Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills Series Book 6)

by Mary B. Moore

  DB was the one who answered her. “Thank you for the update. We’re en route to the motel.”

  Then everything went silent again, leaving me with a racing heart and a million thoughts.

  “Just to say, I know you’re close to losing your shit, but if I were ever in a hostage situation, I’d want Mace and an eighty-three year old woman with a shotgun protecting me. I accidentally stood on her flowerbed a few weeks back, and I swear she was going to tear me a new one. If someone’s done any damage to her property, I’ll be betting she’s pissed.”

  “But is she stable? A pissed off old woman with a shotgun?”

  Snorting, he pointed out the turning ahead unnecessarily. “Sorry, force of habit. I think the question of whether she’s stable or not is a loaded one, but I’d still want her protecting me in that situation.”

  The motel wasn’t far after the turning, so I pulled to a stop in front of it and was almost out of the vehicle when someone grabbed my shoulder and almost got punched.

  It was Alex.

  “Stay calm. If you can’t, you’ll need to sit this one out.”

  “She’s my fucking life, man,” I snapped. “My world is sitting in that room, and someone with a gun is—”

  “We don’t even know if the gun’s anywhere near her,” he interrupted, giving me a quick shake. “Now, we’re going to move carefully so that we don’t fuck it all up and get people shot. It’s a shitty situation,” he admitted, ignoring the sarcastic noises that everyone let out at the words, “but we won’t be the reason someone innocent gets hurt.”

  Grinding my teeth together, I reluctantly nodded. I wanted to run in and get to her, but he was right. God, but this sucked.

  “Good job,” DB said as he walked up, stopping in front of me. “A lot of us understand how you’re feeling right now, Logan, but Dad’s right. You have to be calm to be smart, and smart is making sure no one gets shot. We’ll get her out.”

  I’d take and love Bexley any way she came, so long as her heart was beating.

  And it was my job to make sure it stayed that way.

  I didn’t take the weight of that responsibility lightly either. She was my heart, so hers couldn’t stop, especially not now.

  “What are y’all yapping about?” a female voice yelled from one of the doors of the motel.

  The door that was next to the room I’d dropped Bexley off in. Son of a bitch!

  DB spun around at the sound of it, but I had a clear view of the owner of the motel standing with her shotgun resting on her shoulder. “Mizz O’Hare—"

  Moving the shotgun, she started using it as a sort of pointer stick like they used at the academy to point at the board. “Now, don’t be giving me any of that, Sheriff. It’s Hyacinth, and you know that. Y’all also know I don’t take any shit in my establishment, and this definitely goes against the rules. Now, are you going to come and help me out, or are we having tea and a social gathering?”

  Carter moved to stand beside me, his eyes wide as he watched her waving her shotgun around. “What’s happening?” he whispered.

  “I have no fucking idea, but she’s standing next to the room Bexley’s in.”

  DB turned to look at me over his shoulder. “Logical thinking time. If someone like Bexley needed help because she was hurt, Hyacinth’s demeanor would be very different from what it is now, and she’d be requesting medical assistance. Instead, she’s agitated but only slightly more than normal.”

  “Trust me when I say I’m not getting any younger here,” she bellowed. “Gravity ain’t friends with age, so I got both beating down on me.”

  “Does anyone need medical assistance?” Alex called back.

  “No? Well, maybe?”

  Glaring at DB, I growled, “I’m losing my fucking mind here. I need to go up there and make sure she’s okay.”

  “And you will. Give me just thirty more seconds, and think about what I just said about Hyacinth. Don’t let your emotions take over your ability to do the job properly.” Answering him with a jerk of my chin, I watched Miss O’Hare closely as he walked toward her and shouted, “What are we walking into, Hyacinth?”

