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six
“You gotthose pictures I texted you?” Preacher asked once they got back to the Review.
“Yeah, why?”
“Because I want them off my phone. Shit, I might burn it and get a new one.” Preacher shook his head. “I can’t believe you want to look at that shit.”
“I’m not adding it to my spank bank,” he grumbled. “And honestly, if I’d have thought Nunez was going to be so nice and sharing, I wouldn’t have made you bother.”
“Oh, so I get psychological trauma and it was for nothing,” Preacher said, slapping then gripping Ice’s shoulder tight. “Next time you need a favor, forget I exist.”
“Will do,” Ice lied since the request was empty on the surface.
“You know what seeing Misty made me think of?”
Ice lowered his head as they both said, “The Doctor,” in unison. Cool blue eyes greeted him as he took in a deep breath.
“Anything we should be aware of?” Preacher asked, as if Ice had brought this on the woman.
“My kids are in danger. That’s all I know,” he said, storming away from the man and toward his trailer. He couldn’t belay the fears. The Doctor might as well be Keyser Söze.
How Nunez didn’t know about the Doctor boggled Ice. Everyone in the circles where he lived knew about the Doctor, and Nunez traveled with a gold passport through the place. There was a balance with the law and lawless, mutual respect given in many ways. They knew what was happening beyond the surface and most times let it slide unless it crossed an unforgivable line.
That line had been crossed. Try as he might, he couldn’t place a way that he’d been the one to do it. Picking off family members one by one meant Aiden and Jane were next. It was a slow torture until the Doctor was sated. The debt repaid. Only how could one repay without knowing the bill? All Ice knew was he lived by a code: never let a man work for you for free. There were no outstanding marks or gambling debts.
While the Sinners moved drugs, those could be detoxed from. Gambling was an addiction of the mind, and one he avoided. Strange how the county system would say alcohol and drugs destroyed his family, but never searched out the root cause. The gambling losses and free booze took what little hope for a future he might have had. Casinos offer the drinks, stiffer ones if the person playing is on a streak, celebratory ways to take back the pennies that might have been won once the liquor does the work of removing the constraints—the sensible part that remembers lot fees are due and you need milk for the boxed mac and cheese in cabinet.
He didn’t know the man, or woman, no reason to assume only a man could cut off the perfect tits of a woman and let her bleed out. Placing the perfect mounds on the fireplace mantel as one would a decorative statue was more feminine, but there was something about those the Doctor usually left behind that made him feel it was a man.
The sound of giggles as he reached for the door had him pausing, foreign in so many ways. Music was playing, an old-school R & B song, the kind men and women danced to, not the women in the Review. He was a bit embarrassed that even in his downtime, he didn’t unwind to different music. When he opened the door and stepped up into the trailer, he paused, trying to collect himself enough to take in the scene in front of him.
The crime scene photos weren’t as jarring. Blood, body parts, destroyed property didn’t even send a frisson through his body, even with Misty’s dead eyes staring up from the two-dimensional image. The dance party going on in the tiny space he called home made his skin itch, and he couldn’t help feeling he’d wandered into an alternative universe. He might as well have stepped into one of the fine boutiques on the Strip where the lowest-priced item was a grand for a bra.
What little mess and disorder there’d been had been straightened, and the smell of bleach lingered in the air. Counters and cabinets were lighter, and not because the film had been removed from the window brightening the whole space. They’d been scrubbed clean, and when he glanced to the back, his bed was made.
“Daddy,” Janie called, running to him and wrapping her arms around his legs. “You like it? Bree and me found flowers by the gate.”
“I see that,” he said, lifting a Mason jar with water and tiny purple flowers from the table to sniff. “Tell me, what is going on here?”
“Idle hands,” Bree said, her doe eyes downturned a bit as she stood in just a camisole and tight leggings, the snow white edges and straps of her bra visible and in stark contrast to her dark brown skin. “Figured we’d turn on some music and clean up while we waited for Daddy to get home.”
If she meant the wordDaddyfor the kids, his dick didn’t recognize the distinction. Perhaps it was the lilt in her voice, the way she responded as if it were natural, or the fact he couldn’t help imagining an actual home, one with her brushing past him in a tight space—one he made tighter so she would have to brush past him. He’d gently capture her hand, hip, or, better yet, lips before allowing her to move on to a task he didn’t even care if it got handled.
“You only have condiments, two beers, and I think a box of mac and cheese,” she said with her hands on her hips.
Unlike what had played out when he was younger, she was simply stating the facts, not screaming them while throwing the box and pouring the beer down the sink. There wasn’t even the slightest hint of accusation of failure or belief that he had no ability to fix the situation.
“I’ve watched a lot of episodes ofChopped, but I believe they havefouritems in the basket to start with,” she said, lifting her hand to count off his options. “So, we either need to go back to my house, the grocery store, or an actual sit-down restaurant because they’ve had fast food once today already.”
“Laying down the law,” he said as he hopped up onto the counter, then, with one hand, pulled Aiden up next to him. Girls versus boys, a divide his son loved to play into. “Careful there, Luscious, I might like it.”
“Personally, I vote for my house so I can get clothes, shower, and I know what century my food was purchased in.”
Ice brought his hand to his chest as if shot. “Oh man, the terminal bachelor wasn’t prepared for guests.”
“I get it,” she said with a sigh. “But as John Lennon says, ‘life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.’”
“You saw the tribute mock Beatles show?”
