Nice Buns (Cheap Thrills 7)

“Ah, you’re a wise-ass. Always hated that. Then you became a pig, too, and brought the stink of bacon into the house with you.”

People really needed to think up smarter insults. Donuts, bacon, pigs… it had no impact on a cop anymore.

“Yeah, well, way I hear it, you became a murderer. You tell me who’s got the bigger issues, old man,” Judd clipped, his voice sounding close to the desk I was behind.

“Come on, she was fucking a guy old enough to be her father. Then she says she’s pregnant and wants to be with him, but he won’t leave his wife. That pastor asshole wanted the wife, so the two of us made it happen. I got money, he got the woman.”

“And Mom?”

“She got a bastard kid. Who gives a fuck?”

I could see why Judd wasn’t crying over the fact this guy wasn’t his dad. Terry Bailey made Neil look like a saint. Neil might be emotionally numb and juvenile, but… Nah, he was still a massive cock.

“So, you blackmailed the guy, got money, then what?”

“Shit went down.” The old man sounded proud of himself.

“You’re sixty-three years old, and you’ve never worked a day,” Judd snapped. “Mom worked hard, and there you are, blackmailing people about shit you don’t care about. You never loved her, you didn’t even want her, so what did you care if she was in love with someone else?”

“I didn’t want her, but didn’t mean I wanted people knowing that slut was fucking someone else.”

Darwin would be disappointed if he saw this guy. Nowhere in the theory of evolution did he bank on this twat existing, I’ll bet.

“You’re a class act,” Judd snorted. “Nah, you’re a pathetic act. And why are you here today?”

“’Cause they shoulda left it dead like that asshole Bane.”

“Where’d you get rid of his body?”

Judd managed to steer the conversation in directions that got Terry divulging the information we needed, and I had no idea how he was doing it so smoothly. There was no doubt he was pissed off, but he wasn’t letting it get the better of him.

“I cut it up and threw it in the lake.”

Piersville had a lake near a forest that everyone swam in and held barbecues at. It was a big enough area for there to be cabins and for people to run jet skis in the water, so this would have been the perfect place to dispose of Alan Bane in. He’d disappeared in October, so it would have been quieter then.

“Took it out in bags on a boat someone left the keys in, then plop.”

“What a decent member of the population you are. How’d you do all of this without anyone finding any evidence?”

I took a quick peek around the edge of the desk when I heard footsteps shuffling away from me and saw Terry tap the sides of his head with a grenade on one side and his gun on the other. Him turning his back on his son was a fucking stupid thing to do, but I knew Judd wouldn’t do anything while we were getting the information out of him unless he had to.

“Criminals these days are dumb.” I wouldn’t argue with that. If you committed a crime, you were dumb. “They kill at a property or somewhere easy to find. Me, I took that piece of shit out to those woods and done it there. Then I put up a tent, made a fire, and started cutting him up. Hard to get through bones, you know?”

“So I’ve heard,” Judd replied drily.

“That bitch was meant to keep her mouth shut,” Terry suddenly hissed, and I pulled my head back as he spun around to face Judd. “Warned her, and I meant it. Now I gotta kill her daughter.”

“I can’t let you do that, Terry,” Judd clipped.

“You pulling your gun on me, boy? Your piggy gun made outta bacon?”

“I’m placing you under arrest for the—” Judd stopped talking, then yelled, “Don’t do it. Put it down.”

And then the place pretty much exploded. That’s the only way to describe it.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Evie

“He’ll be okay, honey. He’ll be just fine,” Jacinda said as she rubbed my back. “He’ll be okay.”

Ever watched something and remembered how so many people had died because of that exact same thing in the past? For example, you’ve watched a news story or a crime documentary, seen people opening fire on a building, and all of the occupants were confirmed dead afterward?

As I watched the S.W.A.T. team enter the building, I initially felt relief. Ever since the changes in the area, we’d seen them traveling through town on quite a few occasions, and they always looked so in command and so competent.

That was until something exploded inside the building, and then the shooting started.

Friendly fire. Accidental fire. Crossfire. It all happened, and life changing injuries or deaths were the result. The S.W.A.T. members all had helmets and different body protection on, which was so different from what Alex was wearing.