Someone Bad and Something Blue (4 page)

“It's just a locator project I've been working on for the past few months. This is our first real lead. If we don't act on it tonight, it may go cold.”

He sighed and lay back on the sofa. “I can get used to you dipping out late at night, as long as you come back to Bella and me every night.”

“We, huh?” I blushed.

“I know what I'm getting into with you.”

“But I can't keep doing this to you.”

“No.” He shook his head. “But we'll figure out a solution that will make the both of us happy. That is, if you want to work at this with me.”

“I do.” I smiled. “Tomorrow we could pick up where we left off. Bella will be at Ava's after breakfast, I have the weekly roundup meeting at Big Tiger's at ten, and then I have no plans after that.”

“I need to prepare for Sunday's sermon.”

“Oh, that's right.” I rubbed his strong arms. “Will that take all day?”

Just before he replied, I heard someone shutting the kitchen door and dangling keys. It was Whitney.

Justus followed my eyes and then exhaled. “The date is over.”

He stood up.

I caught his arm. “No, it's not over.”

“It's fine.” He removed my hand.

“No, it isn't.” I hopped up. “I don't want you to go just yet.”

“I think this is the best time for me to go.”

“Why?”

“Because I may change my mind about letting you leave later.” He looked at me in a way that made me want to call Tiger back to cancel.

I reached for my phone.

He put his hands over it. “Don't. I'm fine about this. Really.”

“But you made time for me today. I'm stupid. Stay here. I'll call Tiger off.”

“No, you just want another kiss from me.” He grinned. “However, it's late. I don't want to disrespect you. I shouldn't be here this long alone with you anyway.”

“What? Why?!” I hopped up. “It's only been about fifteen minutes.”

He kissed me and shut me up. “Thank you for a nice evening.”

“You never answered my question earlier. Will you be working on your sermon all day and night? Because if not, we could have more of this tomorrow night.”

He grinned. “Are you ready for this?”

I nodded. “I'm prepared to have my mind blown.”

 

G
rits Draft House was a Southern revival cocktail bar located in an affluent part of the North Atlanta area. It was a twenty-minute drive from my home. The good thing about Grits Draft House was that you didn't have to dress up in a cocktail dress to enjoy yourself. It was more like a stylish watering hole: peanut hulls covering the floor, whiskey barrels made into bar tables, and antler barstools—real country. Of course, most of the people there wore four-hundred-dollar jeans and one-hundred-dollar T-shirts, but I didn't have a problem fitting in. The Johns Creek Goodwill had some of the best bargain couture redneck wear in the state. I wore a pair of black jeans, a button-down white cotton shirt, and black cowboy boots I found in a boutique shop in Buford. I placed my bounty hunter's badge on a black leather belt and brushed my hair back into a two-twist chignon. I was looking Southern charming and country chic. If I could kick my heels, I would have.

Tiger, however, looked straight up and down South Dekalb. He rolled up in there with a black leather jacket, a blinged out black T-shirt that read
BIG BAD BOY
, black jeans that hugged his ripped thighs, military boots, and a black beanie on his head. If I didn't know him, I would have run out of the place the moment he stomped in there.

“So . . . dressing like a body double for The Rock is going to warm this Marlo chick over to us?”

“Angel Soft, this isn't my territory. Too many ole Georgia Boys up in here for me to dress soft. I mean business. I want to look like I mean business.”

I stepped back. “Fine, Mr. Business. Just lead the way.”

I spotted Marlo around the same time she saw me. She was a petite, brunette bob-wearing freckle-faced young lady. She was cute as a button and probably did better in tips than I did on most hunts. Before I could extend my hand toward her, her eyes bulged and her face changed into a crazed banshee. She lifted a large white ceramic boilermaker shaker from the bar and cracked me across my head with it.

I hit the floor. Before I passed out, I heard Tiger's sawed off shotgun cock. The sound of that gun jolted me back to the day Gabe died and why I remembered the detail of that note card.

 

It had been too cold for March mornings in Atlanta. Fortunately for me, it had also been too wet to do the first part of my assignment covering Filene's Basement's annual Running of the Brides event for the
Atlanta Sentinel.

The storm had been so torrential that all the bridal teams camped out in their cars instead of clogging the sidewalks like usual. We, Gabe and I, hung back in a parking garage within view of the department store. Actually, we were making out.

Although lightning flashed around us and thunder made the car windows rattle, being with Gabe made me feel safe. I didn't want it to end, but Gabe pulled back from our embrace and scrunched his nose.

“Did lightning strike?” he asked.

