“What were you doing near that she-wolf bro? Didn’t I tell you to steer clear?” What the hell just happened? “Track, what just happened? How do you know his boss?”
“Not now, we have to take care of this Mandy situation. I have to leave soon and I don’t want to with this shit unsettled. What happened today?”
I told him because there was no reason not to. By now we were all in the kitchen and mom was bustling around making snacks while Maria finished up dinner. “I don’t appreciate not being told that the police were here to arrest my son.” I don’t even want to know why she didn’t know that shit since she and dad were most likely together when they came to the door. Nasty.
“It’s taken care of love, no need to upset yourself. I was never going to let them take him anywhere you know that.” Dad rubbed her shoulder soothingly while she shot glares at both of us.
“Not to worry Mrs. Sanders our boy isn’t going anywhere.” Track said that with such conviction that it was almost easy to believe. “Now back to the piranha. You said she confronted you in the hallway, there should be cameras all over that place.”
“The cops claim there’s a problem with that. Convenient if you ask me.” Knowing what I do about Mandy it didn’t tax my imagination to figure out how she might’ve pulled that one off, and Track seemed to be on the same wavelength.
“So she got someone to tamper with the security footage. No need to guess how she pulled that one off if it’s a male, but what about this nurse? How did she get her in her clutches?”
“I’m not sure what the story is there, maybe this woman is just an innocent dupe. I’m really not interested in any of that, I just wanna know who hurt Sian.” Like I was gonna waste time worrying about Mandy and her shenanigans. The day she got the best of me is the day I hang shit up.
“We’ll get answers but if the cops are as dumb as they seem it might not be from that quarter. We’ve been going about this thing all wrong I think. You and I both know that Mandy is a snake, but to everyone else she’s an innocent teenager who’s been hurt.
It’s obvious she’s still pulling people’s strings so what we have to do now is go back and see who was sniffing around her a few weeks ago when the attack took place. We’re all agreed it was a male that attacked you right Sian?” He filched a sandwich and wolfed it down.
“Yes, that much I remember.” She frowned as if trying to force herself to remember more. I hate that shit; hate the helpless look she gets on her face when nothing happens.
“We should start with Liz, anybody question her yet?” Shayne threw that out there and got a death glare from Tammy. He whispered something in her ear that made her blush and swipe at him playfully before settling again.
“He’s right, she uses that girl like a ten dollar pump.” Track paced the kitchen like he was deep in thought. After that little stunt with the cops I was seeing him with new eyes. I don’t know that many high school kids who can call shots on the law like that. I get away with it because of who my family is, but somehow this seemed different.
“The cops questioned all of them in the beginning I think.” I forgot he wasn’t here when this all went down and I might’ve missed a few steps in the retelling.
“Are these the same cops who were just at your door accusing you of attacking that twit?”
“No dad got rid of them but you’ve got a point. If we want this thing solved then we’re gonna have to do it ourselves. We know her, so we won’t be so easily fooled by her wiles and who knows what else she’s gonna come up with next.”
“Jace stay the fu-stay out of the damn hospital.” Track glared at me like I was his kid and he was about to go to town. “You don’t need to give her a chance to take any more shots at you, she feeds off that shit. The more time the department wastes on her, the less they have to devote to Sian and who really tried to kill her.”
“Fine, but I’ma kill that bitch as soon as she gets out of there.”
“Take it easy son, those idiots are just waiting for you to screw up so they can lock you away. You go around talking like that is just giving them wood for the fire. Let’s be grateful this thing turned out the way it did.” Dad clapped me on the shoulder on his way to the fridge to grab a beer.
“Yeah about that, Track, you never did tell me, time to fess up bro. How did you know his boss and what exactly did he say to him to get them out of here so fast?”
“I know this guy that knows this other guy.” Smarmy fuck, I knew there was no point in pushing because he won’t budge.
The evening turned out entirely different than I think Mandy expected, with all of us around the kitchen table laughing and pigging out. She was long forgotten in the midst of our reverie as we enjoyed something she never could.
I had one moment of sadness at the fact that one of ours was missing. Until Sian had come along and befriended the younger girl, I wouldn’t have known how to approach Cassandra. The guilt I felt over the secret I was keeping about her father and Mandy ate away at me, but seeing her with Sian and the others here lately had gone a long way to easing some of that.
Chapter 8
MANDY
***
I don’t trust the cops to get me what I want. Why should I? I’ve seen enough B-movies to know that they’re nothing but a bunch of underpaid goons high on their own power. You couldn’t pay me enough. Then again, they don’t make shit for putting their lives in danger. Still, they have their uses.