Joke's on You (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 6)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I put Asa in his car seat, strapped him in, and ran to my side of the vehicle.

  The engine roared to life, and I wasted no time in getting my truck moving.

  By the time I arrived at the scene, it was to find the entire place swarming with cops. One of those being my dad.

  I walked up to him and handed him Asa.

  Asa threw his arms around my father and hugged him tight.

  “Papa,” Asa said. “Is Aunt Dillan okay?”

  I shouldn’t have answered the phone on speaker, but I hadn’t thought it would matter. Now I knew I was wrong.

  “Everything’s okay, little bear,” my father said. “Why don’t I take you to the car?”

  Without my son to worry about, I focused on my woman.

  Hurrying toward the alleyway, I was a little taken aback when I saw the sheer amount of people standing there.

  “Laric saved me,” I heard Dillan’s husky, not quite sounding right voice, say. “If he hadn’t been here with Bobo, I would’ve died. Or worse.”

  Her ‘or worse’ had my entire fucking body freezing momentarily in place.

  I closed my eyes, counted to ten to control my breathing—and hopefully my temper—then walked farther into the alley.

  I found her there, curled up against the filthy dumpster, her ass to her ankles, and her arms wrapped around her upraised knees, she was speaking quietly to a uniformed officer.

  Her breath hitched, and I knew that she’d seen me.

  One second she was on the ground, talking in a low, monotone voice. The next she was leaping into my arms, and I was catching her and never letting her go.

  A dog growled from somewhere behind me, and before I could so much as question the sound, a demanding male voice said, “Bobo, down.”

  I looked up and over to see the dog that the growl had belonged to sit down onto his haunches behind a familiar looking man.

  “Laric?” I asked, surprised.

  Laric had recently done an interview with one of my childhood friends.

  Calloway, who just so happened to be getting married to another buddy on the SWAT team, had started her own magazine up where she interviewed heroes across the United States. Laric had been one of those heroes.

  Laric specialized in finding military working dogs permanent homes after they came home from the war, or retired.

  “That’s me,” he said as he nodded his head.

  But he didn’t come any closer.

  Dillan dropped from my arms and pointed at the dog next to Laric.

  “That dog, Bobo, saved my life, Booth,” she said huskily. “If it wasn’t for him, I think Kerrie really would’ve killed me.”

  She placed her hands on her neck, and it was then that I remembered Delanie’s earlier words.

  “Let me see,” I said softly, pulling her toward me.

  She ignored me and walked over toward the dog, holding out her hand to him.

  The dog nudged her hand with his nose.

  But the moment that I started forward, he went up onto all fours again and snapped at me.

  I hopped back, pulling Dillan with me.

  “He won’t hurt me,” she said softly.

  I wasn’t so sure of that.

  “I’m not so sure of that, darlin’,” Laric said softly. “I have to walk him in the early morning hours, get him accustomed to the streets, because he hates everyone. He has to be muzzled when he’s anywhere around people. He’s fairly unpredictable, too.” He paused. “I think that he could’ve just as easily attacked you instead of protected you.”

  Dillan didn’t like the sound of that.

  In fact, she ignored it.

  “I’m going to take him home,” she declared.

  “You’re not letting that dog get around my kid,” I said. “You take that dog home, and Asa’s never coming over again.”

  The dog was aggressive. The dog was vindictive. And he’d already snapped at me once.

  There was no way that I was letting my kid get anywhere near that dog.

  The bad thing was, I knew that Dillan could see it, too.

  She looked like her guts were being torn out.

  “He saved my life, Booth,” she whispered.

  “Babe,” Laric said. “He’s not good with kids. Trust me on this.”

  I knew that the dog had saved her life, but it didn’t change a damn thing.

  I knew that my kid was pretty fuckin’ great. And he wouldn’t understand that the dog wasn’t nice.

  He’d go up to that dog and treat it like his uncle Bourne’s new dog. He’d wrap his arms around the dog’s neck, give him a hard hug, and then he’d have half his face bitten off.

  No.

  Just no.

  I couldn’t do it.

  I worked way too many dog bite cases.

  Sure, I knew that some of the dogs didn’t show signs of aggression. That some of them just bit without any warning.

  But the dog that Laric, the crazy ass biker, had brought around? This one, I knew in my heart, was fucking bad news.

  Hell, even Laric had said that the dog was aggressive, not good with kids.

  She sighed. “Can I come visit him?”

  Laric nodded his head once. “Of course.”

  Dillan’s shoulders slumped, and she looked at me with tear-filled eyes.

  “He really did save my life,” she whispered to me.

  I caught her back up in my arms, and then gestured toward the back door to her place that was now open wide, spilling yellow light out into the alley.

  “Let’s go inside.” I looked at the detective that had likely been there asking questions. “Detective Brown, would you like to accompany us inside?”

  “I think the little lady needs checked out,” someone said from behind me.

  That was when I saw my father’s good friend, Tai.

  “Tai.” I nodded my head. “Do you need her in the ambulance, or can you do that inside, too?”

