Chapter 13 Up to Speed
Chapter thirteen
Up to Speed
The only good thing about the monotony of interviews that followed Morty’s moronic attack was that, somewhere along the way, Lance ended up with Lynnette’s phone number.
He wasn’t even sure if he’d gotten it from Jon, Jenna, or the Civil Rights attorney, Lilia Rodriguez, who was spearheading the campaign to rip out the corruption from the Leeland County Sheriff’s Department.
Nor did he care. He had it, and he intended to make use of it.
As soon as he’d showered, refueled, and been brought up to speed on all the crap that had apparently gone on while he was trapped in a hospital bed.
Lucky for him, Jon had called in some reinforcements, and their buddies had booked a couple rooms at a local motel to camp out in until the actual camping out began.
Lance had no intention of inserting himself into one of their rooms long-term, but when Foxe offered up his shower and a place to sit and reconvene that wasn’t some other asshole’s interview room, he’d jumped at it.
Close to twenty-four hours had passed since Lance had seen or spoken to Lynnette and he ached to see her again. To see her for the first time on his damn feet, wearing pants, and maybe able to speak without the constraints of stupid labels.
First, he needed a big picture.
Foxe, about three months older than Lance, one inch taller, and dark-skinned to Lance’s lighter complexion, looked over at him as Lance stepped into the main space.
The man still kept his head shaved even more than five years retired, but he’d grown in a nice, trimmed black beard that actually suited his face. Not that Lance could tell him that.
“Thanks for the shower, brother,” Lance said as he finished tucking his clean shirt into a fresh pair of cargo pants.
Foxe grinned. “No problem, man. I still can’t believe you spent most of a week in a fucking hospital. Always thought you’d just straight-up die before something could lay you out like that.”
Lance laughed and dropped to sit in the single, subpar desk chair the room provided.
“It was a bit more complicated than that, if I’m being honest. But it’s workin’ out.
” He bent forward, tugged up his pantleg, and set to work removing the protective plastic he’d used to keep the damn gauze dry.
He really was looking forward to being healed up, but at least he could tell he was mending well.
“Damn, really was a shifter, huh?” Foxe said with a grunt. “That must’ve rankled you pretty bad.”
Lance scoffed as he shook his pantleg back out and balled up the plastic to be discarded. “If I’d known the fucker was a shifter, I’d’ve just fried his ass. Maybe dropped a second bolt on the goddamn Bronco and called it a fuckin’ day.”
“I hear that.” Foxe tossed him a rolled-up paper bag with a fast-food logo. “Thought you might be in the mood for some grease.”
“Be still my heart,” Lance teased as he dug into the bag, “you even got me onion rings?”
“I’m cool like that,” Foxe replied with a shrug.
“Foxy, will you adopt me? I could be a great big brother.” He flashed his former bunkmate a wide grin.
It’d taken Foxe all of ten seconds since their reunion for the man to bust out the pictures of his princess—the little girl whose birth had prompted his retirement.
He’d gone from fierce, explosive-loving Marine to cooing girl-dad who seemed to know all the shades of pink and far too much about Barbies. It was fucking hilarious.
Predictably, Foxe roared with a laugh, slapping his thigh as he nearly fell backward on the bed he was perched on.
“Hell no, you son of a bitch, I don’t need you influencing my baby girl!
” He raised a finger and pointed aggressively at Lance.
“You stay clear of my princess until you’ve at least married and learned how to settle your ass down. ”
Lance laughed and pulled out his food. Married, huh? It’d never been in his life plan. His life plan had been the Corps. But things had to change, and if Lynnette really was his fairytale, then … maybe he ought to start thinking in that direction.
He let that marinate in the back of his mind, took a big bite of his burger, and looked up at Foxe. “Serious talk,” he said, letting the levity slip from his voice. “I’ve been off the field. I need to be brought up to speed, and we both know Jon’s a little distracted right now.”
Foxe snorted. “That’s an understatement. I never thought I’d see Mr. Marine so gone over a woman.” He smiled for a moment before he oriented himself. “You heard about the cartel involvement?”
Lance nodded. “Veracruz Cartel, supposedly a big fucking deal in Mexico. I heard the guys who attacked Jenna and Lynn the other day were verified members. All of which means this PJ asshole who keeps sending hitmen after people has to be at least a middle man in the same organization.”
“I heard all that, too,” Foxe confirmed. “We got the real street name for PJ after we rescued the women yesterday, you hear that?”
Lance paused, mouth hovering over his burger. “I did not. Share.”
