Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Logan
“ S o, it’s a bit of a bizarre case,” DB told us as we sat down the next morning. “After hours of questions, we’ve pieced together the following. Judge Ingleston, and Dirk, King and Lord Kirkwood, were all in business together, cutting and distributing what they called ‘fudge.’ Jordy Watts was their main distributor, who sold it to other dealers and customers.”
That wasn’t new information, but it was good to have it confirmed.
“Judge Ingleston was paid to assist with the release of the distributors when they were arrested to avoid eyes coming back to the Kirkwoods. The ‘fudge’ was made at the property we visited last night belonging to King Kirkwood, and that’s where the distributors met them to make a deal and pass over the payments.”
A glance around the room showed no surprised faces. It was good to have facts that would get them sentenced, but I wanted to know what had led to a bullet missing Bexley by four inches.
“When Jordy Watts was arrested, Ashesh Morash was away dropping off a supply of fudge to one of their dealers, so King Kirkwood had to collect him, drawing eyes on the family. It was either this or risk Jordy being at Palmerstown P.D. for longer and opening him up to further questioning or a slip of the tongue. Because of that, after hiding him in one of the houses that were more developed than the others, they decided it would be best to get rid of him, making it look like a murder-suicide.
DB’s shoulders drooped slightly as he told us the next piece of information. “By the way, Cinder woke up this morning but will still have a breathing tube until they’re certain it’s okay to remove it. We don’t know, as yet, what she remembers or if she can tell us anything, and the DA has already said they won’t be pursuing her for her participation in the robbery.”
Thank fuck .
“Dirk confirmed they shot him in the same basement where we found Ashesh, so the techs are going back to see if they can uncover any evidence to prove this. The mud still has too much water in it to solidify, so I don’t know what the outcome will be.
“Here’s where it gets a bit more interesting. Ashesh Morash questioned Dirk about the death of his buddy and was so upset, he threatened to come to us about it. Dirk offered him five hundred thousand dollars to keep his mouth shut and told him he’d drop it off to him at the building site.
“Once he got there, King throttled him with a phone charging cord and then called Lord to help him bury the body in the fucked up basement because they assumed concrete was getting poured into it the next morning. Unfortunately, they failed that inspection, so they had to come up with an excuse on the fly—which was that they were fixing the issues in it properly before any further work was done on it.”
“A phone charging cord?” Alejandro asked carefully.
“Yeah, a lightning one, to be precise,” DB replied with a straight face. “King was very specific about not using unbranded merchandise with his phones.”
“If I thought praying would save the world from idiots, I’d give it a whirl,” Alejandro sighed. “He’s just confessed to murdering someone and making and distributing a drug called fudge, and he’s making a case for brand versus no brand?”
The shit people came out with would blow your mind. I was still waiting for more information, though. “So where does the school shooting come into it?”
Looking over at me, DB rubbed his chin, the rasp of his stubble setting my teeth on edge. Someone hadn’t been home all night.
“Lord has a kid at the school, one that no one knew was his, and after shit heated up with his family, he decided to go into hiding—with Judge Ingleston. The judge had been cheating on his wife with Lord and planned to run away together with the money. At the last minute, Lord had a change of heart, not wanting to leave the daughter he’d only just found out about and broke it off. Heartbroken, Ingleston went to the school and shot his AR-15 into the air, hoping it would scare Lord into leaving with him.”
With all of us looking at him like he was lying, he lifted a shoulder. “Doesn’t make sense to me, but then I’m not a deranged psychopath. After that, he checked into Hell On Wheels, rang Lord, gave him an ultimatum, and then made plans.
“He was going to use his gun to take Lord hostage and leave as they’d originally planned. Unfortunately, when Lord arrived, pissed off, he lunged at Ingleston, shooting a round into the wall. The men fought, shooting off more rounds until Hyacinth got there and threatened to shoot both of them if they moved even an inch.”
“Holy shit,” Mark muttered, staring at the table. “I only had corrupt fucks on my bingo card.”
A chorus of agreement sounded from the table as we all tried to get our heads around it.
I needed an answer to something, though. It might have been common sense that the answer would be no, but after everything that’d happened, I wasn’t sure who we could trust anymore. “Will they get bail?”
