Which brought me to now, in a small room surrounded by people who were now moving to the other side of it, smelling like I’d been shit on by a bull, and my boss glaring at me as he covered his nose with a hand.
Without saying another word he pointed at the door, making it clear what he wanted me to do. Some people might be embarrassed about it, but I was fucking grateful because I was desperate to get it off me.
As I scrubbed my skin and hair in the showers - hugely grateful that I kept a change of clothes in my locker - I thought over what I’d walked into the night before. My family and Rose had all been laughing and joking about what a great prank I’d pulled on them all and how they’d blamed each other before they’d realized where it was coming from. At the time I’d been damn proud of myself for getting all of them with it instead of just Rose and Garrett, but now? I’d been punk’d by my own family!
I also needed to think about how I was going to get the smell out my car. Short of burning it to the ground I wasn’t sure it could be done. I knew that they did detailing at Ren Townsend’s garage so I’d take it there on my lunch break and see what he came up with. I wasn’t going to hold my breath that they’d be able to do it - but they might want to while they were cleaning it.
It also meant I was going to have to come up with a way to get back at Rose for this. Since she’d become mine, I had moments where my heart was back in the prank war, and moments when it wasn’t there at all. I’d much rather sink into her body and listen to her moan as I moved in and out of her, then I’d feel her as she came while I was…
“Yo, Evans,” Logan yelled. “When you’re done doing your makeup, old man Beck needs you at his house to look at a tape that was dropped off this morning.”
Thinking I’d misheard what he said, I shouted back, “A tape?”
“Yeah, apparently old people crime’s gone back to how it was done twenty years ago.”
Sighing, I rinsed off and yanked my towel off the curtain rail, resigned to the fact that what I was about to see was most likely going to scar me for life. Old man Beck had what I referred to as a harem of women, and it wasn’t unusual for them to send him dirty shit that he then brought to us thinking he was being stalked. If this ended up being old people porn…
Unfortunately, while I’d been scrubbing the skin off my body, DB had briefed the rest of the team about the reports of a break-in at an abandoned barn ten minutes outside of town. If I’d been there, maybe I would have thought about the possibility of it being the man who was after my woman? Maybe I wouldn’t have, but at least I’d have been given a chance to.
Rose
“All I’m going to do is go in and take a shower,” I huffed, pushing open my front door. “No, to be precise, I’m going to feed Rex, then I’m taking a shower.”
Seeing that I wasn’t going to budge, Garrett did a quick walk around and then came back to me. “Fine, go do your shit, but make sure you lock the door and don’t open it to anyone but me, ok?”
I gave him an answer – with a look and one finger. Wanna guess which finger it was?
Glaring at me, he slammed the door behind him and when I didn’t move immediately to lock it, he sang, “I’m waiting!”
Hitting the lock, I stalked toward the kitchen. Today had been quieter than yesterday, which was a good thing for the people of Piersville but a bad thing for me because it made the day drag like saggy balls on the floor. Garrett had a new friend in jellyfish chick, aka Zuri, and I could see us being good friends, too, because that chick was awesome.
The problem was I missed his brother. I was also pissed that I hadn’t gotten to see what he looked like when he’d gotten to work, although I’d heard about it in a phone call from Tabby. She’d been struggling to breathe as she repeated what DB had told her, and then Cole had come in to drop off lunch for the two of us, and he’d told us that Raoul’s car had been dropped off there, but they couldn’t work on it until the smell cleared. It was currently sitting outside the garage with the doors and windows open, and they were going to draw straws on who got the job of cleaning it.
And I’d missed it all.
The one bright spark in my day had been that one of my favorite Piersville residents had come in for stitches – Jarrod Kline. He was one of the first residents I’d met when I’d moved here, having literally walked into him in the store, and I loved the guy to pieces. I especially loved his voice. I had the first audiobook he’d narrated sitting on my phone, waiting for Raoul to go back onto nights. That man’s voice…
And that reminded me of something else - I had two recordings of him singing on my phone. So, while I tipped a can of wet food into Rex’s bowl and mixed it with some dry stuff, I unlocked my phone and shouted for my Alexa.
“Alexa, connect to Rose’s phone.”
Her verbal confirmation followed the normal bing bong noise, but for some reason it sounded Australian. The fact that he’d probably done it to piss me off was neither here nor there as the tension left my shoulders and neck.
Over the last week – in fact, if I was honest, it had been for the last year at least – Raoul Evans had made bad days better. Yes, undoubtedly, he’d done it all to piss me off, but the laughter, the distraction, even the need to get revenge, had all made me feel freer and happier than I’d ever felt before in my life. I loved that we still played pranks on each other after the change in our relationship. I loved that he spooned me even though I beat him up. I loved that he knew just what I needed, and the bare truth was – I loved him. Hell, I even loved his brother, although in a totally different way. And I really liked his family and was sad that they’d had to leave this morning because Catalina needed to get back to work.
Absolutely I was still worried about Chad going after Tana, even though I knew she was safe where she was. I was also still pissed that he’d punched me in the face. And, admittedly, I was scared that no one had found him yet, and had to constantly distract myself from thinking about what he was doing or how close to me he might be. That’s what was responsible for the tension in my shoulders that Raoul’s tampering with my Alexa had helped.