Although there was lightning close to where we parked, I knew that smell wasn't lightning striking. Lightning smelled like ozone. This was gunpowder.

My eyes widened at the revelation. I sat up, looked at the rearview window, then shouted, “Gabe, duck!”

The right side of the car shook something furious and a loud crackling sound jolted me forward.

“Get down!” Gabe pushed me onto the floorboard and covered me with his body.

I grunted, then smelled more gun smoke, red Georgia clay, and Gabe's peppermint shampoo. The shampoo smell almost calmed me. However, bullets pelted his Candy Painted Blue Ford 150 like a surprise hailstorm in September. My heart fell to my feet. I grabbed Gabe's chest and screamed.

Something fell out of his jacket, a black note card with the words
DO YOU STILL LOVE ME
? written in bold white typeface across the back. My eyes bulged at the sight of it.

When I reached down to pick it up, a bullet rocketed through the car and zipped into the backseat. Another one had dropped and I had dropped to the floor along with it.

The medium pitched thunk of Whitney's cell phone hitting the hospital floor brought me back to consciousness, along with more questions about Gabe and who hired Marlo to make that card.

 

 

 

I blinked a few times and let my mind settle on the fact that I was back in the hospital before I let anyone know I was awake.

“Is your phone working?” Ava asked Whitney.

“Yeah, Angel bought me this cool phone guard that protects it from anything,” Whitney said.

“How nice,” Ava said. “But I wish our sister did a better job at protecting herself.”

“Ava, please don't make me hurt you.” Whitney scoffed.

“If you do, then she's in the best place to recover,” I mumbled. “Don't mean to interrupt, but can someone tell me where my baby is?”

“Mama has her,” my sisters both said at the same time.

“How do you feel?” Ava asked.

“Confused. Why am I in a hospital bed and not in the ER?”

“You got into a bar fight and suffered a mild concussion. Since you have a history of getting popped in the head, the doctor on call wanted to keep you in the hospital overnight for further observation,” Whitney said.

I tried to sit up, but couldn't. My body lay trapped under bed sheets in a crowded hospital bed, because Ava and Whitney didn't prefer the chairs. Whitney snuggled on top of the sheets beside me and Ava sat at the foot of the bed wagging her red stiletto sling backs.

Although I didn't understand why Marlo had decked me at first sight, I understood my twin sister quite well. That nervous ankle tic was the precursor to a sticky favor request. Unfortunately, whatever it was usually meant another hospital stay for me or worse. I shivered despite the heat.

The last time Ava had asked me for one of those favors was eight months ago, and the result of that was me finding her holding her husband, Devon, dead in her arms, she being accused of his murder, and myself a head-butt away from getting macheted by the real killer. Like I said before . . . that twitch of hers was bad business.

Whitney crawled off the bed, kissed my forehead, and stepped out of the room to procure some choice treats. She knew I hated hospital food. As the door closed behind her, I waited for Ava to drop the bomb on me.

Ava continued thumbing through a pamphlet, then forced it into my hands. I read the title:
GEORGIA STATE BOARD OF PRIVATE DETECTIVES AND SECURITY AGENCIES LICENSING APPLICATION PROCEDURES.

I looked at her and frowned. “Don't start this again.”

I had assumed that after I saved Ava from going to jail for Devon's murder a few months ago she would respect my career as a bail recovery agent. I was wrong. Now she thought I would be a better private detective. It had become her new mission and distraction from mourning for Devon.

“You know I'm always concerned about you and the life you've chosen . . .” She patted my arm.

She continued to tell me in the nicest way that she could how she thought that this episode, which landed me in the hospital, was God's way of telling me that I needed to slow down. I threw the pamphlet back at her and reached for my hospital service remote. I needed the nurse ward clerk. It was hot in this room and Ava's overpriced gardenia cologne clashed with the smell of recycled, hospital bleach water.

“This license would legitimize your company far better than that other thing you do.” Ava scrunched her nose at “that other thing,” as if it were the thing stinking up my room.

“But ‘that other thing' kept you from going to jail. . . .” I rolled my neck in self-satisfaction. “Besides, what just happened was a fluke. It happens to the best of them. But it's okay. I will make it up to her when I catch her.”

“You're incorrigible.” She stood up and straightened her skirt suit with a hard tug.

“It's not the first time someone called me that and it won't be the last.”

“That's a sad way to be,” she said.

“I don't care.”

“Yes, you do, especially when it comes to Bella. She's begun kindergarten. She's going to meet friends. Their parents are going to want to know you, but all they have to go on is what they see on television or read in your old paper, because you can't participate in PTA because you spent all night on a stakeout in some seedy hotel.”

