Pretty Reckless (Entangled Ignite) (6 page)

“Nah, I’m alright.”

“You sure?”

“This is nothing. I just finished lunch with my mother.”

Dobbs shook his head and yanked a handkerchief from his trousers pocket to wipe the sides of his forehead. “Just thought you might want to be the first to know how Pacey Monroe’s fate was dealt out.”

I nodded weakly and asked. “Is Rusty sure that he was bludgeoned to death and not kicked by a horse? That horseshoe mark was pretty distinctive.”

“Pretty dang positive,” Dobbs wheezed, the heat already getting to him.

I brushed a few stray hairs back into their pins. “Do you think Bosley is capable of murder?”

“If I was a betting man… no,” he said, “but people are full of surprises.”

My head began to throb. “Is Bosley still not talking?”

“No.” Dobbs sighed, scratching his head. “Figured you and Gunner could hit the Four Spurs Ranch tomorrow and have a little discussion with Luke Wagner.”

“Sounds like a great idea.”

Yeah, a great idea. And afterwards, I could go to my mother’s and listen to her flap her jaws while she pulled my fingernails off with a set of pliers.

Dobbs tapped my arm. “Don’t let Gunner or anyone else get to you, Laney.”

Knowing that was a lost cause, I waved good-bye and watched Dobbs ease his Jeep out of the parking lot.

…

Needing to collect my thoughts over the collection of cases we had piled up, I headed home a little after three o’clock. I shifted the Malibu into park and rushed inside where the shower was beckoning. I could barely wait to get the foulness of Rusty’s den of death off my skin. When I crossed through the kitchen I noticed the red light was blinking on my answering machine. I hit the button and heard airplanes rumbling in the background, then Nathan’s voice telling me he’d landed safely and would call back later. I peeled off my smelly clothes, ditched the dingy things in the mud room, and sprinted up the stairs butt naked. The warm water hit my face, washing down my grimy cheeks. I shampooed my hair twice, ran a loofa over all my nooks and crannies—scrubbing especially earnestly under my arms—and then turned off the water. I pulled on an old and worn pair of denim jeans, shrugged a white tank top over my head, and stepped into my favorite pair of red cowboy boots that I’d had since high school. Then I poured myself a tall glass of sweet tea and grabbed my sunglasses and headed out the back door.

My garden was an abomination. I had spaded the land between the backdoor and the shed five years back, hoping to make gardening my hobby after Gunner left me.

I snuffed out that unpleasant memory with a quick gulp of tea and unlatched the broken gate. The white picket fence squaring off the patch of plowed land had fallen. Weeds had started to encroach upon the crusty soil. I squatted and picked at a flaky carrot leaf popping from the dirt that was still parched even after this morning’s downpour. It immediately crumbled in my hand.

I swatted a fly from my glass, picked up the hand rake, and started chipping away at the soil. It was a chunky, stubborn mess, sending rocks and dirt clods up into my face. The scorching sun beat down on my back. My tank top melted to my skin. I wiped my brow and moved my way through the uneven path of the garden. It felt cathartic getting to hack away at what was left of my pathetic patch. This whole damn case was a frustrating surprise. Nothing was adding up. First, there were a couple of dozen dead cows. On top of that, a dead boy. And then, like there wasn’t enough on the shit pile, Gunner seemed to believe that the outbreak of ketamine in this area was somehow linked back to drug dealers in Houston. I needed to get a handle on this case fast. I tossed the rack aside at the end of my battle with the garden. From the looks of it, I think the cracked dirt won. The rows were uneven and jagged, and I’d sort of uprooted the only vegetable that’d sprouted.

I smeared my dirty hands on my jeans and took a seat in a nearby lawn chair. The Mason jar dangled from my fingertips as the sunrays pierced through the tinted lenses of my sunglasses. I was just on the verge of dozing off when I heard the phone ring inside the house. I picked up the jar and headed for the porch. The screen door had just slammed shut behind me when my phone went off again. It was Dobbs.

“Laney, I need you out at Horseshoe Trailer Park,” Dobbs said huffily.

I groaned. “What’s it this time?” I asked.

“Skinny Picket’s barricaded himself inside his trailer,” Dobbs replied. “Can you be here in five?”

Well, knock me over with a feather. What luck. I wasn’t surprised by Skinny going all bat shit crazy and locking himself in his trailer. It was a weekly event in the Horseshoe Trailer Park, but I was surprised Dobbs had taken the call instead of sending Elroy to corral the mess. Maybe he’d stumbled across some new information. Maybe Skinny had slipped up and given us the lead we were all waiting for.

