“Oh, what does he know? I’m feeling great and that’s what I am going to focus on. Going back to him week after week, wasting hours of my life just to hear him tell me how much of it I have left? It’s absolutely useless. So I’ve decided I’m not going anywhere, and that’s that.”
“Honestly,” I started, “if anyone can avoid meeting their maker just because they decided to live instead…I believe you can.” And it was the truth. Grace wasn’t just an old lady with too many ceramic rabbits. She was a force to be reckoned with and if she wanted to use that force to fight the boatman, then who was I to argue? “So, you won’t need me to bring you weed anymore?”
“Now I didn’t say that,” Grace sang. “And I have to be around for a lot longer, especially now that my boy is going to have a kid running around. Grandma Grace has her spoiling hat on, and I’m warning you, once it’s on, it’s hard to get it back off.”
“Kid’s got a dad, Grace. I’m just going to be his…” I paused. In my head I’d never put a title on what Doe and I were. She was just mine. So when faced with having to say it out loud, I faltered.
“Step-dad type figure,” Grace offered. Her smile turned into a straight line. She picked at the label on her beer, focusing on the neck as she spoke. “I’m sorry about Max. I would have done anything for you, you know that. I would have adopted her myself if they would have let me.”
I nodded. Before I’d left Doe last night, I’d told her that I’d signed off on Max’s adoption. I could fight it. But Max deserved a good home and not a battle that could keep her in foster care until she was eighteen. I just hoped that one day she would seek me out and let me explain that I did what I did, not because she was a burden, but because of the tremendous amount of love I had for her.
“Or you can be his real step-dad if you decide to marry the girl,” Grace said.
“Can’t marry her. She’s already married,” I reminded her.
“Right now she is. But that will all be fixed. And if you’re half as smart as I think you are, you’ll figure out that being married isn’t just fodder for stand-up comics. If you two have even half of what Edmond and I had, you best snatch it up as quickly as you can. Hold on as tight and never ever let go.”
“She’s a teenager, Grace.”
Grace shook her head. “There ain’t nothing about that girl that’s a teenager except her age. She’s lived two lives already. I think you need to make sure that life number three has been worth the trouble.”
“That’s the plan.”
“So when are you going to get her?” Grace asked eagerly.
“Tonight,” I said, hiding the smile that threatened to take over my face. I can count the times I’d smiled in the last year and every single fucking one of those smiles were because of my girl.
My phone buzzed in my pocket indicating a text message. I was going to ignore it but then I remembered that I’d given the number to Pup in case she needed me. I pulled it out of my pocket and glanced at the screen. I had a missed call from her. “Fuck,” I cursed. I hadn’t even felt it vibrate or heard it ring. Pup had also sent a text.
Well, it was from her number.
I clicked on the icon.
What I saw made my heart drop and my blood boil.
There on the screen was a broken, bloodied, and bruised version of my Pup. The hair that fell into her face was streaked with red. She was tied to a chair, her mouth wide open. Her jaw set to one side like it had been punched repeatedly. Her clothes were torn and hanging off her body.
Then I noticed that the picture had a sideways triangle in the middle of it. “What the fuck is it?” I asked out loud. Grace came to stand at my side to see what it was that had me struck completely silent. I pressed the triangle, and the horrible scene I thought was just a picture played out in front of me in video form.
Pup, being hit over and over again in the face with a man’s closed fist. She was screaming, crying, begging for the beating to stop. By the time the frame froze again, she was lifeless, but as the blows continued. Delivered by a closed fist wearing a gaudy gold watch with red diamond bezel.
The senator.
Another text came in, the icon appearing over the playing video.
HOUSEBOAT 11pm
ALONE
UNARMED
OR SHE DIES
Chapter Twenty-Six
King
The worst fucking feeling in the world is not being able to help the person you love. Hearing her cries of pain and seeing her bleeding and broken was enough to drive any sane man crazy.
And I wasn’t exactly sane to begin with.
I thought the senator might have wanted me dead, but I honestly never gave a thought to him hurting his own daughter. I’ve hurt people. And given the chance to be a father, I would see to it that harm never came to my daughter.
I was hoping the senator operated under an honor amongst thieves set of rules, but apparently I underestimated his determination to ruin lives.
I was going after her and I didn’t care if I died. I didn’t care if he shot a cannon at my head, but I was going to save Doe. And then, if I was still breathing, I was going to make sure that before I killed the senator, he suffered pain and fear like he never knew existed.
A funny thing happens when you fear for the worst. Some people give in to their panic and freeze when a situation seems dire. Others, stay and fight, even if the situation is hopeless.
The prison psychologist called it fight or flight response.
I’m a motherfucking fighter.
Always have been, from the playground to the prison yard.
The message said to come alone, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need back up on stand by. I looked down at my phone. Eight p.m. I had time and thank fucking God, because I would need every single second of it. I dialed Bear. No answer. I slammed my fist on the steering wheel and rested my forehead against it. Of course not. He’d been even more fucked up in the head since the shit with Eli went down. He was probably fucked up to no end and cock deep in Beach Bastard pussy. I looked up from the wheel and staring me right in the face was a sign for the exit for Coral Pines.
It was a sign, but I took it as a sign.
Because there was only one person I knew in Coral Pines and he was exactly who I needed.
I spun the tires in the wet grass. I barreled off the ramp and toward the only person I knew who could help in a moment’s notice.
No, the only person who could kill in a moment’s notice.
* * *
Jake Dunn was a killer for hire. Or at least he was before getting married and settling down. Only a few people in this world knew that about him. If he didn’t have the tattoos and the attitude, at first glance, you would think he’s just another clean-cut kid from the beach.
Jake Dunn was the walking, talking equivalent to an angel of death.
And the only reason I even knew about that part of his life was because we had a mutual acquaintance who put us in touch while I was in prison. The Dutchman called Jake The Moordenaar. The Murderer.
Subtle.
When I pulled up to Jake’s little Mayberry house, I didn’t even have time to really take in the absurdity of Jake Dunn living in a house with little pink shutters and a swing set in the front yard.
I leapt out of the truck and up the front steps, frantically knocking on the door. “Just a minute!” a woman’s voice called out. I knocked louder. “Just a freaking minute!” she yelled again.
The door came flying open and the little red head who appeared was about to say something, like she had assumed she knew who would be on the other end, until she looked up and her mouth closed.
She never expected me. “I assume you’re not here to check on the status of your art work,” she said flatly crossing her arms and leaning up against the door jam. She was wearing little jogging shorts and a clingy tank top that made the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra obvious.
“I need Jake,” I said. I wanted to throw her aside and barge in to find him but Abby was the only thing in the world Jake actually cared about, beside his daughter, so the chances of me doing that and still receiving his help, and not end up at the bottom of the swamp, were slim to none.
“Yeah, I assumed as much. He’s out back.” She looked down at my muddy clothes. “Go around,” she said, pointing to the side of the house. I turned around but her words caught me. “You okay?” “No. I’m not okay at all. My girl’s in trouble,” I said honestly. I didn’t have time for mind games. I didn’t have time for anything. I only had until 11p.m. to figure out how I was going to save my girl.
“I’ll take you there,” Stepping out onto the front porch, Abby closed the screen door behind her and lead me out back to where Jake was sitting on the seawall, a Corona by his side, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
A pink Barbie fishing pole in his hands.
“Babe, I’m getting her a real pole because this cheap piece of shit doesn’t even wind properly. I know she likes it because it’s pink but Jesus fucking Christ this thing couldn’t reel in a minnow.”
“Jake,” she interrupted and he looked up from what he was doing and spotted me approaching. “He needs your help.”