Page 140 of Highball Rush
The sound of my phone ringing woke me with a start. Callie stirred, making a sweet little sleepy noise when I pulled my arm out from under her. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. But my poor girl had been exhausted, and the feel of her slow breathing while I held her had made me drift right off.
I found my phone on the floor and answered, my voice hoarse. “Yeah?”
“You two all right?” Bowie asked.
“Fine, yeah. What’s goin’ on?”
“I have good news and bad news,” he said, and didn’t wait for me to pick which one I wanted to hear first. “The good news is, FBI rolled into town and took the judge into custody.”
“Thank fuck. What’s the bad news?”
“Mrs. Kendall is missing.”
I sat bolt upright. “What?”
“Sheriff had two people watching their house so they wouldn’t leave. FBI showed up and the judge surrendered without a fuss. But his wife wasn’t there. Not only that, the judge had a big bruise on his forehead. Looks like she knocked him out and got away, but we don’t know how she got past the deputies.”
“How long has she been missing?”
“Not sure,” he said. “Cass just found out and called to tell me. The sheriff escorted them to their house himself. She went inside with the judge and that was the last anyone saw her. But that was hours ago.”
Callie lifted herself onto her elbow, the sheet pulled up over her chest. She watched me with concern on her face.
I glanced at the window. The curtain was closed, but no light peeked in around the edges. It was dark.
“Fuck,” I said.
“Sheriff’s gonna send a deputy out to your place shortly. Just sit tight. And maybe stay inside.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“Be careful, Gibs,” he said. “I’m serious, man, I don’t feel good about this.”
“We will.”
“I’ll call you if I hear anything.”
I hung up and tossed my phone on the bed. “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong?” Callie asked.
Cash woke up from his nap at the end of the bed, his ears twitching.
“The judge was taken in by the FBI, but his wife wasn’t there. No one knows where she is.”
Callie’s face went white and she swallowed hard. “What do we do?”
I paused for a second, thinking it through. We could wait here. It was possible Mrs. Kendall had gone somewhere else. Skipped town to avoid the authorities. But if she was coming after Callie…
“Did your parents keep a gun in the house?”
“Yes. They did. Said it was for home defense. The summer I was fifteen, Imogen took it out and left it sitting on the dining table for two days to scare me.”
That did it. We were getting out of here. “Bowie said to stay here and wait it out. Sheriff’s sending someone. But I don’t want to sit around while an insane woman who wants you dead is on the loose. Let’s toss some stuff in the truck and get out of town. We’ll call my family when we’re safe and let them know we’ll be back when that psycho is behind bars.”
“Okay,” she said with a definitive nod.
We got up and started packing. Threw some things in a couple of bags, for us and for Cash. My mind was busy concocting a plan. Where we’d go. How we’d get out of town without being seen. I wished I had my Charger back from the shop. It guzzled gas like a beast, but it was fucking fast and cornered better than my truck.
