Chapter 20
HATCH
The night goes uneventfully after that. I’m fitted my headset and a watch like X’s that I have no intention of wearing unless I’m at The Rabbit Hole.
I’m still not convinced I wouldn’t be listened into at all times, not with the state-of-the-art setup that Castle has.
When Lucy steps off the floor after her shift, I clock out and finish what I started late last night at her houseboat.
Then I peel out of the parking lot on Harry’s old motorcycle he’s letting me fix up, and haul ass to the bungalow.
But I’m still late.
By the time I climb the stairs to the raised little beach house that’s older than my dad, my lips are near frozen to my teeth and my sweat feels like frost on the back of my neck from the ride home.
I barge in, closing the glass door quickly to not let Dinah out.
I fire up my laptop on the little oak desk table by the tube TV, blue light flickering against the low ceiling.
While the computer’s booting up, I quickly toss my top hat and mask on the single pull-out couch bed and strip down into just my gray sweatpants and my emotional support snapback, shifting backward.
I’m still cold, but sweating, the worst combination, so I stretch out shirtless in one of two rickety chairs Harry owns this side of his duplex.
There’s a half-empty cup of coffee from right before I left to meet X to accept my job.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I mutter, before my breath hitches and the tightness in my chest releases. “There you are.”
Lucy’s locking her houseboat up, double-checking the latch before closing the curtain over the door.
I watch her go through what’s obviously a routine, pressing a remote that flickers the houseboat to life with low lights.
The space heater buzzes on, barely picked up by my mic, and as she changes out of her clothes to shower, I quickly look away to give her some privacy and focus on the girl striding up to me.
“Hey pretty girl,” I murmur, and she meows back to me softly.
I pet her as she winds between my legs, ignoring the slight tickle in my fingers.
Since I doubled up on meds to prepare for The Rabbit Hole—yeah, yeah, I know I’m probably gonna die before I hit my quarter-life crisis—I’ve barely sneezed with her.
She’s used every opportunity to test the allergy medicine, coming up on me for pets, and I don’t mind.
She’s much nicer than the damn tyrant that guards Lucy’s houseboat.
According to the cameras I set up late last night to face her boat and go down the line of the dock, he’s still perched by the porthole I broke into twenty minutes ago like some smug lookout. He was not nice to fight through to get those cameras.
I just finished setting up the cameras right after her shift.
I wasn’t able to break in—good girl—but the porthole on the side was cracked.
It gave me enough room to stretch inside and mount the cameras in behind a book in one corner and on the other to get a good angle to the rest of the small house boat and her bed.
I positioned two outside cameras to face down the dock and the entrance to her boat late last night.
I tried to be quiet, but I accidentally tripped and scraped a storage container against the metal once and about had a heart attack and had to hide.
She obviously didn’t suspect me though, or tonight at The Rabbit Hole would’ve gone really differently.
As it was, fuck, everything before Castle was a dream. I’d still be hard as a fucking rock if everything that happened after wasn’t a goddamn nightmare.
One minute Lucy was trembling in my arms, trusting me enough to let me lead her over the edge of bliss, damn near coming apart against me while looking at me like I’m someone she wants, not someone that can ruin her life.
The next, X interrupted us—still confused as hell how he plays into Lucy’s life.
Are they dating, not dating, does it matter?
He obviously has a thing for Duchess too or he wouldn’t have reacted the way he did when we watched her extract info from the guy in the booth.
And then there’s that part. Castle, the fucking chess master himself.
I’m going to have to smile, play nice, stay useful, or get thrown off the board.
Maybe get Lucy and X fucked over too. Normally I’d tell a guy like that to go to hell and save me a seat, deal with the consequences later.
Problem is, I still don’t know why Lucy ran away instead of trusted her family, and I still don’t know if she’s safe.
All I know is Lucy’s here. Which means for now, so am I.
My ears perk as footsteps creak on the porch.
I slowly wrap my hand around the knife beside my laptop. My gun is just a stretch away on the tip of the bed.
The door slides opens without a knock, and I reach just as it registers who it is.
