Chapter Twenty-two
~Jessie~
“Whoa, buddy…who fucked up Bobby’s house?” Rex blurted out as Jessie pulled off to the side of the road, down the street and across the concrete from Big Bobby’s house. Even from three houses down, he could tell someone ransacked the place.
“Damn,” Jessie huffed as he threw himself out the driver door. Nik climbed out before letting Rex out from the backseat of his truck. The cabin wasn’t big enough for four doors, but Rex was small enough to fit comfortably in the back.
The three dropped to the quiet, darkened concrete as they stared at Bobby’s house.
The front windows were busted out with nighttime air making his curtains dance in front of the house like a ghost. With his door and garage left open, Jessie knew for a fact there wasn’t a single valuable left in that house.
Not to mention all the lights were snuffed, though he wasn’t sure how that happened yet.
They crept up along the sidewalk till they stood across the street from it.
“What do you think happened?” Rex murmured, checking up and down the street before jogging across the dead-end road.
Jessie didn’t check, didn’t have to—there wasn’t another soul on that end of the road.
Nothing but trees and gravel past Bobby’s driveway, and beyond that, nothingness till the edge of King’s Fall.
Jessie sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. Nik walked in step with him, shoulders tense.
“I don’t like this,” Nik growled.
“Me either.” Jessie shook his head as he spun around in a circle in Bobby’s front yard.
This couldn’t have been Fridge, could it?
This isn’t his style. The yard was relatively fine, despite the small shards of glass near the windows and the footprints all over the walkway leading up into the house.
Jessie could see from where he stood that the garage was empty, but the busted bumper lay in the middle of it.
“Nik, walk the outside. Rex? You’re with me. ”
Nik nodded, silently slinking into the inky black of night as Jessie pulled his flashlight out of his back pocket.
I brought this because I intended to cut the fucker’s lights off…
seems like someone beat me to the punch.
Jessie handed it to Rex and the pair walked tentatively over the crunchy window glass into the open doorway.
Bobby’s house was a two-bedroom, one-story, concrete rectangle.
The walls were covered in store bought art in frames to look fancy, but Jessie knew that reprint art anywhere.
They had that exact same canvas reprint of a car over their couch at the townhouse.
But his attention was on the couch. Someone took a knife and ripped open each cushion before digging into the springs.
Then they ripped out all the drawers in his stereo cabinet, leaving the moderately-aged tech lying on the ground.
Jessie stepped to the side to investigate the kitchen.
The cabinets were all the same—open and ransacked.
“Whoever was here was looking for something,” Jessie muttered. He put a hand to his brother’s arm and manually aimed Rex’s light beam across the room. Every vent, every cushion, every door, all ripped open and dug through. What happened?
"Jessie?” Rex tip-hooved across the floor till he was at the hallway, looking into the first bedroom. “What do you think Bobby was hiding?”
“Other than my fucking money? I don’t know,” Jessie growled, following his younger brother.
The pair peeked inside a trashed bathroom, then an even worse bedroom, until they got to the garage door.
Jessie snatched Rex by the back of the shirt and wrenched him backwards.
Before Rex could ask what for, Jessie pointed down.
Rex stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at a pool of blood on the steps leading into the garage.
“Whatever Bobby had, I don’t think they found it,” Rex whispered. The pair jumped over the blood into the garage, following the trail of it across the floor to the outside door. It was ripped off the hinges, but there was crimson painted on the handle.
“Bobby was here when they came to sack the place.” Jessie stepped out through the door, following the bulldozed grill and other things obviously used to slow down the person pursuing Bobby.
“Shit.”
“What?” Jessie whirled around to Rex, his heart pumping rapidly.
“Jessie, if they didn’t find what they were looking for?” Rex’s face fell and his light beam dropped to the grass by their hooves.
“Yeah,” Jessie grumbled. Then whoever did this…thinks I have their stuff. Jessie stiffened as he caught movement to his right.
“It’s me, boss,” Nik chuckled, slinking closer before he flicked on his own flashlight. Jessie saw two people inching out of the shadows. Nik nodded at the tall, bulky gator man beside him. “Guess who else I found out here?”
“Frankie the Fridge?” Jessie blurted out.
“Please don’t tell me you’re here for us,” Rex whined.
“Nah, I don’t like fuzzy bastards anyway, y’all give me indigestion,” Frankie teased with a broad grin.
Rows of razor-sharp teeth glittered in the flashlight beam.
Frankie was a deep muddy brown and mossy green scaled man.
His eyes were an inch too big for his face, fully obsidian black with a singular yellow slit down the middle.
Even Jessie got the heebie-jeebies looking at him.
But Frankie was in a pair of thick boots and black clothes, meaning he was likely here for the same thing Jessie was… to see Bobby.
“Knox send you after Bobby?” Jessie arched a brow.
“Mr. Zrazduel paid me a pretty penny to hunt down Bobby so they can have a conversation before I have my dinner.” Frankie shrugged, sauntering up till the group was all huddled around the shredded grill.
Frankie pushed the pieces aside with the toe of his boot.
“Tsk-tsk, Bobby sure did piss somebody off.”
“I think he was here when they showed up, waited for his time to book it, then ran off into the woods.” Jessie pointed in the direction of the shadow engulfed tree line.
Even from where they stood, with only two meager flashlight beams, he could see some of the tall, looming oaks skitter.
The forbidden woods were no joke. A magical forest that helped fortify and protect King’s Fall was not the greatest place to get lost. It’s why people like Knox Zrazduel lived out there.
“Smells like it, yeah,” Frankie sighed.
Jessie scowled as he glanced at Frankie. “If the little shit lived, he’s out there somewhere.”
“That’s a big if,” Rex added with a grimace. “That was a lot of blood, and Big Bobby’s not actually that big.”
Jessie glanced back at his brother with a ‘shut up’ expression all over his face. Rex shrugged, throwing his hands up before he headed around the outside of the garage, back toward the front of the house. Frankie snickered, stuffing his hands deep into his black hoodie pockets.
“Well, then, I’ll take my leave.” Frankie bowed his head to Jessie. “If you ever need me, Bonesaw, your pops has my number.”
“So does Knox, and we both know Knox pays better,” Jessie countered. The pair shared a knowing smirk before the toothy gator slunk off into the trees. Not that Jessie couldn’t use someone who took care of problems like Frankie from time to time, he just didn’t want to go that far.
Pops used to say, Keep yourself afloat, Jessie. Don’t go too far. Don’t go too deep. Just what’s good for business and not a hoof closer to the edge…or else there’s no coming back from the things you’ll have to do.
Jessie didn’t want to be in the business of needing a killer like Frankie.
Sure, he broke a few kneecaps, and Bobby got roughed up, but he wasn’t a murderer.
And he certainly wasn’t a monster like Knox Zrazduel.
He’d like to think he kept his head above water.
Treading was easy when one didn’t crave power or money or vindication.
Jessie simply liked to work on cars. He wanted to provide for his family. He wanted this legacy…but he didn’t want to rule the world. Just the shop, and all the little things that came with it.
“So, now the question is, what the fuck did Bobby have that warranted this?” Jessie finally spoke, nodding for Nik to walk with him back to the front yard.
“I have a feeling we’re going to find out,” Nik grumbled.
“Yeah, I just don’t like what will happen when we do.
I want to get ahead of this. I don’t like being the last to know.
” Jessie rounded the garage and found Rex crouched by the bumper.
His baby brother froze. Then, very slowly, he turned.
Jessie furrowed his brows, waiting for Rex to figure out how to speak.
“I think I know what he was hiding…” Rex held up a few wires and a little black box.