. Once she’d stood up to her mother, where would she go? The phone Tate had charged her to keep was long gone. She had no money. Still rattled at her tenuous situation, she looked for her shoes. Flip-flops would’ve been nice. Or slippers. Just great. Nothing.

  Oh, well. Winslow drew in a deep breath. Swallowing decisively, she walked to the door half expecting it would be locked, but it opened easily into a hall with more closed doors. There was no guard, which she’d half expected, probably because no one expected her to live.

  Ha. I’ll show them.

  Stiffening her chin, she gulped down her fear of the unknown and took slow, stealthy steps on her way to freedom. Tonight was the night. An exit sign marked the way out. Winslow peered through the door’s security window. Night had fallen. Her mother’s car sat alone in the rear parking lot looking sad in the rain. Winslow turned the knob and—

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Crap. Mom. Winslow shot a desperate glance over her shoulder. “For a walk,” she declared as evenly as she could muster. There was no need to fight. Not yet. “I need some fresh air.”

  “Get back into bed this minute.” Typical Mom snark.

  “When I’m done with my walk.” Winslow pushed the door outward, fighting the urge to bolt when the moist cool air poured inside. Reasonable people shouldn’t be afraid of their mothers. “I feel good today, umm tonight, and I’m just going for a little walk in the rain. Want to come with me? It’d be fun to laugh and talk and—”

  “Get back in bed!”

  Something snapped inside Winslow. “Bullshit!” she volleyed back. “I feel good and I’m going for a walk. Either come with me or—”

  Joyce cleared the distance in seconds, her chin up and her eyes flashing. With one vicious punch, she knocked Winslow to the floor. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Winslow rolled to her shoulder, lifting her hands and arms to ward off the attack, but she wasn’t quick enough. The last thing she saw was the silver needle coming at her.

  Chapter Twenty

  “What are you doing?” Tucker asked when Tate launched out of his Jeep.

  Wouldn’t you know? Not only had Tucker not taken his own advice and gone home for the night, neither had Isaiah, Ky, or Eden.

  “You won’t believe what we’ve found,” Ky muttered as he swiped a hand over his sweaty forehead. “Your girlfriend kept journals. We’ve got enough evidence to charge her mother with neglect and abuse.”

  Good to know. Tate would’ve loved to have stayed and chatted, but he didn’t have time. “Later,” he said as he set Pepe’s feet to the Parrish front lawn. Lo and behold, the little guy whizzed like a trooper—right before he headed east as fast as his four little paws could go.

  “Follow that dog,” Tucker barked.

  Tate had to look twice. That was what he’d meant to say. He knew he’d had an in with the four-legged sleuth disappearing down the street, but was it in any way possible that he also had a psychic link with his boss? Impossible.

  Dogs outgunned humans when it came to their sense of smell. After what Tate had witnessed in the wilderness with wildlife, and during combat with military working dogs, he couldn’t dispute the uncanny devotion of this tiny canine to his mistress.

  Pepe found Winslow before and he would do it again. Two sets of boots pounded the concrete at Tate’s six. He didn’t waste time looking. Had to be Ky and Eden. A burly engine growled alongside. Had to be Tucker’s Challenger. Where was Isaiah?

  “Don’t lose that dog,” Tucker yelled from his open window.

  No shit. Tate kept his eyes glued to Winslow’s four-legged guardian angel instead of answering. He didn’t know where Isaiah went, and he didn’t care. At the corner, Pepe angled left. Tate followed his lead. The little guy glanced over his shoulder as if he needed to be sure Tate followed.

  Keep going, buddy, Tate urged his canine mastermind. Faster. Find her.

  Another block. Then another. Tucker rolled alongside. Pepe was panting plenty by then, but still going. Not slowing. The damned little guy was the Energizer Rabbit all over again. He racked up close to two miles, through puddles and mud, and still Tate followed, his T-shirt and pants drenched with sweat and his hamstrings on fire, but not losing sight of that dog.

  Another block north and he lost Ky and Eden. One hurried backward glance told him they’d stopped together. Eden was off to the side of the sidewalk, rubbing her foot. Sprained ankle maybe. Tucker pulled to the curb where the Winchesters had stopped. He waved Tate to keep going. Like there was a choice?