See? He just made it easier to breathe, and I desperately wanted to be able to do that for him, too. I could only imagine the things he dealt with on a daily basis because law enforcement personnel saw things that would scar you for life, so I wanted to be the person who made him feel like he made me feel without even trying. That was my goal, and I was going to work on it.
Placing the bowl down on the floor and wincing when Rex bolted out from his hiding space and shoved his face into it, I went to walk to my room when someone started hammering on my door.
“Shithead. I told him I’d be ok while he went and got Ranger,” I muttered. Yanking it open, I snapped, “There’s no need to break the freaking d…”
But the person on the other side wasn’t who I thought it was. Nor was it my brother, or even a guy holding a pizza because I’d won the pizza lottery. No, this guy was turning into a bigger pain in my ass than the blister’s on Garrett’s were to him. But at least we knew where to find Chad, right?
Faster than I figured a man like him would be able to move, he lifted his hand and shoved me backward. I want to say I put up a good fight, and that I fought like I’d always planned I’d fight if I was attacked in the shower. The problem was that I’d never factored in a man the size of a fucking rhino being the one who’d be attacking me, so I ended up tripping over my own feet and hitting my head on the floor. This was ironic because I fought like a kung-fu master when there was a spider web in front of me, but a guy built like a brick shit house? If I survived this, I was going to have to do something about that.
Chapter Eighteen
Rose
While I’d been lying on the floor – you know, as you do – he’d dragged an unconscious Garrett inside and had ordered me to go through to the living room. Maybe I should be scared, but I felt like I’d been put in the naughty corner as Chad paced back and forth in front of me, telling me al
l the reasons why his life had gone to shit and how I was to blame.
“If you’d just kept your mouth shut, done medical shit like you’re meant to and left, none of this would have happened.”
I wanted to point out that if he hadn’t beaten his girlfriend none of this would have happened, but I decided to play it smart. Punch me once, shame on me, but you’re not getting a second chance because it hurt like a bitch. It was what it was. I’d probably end up saying something that pissed him off, but right now my biggest concern was whether or not Garrett was ok seeing as how he hadn’t moved since he’d been dragged in.
Turning around, Chad snarled, “Tell me where she is!”
“Who?”
Stalking over to me, he leaned in, giving me a good waft of his BO, bad breath, and whatever else he had swirling around him – and trust me, none of it was pleasant. “You fucking know who.”
That’s when my smart mouth took over. Holding my breath, I whispered, “He who shall not be named?” making him jerk back in confusion.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I know, he scares me, too. I got shivers when I saw him in Harry Potter. And what’s up with the whole…” I asked, waving my hand over my nose. “What if he gets a cold?”
Swear to God I heard Garrett mutter, “Jesus Christ!” But I was too busy watching the behemoth lose his temper, and bracing for the familiar big fist that was coming toward me again. It bears mentioning the word again. It also bears mentioning that I should have stuck to my original plan to not antagonize him.
Raoul
“Hey, have you heard from Rose?” Ellis asked as Logan and I walked out to the cruiser. We were late thanks to the drama at old man Beck’s house – which did indeed turn out to be pensioner porn – and were now leaving to go back to the station.
Lifting my phone away from my head, I checked the screen to see if I had any messages or missed calls from her. Not seeing anything, I asked, “No, why?”
“She’s not answering her phone.”
Just then, the call waiting noise started, and I saw DB’s name on the screen. “I gotta take this, man, but try calling Garrett’s phone. He always has it on him.” Not waiting for him to say bye, I dropped the call and answered my boss’s. “Hey, it was a fa…”
“A neighbor just spotted him near Rose’s house,” he said, interrupting me and not needing to explain who he was talking about. “I’m on my way over there now, but you need to move your ass.”
Putting it on speakerphone, I started the engine, only just managing to wait for Logan to close his door. “Where the fuck is my brother?”
“We don’t know,” he rumbled, the sound of an engine starting following it. “I’m taking Tabby’s vehicle so he doesn’t get spooked and do something dumb, and I’ve sent out a text to everyone we had involved with it all so they’ll be head there, too. Dad was five minutes outside of town when I got the call, so he’s en route as well”
“We’re all screwed if the Townsends get there first,” Logan muttered, making a valid point. I was involved in a case when one of their women had gone missing and it had been one of their cousins who’d found her. She might have been saved, but the whole thing had been a complete debacle.
Tapping him on the arm to get him to take over the call, I concentrated as I navigated the streets as fast as I could. DB had made a valid point about pulling up in a marked vehicle so I was going to have to park a block down and then make my way on foot. Thankfully, the pensioner porn call that had made me late wasn’t too far away from where we lived, so two turns later I was pulling in and cutting the engine. Knowing that Logan would catch me up, I got out the car and started sprinting down the street toward her house.
With my focus on getting to her, I didn’t see the figure standing in the dark a couple of doors down from her house until a hand shot out and caught my arm. “It’s me,” DB whispered when I went to swing for him.
