Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (6 page)

Dennis bit his lip.

“Will you go with me?”

“To the D
istric
t
Attorney’s Office
?
Hell, baby,
I’m your lawyer.
I’m going first. But to your parents? Un-huh. Time to put on your big boy
panties
and deal with it.”

Chapter
Seven

His parents were a lot worse than the District Attorney’s Office.
Ria relented somewhat and drove over to the Billings household immediately after Dennis’
SOS.

Joyce Billings paced the family den, drink glass stained with lipstick in her hand. Don Billings, successful neurosurgeon who sliced and spliced without hesitation into the gray matter of living brain cells sat in his recliner and stared out the window.

Joyce Billings spewed her litany of insulted motherhood the moment Ria cleared the den door.

“Ria, do you know what Dennis has been telling us!”

“Of course I do. I’m his attorney.”

“He’s a child! You
had no right not to tell us—”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Billings.
This is Georgia, and he’s over eighteen. I had an ethical obligation not to tell you. Besides, he told you himself.”
The south followed the charming custom of addressing older people by their first name, preceeded by ‘Miss’ or ‘Mr.’ But Ria
never, ever considered
calling
Joyce Billings ‘Miss Joyce
’
.

“Oh, my God!” Joyce Billings moaned, and sank down on the couch. “How could you, Dennis? You have everything, you’ve always had everything
. To
do this to us
!
How could you?
After all we’ve done for you, Dennis
!
”

Ria cut across the reproaches.
“Mrs. Billings, you’re not doing any good with all this. Dennis screwed up. He knows it. He’s willing to do something about it, and I think you ought to be proud of him for taking responsibility like a man.”

“What my
b
ridge
c
lub is going to say—”

“Fuck your
b
ridge
c
lub,” said Don Billings suddenly.

“What did you say?”

“I said fuck your
b
ridge
c
lub. If you’d ever paid any attention to him instead of playing bridge
and shopping and doing lunch—”

“While you played go
lf and racketball and—”

“I fucked up, too. I admit it. Okay? Let’s see what happens now. Ria?”

“Well, I talked to the DA’s office and
this is
what they want to do
.
Dennis, did y’all just retrieve the stuff and make small sells? Or did you ever sell big? Maybe to another independent?”

“Yeah, we had some regulars. A couple of ‘em.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, to some guys
who
sell to the kids at the public high schools.
”

“I didn’t realize you’d progressed to being middlemen.”

“Just those few. There’s one dude supplies the whole senior class at
Bradley Central
. That’s his territory. We used to meet him out in the woods where we stash the stuff. Usually the first week of the month.”

“Any particular night?”

“No. But I can watch. If I see Justin’s truck leave, I can
tell. He’ll have the dirt bike in it.”

“
So
cars and trucks
don’
t
take those trails?”

“Hell, no, not even a four-wheel drive. They’re not wide enough.
”

“
So when you call in, we need to have the stakeout ready to set up.
Should be feasible, he has to drive a lot further than the drug squad does.
”

“Yeah.”

“He’ll see Dennis,” Don Billings interjected.

“
Dennis won’t be there, all this is preliminary work.
He’ll need to go out with me and the drug squad
and show
the
m
where t
o set up.
Tomorrow afternoon.
”

“T
hen Justin won’t know Dennis—”

“Sure he will. Justin’s lots of things but stupid ain’t one of ‘em. And Dennis’ll have to testify if he doesn’t cop a plea.”

“And he’ll know it was me, anyway, I know that,” Dennis interjected. “Ria, won’t he get out on bail? Before trial?”

“Absolutely. But he’ll be in enough trouble without adding any else like a
n
harassment charge.”
She hoped.

* * *

Dennis and Ria took
the
d
rug
s
quad of the Bibb County Sheriff’s Department
out the next afternoon.
Dennis showed them the trial into the w
oods and
pointed out
the clearing. He glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder at the hillock holding the small cave. It was covered, thank God.

He pointed around the clearing.

“Here,” he said
,
“
a
nd here, and here. All around here. I probably don’t know all the spots anymore.”

“This clearing’s it?” one of the deputies asked.

“No,
not quite. There’s another one.” Dennis moved over to a pile of brush and lifted it up, revealing another dirt trail through the trees. “This leads to another spot we cleared out, and there’s some there, too. I don’t know which he’ll use when he meets the dude that buys for
Bradley Central.
”

“
Okay,
let’s check it out, too,” said the Deputy. “We
need to have b
oth spots
ready
.”

Dennis took them to the second site, about half a mile
down the trail
.

Ria pulled him away from the deputies.
“Dennis! For God’s sake! Did y’all have to use this spot?”