  “A fucking magic show, what do you think? Got a judge who thinks he can shoot up my property, a man being held hostage by the judge, and a handsome young fella y’all know who does some great body art—” she stopped as someone shouted something to her from the rooms, then turned back to us. “Sorry, he says he’s got shit okay in that room, and to get the sorry sacks of shit outta this one.”

  Hanging my head to look at my boots, I mentally kicked myself. DB was right. I’d let my emotions take over my ability to do my job.

  A meaty paw smacking me on the shoulder made me grit my teeth. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. We didn’t know anything about Bex’s situation, and having innocent people around when guns start going off affects all of us. Hopefully, you’ll never be in a situation where it happens around Bexley again, though. Twice in one day is more than enough for one lifetime.”

  I listened to Alex’s advice and absorbed it. I was raw. That was the only way to describe it. Twice today, my heart had stopped because of guns being shot near her. Twice I hadn’t known if I’d find her breathing or dead.

  So, yeah, I was fucking raw, and I would be until I got to check her over myself.

  Holding his hand in the air, DB motioned to us to split into two teams. Because there were staircases on either side of the walkway that ran in front of the rooms we were aiming for, one group would approach from one side, and the other would come from the other side.

  Looking at me, he pointed at Carter and then at the room we’d rented earlier.

  I was splitting off from the team and going in to see her.

  Nodding, we moved quickly and were soon on the walkway. As I got to the door, I tapped gently three times and stood back so Mace could see me through the peephole.

  When he threw open the door, Carter and I moved inside and shut it quietly behind us.

  “They’re in the bath with the animals. I hid them with a comforter over their heads in case the guy shot again,” he pointed at a wall where there were three large holes.

  “Damn,” Carter whistled.

  “Yeah, and the girls were standing four inches to the right of it when the first one came through,” he clipped, his lips set in a straight line. “Fucker almost hit them because he couldn’t take getting dumped.”

  All I could see was Bexley laughing as she relaxed after a bullshit day with her friend, a glass of wine in her hand, and a bullet going into her.

  “Why—” I stopped and licked my lips. “What did they do when it happened?”

  Mace’s lip twitched slightly as he looked at me. “They don’t even know it happened. They thought initially it was fireworks or an argument outside. I went in earlier after it kicked off again next door to reassure them it wasn’t in the room, and the damn dog was sitting in the tub with them while Ava cuddled the cats.”

  Tipping my head back to look at the ceiling, I felt anger, relief, sadness, happiness, and rage. All of them were extreme, but the one that came to the surface was a burst of irrational laughter.

  A bullet had come through the wall near her and her friend, and now she was hiding in a tub with Doyle on her lap and the box of kittens.

  Sweet baby Herbert and fish sticks on a Sunday.

  “That’s the craziness of stress coming through,” Carter told Mace as they watched me laughing.

  Next door, we could hear a commotion and a deep voice yelling that he wasn’t leaving without someone else, but I knew they had it under control when I heard Alejandro yelling out that he had the gun.

  “You better believe I’m suing your ass for damages, Judge Ingleston. I don’t care what your job title is, you don’t make holes in someone else’s wall. I know you were born during the prohibition, but your mama must have taught you manners,” Hyacinth screamed from outside. “That’s like me coming to yours for Sunday dinner and wiping my ass on your decora
tive hand towels. Why I never…” she trailed off, muttering something to herself that we couldn’t quite pick up.

  “Remind me to come here for a weekend,” Carter said, staring at the door.

  Rubbing my face with shaking hands, I shook my head and wondered how just how something so bad could end like this.

  Was this the end of it?

  I hoped so.

  “Go get your girl, man. But be warned—they’re talking about bad breath and wine stinking more after you drink it. They tried to get me to smell it when I went in to reassure them, but I told them I had shit to do.”

  I’d smell her breath if she asked me to, even if it was first thing in the morning. I didn’t want to take even one second for granted with her, and I hoped that determination never stopped.

  The second I opened the door, her sweaty, red face popped out from under the comforter, which looked like it was being propped up in the middle by Doyle.

