Page 74 of Lady Sings the Blues

“No one saw who dropped it off? Where were the prospects? Who was guardin’ the gate? Elise has to fuckin’ feel safe somewhere, and if we can’t make it here, what am I supposed to do?”

“Blaze was taking a leak, and Blue heard something bothersome coming from further down the fence. He snuck away to check it out. The man was doing his job. And a man is allowed to relieve himself. This was in no way a fuckup.” Duke makes sure to remind me.

It’s at this point sirens rip through the air, flashing red and blue lights up the nighttime sky. Tommy, along with several county sheriff deputies spill out of cruisers surrounding the entrance to the compound.

He walks straight to me. “Got-dammit, Boss. What the hell is happening? Twice in one day?”

“You think I want this? My fiancé was threatened this mornin’ and now there’s a dead woman in a milk can, a woman I’ve had sex with.”

“Who is it, Boss?” he asks, this time more angry friend than police officer.

“Pop the lid. Look for yourself. It’s bad though, man.” Tommy pulls on a pair of rubber gloves from a bag by his feet and pops the lid on the can, sucking in a sharp breath when he registers who’s inside.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” he mutters to himself, shaking his head. “She was a bitch, especially to Maryanne, but she didn’t deserve this.”

“No…she didn’t.”

By now the sirens have woken up every hot mama or piece who spent the night, and Elise standing outside barefoot, with sex hair, shivering in nothing but my tee, being held back by Levi and Blood.

“Beau?” she calls out. One terrified word.

“Go to her,” Tommy tells me. “Just make sure I get your statement in the morning.”

Don’t have to tell me twice. I take off feigning as much confidence as I can muster before reaching my woman.

Levi and Blood move off to the side, allowin’ her passage, and when they do, she takes off full sprint, crashin’ against me. I immediately wrap my arms around her, using one hand to pet her hair while tryin’ to calm her down. “Shh… it’s okay, darlin’. You’re safe.”

“What happened this time?” she cries into my shirt. “Another message for me, isn’t it?”

“This one I’m afraid was for me, baby girl.”

“What is it? I can’t tell from here. What was the message?”

How do I tell her? I decide to just rip off the Band-Aid and tell it to her straight. “Shayla’s dead, darlin’.”

Elise presses even closer at the news, but don’t say word one. So I give her the rest. “Stuffed in a milk can filled with water. She drowned. There was a note. It said… see, what you need to know is that she and I hooked up a few times. Nothin’ serious, just hookin’ up—”

“What’d the note say, Beau?” she cuts me off.

“Sloppy seconds.”

She gasps, going stock still in my arms.

“Baby girl?”

“It was Houdini, wasn’t it?” she whispers, stifling a sob.

“Why you think that?”

“She drowned in a milk can. One of his most famous escapes.”

That didn’t even register. I feared it might be him, but…

“And, he called me sloppy seconds. In the cemetery, remember?”

Shit.No, with everything going down, that’s something I did not remember.

“Why is he coming after you? Why me? What’d we do, Beau?”

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