Page 11 of Overkill

I was here to fill my excessive amount of free time with gainful employment. That was true. But I was also here to satisfy my own curiosity. What the hell was this small-town bondsman up to? How did he stay in business in this sleepy town?

“I was on a team with her.” I struggled to smile. It was like my cheek muscles had atrophied and couldn’t make the expression anymore.

“With the rest of Lucky 13?” He and Taz had gotten chatty. “I’ve met that First Sergeant of yours. McClanahan. Seems like a good man.”

“The best.” I’d been squatting in his barn for over a year now and gotten some good things done to the property; helped him with the siding of his house, installed the soffits, and added some decorative shutters to keep with their Victorian aesthetic.

“And why, other than your association with my recently knocked-up colleague, are you coming to me now? What’s making you want to don the auspicious title of bounty hunter?” He looked at me suspiciously. “You trying to get a book deal? A TV show? Thinking you’re the next Domino Harvey?”

My brows went up in disbelief.

I mean…no. Hell no.

But also, why? Why was I here? I had my retirement. I had medical disability. No real rent to speak of. So what was I doing?

Maybe I was sick of squatting on the farm. Once there was nothing else to build, no more land to till, no floors to level, and no sidings left to replace, I’d wear out my welcome.

“I’m putting away a nest egg to get a place of my own,” I decided. “I can’t bum around in my First Sergeant’s barn forever. Gotta start thinking about what’s next, and this is a good way to use my most marketable skills.”

Tracking and killing an enemy in the real world was infinitely less useful than a solid understanding of Microsoft Excel. And I still hated computers, so I had to take what I could get.

Braun tapped his finger on the desk, the damn rusted chair squeaking as he rocked back and forth. Then he stilled, having made up his mind.

“Perhaps you can be as useful as Taz was.” He went into a drawer and pulled out a wooden box. He nipped the end of a cigar, leaving the cut tobacco leaves discarded on the table. “The other pups who came here were nothing but foreskins.”

I froze, my brain stalling like a glitching computer.

“I’m afraid to ask for clarification…” Truly, I doubted any good could come of it.

“They disappear when things get hard.”

“I shoulda trusted my instincts,” I mumbled. “I’m more disturbed than a bear catching salmonella.”

Braun chuckled as the scent of his cigar filled the room. A sad little fan in the corner blew smoke my way.

“You’d think a man named ‘VD’ who looked like you wouldn’t be such a cornflower,” he said with a sparkle in his eye. “You are certainly not your reputation.”

I almost winced. I should have been used to it by now; my past was a poison I would never outrun. I should have known that, considering…well, everything.

You couldn’t have roots and wings. You couldn’t have a home while always starting anew. I’d chosen this. I’d chosen Mack, the team, and all that it had implied. It meant my past indiscretions entered a room before I did.

“I’m not the man I used to be.” That was all I could say. To myself and to everyone else.

“So it seems.” Braun puffed his cigar and lifted his brow at me. “Alright, friend, as you are a fellow Kansan, not to mention a long-tabber, I’ll do you a solid.”

He pulled a single yellow folder from his drawer and slapped it on the desk.

“This is Luke Gray. Ever heard of him?” He tapped the photo of a square-jawed blond man in a polo shirt. “You helped Sheriff Whitlaw fish him out of the river.”

I looked down at the face I’d only seen as a rotted, zombie-looking thing. I knew nothing about him.

“That’s Melody Gray’s stepfather, and the brother of Turner Gray. You know who they are, right?” Braun lifted a bushy white brow.

“Sure…” No idea who Turner Gray was, but I knew Melody.

Sweet Melody with eyes like a phoenix and thick, pouted lips with a small, upturned nose. She had skin the color of Pacific sand that got lighter in the winter and darker in the summer. Sunlight scattered little freckles along her nose and cheeks, and anytime she came over to the McClanahan farm for dinner, I always hovered like a creep over her shoulder, just…wanting to be close to her.

“Well, the Gray family—that is, Turner and his father—have hired me to figure out what happened to him. They’re saying foul play.”