  But where was Pepe taking him? To the left again, apparently. All righty then. Tate cut across the brightly lit intersection. He dodged the slow-moving sedan in the right turn lane with its blinker on, jumped the two-foot high hedge at the corner, and headed west. By then Pepe was nowhere in sight.

  Wiping the sweat out of his eyes with one quick swipe, Tate slowed his pace, squinting as he walked onto what seemed an ordinary residential street. Old fashioned streetlights designed to look like gas lamps cast a yellowish glow over modern mom-and-pop style homes. Kids’ bikes lay where they’d been ditched on driveways, lawns, and walkways. Lights glowed from a few picture windows. Tate just couldn’t see the hospital that Eden thought she’d seen.

  But Pepe had led him there, and that was good enough. Tate slowed his pace, sure the dog wouldn’t have taken off and left him. But what if he had? Pepe hadn’t slowed down one bit on this mad dash. Maybe he was chasing tail? Tate shook his head at the idiotic notion. No. Pepe was true blue. To the core. He was on Winslow’s scent, not some puppy-dog quickie.

  The street was quiet in an abandoned kind of way, as if the earlier rain kept everyone indoors. The silence should’ve eased the angst creeping up Tate’s spine, but it served up another surge of acid in his gut instead. It reminded Tate of a horror movie where the axe murderer looked like the guy next door, only he had ten shallow graves in his backyard. It was that kind of silent, the eerie kind that pricked your last nerve until you could hear the splat of each individual raindrop when it hit the sidewalk.

  “Aarf!” Pepe wagged alongside some kid’s pink Barbie Jeep at the end of the driveway two doors down.

  Tate cut through the adjoining yard to catch up. The house Pepe had stopped at looked different. Tidier. No kid-paraphernalia littered the postage-stamp lot. All windows were dark and shuttered. A printed sign sat in the front window between the glass and the blinds, but Tate couldn’t make out what it said. Bars covered the few basement windows that he could see, but it was the antiseptic odor on the air that cinched the deal. This had to be the place.

  He infiltrated the property with the stealth of a scout sniper, his weapon drawn and his six senses on high alert. Yes, six. He counted his gut as perhaps his most reliable sense.

  He’d no more than rounded the rear corner of the house, when he spied Joyce’s Chevy. Pepe changed tactics then. Instead of leading, he nudged Tate’s leg with his nose as if to say, “I found her, now it’s up to you. Go inside and get her.”

  Tate dropped to one knee on the driveway behind the sedan, one hand on Pepe’s head. “Are you sure Winslow’s inside?”

  Pepe spun one circle, danced and whined.

  “I sure hope you’re right, because tonight I’m breaking and entering based on the word of a dog.” How frickin’ bizarre.

  Another whine. Tate gave Pepe one last pat before he crept to the first window at the back of the house. The damnedest thing happened next. Pepe took off like a shot back t
o the front of the place, yapping his head off. Tate’s heart nearly dropped to the asphalt at the racket that little guy set up, but before he could call the crazy mutt back, the front porch lights flashed on. Some guy yelled from inside the house, “Hey, Joyce. This your dog?”

  Pepe was going for distraction. What a dog!

  Winslow startled awake with a bale of lint in her mouth and her usual splitting headache. Her neck hurt like she’d strained it to the point of breaking it, and for a moment, the ceiling bobbed and weaved overhead in the dark. But the nausea wasn’t what woke her. It was Pepe. Barking. He sounded frantic. Great. He probably has to pee, and Mom’s ignoring him, hoping he’ll wake me. Good thinking, Mom. It worked.

  Why’d she have to be so mean to the little guy?

  Flopping to her back, Winslow leveled one arm over her eyes to block the dimmest ray of light screaming through the window, blinding her. Daily migraines sucked, but this one was so much worse. She could barely flutter her lashes. One of those light blocking curtains would sure come in handy. Yeah. Splitting migraine. Darned near incapacitating. Not fun.

