Chapter 11
Eleven
I never called you stupid. But when I asked you if you knew how to spell Mississippi, and you asked whether I was talking about the state or the river, it kind of threw me for a loop.
—Odin to Constance
Odin
It was weird having them in my space.
Normally, I would’ve been annoyed at having anyone here. Yet, having the two of them felt almost…okay.
Not great. I was still twitchy as hell with people I didn’t know well in my space.
But I didn’t feel wholly against it like I did when I first took Moses on as an assistant.
It’d taken me weeks to get used to having him around.
Prison hadn’t been kind to me and had actually made me even more paranoid than I already was.
My mind was always telling me that people had ulterior motives.
“Do you know what a rat bite looks like?”
She frowned. “I mean, I could probably give you a pretty good guess. Why do you ask?”
“There are some weird marks on a few of the teens that we’re hoping you could tell us if they’re rat bites or not.”
She walked toward me, her eyes curious, and stopped not next to Black, but me.
She looked down at the photos on my stainless-steel countertop and frowned. “Those aren’t rat bites.”
“How do you know?” Black asked.
She pointed at the marks on the first kid’s arm and said, “Those are boa constrictor bites.”
I blinked in surprise, then pulled up Google so I could compare.
“She’s right,” I said as I placed my phone next to the photos I’d taken. “They match up.”
Black frowned. “Neither kid had a snake. Those are pets, right?”
“Generally,” Constance answered. “They’re invasive species if they’re found outside of captivity. But never would a boa survive up here alone. It’s too cold. They only thrive in hot and humid environments.”
She shuddered. “My best friend used to have one of these. His snake, October, was at least eight feet. Based on the size of those bite marks, I’d say that the snake is at least this size if not bigger.” Her eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“A thought is like right here…” She tapped her head. “Something I’m supposed to remember and can’t.”
I was about to ask her what she meant but Black interjected before I could.
Black sighed. “This all is getting weirder and weirder. First the missing dogs. Then the murders staged as suicides. Now snake bites?”
“Missing dogs?” Constance asked.
“There have been three victims so far, and all three of them had their dogs stolen from them.” He shrugged.
Constance hummed in interest. “I’m not sure that there are very many people that own snakes that big in the area. But I’m thinking, if you find the snake, you find some more information about this kid’s bite. Check with the local vets to see if they have any clients.”
Black was already nodding. “On it.”
“Coco!”
Constance growled and walked back toward her daughter.
I looked at Black. “I’m not sure that the snake bite has anything to do with this. Could be the kid just had a friend with a snake. The wound looks to be about three days old with healing.”
“Noted,” Black sighed. “Thanks for coming in to talk to me. I know it was a long day.”
I nodded once, and he left, leaving me with the notes.
I packed those up and filed them away, then went back to my alive patient.
“How’s it going?” I asked, checking out her vitals to make sure they were all where I wanted them to be.
I’d been keeping an eye on them the entire time, and they’d been in acceptable ranges since I’d started her transfusion.
“Perfect,” she said. “What do you think about Coco?”
“The drink or the name?” I asked.
“My mom says she doesn’t like the name.”
I grinned at Constance. “I love the name Coco.”
Constance narrowed her eyes at me, shooting me a look that promised retaliation.
“How much longer?” Wendy asked. “I’m starving.”
I checked the bag of blood before saying, “Probably at least another forty-five minutes.”
Wendy looked at her mother. “Can you go get us food?”
“Us?” Constance asked.
“Me and him.” Wendy gestured to me. “We like macaroni, wavy classic Lay’s chips, and sandwiches.”
I fought a smile. “It’s not even dinnertime yet, baby. It’s barely even three o’clock.”
“Maybe a snack then?” Wendy begged with those little cow eyes of hers.
Constance sighed. “I guess. Do you want a snack?”
“I wouldn’t say no to a snack,” I said, not able to help myself.
She was going to murder me.
“Are you okay with me leaving her here?”
I shrugged. “It’s not like I’m doing anything.”
Well, I could be catching up on my missed sleep, but staying up was probably the better plan. I needed to get back on a usual sleep cycle.
I’d been up through the night twice now dealing with autopsies during the night so I could also go to jury duty during the day.
Constance sighed and stood up, looking reluctantly between her daughter and me before saying, “Fine. I’ll go get everyone a snack.”
She headed for the door with her purse.
“Bye, Coco,” I called out to her. “We’ll be here when you get back.”
Constance narrowed her eyes. “Bye, Thickums.”
“Thickums?”
“You know, because you’re thick?” She batted her eyes. “Pair that with snookums and you get Thickums.”
My right eye twitched. “Go make me a sandwich.”
She flipped me off and left, glancing one last time at Wendy as she did.
Wendy waited until her mom left before saying, “I thought she would never leave. Show me your dead bodies, Thickums!”
“You’re a handful, aren’t you, Wendy?” I asked.
“Aren’t most girls?” She batted her eyes at me.
“Are you sure you’re five and not twenty-five?” I wondered.
She shrugged. “Mommy says that I’m a teenager in a child’s body.”
“You might be,” I said. “We can’t look at any dead bodies. But you can walk around with me if you promise to be really careful.”
When Constance came back twenty minutes later, she had a greasy paper bag in her hands and a scowl on her face.
“What is it?”
She gestured toward the door. “Do you know that man?”
I headed to the door to find a man in leather parked outside The Mercantile. “No. Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” she grumbled. “He practically wouldn’t take no for an answer when he asked me out at The Mercantile. Your friend, Hux, walked me back over here after that man followed me around the entire store.”
I spotted Hux walking back, making sure to say something to the man on the motorcycle as he went.