  “Logan!” she cried, then looked me up and down, stopping on my stomach. “What’s that?”

  Shit, the bullet hole.

  “I got it snagged on something. Are you okay?” I asked as I dropped to my knees beside her. “You’re not hurt?”

  “No, we’re fine. Someone was arguing next door, so Mace put us in here because he’s a big old worry head.” Then, putting her face right in front of mine, she blew out a breath. “Hey, does that smell like death? Try Ava’s.”

  Truth be told, it didn’t smell great.

  But I didn’t give even an ounce of a shit.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Logan

  “So, it’s a bit of a bizarre case,” DB told us as we sat down the next morning. “After hours of questions, we’ve pieced together the following. Judge Ingleston, and Dirk, King and Lord Kirkwood, were all in business together, cutting and distributing what they called ‘fudge.’ Jordy Watts was their main distributor, who sold it to other dealers and customers.”

  That wasn’t new information, but it was good to have it confirmed.

  “Judge Ingleston was paid to assist with the release of the distributors when they were arrested to avoid eyes coming back to the Kirkwoods. The ‘fudge’ was made at the property we visited last night belonging to King Kirkwood, and that’s where the distributors met them to make a deal and pass over the payments.”

  A glance around the room showed no surprised faces. It was good to have facts that would get them sentenced, but I wanted to know what had led to a bullet missing Bexley by four inches.

  “When Jordy Watts was arrested, Ashesh Morash was away dropping off a supply of fudge to one of their dealers, so King Kirkwood had to collect him, drawing eyes on the family. It was either this or risk Jordy being at Palmerstown P.D. for longer and opening him up to further questioning or a slip of the tongue. Because of that, after hiding him in one of the houses that were more developed than the others, they decided it would be best to get rid of him, making it look like a murder-suicide.

  DB’s shoulders drooped slightly as he told us the next piece of information. “By the way, Cinder woke up this morning but will still have a breathing tube until they’re certain it’s okay to remove it. We don’t know, as yet, what she remembers or if she can tell us anything, and the DA has already said they won’t be pursuing her for her participation in the robbery.”

  Thank fuck.

  “Dirk confirmed they shot him in the same basement where we found Ashesh, so the techs are going back to see if they can uncover any evidence to prove this. The mud still has too much water in it to solidify, so I don’t know what the outcome will be.

  “Here’s where it gets a bit more interesting. Ashesh Morash questioned Dirk about the death of his buddy and was so upset, he threatened to come to us about it. Dirk offered him five hundred thousand dollars to keep his mouth shut and told him he’d drop it off to him at the building site.

  “Once he got there, King throttled him with a phone charging cord and then called Lord to help him bury the body in the fucked up basement because they assumed concrete was getting poured into it the next morning. Unfortunately, they failed that inspection, so they had to come up with an excuse on the fly—which was that they were fixing the issues in it properly before any further work was done on it.”

  “A phone charging cord?” Alejandro asked carefully.

  “Yeah, a lightning one, to be precise,” DB replied with a straight face. “King was very specific about not using unbranded merchandise with his phones.”

  “If I thought praying would save the world from idiots, I’d give it a whirl,” Alejandro sighed. “He’s just confessed to murdering someone and making and distributing a drug called fudge, and he’s making a case for brand versus no brand?”

  The shit people came out with would blow your mind. I was still waiting for more information, though. “So where does the school shooting come into it?”

  Looking over at me, DB rubbed his chin, the rasp of his stubble setting my teeth on edge. Someone hadn’t been home all night.

  “Lord has a kid at the school, one that no one knew was his, and after shit heated up with his family, he decided to go into hiding—with Judge Ingleston. The judge had been cheating on his wife with Lord and planned to run away together with the money. At the last minute, Lord had a change of heart, not wanting to leave the daughter he’d only just found out about and broke it off. Heartbroken, Ingleston went to the school and shot his AR-15 into the air, hoping it would scare Lord into leaving with him.”