  “I’m coming,” she groaned at her faithful companion. Somehow, that crack in her voice must not have inspired confidence. Pepe launched another round of frantic yapping. What was wrong with him? He sounded like Munchkin-gone-crazy.

  Winslow lifted to her elbows, then sat upright only to bow her head to her knees, fighting the deepest lethargy to get her butt in gear. Mom would smack him if she had to let him out, so Winslow needed to hurry. She shook off the dizziness in her head and pushed to her feet, her legs shaking like crazy. Only...

  Where am I? This isn’t my room.

  Exhausted, she dropped back to the—hospital bed? How could you do this to me, Mom?

  Slowly, like gooey, sticky molasses in the dead of winter, her failed escape attempt came back to her. Her pick-me-up shower. The clean clothes. The hypo. Worse—the evil glint in her mother’s eyes when she’d plunged that needle into Winslow’s neck.

  Blinking back tears, she took stock of her situation. She was back in that POS hospital gown, but without the catheter or IV drip. The room was colder. Cupping her biceps didn’t slow the shiver that raced up the back of her neck. She wasn’t supposed to be here and everything was so hard!

  Bullshit!

  Wow. Wherever that came from, it actually—helped.

  The shrill yapping of her brave little dog brought her head up once more just as she heard him scratching at her window. That couldn’t be right. With one eye closed, she rotated her pounding head to the right. How on earth had Pepe climbed up to that window? How could he be in two places at once?

  Her stomach threatened swift retaliation, but wait. Could it be Tate making that noise?

  The possibility of that miracle staggered Winslow. She lurched a drunken, wobbling path to the window. It took an enormous effort, but at last she succeeded in capturing those pesky strings to lift the blinds. She pulled as hard as she could and…

  Wow, his eyes were scary big and black. That black T-shirt he had on looked tight and hot-damned nice stretched across his magnificent chest. “Tate? What… what are you doing here?”

  He gestured with his fingers to hurry, open up, but she was beyond weak. It took painstaking effort to work the simple lock at the top of the lower pane. “I’m trying,” she mumbled through the glass, which, now that she was up close to it, looked all sorts of wavy like that old-fashioned glass the pioneers used in their one room log cabins on the prairie and…

  Where was I? She leaned her forehead to see through that funny looking glass. Oh. Tate. He’s waiting for me… Outside… Hmmm. I wonder why?

  The moment she barely lifted the pane, he stuck all eight fingers through the opening and pushed the window open.

  “Whew,” she exclaimed breathlessly, dizzy once more.

  He tilted to the side. Oh wait. That’s me. Winslow put one elbow to the ledge and her chin on her hand to stop listing. God, he’s handsome.

  “Give me your hands, Winslow. Both of them. You need to come with me. Right now.”

  “But I’m… umm, Pepe’s… W-w-where exactly are we going?” She’d never felt so discombobulated before in her life. Was any of this real? Worse, was this what happened to people’s brains when they died? Was that what this out-of-body experience meant, that she was on her way—out of her body? The next thing you know, there’d be a tunnel of light, and she’d see ghosts, and…

  “We dancing?” she asked for no good reason other than she was fairly certain Tate and she had done this exact same thing before.

  He extended one muscular and very wet arm through the window. The man’s shirt was drenched, delineating the thickness of his chest and the girth of his biceps. Water dripped from his hair, running down his face. “I’ll explain later. Come on. Hurry.” He latched one arm onto her waist and pulled her hip onto the window ledge.

  “I can’t dance out this window.” Her brain wasn’t making sense. Neither was her mouth.

  His lips thinned to a slant. “Hang onto me, Winslow. I’ll lift you.”

  “I’ll fall.”

  “No, you won’t. I’ll catch you.”

  He didn’t make sense, either. How could he catch her if she wasn’t falling? Now, if he meant to take her dancing, then she’d fall. Lifting one heavy foot, she tucked her knee up high enough to put that bare foot on the sill. “Okay. I’m ready,” she breathed.

