Chapter 15 #2
“You didn’t have to.”
She lets out a frustrated sound and turns toward the window again.
Silence stretches between us. Hot air whips through the windows, loosening strands of her hair.
She smells faintly of soap and something soft under the heat, and I hate that I notice.
More than that, I hate that sitting in this car with her feels more dangerous than taking a bullet.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she says quietly.
“What?”
“Acting as if you care and then acting like I’m a problem you resent.”
That cuts deep.
I keep my eyes on the road, my grip tightening on the wheel. “I don’t resent you.”
Her laugh is small and sharp. “Could’ve fooled me.”
I deserve that. I’ve said worse to her. Words that have been like knives because I put edges on them myself. I swallow, jaw working. “I’m not good at this.”
“At what?”
She looks at me then, and I feel it before I answer, “Trying,” I say finally. The word comes out rough. Too honest.
Her anger shifts. Doesn’t leave, but shifts. “That’s not an excuse.”
“No.”
The school comes into view before either of us says anything else. I pull up to the entrance, where a few teachers are already moving around, and cars are rolling through the drop-off lane.
Ruby unbuckles, but she doesn’t get out right away. “I don’t like this,” she says.
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
She turns toward me, cheeks flushed from heat and frustration, eyes bright with too much she’s trying not to show. “I’m not helpless.”
“I know.”
“Then stop treating me like I am.”
I turn my head and meet her gaze. “I’m treating you like someone in danger.” That shuts her mouth for a second. Then she huffs, grabs her bag, and pushes the door open. Her mouth twitches as though she’s got more sass to throw my way, but instead, she gets out, slamming the door shut.
I wait until she’s inside, then circle the school twice—front lot, side lot, back fence, staff entrance, playground. Nothing stands out, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. Trouble doesn’t always announce itself.
I park across the street, where I can see the entrance without sitting on school property like a damn warning sign. I get out because I don’t need to stink up her car with smoke, then lean against the driver’s side and pull a cigarette from the pack in my pocket.
My thoughts turn over the pieces. Robby stole from her, used her name, buried her under debt and shame, then brought men to her door—men who know where she lives, maybe where her parents live, maybe this school.
We need to find Robby and get him to talk.
We need to know how deep this trouble he’s in runs because it has to run deep enough for someone to use Ruby to settle another man’s debt.
Then there’s more sitting under all that, the part I don’t know what to do with. Wanting Ruby still feels like standing too close to a fire with gasoline in my veins.
Fender rolls in thirty minutes later, Harley rumbling low as he pulls up behind Ruby’s car. He kills the engine and swings off, adjusting his cut. “You look like shit,” he says.
I take one final drag, flick the cigarette to the ground, and grind it out under my boot. “Good to see you too.”
He grins. “Where’s your woman?”
I cut him a look.
His grin widens.
“In the building. Not my woman.”
He glances at the school, then the street, already shifting from smartass to alert. “I got it from here, brother.”
I nod. “Call if anything feels wrong.”
“Will do.”
I get back into Ruby’s car and drive off.
The mechanic’s shop isn’t far, and I know the owner from work we’ve had done before—old brick building, two open bays, grease-dark concrete. The heavy scent of oil, rubber, hot metal, and stale coffee hits me the second I pull in, and it reminds me of my old man.
A bell over the office door gives a weak jingle when I step inside, but the old man behind the counter doesn’t bother looking up right away.
He knows me well enough by now to know I’m not here to chat about weather or pretend I give a damn about his fishing stories unless there’s a motor between us.
When he finally lifts his head, his eyes move over me once, then out the window to Ruby’s car. “Yours?”
“No.” I don’t give him more.
He nods like that’s an answer enough and grabs a rag off the counter, wiping his hands even though they’re never gonna be clean.
“What’s it doing?”
“AC’s dead. Been out for months. Anything else you find, take care of it.”
He looks out at the car again, squinting through the shop window as if he can already hear all the things wrong with it from here.
“Months without AC?” he mutters. “In this heat?”
My jaw flexes. “Yeah.”
He takes the keys, moves it into the bay, and gets to work.
I don’t sit in the office. It feels too small. I stay near the open bay instead, arms crossed, watching the work.
In the end, the AC compressor is shot, and the belts are worn. The cabin filter looks like it survived a dust storm and lost. The list grows, each thing he names stacking on top of everything else I already know about Ruby, trying to keep her head above water while pretending she isn’t drowning.
I know what it is to ignore something because looking straight at it makes it real—bills, debt, grief, a house you can’t step inside again, a grave, a woman who looks at you like maybe you aren’t as dead as you feel.
Different problems… same damn habit. We keep moving, working, breathing, and hope the thing behind us doesn’t catch up.
The mechanic comes out from under the hood and wipes his hands again. “It’ll take a couple of hours.”
“Do it.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
He studies me. “Ain’t gonna be cheap.”
“Not a problem.”
He gives me a look, then nods and gets back to work.
I step outside after that, letting the heat close around me. The sun sits high and mean, bouncing off hoods and windshields, turning the lot into a skillet. Traffic rolls past on the road beyond the shop.
My phone buzzes. It’s Riggs, so I answer. “Prez.”
“Got a name for the man from the bar. Clay Fentenot, but people on the street call him Gator. He works for a guy they call Crowley, a low-level distributor with delusions of being bigger. He’s connected to a crew moving product through the parishes down around Baton Rouge.”
Low-level doesn’t mean safe. Half the time, men trying to be big are worse because they’ve got something to prove, and not enough sense while doing it.
“Robby tied to it?” I ask.
“Got Kiwi digging. Whoever Crowley answers to, we’ll find out where Robby fits in before this gets any uglier.”
“What do you need from me?” I ask.
“You’re doin’ it,” Riggs says, and the line goes quiet.
I drag a hand over my face. A name, a low-level runner, whispers about Baton Rouge.
That isn’t enough to hit back with. The hardest part of this kind of mess is never the violence, but the blind spots.
Not knowing who’s really behind the bigger picture, not knowing who’s giving orders, not knowing where to strike first so the whole damn thing doesn’t come down on the wrong head.
And with Ruby in the middle of it, that not knowing sits meaner under my skin than anything else.
I can fight what I can see. I can’t stand the parts I can’t, especially when one bad guess could put her right in the line of fire.
By the time the mechanic finishes, two hours have passed. He tosses me the keys. “AC’s blowing cold, filters replaced, belts replaced.”
I nod, pay him, and slide into the car. Cold air hits my face the second I start it. Ruby shouldn’t have to sweat through a Louisiana summer because her brother buried her life under debt.
I pull out my phone and text Fender.
Catcher: On my way.
His response comes a few seconds later.
Fender: Still quiet.
I set the phone down and drive.
The closer I get to the school, the tighter something pulls under my ribs. Not fear, fucking instinct. That low-warning hum that starts at the base of the skull when the world looks too normal. Nothing is wrong, but something isn’t quite right either.
I don’t care for schools, not because of the kids, but because schools are soft targets.
Ruby works here. She lives a whole part of her life that shouldn’t have anything to do with men like me here.
Yet here I am, driving her car back to the front of it, armed, watching exits, thinking about the best cover angles if someone decides today is the day.
Fender is parked across the street where I left him, his Harley angled under a tree’s shade. He sees me and lifts two fingers.
I pull in behind him and leave the engine running for a second, letting the cold air fill the car before I shut it off.
He walks over, leaning down near the window. “Nothing moved,” he says. “A couple of parents gave me dirty looks.”
“Thanks, brother.”
He raps his knuckles on the roof of the car, then walks back, gets on his bike, and pulls away, the engine fading down the street.