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She arched an eyebrow. “You should see me when I get mad. I’m an absolute knockout.”
He walked away, laughing.
Rusty shivered. Sparring with him was almost as satisfying as coming undone in his arms. She took a sip of the Coke, then a second sip before picking up the phone to make the call to Sonny Warren.
It rang and rang, and then went to voicemail. Rusty left a message for him to call her at his convenience, and then disconnected.
Her thumb was throbbing again, so she got up to take some pain meds, heard Cameron talking on the phone to the sheriff’s office, and quietly moved past as she went back to work.
***
Between the fuckup of kidnapping the kid, Lindy Sheets’s disappearance, and Vanzant’s execution, Boss was nervous. Now Emily Payne wasn’t answering her phone, and Dewey Zane was AWOL, as well. What the hell was going on? But there was still one person he knew he could count on, so he quickly made that call. It only rang once before the call picked up.
“Hello.”
“Bear, it’s me. The Payne woman isn’t answering her phone and Zane seems to be out of pocket. Nobody is answering my calls. What the hell?”
“Shit! I thought you already knew.”
Boss frowned. “Knew what?”
“The feds picked the Payne woman up the other day and flew her away in a chopper. I don’t have any idea where they took her. And Zane is in federal custody for Vanzant’s murder.”
“What? No way! I thought that—” He stopped. “How did that come about?”
“I heard Vanzant had trail cams up around his site. One of them caught the whole thing.”
“Trail cams? Why the hell did I not know about that?” Boss shouted.
There was a long moment of silence, and then Bear cleared his throat. “He was your employee. I would have assumed you did.”
The subtle accusation was a slap in the face. “Don’t you piss me off, too!”
“You shouldn’t have threatened Lindy. She wouldn’t turn on you. You should have let Vanzant leave. He didn’t know the implications of what he was doing. You should have let him and the Payne woman out of the picture months ago. You brought all of this shit down on yourself,” Bear said.
“You’re in this as deep as I am,” Boss snapped.
“I know that. And I’m still here, too, aren’t I? I trust you. You should return the damn favor,” Bear said, and hung up.
Boss blinked. “He hung up on me. He hung up onme!” He stood so abruptly the chair he’d been sitting in went rolling backward, hit the wall, and knocked a framed document off the wall.
“Son of a bitch,” the Boss muttered, and hung it back up.
What he’d learned changed the whole outline of his future. The Payne woman didn’t know anything, so there was nothing she could say that would hurt him. Zane was the loose cannon. He needed to make damn sure he was too scared to talk, but how? And then he remembered.
Dewey Zane was married. He needed to be reminded of all the things that could happen to his wife without him around. But first, he had a message to send.
***
Sonny Warren was downtown at the scene of a robbery in progress when his cell phone rang. One suspect was already in cuffs and in the back of a patrol car, and the second one was holed up in the bathroom of Neighbor’s Gas Station, which they’d just tried to rob. He felt his phone vibrating in the pocket of his jacket, but let the call go to voicemail. They were trying to get the last perp out of the building without a standoff.
He and two officers were on-site, and he’d already been on the bullhorn, telling the suspect to come out, that they had the place surrounded. They were waiting for backup when the front door to the station began to open. They saw a gun come sliding out onto the pavement, and then the other robber walked out, hands in the air, shaking and crying and yelling “Don’t shoot!”
The first thing that went through Sonny’s mind wasHoly shit!The second thought wasIt’s a girl!The third thing he noticed was the size of her belly. She had to be a good six months pregnant.
His officers swarmed her and retrieved the weapon she’d discarded, while Sonny still held a gun on her. As soon as they had her in cuffs, he holstered his weapon. This was a first. And he’d bet money she was underage to boot. How the hell do kids go this wrong this fast?
An hour later, he was back in his office, still dealing with booking minors, calling Social Services, contacting court-appointed lawyers, and trying to locate parents. His phone kept ringing, and he kept not answering, with no time to deal with missed calls.