Shaking his head, DB touched a piece of paper on the table in front of him. “The DA has confirmed that they’ll push for bail to be denied, and as the judge assigned to the case is Ramsey, it’s doubtful he’ll feel inclined to say no. We’re only just touching on the tip of the iceberg of the case, so we’ve got a lot of work still to do.”
We were all getting up from our seats when Carter’s hand suddenly shot up. “Question, when do we get a new mayor?”
Alex threw his head back and burst out laughing, getting a glare from DB as he turned back to Carter.
“An emergency council meeting is being held to discuss having an interim mayor until one is elected. Hurst Townsend is the interim mayor. However, he’s insisting that ample time is to be given for other people to come forward and campaign for the position who’d like to take it on.”
“Mayor Townsend,” Raoul chuckled. “Totally saw that shit coming.”
Mark looked intrigued by this. “Who else has put their name forward?”
Still laughing, Alex told him, “No one.”
I could confidently say that Lawrence Heath was looking down on the town right now, laughing his ass off at his old buddy stepping up as mayor. He could do that, he wasn’t going to have to deal with the shit a Townsend mayor could bring in the blink of an eye.
But his granddaughter was safe, she was in a new room, and what had almost happened twice yesterday was never going to happen again.
She’d said this morning that we couldn’t worry about what could or what had almost happened. We just had to go on living for the moment so that if it did happen, we’d lived life to the fullest.
I might get on board with that mentality in twenty years, but not right now.
Bexle y
Ten days later…
If Logan didn’t learn to chillax, he was going to give himself an ulcer to match the bruise he still had on his stomach from where King had shot him.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, holding the key to Pops’ room out to me. “We only just moved back in, and there’s a lot to do in the—”
“Give me the key,” I snapped as I snatched it out of his hand carefully. He had Miracle held against his chest in the other one, and I didn’t want to knock him off balance and risk him dropping her.
Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and stood frozen in place as I saw his chair, the ass indentations still in the cushion. I don’t know how long I stared, but I snapped out of it when Doyle nudged me out of the way and trotted into the room with his tail wagging.
Then came the whining. I’d heard him do this after Pops passed away, but I think I was emotionally and mentally too numb to understand what it was.
I got it now, he was grieving for his own loss, and he didn’t get that Pops wasn’t in this room waiting for him.
Dropping down to my knees, I called for him to come to me and almost got flattened to the ground when his long legs brought him over too fast. We both let out our grief at that moment, him whimpering into my shoulder and me sobbing into his neck.
Then, strong arms wrapped around both of us, cocooning us and smushing my face deeper into Doyle’s neck. Thank God he’d had a bath yesterday after rolling around in the garden. Ever tried bathing a mountain of dog? It’s a blast—so long as you don’t mind washing with him.
“We should keep the room just like this,” Logan said quietly. “In years to come, when we have kids, they can use it as a playroom or something.”
“A library,” I croaked, trying to jerk my face away from the dog hair that got too close to going inside my mouth. “Pops loved books, and all of his are in there. We’ll take out his bedroom furniture and make it a library.”
“Deal.”
Then Doyle did something that shocked me. He moved away from me and stood beside Logan before sitting down and sagging so most of his weight was against his side. If that’d been me—and I knew this from experience—I’d have toppled under it, but as always, he stayed in place and supported us both.
Deciding his idea was a good one, I scooted around until I was facing him and the tiny little kitten, whose blue eyes were staring at the world around her. Things were still new to her, but she recognized Logan’s voice and scent when he was around. It was like having a newborn baby when he came home because she mewled her ever-loving lungs up until he went and got her.
“Seems like he’s changed his mind about you.”
“Seems that way,” he agreed, scratching the top of Doyle’s head. “Couldn’t Pops have gotten a smaller dog, though? He’s like a horse.”
“He was scared he’d lose a smaller one, and there’s no chance of that happening with Doyle.”
“Figures,” he sighed.
“And you’re moving in?”
The blue eyes that’d been in my dreams for as long as I can remember focused on me. “There’s no way I’m ever leaving.”
God .
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I knew now that we needed those seven years apart to find and become who we were today, even if Logan couldn’t see any positives in our time apart yet.
I can’t say what would have happened if we hadn’t had them, but some paths are built after they separate and meet back later. Ours was stronger because of it, and so long as they didn’t split apart again, I’d travel this road with him for the rest of our lives.