“Holy shit,” Logan panted, finally catching up with me and bending over to catch his breath. “It was like running after a Cheetah.”
Ignoring him, DB began outlining what he knew so far. “I’ve seen him walking past the window,” he muttered. “I can’t get close enough without him seeing me, though, but he’s talking to someone, so I’m assuming it’s her.”
We weren’t small men, and we needed to be fit for our jobs, so overpowering him wouldn’t be a problem. There was also the fact that I knew the house as well as I knew my own home, seeing as how I’d had to break into it enough times. “Ok, well, there’s three of us…”
Holding a hand up to stop me, he said grimly, “Raoul, man, he’s got a gun in his hand and he keeps pointing at her.”
I’d once had someone tell me that they’d felt like their ass had dropped into their balls after they’d heard bad news, and if I had to describe how I was feeling at that moment I’d be inclined to agree with that description. It was one thing apprehending someone who looked like he at three large pizzas on his own in one sitting, but it was another thing apprehending someone who was unhinged and armed. Fingers got twitchy, triggers got pulled, and innocent people died every day because of it.
Grabbing handfuls of my hair, I tried to think past the panic that was taking over. Remove emotion, look at facts, think rationally – that was the first rule of situations like this. But the problem was that we were a small town, so we didn’t have things like SWAT teams because we didn’t face that level of crime. If we needed them, we called out the nearest team from Belton but we didn’t have that time. The guy had been on the run for days now and he knew what he was facing, and this meant that he knew exactly what he wanted. Right now the adrenaline was pumping through him and ruling the show, and adrenaline made people unpredictable.
“Raoul, look at me,” DB ordered, shaking my shoulder to snap me out of it. “We also found something at his house when we went there earlier.”
“Wait, but he hasn’t been there for days,” Logan pointed out, as confused as I was by this information.
“That might be the case,” DB agreed, “but there were bottles of Durabolin in it with used needles and syringes.”
Trying to follow along with it, Logan asked, “Steroids?”
Nodding, DB ran a hand through his hair agitatedly. “He had it all. Durabolin, testosterone, HGH, and it looked like he was getting through a lot of it all.”
“It also explains why he had such an explosive temper,” I croaked, the worry reaching an almost explosive level inside me now.
Staring at the figure who was once again walking around in the house, Logan clarified, “HGH as in like growth hormone stuff?”
Both of us nodded grimly. Putting aside the fact that anabolic steroids were a Penalty Group 3 drug, if he was creating his own cocktail of them and injecting them into his body, the volatility of his mood was unpredictable. He was literally a ticking time bomb and he was waving a gun around my woman.
“Tell the others to hold back. We don’t know what he’ll do if he gets spooked, and I don’t want to take any chances with Rose in there with him.” Looking behind me, I saw my car parked in the drive, and this meant that Garrett had brought her home. Indicating for them to follow me, we hunched down and crossed the road, hunkering down behind the big ass bushes my neighbor insisted on having. “Has anyone seen my brother?”
Typing on his phone, DB mumbled, “No, and there was no sign of movement when I checked your house either.”
That wasn’t right – where was Ranger? It’s not like you could miss him with how big he was. “Let’s go inside,” I suggested quietly. “If we go around the back, we can use the door there instead of the one at the front. I want to see if Garrett’s inside because we need him in on this with us.” It was unlikely he was because it would mean leaving Rose on her own with a psycho, but I still needed to check. When they both nodded, I asked DB, “Have you told the others to keep their distance?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed, “but just so you know, Ellis is
pissed so I’d make this quick if I was you.”
Ellis could be as pissed as he fucking wanted to be, I didn’t give a shit. The only thing that mattered right now was that Rose was inside that house with someone who had large quantities of performance inducing drugs in his system - drugs he probably hadn’t had in days which would affect him even more, and he was holding a goddamn gun in front of her.
Shooting DB a look to communicate my current feelings on how Ellis felt, I almost smiled when he nodded and muttered, “Noted.”
Not hanging around, I led them to the back door of my house and went in, expecting to see Ranger waiting for me as soon as I did it. “Where’s my dog? Serious as shit, none of this makes any sense.”
A new voice talking behind us almost made me pull my gun. “Your brother came back, let the dog out to take him across to your woman’s house,” Alex relayed from where he was standing next to Jarrod. “He was walking up to the door when a guy almost as big as this one,” he pointed at Jarrod with his thumb, “hit him over the head with the glow in the dark rock from her garden.”
“How do you know all of this, Dad?” DB asked, lifting his hand away from the weapon he’d reached for at the same time that I’d reached for my own. The only one of us who didn’t seem surprised by their appearance was Logan, who was leaning against the counter like we were meeting for a drink.
“I was doing something,” Jarrod muttered in his deep voice. “And when I drove past, I saw him coming up behind your brother. He had him before I could stop and do something and then I saw the gun. I figured I’d go around the back of the house and bumped into this guy here,” he nodded at Alex who started laughing quietly.
“Yeah, my reaction was like y’all’s just now. Damn near shot the poor bastard.”
Classy AF: Cheap Thrills Series Book 3 Page 17
