Chapter 26 Talbot
TALBOT
Iwatch from the dark tree line as Misty helps load her younger siblings into the car.
She doesn’t fuck like one, though.
I crouch there, in the cold, waiting, watching as they drive off. I wait to confirm that they aren’t going to turn around and come back. The snow falls as the caravan of cars winds down the road.
I make my way to the house, to the window I left unlocked just for this moment.
Austen has a house. He spends most of his time here with Brielle, however. He likely wants to be close to Ryan West to make sure that his star stays bright in the sky.
And he wants to stay close to Misty. My Misty.
She’s a client, I remind the possessive part of myself.
But she’s not, not like the Richmonds or the Svenssons are clients.
She’s sweet. She’d make someone a good, loyal wife.
Just not me.
The reminder is bitter.
“I love my job. I am good at my job,” I whisper to myself.
Cocoa is snoring on her back in front of the banked fire in the large living room. She sniffs in her sleep and snorts awake when she realizes it’s me. She woofs happily and rushes to snuggle in my arms.
I squeeze her. “Did Misty leave you all alone, Coca Puff? What a mean dog mommy she is.”
The dog flops over on her back in my arms as I carry her through the house, asking her if she wants a snack. “Yes, you do, you always want a little snack.”
I snap a selfie of me and the dog then stop myself right as I’m about to send it to Misty.
She’s not my girlfriend. Yeah, we went ice skating and made out in the Christmas market, and I helped her at her café and made her come three times, but she’s not my girlfriend. Was never my girlfriend.
Also, I’m not technically supposed to be in her stepfather’s house. Some might call it breaking and entering. I call it don’t use a corgi as your second layer of defense.
Misty has Crock-Pots of delicious-smelling food on the kitchen counter awaiting the family’s return.
I lift the top of the nearest one.
Meatballs, the good kind in the sauce. I eat one, and I’m instantly transported back to when I was a kid, before my mom went off the deep end into the sea of vodka. She and my dad would throw ’50s-themed Christmas parties and serve these same meatballs in the tangy sweet sauce.
Cocoa eats hers with a snap.
I don’t need the trip down sad Christmas memory lane. I clap the glass top back on and head for the stairs. I need to give Hudson something, show him some proof that I haven’t just been dicking around, that I’ve actually been trying to get rid of Austen Langley.
Cocoa trundles behind me up the stairs. I scoop her back up in my arms. I miss having a dog.
Brielle’s room looks like something out of Architectural Digest magazine. Austen has a whole-ass condo in downtown Maplewood Falls that he and Brielle could stay in and usually do, according to my research. But over the holidays, they’ve been staying here. Why?
Does it matter? Figuring out what people are hiding is Anderson’s job, not mine. I just need to know how to take them out and provide plausible deniability to my client.
The black latex gloves come out, and I dig into my bag.
Icicles falling from the sky, Christmas trees crushing him—it’s all too complex.
Just keep it simple. A shitty NHL player puts his paycheck up his nose, falls asleep in his fiancée’s childhood bedroom, and then eats it in the middle of the night.
And a week before Christmas too. How tragic.
Cocoa sniffs around the room.
Misty’s panties are still damp when I tuck them carefully between the plush white velvet headboard and the mattress.
Unless someone does DNA testing on them, they won’t know they’re Misty’s.
She doesn’t wear lace thongs—I checked. Whoever searches the room, if anyone, will see the panties and make assumptions about the type of man Austen is.
They’re too big for Brielle. Misty has that skater’s ass.
For a second, I imagine her riding my cock, my hands digging into her ass.
Brielle’s bed is neatly made—professionally so.
Must be nice to have staff.
As I sort through the various bags of hard drugs I have in my messenger bag, Cocoa paws at something behind the dresser.
“That’s a good hiding spot. Good girl!” I praise the dog.
She pulls out something with her teeth, happy to finally have it free. She tippy taps over to me, a package wrapped in black plastic in her mouth.
“What the hell?”
I pry off a small corner with my knife. Is it drugs? Weapons?
Money. There’s at least fifty grand in cash here.
Fuck. What the hell is Austen involved in, and is Misty in danger?
Who cares? Live by the sword, die by the sword. She hired a hitman, even if accidentally. She’s a big girl. My other clients know the deal.
I stuff the money back behind the dresser then fight Cocoa, who thinks it’s a new game, off with my foot.
Her pointy ears flick up, and she pauses and heads to the door.
Cocoa clearly wants a treat.
“You did make a good find, but I need to plant incriminating evidence.”
Cocaine, I decide. We’ll go old-school. I need to hide it somewhere the police will find it but not kids or dogs.
A flash of light, the silence of the birds outside, something triggers my sixth sense, and I freeze.
Someone’s here.
Brielle has a nice bedroom, and it has a view over the generous auto court out front. Slowly, I press my back to the wall to creep along to the window.
A car I don’t recognize is parked in the driveway.
Shit.
It’s one of those electric cars. The motor is still running, a low whine under the winter wind.
The car’s empty.
Cocoa smells whoever’s in the house before I hear him, because she starts growling at the top of the stairs at the intruder.
Stuffing the contraband in my bag, I crouch low and slowly creep to the door.
“Nice doggie.” Bootfalls come up the stairs. “Good doggie, you want a little treat?”
Cocoa always wants a treat, and now this burglar is going to be her new best friend.
Mentally, I run through a hundred different scenarios. I wish he was just here to steal hockey memorabilia, but I have a hunch—and my gut’s never wrong—that the intruder is after the money.
He’s almost to the top of the steps. “Eat your snack, little doggie.”
Cocoa’s nails scrape the hardwood floor then she barks, growling and snarling at the intruder.
He screams. “You bit me. Bad dog—ahh!” He clatters down the stairs. Cocoa races after him, barking and snarling. “I’m bleeding. I need a tetanus shot!”
I catch a glimpse of her at the window, chasing the sedan down the driveway as it peels away, almost running over a bush.
Cocoa lopes back to the house.
“I don’t care what Hudson says.” I scoop up the dog. “You’re better than any German Shepherd.”
Upstairs, I pick up the dog treat the guy left to toss it since you can’t know what’s actually in it.
Another car drives up. Is it Austen? No. I’m not so lucky.
“Cocoa!” Misty calls up the stairs. Her voice is laced with tears. “Cocoa, I’m back!”
“Go,” I whisper to the dog.
The corgi just stands at the top of the stairs, barking happily and wagging her tail at Misty.
“Did you sneak back in the house?” she gasps when I emerge from the shadows.
“I just can’t get enough of you.”