  Shadows danced at her peripheral. She leaned forward, but made the mistake of turning back to call Pepe. She knew he wasn’t there, but the movement upset her head and stomach and…

  Whoosh! The room spun around her like a top. She fell out the window and… oomph! into Tate’s arms and against his very warm, wet chest. She turned to lick his neck, but damn. Sunlight was a killer, only it wasn’t the sun blinding her, not unless somebody’d hung it on a lamp post in a shiny wet parking lot full of puddles of stabbing reflected pain. She covered her eyes with both hands at the lightning strike to her retinas. “Turn it off, Tate. Please, turn it off.”

  Pepe kept barking, but he wasn’t bouncing around like his usual self, and she couldn’t see him, and that meant… Damn. I don’t know what anything means anymore.

  Winslow let her heavy head loll onto Tate’s chest where she knew she was safe, her eyes closed tight and her mind weak from all this mental exertion. Pepe not being with Tate meant something bad, but she couldn’t figure precisely what.

  Tate dropped smoothly to the ground from whatever mountain he’d been standing on, his hand cupping the back of her head like she was a baby or something. Even that small jump created a shockwave in her skull. She groaned, not so much from pain, but… okay. From pain. But why’d her body feel like it was burning from the inside out? Why was Tate stealing her? What on earth did her mother mean by suicide? My suicide?

  “I’m gonna die,” Winslow cried. “Su… su… sui-cide. I hafta kill myself only—”

  He growled like a wolf. “You’re not going to die, Winslow.”

  The funniest word bubbled up through the fog in her head. Bullshit. Wasn’t that odd? Nothing made sense. Just Tate. Just Pepe. They’d come for her and they could have her.

  “I wanna go dancing,” she whined into the warm recess of his neck. He smelled so good.

  “Shhh,” he whispered, his arms around her like the steel bands around a very skinny barrel. “I’ve got you now.”

  “Hmmm. That’s nice.” Winslow burrowed into that safe warm place, drawing in the rugged scent of pine trees, rain, and clean, manly sweat. Lifting one trembling hand, she wanted to kiss him, but her hand fell limply to his shoulder, then slid pathetically down his chest. She didn’t have the strength to thank him for saving her from... whatever. The last thing she remembered before everything went black?

  Tate’s piercing whistle.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Thank God for Tucker and that smoking hot SRT Hellcat parked in the shadow of a large, leafy tree, its 6.2 liter hemi-V8
purring in the rainy, dark of a successful night. Winslow was in nothing but a frickin’ hospital gown, and with her acting as loopy as she was, Tate didn’t dare ask her to grab a blanket before she fell out that window.

  Joyce shrieked from inside the house, “Winslow! She’s gone! Call the cops!”

  Time to roll. With Winslow tucked under his chin, Tate cussed himself for not planning better. Talk about going off half-cocked. He didn’t even have a blanket.

  Tate whistled for Pepe again, no longer worried about being noticed. Joyce wouldn’t pull that coy, ‘Oh, no, my baby’s been kidnapped,’ routine this time. She needed cameras rolling for that. This time would be different. Tate had no doubt she was armed.

  Winslow’s anxious Chihuahua beat feet to the car and cleared the open passenger door a scant second ahead of Tate. Tucker motioned Tate to hurry just as the front porch light flashed off, then on. There she was, Mama Bear Parrish, screaming her guts out. “You bring her back this instant! I’ll call the police! I know it’s you, Tate Higgins! Do you hear me?”

  “Call ’em!” Tate shot back at her. He made sure she got a good look at who had her twenty-year old daughter this time. Let her call the police. Hell, let her call the President. Tate was certain Ky and Eden had gathered enough evidence to put Mama Bear in prison.

  With the next shower of rain in his face, he angled Winslow inside Tucker’s muscle car. He’d no sooner set her sideways on his lap, when Tucker tossed a plush blanket over Winslow. Thank God. His boss had thought of everything. Tate wrapped Winslow up nice and snug.

  Mama Bear kept screaming for her ‘Poor, sweet baby!’ but did she step one foot into the drizzle? Did she make any effort to chase after Tate when she knew damned well he had her daughter? Not on your life.

  “You ready, Tate?” Tucker asked, a funny light glimmering beneath those thick, black lashes he was peering out from. The guy made everything seem like a game, as if he got off on the adrenaline.