Chapter 13
Bull
“You two been together long?” my dad asks as soon as I return to the living room, with my gun, and I pour a drink for myself before joining him at the island.
“Say what you came to say,” I reply instead of answering him.
He walked out five years ago, leaving paperwork behind signing over all of his personal property to me. There was a pittance left in the bank accounts, ensuring I’d have to work my ass off to make monthly payments, pay taxes, employees, and even buy chicken feed.
Thankfully, he wasn’t stupid enough to touch a cent that belonged to the Kings.
It was all I could do to keep things together for the following six months until the Kings voted me in as President. With a higher cut of the monthly take, I was finally able to repay the one person I wasn’t ashamed to borrow money from.
My mom’s old friend Jordan was there for me, like she had promised my mom she would be.
And now he stands in front of me, like some harbinger of doom and my stomach churns as I wait to hear what he has to say, because I sure as fuck know it isn’t good.
Just then, flashing lights shine through the blinds and I look at him.
“Is that for you?” My voice is sharp with anger even as he shakes his head. “Where’d you park?”
“Around back,” he says with an easy shrug.
“Get to the bedroom you’re staying in and don’t come out.”
Surprisingly, he does what I tell him to. I wait for the click of the door down the hall before I open the front door. This time, it’s Sheriff Clark standing on the porch.
“I saw your lights on, so I thought I’d give you a heads up that I was here,” he says nodding back over his shoulder before looking over mine. “Is Margo awake?”
“Come in out of the cold,” I grudgingly invite him before calling out. “Margo? Sheriff Clark is here, are you decent?”
“Is everything alright?” she asks, coming out of our room and looking around like she’s confused. Instead of walking toward us, she makes a beeline for the kitchen island between us.
Crap. Dad left out the whiskey glasses. Without a word, she immediately sits in front of the second one, as if retaking a seat she had just been in.
“A couple of things,” Clark says after a slight hesitation, his lips having pursed up at the sight of Margo toying with the glass of liquor in front of her. “Someone tried to enter George’s home tonight. Deming gave chase, but the man got away.”
“Did she get a look at him?” I ask the expected question but only get a shake of his head in reply.
“And the fingerprints came back,” he says. “Besides George and both of yours, Jason’s and a partial for an unknown male were also found.”
“You can tell male versus female fingerprints?” Margo asks, leaning forward.
“We can, yes. Meanwhile, I was hoping to catch Eli when he arrived,” he says, looking around as if we’re hiding him.
“He shared his location with me,” Margo volunteers, standing up to return to our room. “I’ll just go get my phone.”
“I spoke to the attorney,” Clark states, keeping his eyes trained on me and I raise my eyebrow, feeling him out. With his thumbs tucked into his belt, he gives me a shrug in response. “You’re not the only one with dirt on Terran. Did you tell her?”
“No.” I quietly answer his question, hoping he’ll stay quiet about it.
“Here it is. Looks like he’s about an hour away.” Margo’s holding her phone up as she reenters the room, before smiling sweetly. “Did you want to wait for him?”
I turn, slowly blinking at her. What the fuck? My dad’s not going to sit quietly in my childhood room while she entertains the sheriff out here.
“I wouldn’t want to intrude.” Clark gives the standard response that seems to roll off the tongue of people who do want to intrude.
Margo’s smile grows bigger, and I see the mischievous twinkle in her eyes when she tilts her head in my direction. “Oh, it’s no problem, is it, Stryker?”
“You know, Clark, any other time I’d say it wasn’t a problem, but Eli’s been on the road over a day at this point. What do you say we give him a chance to shower and visit with his daughter, before you two talk?”
“Of course, of course. Well, again, sorry to intrude at this hour, I’m just eager to get this solved.” Clark places his hat back on his head before nodding to Margo and stepping back out into the darkness.
Closing the door behind him, I wait to say anything until his cruiser starts up.
“You’ve clearly never been spanked before,” I growl to the little minx standing behind me.
“What? You don’t want him to think we were trying to get rid of him, do you?” she tosses back to me, looking the picture of innocence as I cross to toss back my whiskey. “Does your dad have a warrant out or something?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” Shaking my head, I dash the hopeful look on her face as I call out for Dad to rejoin us. “I need to talk to him. Will you give us a little time?”
Waiting as she takes her sweet time to answer, I realize I don’t hear Dad moving around, so I hold up my finger before going to check on him.
“I never thought you’d have kept all of this,” Dad says when I enter my old room to find him tearing through one of the boxes that I brought in from the damaged shed the other day.
“Will you tell me what was important enough to bring you back from, from wherever the hell you’ve been?” I sputter, not able to set foot in the room for all the paper he’s sorting through.
“There was a man I used to do business with,” he slowly replies, as he continues to sort through the files.
“A friend?”
“A loose associate. He was not right in the head.” Dad’s actions betray how serious he is right now even as he tries to keep his voice light.
“Fucker used to call me Eddie. ‘Eddie, you got a nice setup there. I’m going to take notes from you, Eddie.’ Repeating names over and over was like a nervous tick with him. It was off-putting.”
“What was his name?” I ask the most obvious question first.
“It won’t matter, he’ll have a different one now.
ATF was closing in on us, out in Sioux Falls when we met him for an exchange.
That was the day your uncle was shot, and I had a choice to make, us or him.
I shot out the tire on his truck, Feds got him with the shipment and the three of us got away. ”
“And?”
“And now he’s back.”
“You said, ‘the three of us’, who was the third person?” My question is pointless, I already know it was Frost. Anyone else would have repeated the story.
This time I’m awake and clearly hear a vehicle pull up to the house.
“You get an awful lot of guests in the middle of the night, you know that?” His comment reminds me that he doesn’t know about George.
“Look, Eli Tucker’s going to be in the guest bedroom for a week or so. I need you to use this room,” I start out, knowing he always respected the old man. “George was murdered two nights ago, and the house is closed up for the time being.”
“It was Matt,” my dad says, not even looking up from the documents on his lap. “Fucking manipulative asshole.”
“Really? My money was on Jason,” I snort at his reaction.
“No, Jason would come straight at you—like your Ol’ Lady earlier—and own it. Matt waits until no one’s looking.” He finally makes a move to stand up, his back cracking. “Want to clue me in on why she hates me?”
“Not relevant. How do you want to play this?”
“Well, I didn’t want people knowing I was back. Of course, that was before I realized your house was Grand Central Station.”
“Find what it is you’re looking for then fuck right back off to where you came from. I can handle whatever comes our way.” I keep my voice low but struggle not to slam the door behind me.