Three crumbling markers marked old graves from a
private family cemetery
, long forgotten. Once upon a time, the now-faint lettering almost invisible in the soft, disintegrating stone might have been a ‘T’, another possibly a ‘J’, another a probable ‘D’.
All else was hopeless.

“I
didn’t like it much,” Dennis admitted. “Seemed disrespect
ful, somehow. But Justin said—”

“Damnit, Dennis! If Justin’d suddenly developed a passion for gang rape, would you have just
gone along with that, too, for God’s sakes?”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, and walked away.

Ria expelled another exasperated breath and moved to one of the deputies.

“These spots going to give you any special problems?”

“I don’t think so. We’ll be a lot closer to the place than Dennis’s buddy Justin will be when he heads out. If he leaves from home, that is. And if Dennis sees him soon enough and calls us quick enough.”

“Can’t promise about the seeing part, but he’ll damn sure be calling if he does
.
”

* * *

The call came two nights later. Ria
raced down to the Law Enforcement Center.

“
Miss Knight, no offense, but we can’t take civilians.”

“Deputy Taylor, no offense, but I’ve got a personal interest here.
Your informant’s practically my baby brother.
He messed up bad, he knows it
. He’s a
good kid at the core.
I need to be able to tell him I saw Justin go down.
I can’t rid
e with you, I know, but can I please, please, follow you?”

“We haven’t forgotten to read anybody their rights in a long time, Miss Knight.”

“I know you haven’t.
”
Ria put on a
pitiful
face
and
batted her eyes. Feminine weapons deployed by a master.
“Please? I’ll sign any release you want.
I mean, lawyers are officers of the Court,
I won’t screw anything up.”

“Oh, hell! But you stay back out of the way.”

“
Yes sir!
”

From the background, Ria wa
tched the spotlights hit the clearing
.

“Sheriff! Freeze!”

Handcuffs clicked.
“You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you…”

Justin made one statement.
Just one.

“You tell Dennis Billings he fucked up. Bad. And so did th
at bitch lawyer friend of his. Had to be
her.”

* * *

Cain paced the sleazy room in the sleazy hotel on Broadway. Something was wrong
. Fool had gotten caught. H
e felt it. Throughout the course of his extensive career he’d been plagued with fools. And he’d thought this boy had possibilities.
Shiiiiiitttt.
Well, best check it out. And there were other fools out there. That never changed. He stood in the center of the room, raised his arms, relaxed his thoughts.
He disappeared.

Chapter
Eight

The antique hall clock, an office warming gift from her parents, signaled 1:00 a.m. as
Ria trudged wearily into the foyer.
A good night’s work but damn, she was tired.
She started up the steps and stopped.
Joshua stood outside her office door holding a tray in his hands.
He shifted it to balance it between his arm and his hip
while
he knocked.

“Leave me the hell alone!” Paul
shouted from behind the door.

“Mist’ Paul, you gots to come out sometime! You gots to eat!”

“I don’t
gots
to do nothing, Josh! Now go away!”

“Mist’ Paul—”

“Don’t make me open this door and throw you down the hall!”
The voice was r
ough and harsh and full of pain.

“Paul! I ain’t gonna leave!”

Paul? What?
B
lack servants in the 1880s did
n’t
call their e
mployers by their first names without the ‘Mist’ or ‘Miss’. They just didn’t.

Joshua knocked again
and looked down both sides of the hall. Checking for listeners?

“You told me one time, you said, ‘we’ll take care of each other
’
.
You remember that, Paul?”

Ria’s mouth literally fell open as she watched from her spectator mode. Where had the
distinctive black cadence
gone?

“Well, I remember that. So I’m tellin’ you now, I’m go
in’ to
take care of you whether you wa
nt me to or not. You been in that room five straight days and nights, Paul! And I’m tellin’
you,
Doc Everett t
old
Sadie you had ‘til tomorrow noon to come out
ta there or he’ll take the
door down! You want
your father to do that?
Haul you out and clean you up like a baby?”

Joshua waited for a response that didn’t come.

“Fine. You just stay there, then. And I’ll stay right here. I ain’t goin’ nowhere!” Joshua sat down by the door
and
lean
ed
his back against the wall.
When the door
opened
, Paul Devlin’s appearance matched his voice
, e
xhausted
and brimming with pain
. His clothes were rumpled and stained, his
eyes black under the sockets.
Ria’s heart twisted. Chloe was dead.
For the first time, she regretted her private movies. She
really didn’t want to see th
is.

Paul stood in the doorway
and
glar
ed
down at Joshua.
“Stubborn little bastard, aren’t you?”

“Well,” said Josh,
speech still devoid of any black cadence, “I suppose that’s fair enough. I am stubborn, and we both know I’m a bastard.”