No answer. Gummi was probably scared as hell right now, probably wetting himself. Gummi was big and strong and dumb. He had no side to him, though, not like Percy. Gummi was a big sweet idiot, like an overgrown puppy that didn’t know its own strength.
Dang her aching heart. “You’d better tell me what’s going on right now, Eva-Jo,” she warned.
“Percy decided it’d be a bright idea to snatch the kid,” Eva-Jo said primly.
“Fuck you! Tattle-tale bitch,” Percy snarled, lunging at his sister. Eva-Jo jumped to the side with a squeal of fright and rage, dark brown fur rippling all over her body. Dawnie didn’t even bother to shift, just jumped forward and punched Percy on the side of the head so hard that his eyes lost their focus for a minute.
Eva-Jo straightened up, looking at her brother resentfully. “He cooked up some scheme with Pamela to distract the kid’s bodyguards, and then Percy grabbed him and run off, covered his scent tracks and everything. I didn’t know nothing about it until the kid was already up here, and by then the whole town was swarmin’ with big angry cats and we didn’t know what to do.”
Dawnie switched her attention to Percy, who was huddled there, a pile of sullen misery.
“Why?” Dawnie grated the word, and the bones in her face rippled as her bear struggled to come out. She reached out and grabbed Percy by the throat, squeezing til his fool face turned red.
He clawed at her hands and she eased up a little bit. Then she threw him up against the cabin so hard he bounced. He staggered a few steps, his face red, tears of rage and humiliation glittering in his eyes.
“I didn’t like how that mangy cat put on airs!” he whined. “All high falutin, lookin’ down his nose at us. You saw how he was. Offering us chump change, like we was simple. Tryin’ to rip us off. And I thought if his kid disappeared, it would teach him a lesson and he’d see it was too dangerous out here and he’d just leave.”
“Without his cub?” she snapped, letting go of his neck.
He stared sullenly at the ground. “Well, I was thinkin’ of ransom. We get ransom from his dad, his dad doesn’t know it’s us that took him, and he’s so scairt that he takes his cub and never comes back here. We’d win all around. I had a hood on my head and everythin’, but then Gummi screwed it all up,” Percy said defensively. “I didn’t know he was up here. I brought the kid up here and Gummi pops out of the cabin and yells, “Hey, Percy! What you doin’ with that kid?”
He shook his head in disgust. “So then I was going to—” He stopped himself just in time.
“You were going to what?” Icicles dripped from her voice.
“Nothin’.” He kicked at the dirt like a chastened five-year-old. But he didn’t have to tell her. She knew her boys.
“You were going to hunt him once he’d heard your name, but Gummi wouldn’t let you.”
He glared at her angrily. “Gummi won’t even let us near the kid now! You got to make him give the kid to us!”
She stood there, working her jaw, wheels turning in her head. How could she use this to her advantage? How could she turn things around so that Michael Coffman went scurrying back to his fancy city house with his tail between his legs?
Because the truth was, those mines were never going to open again. Not while the Reeds ran Flowering Dogwood. Gave folks too much independence, made them too uppity, and besides, she had more use for the special minerals up there than they did. She needed them for her moonshine; it was the minerals that kept people craving more. Not just wanting it, but needing it.
She’d only been talking to Michael Coffman to feel him out, see what his plans were, and stall him. And of course, any money he wanted to give her, she was happy to take. There was nothing in writing. And he’d paid her ten grand just to meet with him.
But the money he’d offered her so she’d give her blessing to open the mines again was an insult, Percy was right about that. It wouldn’t have been near enough to make up for the loss in her ‘shine business.
She rubbed her face and groaned. “Jesus, this must be why Krista bought that fella here. I knew he smelled like some kind of law.”
“Well we know what to do about that, don’t we?” Percy gave a slow, happy grin, and Dawnie felt a sudden chill. “Same thing we did about that DEA agent. Same thing we did with those big cats who were trying to step in on our business.”
He was talking about the hunt. Dawnie wished she’d never told Percy about that particular tradition. She’d never been squeamish about settling scores or dealing with people who got in her way, but she’d never taken pleasure in it. It was just business. Best to get it over with as fast as possible.
Percy, though—he was addicted to the blood, the fear, the cruelty. At first, it had been a way to divert some of his vicious energy because he was beatin’ on too many people in the holler. Even with how scairt everyone was of the Reeds, it was getting to the point where they wouldn’t have put up with it much longer.
So, she’d let him start up the hunts again. Only with their enemies, of course. But now, it was becoming a problem—it was like he needed the hunt the way the people in town needed her moonshine.
“Don’t be a damn fool, boy,” she growled. “We agreed we were gonna take a break from that for a while. And especially not with all these big cats breathin’ down our necks.”
“Sure, Momma,” Percy muttered dutifully. “I was only fooling.”
She didn’t believe it, though.
She gave a heavy sigh. “We can’t give him back to his dad now. I swore I’d never harm a cub, but he’s useless to us as a bargaining chip.” She started pacing, muttering to herself. “It’s not hurtin’ him if he don’t feel a thing, though, is it? I’m gonna have to use some of my special herbs on him, the kind that don’t leave a trace. He’ll go to sleep, and not wake up” She glanced at Percy and Eva-Jo, eyes burning with determination. “We can mark up his body like a wolf did it, cast the blame somewhere else, and then leave him out where the lions will find him. Takes the heat off us. And his dad won’t want nothing to do with Flowering Dogwood, never again.”
“Jesus wept.” Eva-Jo looked as if she was about to be sick.“We gotta do that?”