  “Inside is fine, as long as I check her out,” he said. “Lead the way.”

  I did, right inside the back of her building, past the kitchen, and to the sectioned off area of the front room that she used as seating for her patrons.

  “Looks like all bluster,” Detective Brown said, sounding pissed as hell, but controlling it. “I can’t wait to bring that motherfucker in to the station.”

  I, on the other hand, wasn’t controlling it. I was losing it.

  One fucking word at a time.

  “No. I’m not filing any charges, officer.”

  Brown looked at me as if he couldn’t quite understand what had just come out of her mouth.

  “She’s not pressing charges?” he asked incredulously.

  I explained her thought process.

  “She doesn’t have to press charges, but we can still file them all the same.” He said. “It’d help if we had her cooperation, but we don’t need it.”

  I looked back at my girl.

  That’s when I got my first good look at her throat.

  And what I saw wasn’t good.

  It wasn’t good at all.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said, belly clenching.

  “Are you sure about not filing charges, ma’am?” Brown asked as we both moved closer to her.

  Her words chilled me to the bone.

  “What about other women that may come into contact with him?” I found myself asking her quietly. “What if next time it’s worse?”

  Dillan’s eyes came to mine. “He’s only interested in me for some reason.”

  That was true.

  “He needs to pay,” I said gently.

  Not just for this, but for everything.

  She crossed her arms over her chest.

  After Tai had checked her out, he’d made sure to give her an ice pack and told her to use it.

  When I noticed it’d fallen with her arms in a defensive posture, I caught it up and pressed it back
to her neck.

  She took it and held it there.

  “He’s not going to pay,” she said. “He’s rich, has the lawyers to fight this, and will drag me through the mud. I’m not pressing charges.” She narrowed her eyes. “Do you know what it’ll mean for my business if he does that? Or Delanie’s? I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to find another way. I was drunk off my ass that night, and though he might’ve slipped me something, I was well on my way to being too fucked up to care. He only helped it along.”

  “You think you were drugged?”

  She looked away. “Yeah.”

  Anger and turmoil roiled through me at the speed of light.

  What the fuck was it with this guy? Did he think that he could play God or something?

  Even worse, I fucking hated that she was right.

  Not about the last part, but about the part that Kerrie’s influence could mean harm to Dillan and Delanie’s businesses.

  “What about not saying no permanently?” I asked. “We can keep it on the back burner. I can keep looking.”

  She pursed her lips.

  “I’ll make sure that it’s okay,” I said. “We won’t throw you to the wolves until we know for sure that you can fight back and survive.”

  She seemed to deflate in front of me.

  “Thank you, Booth,” she said softly.

  There was a soft knock on the door, and I looked up to find an older woman there.

  She was waving at Dillan but looking quite concerned while she was at it.

  “I’m guessing this means,” she said as an officer let her in, “that we’re not going to open today?”

  Dillan shook her head and stood up. “Hey, Mirena! Oh, we’re opening. I have an hour to get donuts started. Let’s do this.”

  So that was how we sat for the next hour.

  Dad, the paramedics, and the rest of the officers went to work.

  Mom came and brought a bed for me to put near Dillan’s workspace, but it proved unneeded.

  Asa had never been here during the process of making donuts before, and he was so fascinated that he forgot all about his stomachache.

  Two and a half hours later, I was gathering Asa up and going to say goodbye.

  Just as I made my way over to her, another of Dillan’s employees strolled through the door.

  “I’m so sorry!” the older woman said. “I just got your message to come in. I thought with all the hub-baloo that you wouldn’t want me in.”

  I’d never quite caught her name, but apparently I didn’t need to seeing as Dillan growled it a few seconds later.

  “You can just go ahead home now, Moshe,” Dillan said as she finished decorating her last donut. “I’m done. Mirena can handle the rest.”

  Moshe stiffened. “I’m sorry, Dillan. I swear. I didn’t think that you’d open or I would’ve come.”

  “How did you know that anything was going on up here?” I found myself asking.

  Moshe shrugged. “I have a police scanner. It was all over the radio. I use it to avoid anything that’ll cause me to be late.”

  For some reason, her perfectly logical answer didn’t sit well with me. I’d had to rely on my gut a lot of times before, and it was telling me that Moshe was lying out of her ass.

  But, as I looked over at Dillan, my girl knew it. So I didn’t bother to say anything.

  “Thank you for your honesty,” Dillan said facetiously. “But, as this is your third ‘late,’ I’m officially asking you to leave. Your last check will be direct-deposited into your account.”

  Moshe stiffened.

  Then her eyes narrowed.

  “I helped you close yesterday.”

  “You did,” she agreed. “But you also were scheduled to leave at the end of the day anyway, because you asked for more hours. And you forgot to take out the trash, which was the only reason that I had to go out this morning. Oh, and I got strangled.”

  Moshe’s eyes went to Dillan’s neck, which she’d covered up with some gauzy scarf that she’d had in her office.

  “I was only late because I thought that you weren’t going to open,” she said stiffly. “I’m sorry.”

