My gaze went back to Jess. Instead of her business chic standard, she was in short skirt, heeled boots and a white button down shirt undone an extra button. I made a mental note to keep an eye on Joe. Jess was a sweetheart, and the last thing she needed was some jerk hassling her. Unlike some of the regulars, I simply couldn’t stand Joe. Luckily, I wasn’t his type, and the guys who were working at the cafe were protective of Cass and me. I’d relied on them in the past when there was trouble.
If the dead-eyed man on the other side of the counter started shit, I hoped that either Dillon or the jock would step up. There was something off about this guy. He looked like I felt when I had been strung out after one of my week long coke benders.
“That’ll be $3.89,” I said.
The man took a sip of his coffee, glared at me as if I’d done something wrong that he just didn’t know yet, and took another sip. Then he slid his drink farther down the counter and pulled out his wallet. He paused, his gaze darting around the shop in visible paranoia. Either he was hiding from someone or he was jacked up pretty good. I was betting on the second one. We get all sorts of crazies in The Coffee Cave late night on weekends.
Cass had finally stopped wiping already-clean tables and was now clearing used mugs and plates from the empty tables; she carried a bin of dirty dishes to the counter and nodded toward the two drunk girls. “I swear, if I have to clean up puke tonight, I’m going to spit in their next cup of coffee.”
I grinned at her, but I didn’t say anything. The drunk co-eds banging on the bathroom door were as much a staple as the over-caffeinated students and the weirdos that wandered in from the bars.
The man at the counter looked between us like we were more interesting than we were.
Cass glanced over at Dillon who sat on a small raised platform at the front of the shop, absently playing his guitar. “Could you play something that will drown out the sounds of spew?” she called.
He nodded, giving her a devilishly wicked smile and started playing Kendrick Lamar’s “Drank.”
The sudden sounds of shouting drew everyone’s attention to the back of the coffee shop. “What in the fuck?” Cass grumbled.
When Cass went to investigate, the man at the counter lunged forward, stretching his arm over the counter, and grabbed my wrist.
I yelped, but not loudly. I’d dealt with strung out people enough that I knew that staying calm was the better tactic.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” he snarled.
“No?” Fear flashed over me at his tone, but I still didn’t struggle. I wasn’t sure if that would make things worse or not. My theory that he was strung out or something still held, but I silently added “possible mental disorder” to my list of threats. Unfortunately, that didn’t help me figure out how to fix things.
“I’m not going to get played by some two-bit clown.” He squeezed my arm and jerked me closer. My feet left the floor as he practically dragged me across the counter.
“Okaaay.” Mugs toppled to the floor with a crash as I tried to yank my arm out of his grip. Not struggling hadn’t helped, so I was going with Plan B: ‘get out of the asshole’s grasp.’ Instead of getting free though, I came hurtling over the counter as he dragged me to him.
I stumbled to my feet as soon as he released me, but I was backed against the counter.
“Where is he?” the man asked.
“Who?” I croaked.
He punched me. No warning. Just a fist coming at me. I twisted and my movement meant his knuckles only grazed my cheek. It still hurt like a bitch.
“Need my purse,” I yelled, hoping someone would hear and get it for me. Inside it was the gun I carried for emergencies. This was quickly becoming an emergency.
The man asked, “What?”
I tried to dart past him, but he grabbed and shook me. I started to fall to the ground. Only his hand on my arm kept me from falling.
“I don’t know what you want,” I told him.
“Bullshit.”
His jacket was caught back at some point when he was yanking me over the counter or maybe when he punched me. I don’t know when. All I know is that I could now see a black semiautomatic gun in a holster that his jacket had concealed.
He shoved me toward the counter. I hit it and fell to the ground. I knew there were people in the room moving and yelling. I couldn’t tell what they were saying though. All I could do was stare at the crazy man with the gun who was furious with me for some reason I didn’t understand. In all the times I’d done shit that could’ve gotten me seriously hurt, I’d never felt the terror that filled me now.