“I'll have you know that I attended Doughnuts for Dads yesterday.” I licked my tongue at her.

Ava shook her head. “Oh, brother.... Why am I not surprised?”

“There were other mothers in attendance, too, so what's the problem?”

“The problem is you. Look at you, Evangeline Grace Crawford.” She pointed at me.

It must have been serious, since she used my full name. I reached for the mirror and slowly raised it toward my face. My head had a skid mark that ran between my temple and my cowlick.

I dropped the mirror in my lap and gasped. “What happened to my hair?”

“Stitches. Your assailant put a gash in your head. The attending physician had to shave a patch of hair off your head in order to stitch the wound,” Ava said.

“I look horrible!”

“He was thoughtful. It could have been worse, but don't worry about your hair. I've already made an appointment with Halle for an early salon visit. She'll give you a fresh new haircut, while Whitney and I deal with Bella's slumber party.”

“I think you'll look real cute with a pixie hair cut.” Whitney slid back inside the room.

“I agree.” Ava sat down beside me and placed the brochure in my hand again. “It would be befitting: a new do for a new you.”

“It wouldn't hurt to get some continuing education,” I mumbled. “This could apply to my state renewal anyway.”

“So you're going to do it?” Ava asked.

“I haven't agreed to it yet. But I've been thinking about doing some skip tracing work for some attorneys. I could charge a higher fee with the certification.”

Ava almost hopped into my lap and hugged me. “I'm so happy we finally see eye to eye!”

I searched for Whitney's face. She was balled up on the hospital floor laughing. I didn't find Ava funny at all.

“Remember, I didn't agree to this just yet.” I still needed to chat with Tiger about what happened. “By the way, where's Tiger?”

“He's outside.” Whitney looked at Ava then at me. “. . . raising Hell.”

 

“L
et me tell you what you gon' do,” Tiger shouted to someone through his earpiece while using his hands to text someone else.

He stood outside my hospital room door just like Whitney and Ava said. However, they didn't tell me that he was out there terrorizing the triage nurses, too. His strong voice boomed through the air like the sound of thunder rattling my bedroom windows or what an oak tree sounded like once lightning split it in half. Crisp, hard edged, powerful, and dangerous—with a twinge of Southern ghetto—was what Tiger sounded like with my eyes closed. I tried to get his attention, to get him to whisper, but he was in his zone.

“You gon' bring me my money or you're going to bring me my money. However you dissect that, take it apart, put it back together, and formulate it, what I just said had better come out to fifty thou wows in my hands. You got me? Or you can save yourself the headache and give me Torrance. Let him be a man for once. How else is he going to grow up?”

I thought about what Tiger had just said and felt guilty. At the rate I was going, I wouldn't see Bella graduate kindergarten, let alone grow up. This Marlo chick had me twisted. I felt dizzy.

“Bet.” Tiger nodded. “Bet. We can do that. Tell me when and where. Just don't play me. Don't make me send my boys after you. They don't care that we're cousins.”

I got tired of waiting. I got out of bed and tapped his shoulder. “So, are you going to continue terrorizing your cousin or did you come to see me?”

“Who said I was coming to see you?” He turned around and smiled.

“Don't think that because Marlo caught me off guard that I'll let you get the best of my twin sister.”

“The best deserves the best, Angel Soft.”

I tried to playfully swing at his jaw, but stumbled back mid-swing. He slid his phone into his black leather jacket, scooped me up, and carried me back to my medical cot.

Ava gasped. “Let me call the nurse.”

“I'm all right,” I mumbled. “The medicine has me a little groggy.”

“If that's the case, then you need to sit yourself down and stay down,” he said.

I could tell by the hesitation in Tiger's voice when he spoke that he was working hard not to curse in front of Ava.

I giggled at him and turned away. “Stop being ridiculous.”

He grinned. “Ladies, I need a minute alone with my friend before the docs kick her out.”

If Tiger wasn't such a bad boy, I would have snuck him a kiss years ago. A man like Tiger, of course, was a fine, tall, long, thick bowlegged hottie, the color of homemade chocolate icing. He wasn't bald, but kept a shadow of fuzz on the top of his head, around his contoured nape and goatee that gave his look some swagger. He oozed the urban coolness of a Decatur man and held a mischievous grin that could make you change your life's compass if you were not careful. It was a good thing his old torch for me had diverted its attention to Ava. I wasn't built for love triangles.

“What's this about, Tiger?” I said, while gathering my things.

