Page 99 of DFF: Delicate Freakin' Flower

I didn’t have the energy to argue. Hell, part of me didn’t dare. I dropped onto the chair nearest the window and let her set the plate down in front of me, still steaming and smelling so good it was damn near criminal.

She gave a satisfied nod once I picked up my fork, then turned back to the rest of the room like a general surveying her troops.

“We need to find that naughty Barris boy,” she told us, hands on her hips. “And fast.”

Jesse coughed into his drink, trying not to laugh out loud.

Gladys didn’t miss a beat. “His mama’s onboard too. I called her this morning.”

All of us stared at her in disbelief.

“You...called his mother?” Marcus asked incredulously.

Gladys shrugged, completely unbothered. “Of course. We old birds have our networks. She’s sick of his behavior too and said if she hears from him, she’ll call me immediately.”

The room was absolutely silent except for the faint clink of Sasha setting out more plates.

“You can’t let kids get away with murder these days,” Gladys continued, not sounding like the mother of a man like Colin Maddox. “And I mean that literally.”

Wes leaned back and muttered, “I’m terrified of her. Genuinely terrified.”

Gladys ignored him and pressed on, walking slowly around the table and talking like a seasoned military strategist. “Barris will still go after that sweet girl, Gabby, wherever she’s hiding. But”—she raised a finger— “he doesn’t have the resources he used to.”

“That’s because Maddox’s assets are frozen,” Malcolm said, picking up the thread immediately.

Gladys nodded. “So are Barris’s. And anyone connected to them is being watched closely by the Feds. Real close.” She gave an exaggerated wink.

“Which means,” Jackson spoke up, thinking out loud, “he’ll be desperate.”

“Exactly.” Gladys pointed at him approvingly. “He’ll be mad as hell and humiliated, so he’ll fall back to what he knows.”

She moved closer to the table and dropped her voice slightly as if she were sharing classified information. “He'll likely go back to his street days. Mugging, stealing, laying low, and getting nasty. So, if you want to find him first, you watch the police reports.”

She nodded toward the laptops and phones scattered around the table. “Muggings, stolen cars, assaults. Those will pop up first, so you boys keep an eye on them. That technology’s amazing these days—small little things,” she tapped Matty’s laptop, “but they open up the whole big world like magic.”

Malcolm looked half in love. “She’s the coolest person I’ve ever met.”

Benny grinned over his plate of fried chicken. “Dibs on getting adopted by Gladys.”

Gladys beamed at them both before bustling back into the kitchen to check the cobbler, leaving the rest of us momentarily stunned, full plates in hand, and very aware that somehow, once again, she’d come in, taken charge, and steered us all back on course.

I stabbed a piece of chicken with my fork, my mind running a thousand miles an hour. If Barris was operating on rage and desperation, he was even more dangerous now. And Gabby, injured and hidden probably in the bayou, was still the biggest target painted in his sights. We had to find him, and we had to end this before he got to her first.

Once the laughter over Benny's "adoption" request faded, the room settled back into a more serious focus.

“Gladys,” Jesse called, leaning forward, arms braced on the table, “do you know where Ira took Gabby?”

She shook her head, frowning slightly. “No, he didn’t tell me. Said you never know who’s listening these days. Airwaves, he called it—like he was living back in the Cold War or something.”

She huffed a little, smoothing her hands over the front of her blouse. “The only thing he said was that Gabby had a place in mind.”

The room went quiet for a second before Sasha piped up. “Well, that’s helpful.”

Immediately, she and her cousins started throwing out possibilities as if it were some deranged brainstorming session.

“Maybe Disney World?” Malcolm offered.

“Universal,” Benny argued with a grin. “You know she always wanted to live in theTransformersarea.”

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