Fuck my life.
***
“Will you put me some Dr. Pepper in a beer mug? I want it in one of those big ones,” I said, gesturing toward a beer mug that was about the size of my thigh.
The waitress smiled. “Sure, honey.”
I fed my first quarter into the slot machine I’d commandeered and pulled the lever.
Seven-seven-star.
I repeated it. Over and over.
This wasn’t near as much fun as the advertisements made it look.
“Please tell me,” a deep voice said from behind me. “That you’re not seriously drinking beer.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Silas and grimaced.
“What are you doing here?” I asked tiredly.
“Nothing,” he said, taking the seat beside me, feeding a quarter in, and immediately hitting three cherries.
Quarters started to pour out of the machine, filling up the tray. Alarms started to sound, and people tittered excitedly.
I gave Silas a disgusted look when he scooped the entire booty up and deposited it in my rapidly decreasing bucket.
“How’d you do that?” I asked, gesturing to his machine.
He shrugged. “The power of observation. The old lady who was sitting here before me had been here since this morning when I went to bed around one. She left with her single cup she’d come with, which meant she didn’t win anything or she’d have had more. It was bound to happen. These things wouldn’t be so popular if one didn’t pay out every once in a while to keep the crowd interested.”
I blinked, stunned by his words. Power of observation indeed.
“So what are you doing here?” I asked, feeding in another quarter. “How’d you find me?”
7-7-cherry.
Fuck.
I glared at Silas as he, once again, hit a winning combination and more quarters poured out before he answered.
“Followed you,” he answered mildly.
I lowered my eyebrows at him. “How? You were still up on the floor when I got to the ground level. And that’s got to be the slowest elevator on the planet. How’d you find me?”
He gave me a droll look. “You’re in the casino in the same hotel we’re staying at. If you didn’t want to be found, you wouldn’t be here.”
I scrunched my nose up at him and pulled the lever again.
Cherry-cherry-two cherries.
Shit.
“I’m in the back of the casino; I’m being inconspicuous,” I spat.
He snorted. “Whatever you say, dear. I know better than to argue with a pregnant person.”
“How’d you know I was pregnant?” I asked accusingly.
He raised his eyebrows. “Having to go pee every thirty minutes. Almost throwing up at the smell of an airport. Sleeping nearly the entire plane ride. Eating a brownie fudge sundae with French fries as a side? If that doesn’t spell pregnant with a capital P, I don’t know what does.”
“Humph,” I sighed. “Whatever.”
We played in silence for well over an hour before I started to wonder why he was still there.
“Why are you here, again?” I asked curiously.
“Because you’re sitting at my slot machine,” he said, raising the beer the waitress had just brought over for him to his lips before taking a drink.
“Well, looks like you got the better one, anyway,” I muttered, pulling down the lever.
7-7-7.
Alarms started blaring, confetti dropped from the fucking ceiling, and people started to crowd around me.
Instead of being excited, I got overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people and I started to freak out.
Silas’ reassuring hand at my shoulder, though, stopped my overreaction in its tracks, and I was able to smile as, instead of dropping me quarters, a printed receipt started to print out of the machine.
“What the hell is that?” I asked in confusion.
“You won more than the machine had to give. So they gave you a printed receipt that you’ll have to take up to the corner,” Silas said, gesturing toward the wall where a glassed-in receptionist stood taking tickets just like mine.
“Hmm,” I said, sitting back down as the people started to disperse.
“You were saying about not winning?” Silas growled.
I bared my teeth at him. “Shut it.”
We went another ten minutes or so when I was finally found by Foster and Trance.
I tried to duck down behind Silas, but they spotted me easily and started walking hurriedly toward me.
“Dude,” Foster yelled. “What the fuck?”
That had been directed at Silas and not me, luckily.
“What?” Silas asked, feigning innocence.
“We’ve been looking for her for two hours. If you knew where she was, why didn’t you tell us?” Foster asked with barely controlled patience. “And you,” he directed his gaze to me. “Do you know what the point of a cell phone is?”
I raised my brows at him. “Yes.”
“And what, pray tell, is that?” Trance rumbled, accusing eyes locked on mine.
I ignored them and fed another quarter in. “To play Angry Birds, of course.”
Silas snorted as he tried to hold in his laugh, but it made him sound like he was choking on his own spit.
I turned to him. “Did you know they were looking for me?”
He shrugged. “No, but then again, none of them called me. How was I supposed to know they were looking for you?”
Trance snorted. “You stayed for a reason, old man. And the fucking police at Miller’s door wasn’t a good way to start his morning. He had to go down to the station with them to explain what happened last night.”
“Explain what?” I asked, standing in alarm.
“That fucker from last night was killed,” Foster said eloquently.
I blinked, turning to Trance for him to translate. “What?”
“Faris Blue was killed,” Trance translated.
I blinked in surprise. “Why is Miller at the police station?”