Hoping this wouldn’t be some crazy-ass, wild goose chase, I said “Sure,” and hung up.

I grabbed my keys and clipped my 9mm to the back of my jeans. The smooth, leather-covered clip rubbed the small of my back as I locked the door and headed out.

Chapter Five

Horseshoe Trailer Park was on the south side of town directly across from the railroad tracks. About half the residents of Pistol Rock called the park home. The trailers were dented up pieces of scrap metal purchased back in the sixties by a guy named Hunter Beard. He’d never been known to do much for the place expect tape up eviction notices when rent was a day late. Tattered clothes lines ran from one beat-up trailer to the next. Trash was piled underneath the big oak tree and the aboveground pool was a popular pissing spot for the boozers around the park.

I prayed Dobbs hadn’t alerted Gunner to the situation; I’d had more than enough of my hunky ex for one day. Avoiding any possibility for a stand-off with that ornery Texas Ranger, I by-passed the park’s entrance to buy myself more time, only coming to a dead end and having to circle back around. The metal gates flew by my windows as I cruised down the dirt path toward Skinny’s trailer, feeling slightly antsy. Sure enough, parked in the middle of the long dirt drive, the black Yukon blocked me from going any further.

Gunner leaned against the SUV’s bumper. I parked a short distance away and exited my vehicle, managing not to look back over my shoulder as his heated gaze followed me to where Dobbs was plunked down on a picnic table bench. Skinny had lived in this same white and blue trailer since birth and probably still slept on the same John Deere sheets he’d had back in grade school. The trailer he’d inherited when his mother passed was wedged between two tall mesquite trees. Skinny’s ’72 gold Ford Pinto was parked under the torn, black and white awning.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, reaching Dobbs.

He turned around, wheezing from the heat, his khaki shirt stuck to his back. “I’m not sure. Skinny has dead-bolted the God damn door. Abby Sims, who lives two trailers down, called in the disorderly conduct. She’s worried sick Skinny is going to blow his doublewide sky high.” Dobbs waved over at Abby, whose nose was smashed against the storm door as she hip-cradled a baby. She frowned at the sheriff and slammed the door closed. “The fool’s been ranting and raving for the past half hour about how some ketamine dealers stole his stash of meth as punishment for not following along with their agreement.”

“I can see how that could be a problem.”

“Only if someone wants to get in, and I can’t think of anyone who would,” Gunner said, coming up behind me. When I ignored him, he shouldered past me. “Are you two just going to stand here all night?” he barked. “I don’t even know what we’re doing here, but let’s get to it.”

Dobbs sighed and pressed his palm to his head. “We could kick down the door.”

Gunner took a step forward. “Or we could just knock first and see what happens.”

I knew damn well that was directed primarily at Dobbs. Even when Gunner was wound up tighter than a car lot owner during a hail storm, he would never suggest that I step foot inside Skinny’s trailer. The place was known as being a stashing point for methamphetamine.

I pulled my revolver out and carefully placed my finger over the trigger.

Gunner shot his head around. “Laney, you stay back.”

I looked at him.

“I’m not asking,” he said.

“Are you telling me that’s an order?”

“Well, yeah,” he snapped, even though he wasn’t my superior and had no call to give me orders. Only Dobbs could do that.

“Dobbs?” I asked.

“Maybe Gunner’s right,” he said with a heavy sigh. “You never know what Skinny might do.”

“Damn the both of you,” I bit out, cutting Gunner a ‘go to hell’ look. I felt more like a disgruntled teenager than a deputy. I wasn’t even entirely sure why Dobbs had bothered calling me to come out if he wasn’t going to let me do the work I was paid to do.

I watched impatiently as Gunner squeezed himself behind a dead spider fern near the front door of Skinny’s trailer and kicked the tip of his cowboy boot against the bottom of the white screen door. “Texas Ranger,” he hollered.

I heard the screen door creak, then saw fingers wrapped around the edge.

“Where’s Laney?” Skinny’s nasally voice asked. “I’ll only talk to her.” He wiggled his finger at me.

Giving Gunner a ‘hey when you got it’ grin, I stood and slowly dusted off my jeans before heading to the trailer, swinging my hips the whole way. At the top step, I nudged Gunner out of the way as I took my place. He scowled at me. Winking at him, I leaned into the door and pressed my ear against the screen. “Skinny,” I yelled.