  With all of us looking at him like he was lying, he lifted a shoulder. “Doesn’t make sense to me, but then I’m not a deranged psychopath. After that, he checked into Hell On Wheels, rang Lord, gave him an ultimatum, and then made plans.

  “He was going to use his gun to take Lord hostage and leave as they’d originally planned. Unfortunately, when Lord arrived, pissed off, he lunged at Ingleston, shooting a round into the wall. The men fought, shooting off more rounds until Hyacinth got there and threatened to shoot both of them if they moved even an inch.”

  “Holy shit,” Mark muttered, staring at the table. “I only had corrupt fucks on my bingo card.”

  A chorus of agreement sounded from the table as we all tried to get our heads around it.

  I needed an answer to something, though. It might have been common sense that the answer would be no, but after everything that’d happened, I wasn’t sure who we could trust anymore. “Will they get bail?”

  Shaking his head, DB touched a piece of paper on the table in front of him. “The DA has confirmed that they’ll push for bail to be denied, and as the judge assigned to the case is Ramsey, it’s doubtful he’ll feel inclined to say no. We’re only just touching on the tip of the iceberg of the case, so we’ve got a lot of work still to do.”

  We were all getting up from our seats when Carter’s hand suddenly shot up. “Question, when do we get a new mayor?”

  Alex threw his head back and burst out laughing, getting a glare from DB as he turned back to Carter.

  “An emergency council meeting is being held to discuss having an interim mayor until one is elected. Hurst Townsend is the interim mayor. However, he’s insisting that ample time is to be given for other people to come forward and campaign for the position who’d like to take it on.”

  “Mayor Townsend,” Raoul chuckled. “Totally saw that shit coming.”

  Mark looked intrigued by this. “Who else has put their name forward?”

  Still laughing, Alex told him, “No one.”

  I could confidently say that Lawrence Heath was looking down on the town right now, laughing his ass off at his old buddy stepping up as mayor. He could do that, he wasn’t going to have to deal with the shit a Townsend mayor could bring in the blink of an eye.

  But his granddaughter was safe, she was in a new room, and what had almost happened twice yesterday was never going to happen again.

  She’d said this morning that we couldn’t worry about what could or what had almost happened. We
just had to go on living for the moment so that if it did happen, we’d lived life to the fullest.

  I might get on board with that mentality in twenty years, but not right now.

  Bexley

  Ten days later…

  If Logan didn’t learn to chillax, he was going to give himself an ulcer to match the bruise he still had on his stomach from where King had shot him.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, holding the key to Pops’ room out to me. “We only just moved back in, and there’s a lot to do in the—”

  “Give me the key,” I snapped as I snatched it out of his hand carefully. He had Miracle held against his chest in the other one, and I didn’t want to knock him off balance and risk him dropping her.

  Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and stood frozen in place as I saw his chair, the ass indentations still in the cushion. I don’t know how long I stared, but I snapped out of it when Doyle nudged me out of the way and trotted into the room with his tail wagging.

  Then came the whining. I’d heard him do this after Pops passed away, but I think I was emotionally and mentally too numb to understand what it was.

  I got it now, he was grieving for his own loss, and he didn’t get that Pops wasn’t in this room waiting for him.

  Dropping down to my knees, I called for him to come to me and almost got flattened to the ground when his long legs brought him over too fast. We both let out our grief at that moment, him whimpering into my shoulder and me sobbing into his neck.

  Then, strong arms wrapped around both of us, cocooning us and smushing my face deeper into Doyle’s neck. Thank God he’d had a bath yesterday after rolling around in the garden. Ever tried bathing a mountain of dog? It’s a blast—so long as you don’t mind washing with him.

  “We should keep the room just like this,” Logan said quietly. “In years to come, when we have kids, they can use it as a playroom or something.”