“No, I usually just tell them it’s going to be a week or later, so no one can figure out what I’m doing when I go to deliver it. That way, the Feds can’t catch me and lock me up, or assholes that want to blow my brains out to steal it.”
“What are we going to do, go around town, asking our customers if we can taste their weed?” Dustin grimaced at his suggestion.
“We won’t have to. Everyone tries to sell to The Last Riders. We just have to ask Shade to take them up on their offer. I’ll fucking know from the smell if it’s ours.”
“You can’t smell the difference, can you?” Holly asked.
“I can,” Greer bragged.
“I can, too,” Tate agreed.
“Me, too.” Dustin wasn’t about to be left out of the expertise the brothers were plainly proud of.
“Could some of the searchers have found it and used the opportunity to steal it? Maybe they aren’t planning to sell it to anyone.”
The three men looked at her like she had lost a screw. “Would you tear down an old outhouse and climb down in it if you didn’t know there wasn’t a pile of shit down that hole?”
“I can’t say I would,” Holly agreed.
“Son of a bitch knew.” Tate cursed. “They used that puppy to draw Logan out and get us away from the house long enough to get our stash.”
“It has to be a coincidence. Surely, someone just took advantage of Logan being missing.”
“It’ll be easy to tell. I was so busy following Logan’s trail that I didn’t follow the puppy’s.” Greer jumped off the porch, with Dustin and Tate taking off after him.
She and Rachel stood on the porch waiting for the men to come back.
Holly bent down to pick up the pad of Logan’s drawings, flipping through them, with Rachel staring over her shoulder.
“Go back to that one.” Rachel motioned.
Holly couldn’t believe her eyes as she turned the pictures slowly. She had seen these pictures after Logan had drawn them, not realizing their importance.
“Sweet Jesus,” Rachel breathed, taking the pictures from her when she flipped over the last one.
Holly turned as the men’s voices grew nearer, hearing them arguing.
“We found a set of footprints at the hill where the pup took off to. It’s dark, or we could have followed where the footprints led.”
“I know where they lead,” Rachel croaked out, giving the construction pad to Tate as they came up the steps of the porch.
The men looked at the pictures. When they finished, Tate handed it back to Rachel.
“I’m going to get my shotgun.” Greer started to leave.
“I’ll get mine.” Tate started to go inside.
“I’m getting mine, too,” Dustin yelled, heading toward Greer.
“You three get your asses back here!” Holly shouted after them, her hands going to her hips.
The three brothers strode back to the porch.
“I don’t want you going after Asher.” The pad that she had bought Logan showed childish scrawl of a girl with the shape of Kentucky drawn around it, and a picture of a rifle. Another picture was of Mrs. Langley’s house, another a ring, blankets, a field of daisies, and a big oak tree. Logan’s pictures had been unfolding their life right in front of their eyes, and they hadn’t recognized the parallel between the two. The last pictures he had drawn showed the outhouse and a man who had an uncanny resemblance to Asher Hayes.
“Too fucking bad,” Greer snarled. “I don’t care about the pot. Well, I do,” he admitted. “But they could have gotten Logan killed.”
Dustin started to leave again, and Holly took his arm, trying desperately to stop him.
“Listen to me, Dustin! How do you know it isn’t exactly what you’ve been dreaming about? How do you know that, because we saw these pictures, that it makes what we’re all afraid of happen? Logan will never do it again; you all know that. If it’s about the pot, I have money. You can have what I have saved.”
“You have fifty thousand dollars?”
She gaped at him. “You make fifty thousand dollars?” Her eyes narrowed on the men’s faces. “How much pot did you plant?” she shouted at them.
Rachel went to close the door, giving her a censuring look.
“Yeah, it’s a light year. I’ve been busy courting you,” he admitted unashamedly.
“You think this is a light year?” She dropped Dustin’s arm, lifting her pointer finger to poke Greer hard in the chest, forcing him to take a step down off the porch. “It’s going to be even lighter next year.” Stabbing him in the chest again, she forced him down another step until she stood eye level with him. “It’s going to be so light, it’s going to be nonexistent. You understand me?” She tried to lower her voice and failed, practically screaming in Greer’s face. “I suggest you find a freaking job. If not, I can support you until you do. Dustin already has a job, and Tate …” Her mind drew a blank at what Tate could do. “You can figure that out for yourself, but the pot-growing Porters has reached the end of the road. You hear me?”