Then I heard a voice say, “Stop it!”
When I looked past the man, I saw the owner of the voice. Jess—one of our regulars—had my purse at her feet. I knew then what she had in her hands: My unmarked, unregistered revolver. She stood, aiming at the man.
“Mind your business,” the man snarled, reaching for his gun.
His hand closed around the grip. He drew it out of the holster.
And then there was a shot.
I screamed, expecting to feel pain. I didn’t. I wasn’t the one who’d been hit.
He fell. It wasn’t like in the movies where the bullet was in slow motion. In real life, shootings happen in a single heartbeat. One minute the crazy man was standing over me, and then he was on the floor bleeding.
“Shit!” someone said.
“What the fuck!”
“Oh my God!”
“Is he… is he dead?”
“Holy fuck. She killed him!”
Everything was suddenly happening all at once. Cass, Dillon, and several of the customers were all racing toward me. A few others were motionless.
Then Joe, the Senator’s kid who couldn’t keep it in his pants, was in the room. He walked over to the door, threw the lock, and announced, “Whoever is in this room, is in the room. And we’re not leaving until we sort this shit out.”
The responses came all at once.
“I can’t get caught with a dead body.”
“I killed him.”
“I’m innocent. I’m not staying here.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Jess had slumped into a chair. There were a few flecks of blood on her nice white shirt. Her shaking hands were clutching my gun, which still had more rounds in it.
I walked over and took my gun from her. I shoved it inside my purse. The casing was still in the chamber, and Jess’s prints would be all over it. What wasn’t anywhere on it, however, was a serial number. This was an unmarked piece Tommy had gotten for me for Valentine’s Day our first year together. I wasn’t sentimental about guns, so I could probably toss it or sell it. Right now, though, I was so shattered by what had just happened that I really didn’t want to be without a gun.
“It’s okay,” I whispered to her. Then, louder, I said, “Everything’s going to be okay.”
And then Cass said, “It will be. We just need to get rid of the body before someone comes.”
We all stopped whatever we were doing and looked at her. I expected arguments or objections, but none came.
One of the drunk girls, the brunette who was still having trouble standing in her god-awful shoes, said, “Violet can do it! Her family burns bodies.”
The other drunk girl, the one wearing a cheap tiara saying ‘Birthday Girl,’ said, “We run a funeral home! There’s a difference. We cremate them.”
“You have the keys,” said Helpful Drunk Girl.
“Damn it, Allie,” Miss Tiara groaned.
The jock said, “What the fuck are you all thinking?”
“We should call the police,” the girl with the Bible said.
There it was: the objection I’d thought would be instantaneous. Everyone was staring at her or the dead guy or the drunk girls who suggested burning the dead guy. I wasn’t sure who was the most outrageous of the bunch. All I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to get caught with an unregistered gun that was undoubtedly tied to some
thing illegal before it was in my possession and which had just been used to kill a guy. I wasn’t sure where things would fall out if anyone called the police either. Would Jess be arrested? Would I, for the gun possession? Would the drunk girls for pretty obvious public intoxication? At least four of us would be taken downtown. I looked around, wondering who else had a secret.
Then the Oxford asshole, Joe, said, “I can’t be found here. If you’re calling the cops, I’m out, and no one better mention me being here.”
“Me, either,” said the drunk who had volunteered her friend for getting rid of the body. “I’m on probation.”
“I can’t risk my scholarship,” the jock said.
“Getting arrested would be a… I can’t get arrested,” Lauren said.
“Don’t look at me,” said a quiet guy who’d been hanging back the whole time.
“No one’s going to get arrested,” the Bible girl said, reasonably.
“Jess would,” I said, just as calmly. The police had always made me nervous, and having an unregistered gun that had been used in a shooting would lead to questions I couldn’t answer. I looked around at them. “I would get arrested. That’s not exactly a legal gun. What’s to say someone wouldn’t point the finger at one of you, too?”
