Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

“A phone charging cord?” Alejandro asked carefully.

“Yeah, a lightning one, to be precise,” DB replied with a straight face. “King was very specific about not using unbranded merchandise with his phones.”

“If I thought praying would save the world from idiots, I’d give it a whirl,” Alejandro sighed. “He’s just confessed to murdering someone and making and distributing a drug called fudge, and he’s making a case for brand versus no brand?”

The shit people came out with would blow your mind. I was still waiting for more information, though. “So where does the school shooting come into it?”

Looking over at me, DB rubbed his chin, the rasp of his stubble setting my teeth on edge. Someone hadn’t been home all night.

“Lord has a kid at the school, one that no one knew was his, and after shit heated up with his family, he decided to go into hiding—with Judge Ingleston. The judge had been cheating on his wife with Lord and planned to run away together with the money. At the last minute, Lord had a change of heart, not wanting to leave the daughter he’d only just found out about and broke it off. Heartbroken, Ingleston went to the school and shot his AR-15 into the air, hoping it would scare Lord into leaving with him.”

With all of us looking at him like he was lying, he lifted a shoulder. “Doesn’t make sense to me, but then I’m not a deranged psychopath. After that, he checked into Hell On Wheels, rang Lord, gave him an ultimatum, and then made plans.

“He was going to use his gun to take Lord hostage and leave as they’d originally planned. Unfortunately, when Lord arrived, pissed off, he lunged at Ingleston, shooting a round into the wall. The men fought, shooting off more rounds until Hyacinth got there and threatened to shoot both of them if they moved even an inch.”

“Holy shit,” Mark muttered, staring at the table. “I only had corrupt fucks on my bingo card.”

A chorus of agreement sounded from the table as we all tried to get our heads around it.

I needed an answer to something, though. It might have been common sense that the answer would be no, but after everything that’d happened, I wasn’t sure who we could trust anymore. “Will they get bail?”

Shaking his head, DB touched a piece of paper on the table in front of him. “The DA has confirmed that they’ll push for bail to be denied, and as the judge assigned to the case is Ramsey, it’s doubtful he’ll feel inclined to say no. We’re only just touching on the tip of the iceberg of the case, so we’ve got a lot of work still to do.”

We were all getting up from our seats when Carter’s hand suddenly shot up. “Question, when do we get a new mayor?”

Alex threw his head back and burst out laughing, getting a glare from DB as he turned back to Carter.

“An emergency council meeting is being held to discuss having an interim mayor until one is elected. Hurst Townsend is the interim mayor. However, he’s insisting that ample time is to be given for other people to come forward and campaign for the position who’d like to take it on.”

“Mayor Townsend,” Raoul chuckled. “Totally saw that shit coming.”

Mark looked intrigued by this. “Who else has put their name forward?”

Still laughing, Alex told him, “No one.”

I could confidently say that Lawrence Heath was looking down on the town right now, laughing his ass off at his old buddy stepping up as mayor. He could do that, he wasn’t going to have to deal with the shit a Townsend mayor could bring in the blink of an eye.

But his granddaughter was safe, she was in a new room, and what had almost happened twice yesterday was never going to happen again.

She’d said this morning that we couldn’t worry about what could or what had almost happened. We

just had to go on living for the moment so that if it did happen, we’d lived life to the fullest.

I might get on board with that mentality in twenty years, but not right now.

Bexley

Ten days later…

If Logan didn’t learn to chillax, he was going to give himself an ulcer to match the bruise he still had on his stomach from where King had shot him.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, holding the key to Pops’ room out to me. “We only just moved back in, and there’s a lot to do in the—”

“Give me the key,” I snapped as I snatched it out of his hand carefully. He had Miracle held against his chest in the other one, and I didn’t want to knock him off balance and risk him dropping her.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and stood frozen in place as I saw his chair, the ass indentations still in the cushion. I don’t know how long I stared, but I snapped out of it when Doyle nudged me out of the way and trotted into the room with his tail wagging.

Then came the whining. I’d heard him do this after Pops passed away, but I think I was emotionally and mentally too numb to understand what it was.