“Jesus, Harry. Ever think about acting how I could blow your head off?”
“That’d mean you’d have to be a good shot,” the old man quips back.
He’s clean-shaven, deep brown skin with freckles and a full head of curly, silver dollar gray hair, wearing slacks with suspenders, and a red plaid shirt with bare feet since he just came from next door.
He shuffles in like he owns the place, which, I mean, fair enough, he does.
I guess he doesn’t care that I’m renting it.
Dinah bounds up to him and gently pats his legs. He scowls and grumbles something under his breath, then picks her up like a precious baby, immediately cuddling her to his chest and I can hear her purring from here.
My jaw drops. “When the hell did y’all get so cozy?”
He growls, “The whiney thing wouldn’t stop meowing at my door earlier. Seems she somehow figured out how to get out.”
“Shit, thanks for taking her in. She’s usually not so adventurous.”
“Ha! Lucky me. Now I have to go patch some damn hole or another around here somewhere I guess. It’s not even hurricane season and I’m still having to fix up the place.” Then he levels his glare on me as he softly pets her. “How’d my outfit you stole treat you?”
I roll my eyes. “You’re the one who wouldn’t let me leave the house in my jeans and black tee. What’d you say? You couldn’t have someone living under your roof looking like—”
“Dried dog shit in a top hat, yeah I said it, and I’d say it again.
I couldn’t have you going out there looking anything other than sharp.
Fancy’d give me a good talkin’ to, and I—” He stops and smiles wide.
“You know what? Scratch that. Matter of fact, go on out there lookin’ like a turd in a suit tomorrow.
You can take a picture and send it to her, just make sure I’m in the background or something. ”
I huff and shake my head. “Just call her, old man. Papa Fury’s been dead and gone since before I was even born, and it’s not like he didn’t know how you felt about her before they had to get married.
Lovesick don’t look good on a man your age.
” I give him a dramatic onceover then scrunch my face.
“You’ll want to trim those nose hairs before you see her at my brother’s wedding.
Pretty sure all this unrequited love’s making them grow. ”
He scowls at me. “You just wait, boy. Your grandpa Fury lost all his hair by the time he was fifty. I’ll wind up having more ear hairs than you have on your head by the end of it.”
“You know what, ya got me.” I snort and turn to the computer. “What’re you doing up anyway? Wasn’t your bedtime at four-thirty? Don’t you get up in like, two hours?”
“You listen here now, you can’t be slamming that door behind you like a goddamn bomb going off.” I almost wince, but he keeps going, “And if you’d seen half the shit I saw in the war, you’d be pissing yourself back into diapers before talking to me that way.”
“Oh yeah?” I raise my brow and ask innocently. “And which war was that again, exactly?”
He growls. “Boy, respect your elders! Didn’t your momma teach you—” he cuts off quick as I still.
There’s a beat before I swallow and say low.
“Ruthie Fury.”
He nods. “Sweet, sweet Ruthie Fury. She was an angel.”
There’s another moment of silence, then he clears his throat and grumbles as he mills about the room.
“Anyways. Just shut the fuck up before I put you outta house and home. Fancy and your momma’d understand with this kinda attitude I’m having to put up with—wait. Hold up, are you watching my boat?”
I frown, then turn to him, giving him and Lucy’s houseboat on the screen a double take. “Your boat? That’s not your boat. That’s where my target is staying.”
“Well your target is staying in my boat. Didn’t you see the name when you were casing the place? Where the hell did you think the name came from, hm?”
“The name? I didn’t have time to look at the name,” I lie.
It’s not that I didn’t have time. Looking out for words just doesn’t come naturally to me.
My brain flies right over them unless I force it not to, and even then, they still don’t always come out right. Like now when he points to the screen.
I squint at the cursive lettering, sounding it out inwardly the way Momma worked with me, but it isn’t until Harry says them out loud that the words finally click.
“Fancy’s Haven? That’s my boat, son. Now what’re you doing watching my Alice?”
“Your Alice?” I shout. “Wait, you’ve known she was here the whole time?”