His paced across the trailer, the lock jolted, and I saw the door swing halfway open. Skinny was wearing a Guns-N-Roses T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of baggy, denim cut-off shorts swung against his knobby knees.

“Where’s the other guy?” he asked, darting his sunken eyes around the porch.

Gunner lifted a flat hand. “Right here,” he huffed, annoyed.

Giving Gunner a ‘watch me do my job’ smile, I stepped to the side of the screen, putting myself in front of Skinny, who smiled uneasily back at me. Then he reached out, took hold of my wrist, and pulled me inside. I could hear Gunner yelling as the door was slammed in his face.

The first thing I noticed was that the trailer smelled like dirty diapers, and I was pretty damn sure that Skinny didn’t have any children. Brown, worn carpet had been stapled to the floor, a rabbit-eared television was parked on top of a television tray, and Skinny’s plum recliner was covered in soda cracker crumbs. A tiny, narrow kitchen was to my left. Piles of food-crusted dishes spilled out of the sink. In the corner, his dining table was cluttered with an array of items: empty liter bottles of Pepsi attached to small, thin plastic tubes, dozens of pill boxes, and a gallon, blue water jug sitting on a stack of newspapers. When I caught the dense, putrid smell of ammonia, I knew I’d gotten myself into deep shit here. Apparently, Skinny had moved up the ladder of dope heads. He not only disturbed the meth, but he was also mixing up his own blend of the drug.

I spun around to catch Skinny pacing skittishly, his veiny, bare feet crackling across strewn newspapers. He gave me a huge smile filled with years of meth decay. Black, rotting teeth receded into the roof of his mouth, and the ones still hanging on had turned yellow. He took a long stretch of his neck, revealing the spider web inked in a faded purple outline on his papery, opaque skin. He looked malnourished, from his rail-thin arms and concave stomach outline against his T-shirt to the sharp protrusion of his shoulders.

“They want to kill me,” he said.

“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked.

He coughed and spat out a wad of meth head phlegm. “The guys dealing the Special K. I think that fucker you’re with is one of them,” he stammered—referring, I assumed to Gunner, though I didn’t know why.

I also had never been able to tag Skinny as a reliable source of information. His brains had been fried worse than those burritos Elroy ate from the Filler-Up station since junior high.

“Skinny,” I sighed, placing my hands on my hips, “that guy out there is Gunner Wilson.”

“Well, hot damn. I didn’t know that fella was back in town.” Skinny sat down in his recliner, his tweaked-out fingers twitching.

I leaned up against the far wall of the trailer, making myself as comfortable as possible until Skinny got to whatever point he needed to make. “And before you say anything, we’re not back together.”

“Wasn’t thinking it.” He snickered. “A man must really be hankering for some pussy to go crawling back to a woman who blew his ass open.”

“It’s a tiny scar!”

“Whatever,” he shrugged.

This was going nowhere fast. The conversation had detoured onto a road that always ends up with me looking crazy, instead of the direction it needed to go, which was what the hell was I doing in here?

The lock jimmied. It would only be a matter of seconds before Gunner just kicked the damn thing in.

“So what do you know about the Special K?” I asked Skinny to get the conversation going where it needed to. “I thought you only dealt in the meth business these days.”

Skinny’s knees started to twist, his legs began to shake. “It’s real bad. These guys, the ones dealing the Special K, mean to kill me if I don’t help get their K out.” His entire body juddered nervously. “Not to mention I have all my regulars wanting to beat down my damn door. I ain’t had time for meth. Those bastards won’t let me. I bet that motherfucker Seth Moore is the one who called me in. He’s been banging on my door all week, and told me if I didn’t get him what he wanted, he’d turn me into Sheriff Dobbs.” Skinny looked at me. “Seth knows things. I sort of spilled my guts at last week’s poker game.”

“It wasn’t Seth Moore who turned you in,” I told him. “Besides, Wyatt already told me all about your new deal.”

“Well, your cousin sucks as a friend,” Skinny said.

“Why do these men want your help?” I asked, suspiciously eyeing him down.

“The Special K.” He gnawed on his cracked lip. “They want me to distribute the damn stuff, since I have connections and all, but my clients won’t touch that shit.”

“Did you see the guys’ faces?”

Looking slightly confused, Skinny said, “No.” He gnawed at his thumb nail. “They were wearing black ski masks.”

“So where’s the ketamine?” I asked.

Skinny panicked and jolted his eyes about the trailer, looking for God knew what. I grabbed his pointy shoulders and gave a good shake. “Skinny,” I said, concerned.

