Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

Sweet baby Herbert and fish sticks on a Sunday.

“That’s the craziness of stress coming through,” Carter told Mace as they watched me laughing.

Next door, we could hear a commotion and a deep voice yelling that he wasn’t leaving without someone else, but I knew they had it under control when I heard Alejandro yelling out that he had the gun.

“You better believe I’m suing your ass for damages, Judge Ingleston. I don’t care what your job title is, you don’t make holes in someone else’s wall. I know you were born during the prohibition, but your mama must have taught you manners,” Hyacinth screamed from outside. “That’s like me coming to yours for Sunday dinner and wiping my ass on your decora

tive hand towels. Why I never…” she trailed off, muttering something to herself that we couldn’t quite pick up.

“Remind me to come here for a weekend,” Carter said, staring at the door.

Rubbing my face with shaking hands, I shook my head and wondered how just how something so bad could end like this.

Was this the end of it?

I hoped so.

“Go get your girl, man. But be warned—they’re talking about bad breath and wine stinking more after you drink it. They tried to get me to smell it when I went in to reassure them, but I told them I had shit to do.”

I’d smell her breath if she asked me to, even if it was first thing in the morning. I didn’t want to take even one second for granted with her, and I hoped that determination never stopped.

The second I opened the door, her sweaty, red face popped out from under the comforter, which looked like it was being propped up in the middle by Doyle.

“Logan!” she cried, then looked me up and down, stopping on my stomach. “What’s that?”

Shit, the bullet hole.

“I got it snagged on something. Are you okay?” I asked as I dropped to my knees beside her. “You’re not hurt?”

“No, we’re fine. Someone was arguing next door, so Mace put us in here because he’s a big old worry head.” Then, putting her face right in front of mine, she blew out a breath. “Hey, does that smell like death? Try Ava’s.”

Truth be told, it didn’t smell great.

But I didn’t give even an ounce of a shit.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Logan

“So, it’s a bit of a bizarre case,” DB told us as we sat down the next morning. “After hours of questions, we’ve pieced together the following. Judge Ingleston, and Dirk, King and Lord Kirkwood, were all in business together, cutting and distributing what they called ‘fudge.’ Jordy Watts was their main distributor, who sold it to other dealers and customers.”

That wasn’t new information, but it was good to have it confirmed.

“Judge Ingleston was paid to assist with the release of the distributors when they were arrested to avoid eyes coming back to the Kirkwoods. The ‘fudge’ was made at the property we visited last night belonging to King Kirkwood, and that’s where the distributors met them to make a deal and pass over the payments.”

A glance around the room showed no surprised faces. It was good to have facts that would get them sentenced, but I wanted to know what had led to a bullet missing Bexley by four inches.

“When Jordy Watts was arrested, Ashesh Morash was away dropping off a supply of fudge to one of their dealers, so King Kirkwood had to collect him, drawing eyes on the family. It was either this or risk Jordy being at Palmerstown P.D. for longer and opening him up to further questioning or a slip of the tongue. Because of that, after hiding him in one of the houses that were more developed than the others, they decided it would be best to get rid of him, making it look like a murder-suicide.

DB’s shoulders drooped slightly as he told us the next piece of information. “By the way, Cinder woke up this morning but will still have a breathing tube until they’re certain it’s okay to remove it. We don’t know, as yet, what she remembers or if she can tell us anything, and the DA has already said they won’t be pursuing her for her participation in the robbery.”

Thank fuck.

“Dirk confirmed they shot him in the same basement where we found Ashesh, so the techs are going back to see if they can uncover any evidence to prove this. The mud still has too much water in it to solidify, so I don’t know what the outcome will be.

“Here’s where it gets a bit more interesting. Ashesh Morash questioned Dirk about the death of his buddy and was so upset, he threatened to come to us about it. Dirk offered him five hundred thousand dollars to keep his mouth shut and told him he’d drop it off to him at the building site.

“Once he got there, King throttled him with a phone charging cord and then called Lord to help him bury the body in the fucked up basement because they assumed concrete was getting poured into it the next morning. Unfortunately, they failed that inspection, so they had to come up with an excuse on the fly—which was that they were fixing the issues in it properly before any further work was done on it.”