I shrugged and took my place back on the seat. “I’ve asked this question myself. It all boils down to the fact that the brothers have a bet, and whoever is the first one to shave their face has to pay for their beer for a year.”
My father snorted. “Now that’s a bet.”
I secretly agreed, but I was staying out of it. Seemed the Spurlock boys played dirty when it came to their bets, and they weren’t going to spare their ‘women’ if push came to shove. All was fair in a love and war, and all that bullshit.
“That’s him,” I said, pointing to the screen.
Miller was approaching Devon from behind, moving slowly so as not to draw attention to himself.
It was good that he was there, too, because the moment Miller reached the edge of the building, Devon jumped.
Miller only had enough time to grab a hold of Devon’s belt.
Devon’s shift in body weight took Miller down to the base of the ledge, hard, slamming him so roughly against the brick that I was sure he’d be able to hold on.
My mother and I both gasped as we sat forward in our seats.
Devon was dangling like a small child by his belt, but he was anything but a child.
The camera zoomed in on the two men, and I focused in on Miller’s face. What little I could see of it was beat red, and veins popped out all along his neck and forehead.
The muscles in his arms bulged as he tried desperately to hold on.
People underneath scrambled.
I half expected them to do what those clowns in circuses do by putting out the trampoline. Yet, there was none of that going on. They all just moved out of the way.
Miller’s hand and arm was bursting with veins, and it wasn’t helping that Devon was flailing around like a fish out of water.
He was saying something, yelling it really, and Miller was yelling something back.
Then I fell, sliding off the couch to my knees as Devon lifted something out of his pants pocket, pointing whatever it was at Miller.
Miller visibly recoiled, but kept a hold of the belt as he tried in vain to hide his head from whatever Devon had.
Then the gun came into view as Devon put the gun up to his chin, and then pulled the trigger.
The violence of the shot threw the rest of Devon’s body backwards, and Miller dropped him.
That was the second time I saw someone’s head blown to pieces in less than two months.
I barely made it to the bathroom in time to heave about five pounds of popcorn, as well as dinner, spew out of my stomach in a rush.
“Jesus Christ,” my father growled, dropping down to his knees to smooth my hair away from my face. “Get it all up, baby.”
I did, and then some.
“Daddy,” I gasped into the toilet bowl. “Why’d you let me eat so much popcorn?”
He snorted. “Because you don’t know how to listen.”Chapter 13Shut your 3.1415926 hole.
-T-shirt
Mercy
“Alright boys,” I said to the crew. “Wrap it up so we can go home. Remember we have a three day weekend to celebrate Easter, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Brock laughed. “Don’t forget we have that meeting with the realtors on Tuesday, okay?”
I nodded, gave him a thumb’s up, and said my goodbyes.
I walked out of the freshly painted house that we were building, waved to Maine, and moved quickly to my car.
The drive to my place was short, and I was thankful because I was exhausted.
This pregnancy shit ain’t no joke.
Add in painting an entire living room on top of that, and it equaled out to one very tired Mercy.
Miller was waiting for me when I pulled into my driveway.
I lived in a small, middle class home in one of the older neighborhoods in Kilgore.
The outside of my house was painted a dark gray, while the shutters on the sides of the window accented with a deep red. The front of my house had flowerbeds that begged for weeding; yet, I just hadn’t had the time.
I had a large oak tree with a wooden swing attached to one low hanging branch, and that was where Miller was currently sitting, pushing off lazily with one foot planted on the floor, while the other planted on the seat of the swing.
He was wearing blue jeans, brown cowboy boots, a white t-shirt, and a black SWAT hat.
He looked better today than he had last night.
Last night he’d just come to get me, and then had taken me to his place.
His only reason had been that he hadn’t wanted to leave Foster alone.
I hadn’t argued, and I’d gone to bed with a very silent Miller at my side. He hadn’t explained, and I hadn’t asked. I didn’t want to push him, but I had hoped he’d have at least told me what was going on.
When I’d woken up, he’d been gone and at work for over an hour, and Foster had been there to take me home.
I’d learned in a news conference, put on by Downy, that Devon’s fingerprints had been linked to a long standing case that had happened three years ago, of a woman who’d been raped, then murdered. Her body had been found in the Sabine River, and the only thing they had to go on, evidence wise, had been a fingerprint.
Since it hadn’t matched anybody’s that’d been in the system, there was nothing they could do.
His prints had been scanned the day he’d been taken to jail, but his lawyer had been there to bail Sarah, as well as Devon, out the moment they’d walked into the police station.
So he hadn’t been there long before he was out again.
The prints had pinged about two hours later, and that’s when the arrest warrant had been served. However, Devon had known that he’d be pinged for it since the murder had been broadcasted far and wide throughout the region.
He’d been in hiding at a friend’s place when he’d been found.
Law enforcement officials had chased him all the way to the bank, where he’d climbed the outside emergency ladder that had been on the side of the building. That was when the standoff had occurred, leading to the SWAT team’s arrival.