  Dillan shifted. “You could’ve called. But, as I’ve said, this has been your third strike. I’m sorry, but you’re out. Have a good day.”

  Moshe looked like she wanted to argue more, but I shifted where I was standing, momentarily drawing her attention toward me.

  “You can leave,” I supplied.

  Moshe gritted her teeth, turned on her heels, and all but stomped out the door.

  “There’s no way that she gets up and listens to the police scanner to avoid being late,” Mirena said from the front counter. “There’s only one way here from where she lives, and if she has to leave her house in any way, that’s the way she has to go. Regardless of if it’s going to cause her to be late or not.”

  “You know where she lives?” Dillan asked curiously. “I asked where she lived once, and she said she was moving. I asked how the moving was going, and she said that she wasn’t moving. I just thought she didn’t want me to know where she lived.”

  Mirena shrugged. “She lives off of this old oil top road right outside of Kilgore. It’s a pretty nice house. It has these weeping willow trees that line the driveway, and a…”

  “And a large white house with huge, hulking pillars. Looks like someone important should live there,” Dillan finished for her.

  My eyebrows rose.

  “Yeah, how did you know?” Mirena asked curiously.

  “Because that used to be Kerrie’s place before he got a newer, bigger one,” Dillan answered, looking like she’d swallowed something bitter. “He rents it out to people now.”

  My eyes lit on hers. “That’s quite a coincidence.”

  “It sure is.” She sighed and focused in on me. “What’s going on? Are you heading home?”

  She looked at Asa, who was now passed out on my shoulder.

  “He has a doctor appointment that has to do with his throwing up,” I told her. “It’s getting a little worrisome.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m going with you,” she said firmly.

  “Babe,” I said. “You don’t have to go with me. You really shouldn’t have even opened today.”

  Reminding her of her earlier battle with Kerrie obviously wasn’t a good thing for her temper.

  “I’m. Going,” she said as she tossed her utensils in the sink behind her. “Mirena, you can handle this?”

  At Mirena’s nod of surprise, she nodded her head once. “Good.”

  Her anger was palpable, but she was still very apparently going with me.

  I kept my smile to myself and nodded once. “We better go then if we’re going to be on time.”

  She looked back at Laric who was standing on the side of the road with the dog.

  The dog that now had a muzzle on and was growling at anyone that came close to him.

  “Why is he still here?” I asked curiously.

  “Apparently, he’s meeting someone.” She shrugged. “I don’t really know him all that well to ask.”

  I didn’t, either.

  The big biker looked even more intimidating in the daylight than he did in the dark.

  The next hour didn’t go at all how I was expecting it.

  I thought the doctor was just going to give us some random ass explanation as to my kid’s immune system. I didn’t think that we would be referred to a specialist that dealt with children’s migraines.

  “As of right now,” the pediatrician said, “I’m not one hundred percent sure if it’s the migraines causing him to vomit, or the vomiting causing the headaches.” She paused as she looked at the two adults. Asa had gone back to sleep. “I would investigate how he’s feeling before he starts these vomiting episodes. In the meantime, I think it would be best for you to see Dr. Montgomery and figure out if these headaches are something that can be handled.”<
br />
  I winced.

  “He’s never complained of a headache before today,” I admitted. “Hell, it’s hard enough to even get him to say his tummy hurts. If he hadn’t thrown up, I’m fairly sure he wouldn’t have said anything.”

  The doctor nodded her head. “That’s usually a very common thing among kids. Not wanting to admit that there’s something wrong. The girls grow out of it. The boys, not so much.”

  I chuckled at that.

  “So his bloodwork was fine. Everything is fine. But if he does end up having cyclic vomiting syndrome, what does that mean for him? Is it something that he’s going to have to live with for the rest of his life?” Dillan asked.

  I looked at her gratefully.

  I was lost.

  I’d taken Asa to the doctor before, but those had all been well visits. Him actually being sick was a foreign concept to me.

  “Generally speaking, the CVS is something that he’ll just grow out of,” Dr. Peterson admitted. “CVS can be attributed to stress, anxiety, fear. Any of those factors play a rather large role in his health and well-being. Do you ever see a trend when it comes to the vomiting?”

  I thought about that, then looked over at Dillan with a shrug.

  “Anxiety wise,” I said. “He had one of these episodes when his mom went out of town for business. The last episode he had was a couple of weeks ago when I had to drop him off at school to go to work. He could be scared about that, I guess.”

  She nodded. “Take note of when it happens. See if you can find a trend. As for the headaches, don’t beat yourself up about not knowing about those. Sometimes children just don’t realize that anything is wrong. They are very good at adapting. That’s why you always see children playing when they have strep throat, and it’ll take an adult down for a few days.”

  I did feel better after that.

  “So is there anything we can do for this?” I asked anxiously.

  Dr. Peterson just smiled. “No, unfortunately not for the CVS. As for the headaches, or migraines, those can be handled with meds if you wish to take that route. That’s something I would discuss with the specialist, though. There are alternatives to medicine that do work.”