Foxe’s lips twitched but he complied without argument. “Bonito pájaro,” he said, his rough Spanish ironically abrasive against the phrase that translated, of all things, into “pretty bird.”
Lance chewed his next bite while he mulled the name over in his mind. He hadn’t expected to recognize it—cartels and their ilk hadn’t been his focus in Okinawa. But there was something nagging at him about it nonetheless. He rolled it over, repeating both language versions in turn.
His impression was their knowledge of this PJ character was minimal, but they knew the man had some weight.
Enough to send numerous grunts on daylight hits.
He was involved in the trafficking. Between the fact that his name had come up at the scene of Jenna’s abduction, where Deputy Parker had taken her, and the shit Sheriff Parker had spewed to Lance directly on the same day, the Parkers at least—if not the department—were involved, too.
Might even have information on who PJ really was.
But all they knew as true fact was that PJ had weight, and he liked his birds. Trained them, seemingly.
“Fuck,” Lance muttered as something struck him so abruptly, he nearly choked on the last of his burger.
“Problem?” Foxe asked, leaning forward.
“I might be nuts,” Lance started.
“Not might.”
“Fuck you, too.” Lance reached for the onion rings. “First time we heard the name PJ, Jon was being attacked by the guys who hit me. One of ‘em told him how PJ ‘loves his birds’, because the guy had come along with a fucking attack bird of all the goddamn things, and Jon had to put it down.”
Foxe blinked. “You mean, like, some kind of magic vulture thing?”
Lance deadpanned him. “What the fuck have you been watching since you retired?”
“Well, what the hell am I supposed to picture when you say that?”
“A blue jay,” Lance said, repeating what Jon had told him. “A normal-sized, normal-everything, motherfucking blue jay.”
Foxe stared at him long enough for Lance to devour three more onion rings. Finally, he shook his head. “Nah. Jon missed something. That has to be it.”
Lance snorted. “Jon? Miss something? In a fight? Please, please suggest that to him in person. I’ll fucking pay you.”
Foxe shot out his leg in a swinging kick aimed at Lance’s uninjured shin. “Shut the hell up. An attack blue jay? I don’t know, man. I know we’ve seen some shit, but that’s….”
Lance shoved the last pair of onion rings into his mouth, licked the crumbs from his fingers, and put all the packaging into the bag. “I know. It’s nuts. But it came from Jon, so I’m taking it as true until I know otherwise.”
“Shit,” Foxe muttered, drawing out the word and scrubbing a hand across his bald head. “We gotta dodge birds now?”
Lance shrugged. “Fuck if I know. Maybe there was just the one and Jon’s made a mortal enemy? It’s just a theory.”
“What theory?”
“This PJ guy has some kind of connection, or ability, with birds,” Lance said. “Because how else does one fucking get a blue jay to attack on command?”
Foxe stared at him, arms limp in his lap, for several heavy seconds. He rolled his jaw to the left. Then to the right. His brow pinched. His shoulders slumped in visible defeat. “Shit. I guess that does make the most sense.”
“Out of everything we’ve come across so far, anyway,” Lance added.
Crazy Ella flashed through his mind and he almost amended his statement, but he bit the words back.
To his knowledge, she was the only divine entity he’d ever encountered, and she’d come to him.
So, he was considering her an anomaly until further notice.
“Birds,” Foxe muttered with a shake of his head. “I ever tell you my mama was afraid of birds?”
Lance felt one side of his lips twitch up. “She see that old movie?”
“Nah. Lived on a poor farm that didn’t keep its crop well, and the bugs attracted birds. She always swore anything that could be so deceptively beautiful, so easily soar out of reach, and so swiftly decimate life, was the work of the devil.”
Well, that was the first time Lance had ever heard birds described as devil creatures.
Foxe shrugged. “Mama suffered from paranoia, though. It got worse near the end.”
Lance let a frown curve his lips as he remembered the day, in their fifth year, when Foxe had received the news of his mother’s passing.
It was never anyone else’s place to judge how a man grieved, and Lance knew better than most how complicated a relationship with one’s parents could be, but he’d still worried a bit at Foxe’s stubborn refusal to go home for services.
It’d been a while before he’d learned the reason.
Foxe blew out a breath and straightened. “Enough about the past. We got enough shit to deal with in the present.”
Fair enough. Mama Foxe was a delicate subject. “Damn straight,” Lance said aloud. “Where’re Herb and Billy?”
“Ruining someone’s day, somewhere,” Foxe said with a laugh and a shrug.