No one spoke. The girl with the Bible seemed to be praying, and the hippie girl who had been in the bathroom with Joe was patting the praying girl’s arm. I waited for someone to argue, hoping they were willing to follow my lead on this.
After a quiet moment, Cass and I exchanged a look, and I suggested, “Let’s just get him out of here.” I turned to Miss Tiara and Helpful Drunk and asked, “You can deal with the body?”
Helpful Drunk’s head immediately bobbed, but Miss Tiara took her time, apparently needing to let the idea filter through her vodka-soaked brain before she could respond. Finally, she shot a resentful look at Helpful Drunk and nodded.
“Okay.” I squatted down and patted the dead guy down for car keys. He hadn’t been in the bars because they were either places that had smoking rooms or dance floors. The dead man hadn’t smelled smoky or seemed the club type. Since the only nearby places were bars that meant he had a car.
Once I located the keys, I concentrated on ignoring the sick feeling I had from rifling through the pockets of a dead man.
“You”—I pointed at the jock—”come with me. We’ll make sure we can get him into the trunk. Cass, get the mop.”
“If we’re really doing this, I can get rid of the car,” the hippie girl suggested quietly.
It seemed crazy that we were really talking about this, but no one was objecting. The jock said, “I’m Blake.”
I blinked at him.
“I figured if we’re getting rid of bodies together we should know names,” he said.
“Sugar,” I said.
“Joe.”
“And Whitney,” the hippie added quickly.
“Violet and Allie,” said Miss Tiara.
The nondescript quiet guy who didn’t seem much interested in speaking just shrugged, fingers wrapped around the coffee cup he held in one hand. He muttered something that might have been “Max.”
“Lauren.” She had her arms folded like she was going to stop herself from shaking by holding on to her own arms, so I didn’t point out that I already knew her name.
“Hope,” said the praying girl very quietly.
Jess didn’t say her name, but she’d just shot a man so no one seemed like they wanted to push her too hard.
“Someone stay here at the door while we go out,” I said. “No one else comes inside.”
Then Blake and I went out to the lot, pushed the remote until a car’s lights flicked on, and went over to the nondescript blue sedan. We popped the trunk so we could see if there was room for the body and… stopped. Inside the trunk were a bunch of black duffle bags. I had a bad feeling about what that meant, and it only got worse when I unzipped one, and then another, and then one more. After a moment, I breathed, “Fuck!”
“Now what?” Blake asked.
I looked around. The street was clear, and there were no lights anywhere. We were lucky. There was absolutely no way that we should call the cops. We’d already decided that, but this made it crystal clear that our decision was the right one. It was bad enough to get caught up in a murder investigation, but duffle bags overflowing with cash meant that the dead man was into serious crime.
“We take it inside,” I said as calmly as I could.
Blake took four of the duffle bags, and I took two, and we carried them back to the door.
Lauren and Whitney were waiting just inside. I realized that they were trying not to look at the body that Cass and Joe were wrapping in trash bags. I felt queasy, but I didn’t have time for it. Later I could freak out. Right now, I had to focus.
“Lock the door again,” Blake ordered.
“Close the blinds too.” I felt stupid for not saying that before, but no one came while we were standing around the corpse so we were still okay.
Blake dropped the bags on the floor, well away from the blood. “This was in the trunk.” He squatted down and opened two of the bags.
No one said anything at first but then I said, “Look, with this much money, someone will come looking for him.” I nodded toward the dead man. “We split this evenly and no one ever comes back here again. No cops. No talking. Take the money and get gone.”
“I don’t want it,” Jess said. “I don’t want any of his money.”
Everyone takes it. It makes us all equally guilty,” Lauren insisted suddenly. “We’re all in this now. We take our share, and we swear not to call the police. Sugar’s right. She’d get arrested for the gun. Jess would for using it.”