“He had the flight information, as well as our names written on a piece of paper beside his office phone,” Trance explained. “They’re just following up with him and would like to speak with you, too.”
“Alright,” I walked past them. “Let me cash in my winnings and go talk to them.”
“Miller said for you to stay here; he’d tell them everything they needed to know,” Trance explained at my back.
Of course he would, because he had to take care of me, after all. I was a poor, pitiful woman who was incapable of taking care of herself.
“Whatever,” I said. “I’m going down there. Either you can go with me or get out of my way.”
Surprisingly, or could I say luckily, I missed Miller by a matter of seconds.
Trance had tried to call him, but the reception in the hotel we were staying at was terrible, making each call Trance placed to Miller practically worthless.
Now Trance was leading us into the depths of the Las Vegas police station so we could speak with the same man I’d met with last night, Tony DeRoy.
“Don’t say anything you think you shouldn’t,” Trance said as he reached the door.
I gave him an annoyed look. “Yes, Father.”
He glared at me. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, little girl.”
I snorted. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
“Alright,” Foster said, pushing the door open and walking between us. “Now that you’ve each measured your dicks, let’s get this over with before the reunion that starts in two hours.”
I didn’t bother telling him I wouldn’t be going. Especially since his parents were going to be there. That really was the last thing I wanted to do today.
“Mine’s bigger,” I whispered to Trance as I passed.
He snorted but nonetheless followed me in.
“Tony, let’s do this. Th
e reunion starts soon,” Trance said, ignoring me for the time being.
And that was how I realized that I wasn’t allowed to leave the state, because I was a suspect in the death of Faris Blue.
Chapter 17
Hard times will always reveal true friends. Why? Because those fuckers will be downing shots on the stool right next to you.
-Life Lesson
Mercy
“She’s told you this fifteen fucking times, Tony. Goddammit. How many more times does she have to tell you?” Trance asked, running his fingers through his hair roughly.
He was so cute, getting all defensive over me.
“Why are you still here, boyo?” Tony asked, sneering at him.
I just shook my head. They’d literally done this no less than five times now in the last hour.
I was really ready to get out of here. Not to mention that my baby who was the size of a lentil was somehow, miraculously, pressing on my bladder to the point of pain.
Needless to say, when Miller burst into the room a minute and forty seconds later, because, seriously, I was watching the clock while the two blockheads argued, I was more than happy to see him.
Except he didn’t look in the least bit happy to see me.
“Tony, you promised me you wouldn’t bother her,” Miller growled, turning his scowl on my captor.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I also agreed that if she came to me, like you said she wouldn’t, that I’d talk to her. Which she did, and I did. I’ve just got two more…”
“You’re done. Get up, Mercy. It’s time to go,” Miller said, stopping Tony’s explanation in its tracks.
“Hey!” Tony snapped. “I know you’re my friend and all, but this is a murder investing—”
“Now,” Miller growled.
I shrugged and stood, walking out the door, not waiting for Miller nor Tony to protest.
In fact, I ducked into the employee bathroom before either one could say a word.
Miller, obviously, didn’t see me enter the bathroom, because the moment I finally got to relieve myself, he was yelling the police station down.
“Mercy!” Miller bellowed loudly.
“I’m peeing!” I screamed at the door.
Goddamn. Couldn’t a woman pee by herself?
“You need to chill the fuck out, dude. I haven’t peed in four hours,” I muttered.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when he opened the door. The locked door. But I was.
He just barged in, and slammed the door shut behind him, billowing air like he’d run a mile at a dead sprint.
“Jesus,” I said, turning my back on him as I yanked my pants over my ass. “What’s your freakin’ deal?”
I was still mad. Which was why I was being so mean.
I knew he was worried. Hell, I’d been worried about him, too. But he needed to back the fuck off. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his overprotective streak that verged on the brink of irrational.
“What the hell’s your problem with me? I just saved you,” he said, stunned that I’d snapped at him.
I whipped around to face him. “My problem?”
He blinked. “That’s what I just asked, wasn’t it?”
I moved into his space. “My problem, mister.” I punctuated that word with a poke to his chest, leaning forward so my nose was level with his chin. Sure, I had to stand on my tippy toes, and I had to lean slightly on my finger that was poking into his chest for balance, but it was the threat that counted. “Is that you need to stop throwing your weight around. I’m not your pet project. I can’t be fixed by you babying me all the damn time.”
He blinked, brows furrowing in confusion. “Pet project?”
I nodded, poking him again. “Yeah, your pet project. The poor little girl who can’t take care of herself. The poor little woman who was raped in front of East fucking Texas. I don’t need you. I don’t need your pity, either.”
Okay, I was being harsh, I knew. I didn’t know his side of it, but what his parents had said earlier made sense. Too much sense, in fact. A man like Miller couldn’t like me.
Not plain Mercy Diane Shepherd. The girl that had no curves, boobs, or bounties of any kind. I was plain Mercy. The girl who was raped. The girl who had more in common with a man than a woman.