“Yes, my Alice! What are you? A damn parrot? The hell you talking about kid?”
I shove my hand through my hair, messing up my hat. “Fuck, you’re really telling me you’ve been renting to Lucy McKennon for weeks now, and you didn’t know?”
“Lucy… McKennon? But she’s a Troisgarde daughter.”
“Yeah, man. What the fuck? It’s kind of a big deal.
” I stand because I’m fidgeting now and begin to pace, running a hand over the back of my neck.
“Me and the entire syndicate have only been looking for her for six months, and she’s been under your nose for nearly the last quarter of it. How did you not know?”
His hands go up. “Kid, people come to Wander to disappear. I don’t ask questions unless the answers are ones I need.” He sighs. “But I’ll be. Small world, huh?” He chuckles, before his russet-brown eyes widen. “Wait. If she’s a Troisgarde daughter. Does that mean she’s your—”
“She was.” I stop and exhale.
Harry cocks his head. “Was? What do you mean was? Don’t y’all have that stupid-ass Fury arranged marriage bullshit? You know, the thing that broke me and Fancy up? What the damn hell do you mean was?”
I groan. “You know what? It’s none of your business. You said you’d give me a place to stay, and that’s what you’re doing. For a pretty penny I might add.”
He purses his lips and shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t know how I feel about this now. You don’t have to tell me everything, but you’ve gotta give me something, kid, or I’ll pour chum on you and kick you out into the deep water faster than a squirrel can shit.”
I sigh, watching the steam leave the shower closet in the small boat as she showers. “Look. I don’t want to say too much. Just that, she ran and we weren’t sure if she was okay. Now that I know she is—or I think she is, I’m staying and making sure she stays that way.”
His frown deepens. “Why do you think she wouldn’t be safe? Castle and I take care of ours dammit.”
I shrug. “That might be, except how much do you really know about Castle, hm? Because tonight he threatened to turn her over to the police for something I did, if I fucked up.”
He snorts. “That’s just Castle being Castle. He’s a particular fucker, but so long as you don’t cross him, you’re fine and dandy.”
My brow raises. “And if I do cross him? What then?”
His expression hardens. “Well I’ll tell you this, right now. If something you do hurts sweet Alice—”
“Lucy.”
“—I don’t give a shit. Do not hurt that girl, alright?
She’s a good girl, and she doesn’t need your Fury bullshit bleeding onto her.
When your storms come in, it’s always the women who get tossed against the breakers.
If I find out Alice has become the same, I will fuck you up. You hear me? I’m watching you, boy.”
I exhale, trilling my breath through my lips. I want to be mad, to defend myself, but I can’t. Fury bullshit is right. The women in our family get hurt. Or worse. Every goddamn time.
“That’s why I’m staying at a distance, alright? I’m not interfering, I’m just making sure she’s safe. I don’t trust Castle. At least not the fuckers he works with.”
“Don’t blame you there.” He huffs. “I don’t care who’s the problem. I’ll bring out my gun in a heartbeat if I have to, just like I had to in the war.”
I roll my eyes. “What. War?”
“Bah!” He waves his irritation at me, and heads for the door. Alarm jolts in my chest at the sight of the fluffy orange tail curled around his arm.
“Dude, you can’t just take Dinah!”
“To hell, I can’t! I’m not putting up with all that meowing again.
She figured out how to escape your sorry ass three whole minutes after you left and she’ll do it again just to get away from you, I’m betting.
” He gazes down at her affectionately before growling at me.
“Seems like it’s better for everyone that I babysit the thing.
If I see one flea, she’s out on the street, though, you hear me?
” He holds her up to growl at her and her long, fluffy body hangs in the air, content eyes closed in crescents while she purrs away.
“See? Doesn’t listen a lick. I’m gonna need me some compensation for this one. ”
“Yeah, you seem real put out.” I huff as he brings her back to his chest to cuddle her. I glare. “Same goes to you, though. If you hurt her, I’ll fuck you up.”
He snorts before huffing out into a deep, hearty laugh. “I’d like to see you try, kid. I’d like to see you try.”