The man on the motorcycle shrugged and grinned, showing off his fake veneers.
I studied the man’s face as Hux pointed at him then to the road in the universal sign of “get out of here.”
“I have no clue,” I said. “I haven’t seen him around town either.”
She huffed. “He reminds me of someone.”
I look toward her. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t put my finger on it. But just someone I used to know.”
“Coco!” Wendy called. “Daddy is calling!”
Constance hurried over to the phone I hadn’t realized she left behind and answered it, a huge smile on her face.
“Mackey, hi!”
“Hi!” Mackey replied back.
I walked closer to see the screen and frowned, being sure to stay out of view.
The man that I could see on Constance’s phone looked…bad.
Half his head was sunken in, his face was misshapen, and there was a clear look of “not there” in his eyes.
He smiled and waved, but it was with the help of a woman who was holding the man’s arm and doing the work for him.
This must be the best friend.
“How are you doing, Mackey?” Constance beamed.
I thought I’d seen her smile before, but the smile she had for this man was breathtaking.
The worst part was, I was jealous of a man with the mental capacity of an eleven-year-old.
God help me.
“I’m okay,” he drawled slowly.
It was odd hearing a man’s voice come out sounding boyish.
“Mackey, tell Constance and Wendy what you did today!” an elderly woman who you couldn’t see but hear, encouraged.
“Counted to five!” He sounded excited.
The woman from earlier finally came into view, her smile soft for her son.
God.
I couldn’t even imagine.
“Oh, Mackey!” Wendy clapped. “That’s so good!”
Mackey smiled, and I looked at Constance’s face to see that her smile was soft.
The mother stepped away from Mackey, and her face went intense. “We haven’t been able to find him.”
“Oh.” Constance’s shoulders slumped. “I was hoping that the investigators would be able to keep an eye on him. At least we know he won’t come there.”
What little Apollo had been able to dig up had mentioned that Mackey and his parents lived out of the country. I couldn’t remember where, though.
“We have an armed guard with Mackey at all times.” The woman’s face looked serious. “You need to be careful, Constance. He was always going to come after you.”
My stomach sank.
She didn’t know that he was here.
How could she not?
Constance sighed. “It’s been like six months since we’ve last seen him. He hasn’t been here at all.”
That she’d seen.
“And you’d know, because he wouldn’t be able to leave you alone,” she muttered. “Be careful, though, Constance. He’s unstable.”
With that, Constance ended the FaceTime.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Wendy, ever helpful, started right in on an explanation.
“Daddy was hurt really bad when his best friend found out that Mommy was pregnant with me. Her best friend was beat up by a bad guy. And that bad guy didn’t go to jail,” Wendy declared.
My brows rose, surprised that a little girl of five, almost six, would know that kind of information.
“Wendy, sit here for a minute and eat your food before it gets cold.”
Wendy did just that as Constance walked over to the tabletop, bringing me with her by the arm.
“What’s going on there?” I asked. “And why does she know so much?”
“It was really hard to keep it from her when she needs to know that there’s a bad guy in this world that would happily leave her to die if it meant getting me away from her.
” Constance sighed. “I went on one date with a man back home, and he thought that it was his god-given right to dictate how I lived my life. My best friend and I had a drunk one-night stand that resulted in Wendy, and Mackey’s so-called friend beat the absolute shit out of him.
Mackey now lives half a life in Nepal with his parents.
Errol Fuller, on the other hand, didn’t see a lick of time.
” She eyed me. “Mackey’s parents have—had—a private investigator following his every move.
They were worried that he might come back and try to finish the job with Mackey.
Or me. Errol disappeared about six months ago when I left and hasn’t been seen since. ”
“He followed you here.”
Her eyes widened. “He what?”
“He followed you here,” I repeated. “I looked into you.”
Her eyes widened. “Me? Why?”
I wouldn’t tell her the real reason—that I was her source of what the world considered “Golden Blood”—but I could give her the other reason we knew of her existence.
I told her about the dog fighting ring.
I told her about Holly and Denver, and what Holly had gone through. I then explained that the man Holly had seen at the dog fighting ring had been her ex, Errol.
By the time I was done, she looked angry and scared.
“That man never leaves me alone,” she groaned, but her face went serious a moment later.
“But something that doesn’t make sense…Errol wouldn’t have let us know that he was here.
He would’ve only shown his face when he was ready.
He was into dog fighting back home, sure, but he was never caught.
Everyone just knew he was in to it. Mackey told me when we found out that I was pregnant that Errol only liked the betting aspect.
That was why he quit the CIA. They gave him an ultimatum: quit gambling or find a new job.
” She grew more serious. “He wouldn’t have been stupid enough to use credit cards that could trace him back to here.
Plus, when he was done with that trial and given community service and parole, the Dixie Wardens took his patch.
How would he have gotten another one? Did this Holly person give a sketch of what this man looked like? ”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure she saw him all that well.
It was dark, but he was wearing a Dixie Wardens cut.
That was why we knew where to start looking.
Though, our national club president, Silas, was the one to come back with the information.
Apollo, our computer nerd friend, only confirmed it by finding his credit card records and seeing that he was checked into one of the resorts in town. ”
She was already shaking her head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s here, Odin.
But whoever your friend saw? That wasn’t Errol.
He’s very good. Better than anyone you could ever imagine.
And he’s extremely paranoid. He would’ve known that your friend was there and known that there were people looking for her.
He would’ve never been caught dead somewhere that could get him discovered. ”
That was the same thing I’d been thinking when Apollo had originally shared all this information with me.
Something wasn’t right here, and I had a feeling Constance was right in the middle of it.