I was the woman who burned if I was out in the sun too long, and could eat fifty donuts and have nothing to show for it but being more attractive to mosquitoes. I was the woman who walked in front of a crew of construction workers in my sexiest get-up and never got a single freakin’ whistle.
His eyes caught on mine and he cornered me against the wall.
“Is this about what you saw yesterday?” he asked, taking his hand and running it down the side of my neck, then further down my side to settle on my hip.
“What I saw yesterday? Do you mean what I heard?” I asked in confusion.
He shook his head. “What do you mean what you heard? I was talking about what you saw when I beat the shit out of Faris.”
I blinked. “Uhh, no. I was talking about what I heard your parents say this morning.”
Confusion clouded his features. “I don’t remember hearing my parents say anything that upset you. In fact, I haven’t even seen my parents today. What did you hear that made you leave and disappear for hours? Which, might I add, scared the shit out of me.”
Since he looked so genuinely confused, I took pity on him.
Lips thinning in trepidation, I explained what I’d heard his mother and father talking about when I’d gone to breakfast that morning.
“I’m going to fucking kill them,” he said, pushing away from my body and throwing the door open.
I ran and jumped on his back, wrapping my arms around his throat.
It didn’t stop him in the slightest. He kept walking as if an extra hundred and ten pounds hadn’t just been added to his weight.
He didn’t have far to go, however.
In fact, once he made it out of the police station, he walked five doors down and threw the door open to a blacked-out door with plate-glass windows surrounding the doorframe.
The first thing to hit me was the smell of alcohol and old wood.
The second thing was the way the low red lights made Miller look like he was a super alien. A super, pissed off, muscular alien bent on revenge, ready to conquer earth to avenge the honor of his woman.
Okay, I was over exaggerating, but I was also panicking.
His parents were sitting at the bar, his father on the serving side and his mother on a stool at the very end.
“We need to talk,” Miller growled to the two.
I immediately let go of Miller’s neck, but he caught me with both hands firmly planted on my ass, keeping me in place as he walked closer and closer to his stunned parents.
I ducked my head and prayed that it’d be over soon.
***
Miller
“Honey,” my mother said as she glanced across the room at Mercy, who happened to be playing with the jukebox, pointing out which songs she liked to Foster and Trance. “I never meant what I said to be hurtful. I was just curious.”
I put both of my hands to my forehead and rubbed vigorously with the heels of my hands. “If I’m happy, you should be happy for me. None of your opinions matter here. She’s mine and I’m hers. Nothing you can say or do will change that.”
My mother looked down at her hands. “That was never my intention with my concern for you. I was upset that it came on so sudden. There was never any other reason given for it other than hearing that she was pregnant, which made me curious. I’m happy for you. I’m happy for her. She seems like a very nice young lady.”
I sighed. “I know, Mom. Just… give her a chance. And you probably should go apologize.”
“Nobody has time for that, son. We have to be at the reunion in less than an hour,” my father tried to intervene.
“No, Micah. It’s okay. I’ll go talk to he
r, and you can go get dressed with your brothers,” my mother said, standing and making her way to Mercy.
Once she got there, she sent Trance and Foster to us before sequestering Mercy into the very corner of my father’s bar.
“Your mother made us shirts,” Foster said once he got to within speaking distance.
It was obvious he wasn’t claiming her as ‘his’ mom.
I grimaced. “What do they say, Dad?”
My father didn’t bother to hold back his disgust. “Just don’t read it, and you won’t know how bad it is.”
My eyes studied Mercy’s face, making sure my mom wasn’t saying anything that upset her before I headed to the back room of the bar where my mom was storing our shirts.
The first thing I saw when I arrived in there was neon yellow.
The second thing I saw was the saying, and I nearly turned around and left.
I would’ve, too, had my father not stopped me from moving more than an inch.
My father was nearly the same size as Trance, which was a shade smaller than me.
He had the same bulk that the rest of us had. The same cleft chin, and the same square jaw.
The only difference between us was that my father had a few more wrinkles and laugh lines, as well as hair that was on the verge of being gray.
The same disgusted look on his face as he gazed at the pieces of shit we were expected to wear.
“I’m not wearing that,” Trance said without preamble.
My father scoffed. “Of course you are. If I have to, you have to. That’s the end of that.”
My father, although he’d been retired from the Marines for going on three years now, still acted like he was the man in charge, even when he wasn’t. What he needed to learn was that he wasn’t the only boss in town anymore.
***
“I can’t fucking believe we’re wearing these shirts,” Foster hissed as he took in the family reunion.
Trance’s wife started to laugh.
“I think they’re kind of cute,” Viddy teased her husband playfully, smoothing her hand over the shirt lovingly.
Trance caught her hand and raised it to plant a kiss on it before dropping it and throwing his arm around her shoulder. “Of course you’d think that. You’re also not wearing one. Why is that?”
Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set Page 74