Reckless Road (Torpedo Ink 5)

“Yes. You said Inez and her husband, Frank, came and played cards with you. I learned that Frank snores, but not very loud.”

Anat laughed. “That’s true. Inez and I both fell asleep a couple of times while playing gin. I was ahead.”

“Of course you were.” Zyah was patient, waiting for her grandmother to get to the point of the conversation. “There are very few people who can beat you when it comes to cards, Mama Anat. I always wondered if your gift included reading other people’s cards.”

Anat laughed, the notes sounding light in spite of the seriousness in her eyes. She rubbed her thigh again. “Someone came up on the back porch and tried the door. It was locked. You installed that fancy new lock just a few days before, but both Inez and I heard it slide open as if they had a key. Fortunately, you had put a chair under the doorknob. Inez went to check the door and the deadbolt was unlocked but the chair held. She called Jackson Deveau. She says he’s like a son to her. He came right away and took a report.”

Zyah could feel the color draining from her face. Her legs turned to rubber, and she sank into the armchair across from her grandmother before she fell down. “You didn’t think I should have been told this immediately? Before I went to the job interviews? When I came back home this morning? Mama Anat, your safety is more important than anything. Why in the world didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you wouldn’t have gone on the interviews, and I know you have to work. It was taken care of. The deputy came. They’re doing extra patrols.” In spite of her brave words, a shiver went through her. “I’ll admit, I’m afraid those men are going to come back. How would they already have a key to the new deadbolt? Jackson, he’s the deputy, didn’t have an answer for that, and neither did I.”

“I can’t take a job and be away from you, especially at night.” There was no way she was going to be away in the evenings and leave her grandmother home by herself. As it was, she was going to make certain someone was always with Anat while she was at work. They would have to make do with the money from the grocery store if she got that job. If she didn’t, she’d have to find something else that paid equally as well that was close. Maybe she should have taken the money Player had shoved at her. The hell with it—she’d pull money from some of her stocks.

“We’ll figure it out, Zyah,” Anat said, trying to pour confidence into her voice. “I talked to Inez, and she said whenever you were gone, one of the Red Hat ladies could be scheduled to stay here. She didn’t know that you were applying for the grocery store job at the time. I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to influence her. I didn’t think that would be fair to the other applicants.”

That was so like her grandmother. Everyone needed to achieve things on their own merits.

“I’m definitely not going to take the waitressing job at the belly dancing restaurant,” Zyah said. “We’ll just both go on diets. No more ice cream for me.”

Anat laughed, the sound a little like gentle tinkling bells. “Since we’re going to have to give up ice cream in the future, can we have some now? Before we go to sleep?”

Zyah wasn’t certain how much sleep she was going to be getting, but ice cream sounded perfect to her. She couldn’t help laughing with her grandmother, because when Anat laughed, everyone around her always joined in.

FOUR

“You’re absolutely positive,” Czar demanded. “The two of you were sitting in the diner for how long before the Swords came in? You could have been made and not known it. In that time, they might have threatened Delia to gain her cooperation and burned her diner down to show her they meant business. She might have come here to kill Breezy.”

Player looked around the meeting room at all his brothers and the two women, Alena and Lana. All of them were present for this important meeting. This was his family, the ones he could count on. They counted on one another. They’d lived through a horrific nightmare childhood together, and it had bonded them tighter than most blood families could ever hope to be. It had been Czar who had saved them all, kept them human and given them hope. He’d brought them this far, and they believed in him.

The president of Torpedo Ink waited for input from the other club members. Player had known Czar would be concerned that Delia Swanson, the woman who had owned the diner Breezy, Steele’s wife, had gone into when she was alone and pregnant a couple of years earlier, might have been coerced into trying to harm her now. At that time, she’d given Breezy a job and put an apartment in her own name as well as given her a truck to drive so no one could trace her, to keep her safe.