“She’s right,” Cass added. “Who knows if the police would believe the rest of us? I don’t want to risk it. We all take our share of the money. We never come back here. Cut ties and stay away from this place. And we don’t talk to anyone else who was here. Deal?”
Blake unzipped the other four bags. Everyone was looking at the money. There was a lot of it.
“Deal,” I echoed.
Everyone else repeated it, some more quickly and some in whispers that sounded very reluctant. It didn’t matter though. They agreed. If they spilled to the cops, I’d be long gone. I was already sure of that. They didn’t know the last names of anyone here, and aside from those of us that worked here, I wasn’t sure they others could be traced easily. I didn’t know what Cass or Dillon would do, but I wasn’t waiting around to find out. The only other easy to find members of the group were Joe and maybe the jock. I didn’t recognize him, but I suspected someone here would. Joe had hid daddy’s connections to keep him safe.
As Blake started pulling out stacks of hundred dollar bills, he stopped and pulled out something else. There were two kilos of cocaine in the fifth bag.
“We need to do something with this,” he said, holding up a brick of coke.
“I can burn it, too,” Violet said.
“I’ll take it,” I said in my calmest voice.
“Why should you get it?” Dillon asked.
“We can split it, too, if you want,” I suggested, but after a moment of silence, it was obvious that no one else actually wanted it.
We counted the money, and then we divided it equally—$110,000 each—and then we did what we needed. Soon, the body, the blood, the car, the drugs, and the money were all gone.
And we were all a part of it.
Chapter 2
Adam walked into one of the local dive bars he’d frequented regularly the past couple of years. Even though it was named for a Prohibition speakeasy, the Blind Tiger was far from classy or unique. It felt like the sort of bar he’d been inside in more towns than he could remember—dark, worn, and comfortable. It was a lot more comfortable when he had Sasha with him, but she was still at work.
He had what his Aunt Grace and mother called “itchy feet.” He liked to roam. Being a tattoo artist made that possible. He
packed his essentials, his work gear, and went where the road led him. A few years ago, the road took him west, and his aunt’s worrying took him into Rio Verde to check on his cousin.
The interior of the bar was dark enough that it was easy to blend into the shadows of a corner if you had a mind to do so, and the crowd was a mix of denim, leather, and flashes of color on the short-skirted girls hanging on the arms of the blue-collar guys that clustered here. Places like this felt like home. No matter what state they were in, they were the same. The beer was cold, and the whiskey was a generous pour. When Adam hopped his way from state to state, he always found a few dives that he liked. The Blind Tiger was one of the ones he liked best in Rio Verde. Too many of the rest were co-ed hang-outs or sports bars. The Tiger was more his speed.
He made his way to a table where he could sit with his back to the wall and surveyed the crowd surreptitiously. It was a habit he couldn’t shake. He might steer clear of trouble, but that didn’t mean that he forgot that there was always at least one dumbass in most every bar just waiting for a chance to prove something.
“Johnnie Walker Black,” he said as the barmaid approached.
She smiled in a friendly way, and Adam wondered if he’d slept with her at some point and forgotten. He had spells where he went through far more women than maybe he ought to, but there was only so much he could drink without feeling like he was too near out of control. He didn’t touch drugs anymore, hadn’t in years. That left one good, or maybe bad, choice for getting outside his mind. Sex. No strings, no lies, no promises. He made sure the women he fucked got as good as they gave, or better. If any of them were more into giving than getting, he made sure to get their name and number so he could even the score later. If they gave him pleasure, he owed them the same. It was simple math.
Unfortunately, it had become a little awkward after a few years in the same town. He didn’t usually stay this long, and Rio Verde wasn’t an enormous place. Luckily, there were enough co-eds who were in and out because of ASU Rio Verde that he had renewable resources there.
Unfiltered & Unlawful (The Unfiltered Series) Page 2