“Stay down.” He grunted. “You do too much and it's my fault. I push you too hard.”

“You push me?” I scoffed and leaned back against my pillow. “Like I said before, you're being ridiculous.”

“No, I'm not. I was ridiculous when I didn't listen to you earlier about waiting to visit Marlo. . . .” He sat down beside me.

Thank goodness the bed wheels were locked. His 6'3” muscular body would have catapulted me toward a wall.

“I messed up, baby girl.”

“It's spilled milk, Tiger.” I patted his massive back. “After I get my hair done and Bella birthday fabulous, we'll talk and regroup. Obviously, we're on the right road now.”

“No, that's what I'm telling you. The road is closed. There is no road. We're done. And as much as I hate to say this, you have a date with Reverend Romance tonight. Yeah, Ava told me that, too. That's what you need to focus on.” He brushed past my bald patch with his hand. “First, take care of the baby, then this head needs to be priority numero dos. When was the last time you took a vacation?”

“Vacation? You're crazy if you think I'm not hunting this Marlo girl down and beating the truth out of her the first chance I get.”

“Stop it,” he said. “Stop it right now, Angel.”

“No. . . .” I jerked away from him and stood. “You can't make me!”

He grabbed my arms and lifted me back onto the bed. I kicked my legs in defiance. He held them down with his hands. They felt like grips. I couldn't move below my knees.

I huffed. “Let me go.”

“Not until you listen and listen good.” His eyes were red. He was tired and tired of me. “You're taking a vacation, as of now. I'll pay you to stay home, rest, spend time with Bella, or go to that PI class that Ava has set up for you.”

“Wow, you're talking to Ava way too much.” I frowned. “She's not going to be your woman. You do know that. Right?”

“I'm serious, Angel. There's nothing wrong with taking a break.”

“What are you talking about? I can't take a break after what just happened. Would you?”

“Nothing happened, not like what you think.”

“There's nothing you can say that will change my mind. I know what I saw.”

“Why don't you listen?” He cursed and pulled his beanie off his head. “Look, I didn't want to tell you this because I'm pissed about the whole thing and now I have to do something I swore I would never do again.... I'm gonna tell you the truth about what happened last night so that you can leave the Gabe nonsense in this room and you can take this vacation in peace.”

“I know the truth and I'm not taking a vacation.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“After Marlo cracked your head, my rifle made her spill her guts,” he said. “She didn't know anything about a Gabriel Hwang.”

“Then who sent it?” I asked.

“Riddick.” He shook his head and mumbled something.

Riddick Avery was another independent bail recovery agent, who worked with Tiger. He owned A1 Recovery Agents and mainly worked the far northern counties in the Atlanta area. I didn't think much of him.

“That doesn't make sense for him to do that, Tiger.”

“It is, if you're competition.” He lowered his head and sighed. “Riddick doesn't like the fact that you became a local celebrity after what you did for Ava. You've been stealing his thunder.”

“But I only work for you, Tiger.”

“He works for me, too, but that's not the point,” Tiger said. “He's been pitching a television show to one of those cable networks. Rumor has it the network was more interested in you, because they kept reading about you in the paper.”

“Is the title of the show ‘Do You Still Love Me?'?”

“How do you know?” He wrinkled his nose. “It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. The show is supposed to be about how he convinces skips' loved ones, you know their girlfriends, baby mamas, and mothers, to give them up. Like he's some kind of Convict Whisperer.”

“Real dumb, just like Riddick.” I chuckled. “So instead of pulling more skips off the streets, so he could get in the paper, he decides to send me roses and a stalker photo?”

“No, I think he was congratulating you on getting Ava off that murder charge and also thanking you for being so distracted with her case that you dropped the ball on the bounty hunting.”

I shook my head “I still don't believe it. He needs to tell me that crap to my face.”

“I don't know where Riddick is, but you can ask Marlo. She'll be spending the weekend in the piss chamber at the Dunwoody Jail. Let it go and move on with your life.” He stood up and reached for my bag. A nurse stood at the door with a wheelchair. “And let's get out of here before the doc changes his mind and admits you for being a hardhead.”

“Where are the girls?”

“Your sisters are waiting for you outside. Ava's taking you home with her, because Whitney has bridesmaid duties.”

“Yeah, Lana's having a bridesmaid brunch today.”

“Whew, there's a lot to do today.”

“Right.” He huffed. “It's too big a day to be dealing with foolishness.”

“I agree, but I am going to see Marlo this morning. I need to end this today.”

“And how will you do that? Ava's not letting you out of her sight.”

“My head might be bruised, but I still can outsmart her.”