He blinked and dove at me, latching his hands firmly around my neck. I fell flat on my back, struggling under his fidgety hands. I was pinned down, looking up at those blood-shot eyes surrounded by veins bulging at his temples.

“Who told you about the Special K?” he demanded, bashing my head into the dingy carpet.

“Uh…uh…uh.” I coughed, choking on my own spit.

He shook my head and forced my face up to his. “Who, damn it,” he yelled furiously.

“You,” I managed to spit out.

Just like that, his fingers loosened on my throat, and his face slackened. “Aw…fuck me.”

At that moment, the door of the trailer burst open. Skinny went flying into the wall with a loud thud. I caught my breath as he bounced up and tackled Gunner. I watched the two of them roll around, toppling over a side table. Then Gunner raised a fist and socked Skinny between the eyes. The drug dealer fell back on his ass, barely able to keep his head up.

Lifting his wrists in defeat, he said, “I give up. Just fucking cuff me.”

Gunner obliged, then yanked him up by the cuffs and shoved him into the recliner. I’d scooted away from the brawl and finally managed to stumble to my feet, adjusting my tank top and stuffing my boob back into my bra before Gunner made his way over.

“Are you okay?” he asked, touching my cheek.

“I’m fine.” I slapped his hand away, regretting it almost immediately. It was embarrassing enough being taken by a known meth addict, but on top of that, I had been a little shaken from the whole ordeal.

He shrugged. “Okay then.” Turning, he stalked over to Skinny and jerked him to his feet. Skinny flopped to a full stand. “Time to go,” Gunner snapped and dragged Skinny toward the door.

Skinny turned dejected puppy-dog-eyes on me. “I’m sorry, Laney. It wasn’t like I was going to kill you, it’s just that I’m not thinking clearly these days,” he whimpered as Gunner led him out of the trailer.

“No hard feelings,” I shouted back, hearing my voice crack.

The screen door slammed shut. I dusted off my palms on my jeans and reckoned that a good, thorough search of the trailer wouldn’t hurt anything. Giving it a good scan, I came to the seriously hesitant decision that the kitchen was my best bet.

Carefully, I checked out the single stainless steel sink, the cheapo microwave, and one cabinet, getting the feeling that Skinny didn’t spend his time tweaked out on his couch watching HGTV. Finding a box of plastic sandwich bags, I shoved two over my hands, then made my way through the room. Mold crept alongside the corners of the dirty, yellow laminate flooring, and old high school yearbooks were stuffed under the kitchen sink.

Hoping to find prescription bottles of ketamine, I opened the cabinet to find a single, clean, white bowl. I sighed. Nothing was ever that easy where Skinny was concerned. He’d been a known drug dealer for the better part of his twenties, and those many years of experience had taught him to make use of some ingenious hiding places. I pulled open the kitchen drawer and squeezed a hand inside. My arm was up to the elbow before I felt a plastic bottle roll into my palm. I pulled it out and raised the bottle into the dim light over the kitchen sink. Bingo. The prescription bottle was tagged as containing ketamine. I unrolled the sandwich bag from my hand and wrapped it around the bottle, then stuffed it in the back pocket of my jeans.

The screen door kicked back open. Gunner leaned up against the door jamb, gasping for air. He tilted his hat back.

“That Skinny’s a pain in the ass,” he panted, “The little bastard took off. I had to chase his boney ass about five trailers down.”

I laughed.

“What, you’ve never seen a grown man sweat?”

“Not you.”

He grinned and strolled on into the filthy trailer. “Kind of a messy son of a bitch.”

“You think? I was beginning to get all warm and cozy.”

He laughed and rested his hand on my shoulder. “You all right?” He touched gentle fingers to my neck. “You’ll probably be red for a couple of days, but nothing major.”

I looked back at him awkwardly. “Thanks for the help.”

He smiled crookedly at me. “You could have taken Skinny on your own, just figured a little help wouldn’t hurt.”

A moment of awkwardness passed between us. I broke it by asking, “So where’s Dobbs?”

“Sitting in the Yukon with Skinny,” Gunner said. “Did you find anything interesting?”

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the sandwich bag, dangling the evidence in front of Gunner’s eyes. He took it from me and examined the contents.

“Jackpot,” he said, handing it back to me. “We better get going before Dobbs sweats through his trousers.”

I nodded and followed him.

He’d barely pushed open the screen door when there was a sudden crack and the kitchen window shattered. Gunner shoved me back, throwing me onto the floor. “Stay down,” he ordered.