Page 59 of At Last

17.

Duke

We’d lucked out, though we didn’t know we needed to luck out. But shit, I ain’t looking this particular gift horse in the mouth. The Department of Fish and Wildlife had motion detection cameras hooked high to several trees around the area, tracking the habits of some endangered bat. The cameras automatically snap photos every couple seconds when movement’s detected.

They contacted us this morning because in the distance on several of their photos, beyond the bats, they captured a car running Doc and Peaches off the road the morning we ended up in Nashville. Because Tommy Doyle’s police cruiser is visible, and he knows better than to keep me in the dark concerning anything having to do with my woman or Houdini, we both got calls. That is, they called him. He called me.

So now I’m standing in some stuffy office with ugly brown carpeting and even uglier nineteen-seventies utilitarian office furniture—ironically with no view of wildlife in sight—of some environmentalist, perusing grainy black and white photos.

“You gotta be shitting me,” I whisper when I spy exactly why they called us. This DFW officer would have no reason to understand the significance. He just thought he’d been doing a good deed, calling us in after an apparent hit and run.

Except, except the hit and run ain’t about some punk kid texting and driving as Doc had initially suggested. It’s a black-fucking-SUV. A black SUV matching the one that killed Jesse.

Enlarging the picture, we’re able to recover a partial license plate. Tommy leaves to call it in in his official capacity. I call Blood.

My gut physically aches. Houdini, that asshole targeted Doc and Peaches.My girls. But what’s his angle? Why Doc? Why fucking Peaches? She’s just a kid, for fuck’s sake.

“Can we make out the driver?” Blood asks me.

“’Fraid not. They’re grainy black and whites. All we can tell is that the guy’s hair ain’t black or dark brown. He’s got a beard. Which last time we saw Houdini, he had not black or dark brown hair and a beard.”

“Not a lot to go on, prez.”

“You’ve worked with less.”

“True that. Anything else?” he asks.

“Just get me something to catch this fucker. He won’t walk away breathing again.”

“On it,” Blood answers, then hangs up.

There ain’t anything I like less than feeling helpless. I felt helpless with Dawna’s cancer. Now this fucker messing with my woman, with my little girl. My family. After all this time, all these years, I got me a family and he’s trying to take ’em away from me.

“Thanks for calling.” I bite out to the DFW officer as he hands off a manila folder to Tommy, shoot Tommy a chin lift to let him know I was out and then leave them to it. Tommy will call with any more. Me, I gotta shoot.

I mount my bike freed from the sidecar, and as I’m about to spark it to life, my phone rings. It’s my second in command. My right-hand man, Boss. “Blood call?” I ask instead of hello.

“He did. But not why I’m callin’.”

My body goes tight. What could have gone wrong now? “’Sup?”

“Wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

Well that got me. “What do you mean?”

“With all that’s goin’ on. Jesse. Caity.”

Don’t usually make this kind ’a small talk with anyone. Well, except for Doc. But she’s Doc so it’s different, but I find myself answering him honestly anyway. “Don’t know how you did it with Elise. We were with you, going through it right alongside you. But it’s different when it’s your woman.”

“Sure as fuck is,” he returned without hesitation. “It was the worst. And I’m still scared, though I don’t tell her that. But he could decide to come back after her with more than notes and flowers. Or Gun and that rattle. I’m gonna be honest, I hate that he’s goin’ after Caity and Jade. But I’d be lyin’ not to admit I’m relieved that for now, he’s not comin’ aftermy family. And I know that makes me a dick. Because I don’t want him comin’ after yours either.”

That comment should piss me right the hell off. But he’s right. Had Dawna been alive, despite hating Houdini going after Elise and Liv, I’d have felt the same way. Which makes me a dick, too. Boy, ain’t that some shit to think about? And I do, pausing, not speaking.

“Shit,” he mutters into the line. “You’re pissed.”

“Actually, no. At all. Because that’d be me, situation reversed. Just didn’t have a family to feel that way about when it was going down with Elise.”

“So what now?” Boss asks.

---