The Worst Best Friend: A Small Town Romance

“Your pig showed up at Faye’s house while I was there, squealing up a storm. I got him in the car to drop him at your place, and the second we got out, he pulled me over to Amelia’s, rooting around Doug Simon’s barn. He was chasing this fancy lookin’ snack wrapper. That’s when I saw the old storage barn open and had a look inside. Definitely several cars gone, including the Corvette.”

Mother-fucker.

Now I know I’ll be racing old Doug’s ghost to beat the hell out of Hudson and his friends.

“What about Shelly Simon? Did you see her?” The few seconds of yawning silence that follows shreds what’s left of my paper-thin patience. “Drake! Did you see her?”

“No,” he says firmly. “I headed for the lobby. Found one of her sandals on the ground outside, not far from some big-ass tire tracks. Almost like your rigs, except this one had more wheels like a freight truck or something. The kind that can carry cars.”

My lungs suck in a scalding breath and hold on till it sears.

It’s all I can do to avoid exploding like a human hand grenade.

“I’m thinkin’ it’s heading west. Those pricks made their move, and they won’t want to hang around here too long with the loot. Hell, that break-in at Faye’s may have even been a diversion just to keep us busy. No worries, man, I’ve put out an APB for any type of oversized flatbed truck or hauler loaded with vehicles.”

My mind spins like a ratchet, full of the worst possibilities. I haven’t felt this helpless in years, not since—

Hellfire. Screaming. Smoke. Blood.

No one can hear me scream, not even the damn insurgents. Not when I’m covered in blood, cradling what’s left of Vicki in my arms, hating that sluggish fuckup of a dual airstrike for putting us in this shit.

Someone moans—Private Ripley, maybe, if he’s still alive. I’m crawling toward him when I realize I can’t feel my arms or legs.

They’re still intact, but there’s something wrong with my head, my nerves. My limbs give out and drop me on my face just as more thunder lands on the hills they’ve been shooting from.

When I lift up to see, it’s my gut that aches. I’m hunched over a toilet in the back of the Purple Bobcat, trying not to heave my intestines out—how fucking long did I black out this time?

The door opens and I’m expecting Uncle Grady with his usual concern and gentleness I don’t deserve, ready to help me up for a sober ride home.

No. The Barnet’s butler, Tobin, his expression dead behind his spectacles.

There’s something—someone?—in his arms.

“The love of your life, sir,” he says in that eerily old-world polished accent. “I’m afraid you were a tad too slow.”

He drops the bundle in his arms in front of me. It rolls just enough so I can see Shelly’s face, pale and dead and—

“Weston? West, you there?” Drake’s voice cracks like a whip.

Oh, Jesus.

I’m shaking—hallucinating—barely propping myself up with my hand on the wall. A couple doctors walking by slow down and look at me with concern as I jerk back.

Another one of these pathetic fucking attacks when she needs me the most.

I can’t do that shit. Not right now.

I can’t let it eat me up or that little vision will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“I’m here!” I shout into the phone, wiping the sweat pouring down my neck.

Focus, you asshole.

Focus. Think. Move.

“Was Marty the last person who saw her? He said she stayed behind at the B&B while he drove Thelma up here,” I tell Drake.

“Gotta be by my estimation,” he says.