The Leah Ryan Thrillers Box Set: Three Chiller Thrillers (Repo Chick Blues #1, Finding Chloe #2, Dirty Business #3) (Leah Ryan Thrillers Box Set, Books 1-3)

by Tracy Sharp

  She nodded. “Yeah. I know you’re right.”

  “We need to get you away from him. Don’t worry. We’ll be watching him pretty closely. You’re not the only one he’s been hurting.”

  “He’s involved in something, isn’t he?” Amanda looked from me to Cal several times. “I knew it.”

  Cal glanced at me before asking her, “What do you mean?”

  Amanda shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s more of a feeling, I guess. He gets lots of calls on his cell phone and then he has to take off for a while.”

  My interest was peaked. “When he’s off-duty?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. We’ll be out somewhere, or even just hanging around, you know? And he’ll get a call and has to leave. He never tells me where he’s going. There were a couple of times when he took me with him to this house. He made me wait in the car. I don’t know what he was doing in there. It wasn’t a nice area of town. Once he took so long I wanted to go in there and see what was keeping him but there were two pit bulls guarding the door.”

  Cal looked at me. “Woodard’s.”

  “Uh huh.” I wasn’t surprised.

  Amanda’s eyes were wide with rising panic. “I don’t want to know what he’s been doing.”

  “No, Amanda,” I told her. “You really don’t.”

  Jack had more than enough room for Amanda and he didn’t have any problem with her staying at his place. In fact, he wanted to go a step further and give Finn the same facial treatment he’d given Sharon Laporte’s ex-boyfriend when he’d found out her ex had been beating her up.

  “Well, just hold off, there, cowboy,” I told him. “We just want to figure out what’s what. We might come back to you if the offer is still good.”

  “Oh, it’ll still be good,” Jack said. “You just say the word.”

  Jack had a pretty nice view of the Hudson River from his backyard. In a less shoddy part of town, one that wasn’t so rough around the edges, this place would’ve been worth a lot of money. I doubted that Jack had paid more than sixty or seventy thousand for it.

  We’d gotten Amanda settled in one of Jack’s guest rooms. Turns out he had four of them. She was exhausted and had decided to take a nap. Jack, Cal and I were sitting around a plastic table on matching chairs, sipping from cold bottles of beer. The water was calm and there were a few ducks paddling around in front of us.

  Cal was watching the ducks. “Peaceful place.”

  Jack nodded. “It’s home. Sharon and I like it here. Nobody bothers us except to buy a bike.” He turned to me and grinned. “Until now, that is.”

  “Oh come on, Jack. You can’t fool me. You can’t stay quiet for too long. It’s not in you.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I know. So what’s the plan with Woodard and Finn?”

  I knew we couldn’t keep Jack out of it now. It was too late for that. So I decided to tell him who Woodard really was. I knew he’d remember him. He’d rescued me on more than one occasion back in juvee when Sebastian Blacklock had followed me and gotten me alone. It was then that Jack started teaching me how to fight.

  When I finished, his jaw was set and his face hard as stone. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  I shrugged. “Because I wanted to take care of it myself. You came to my rescue so many times when we were kids. I wanted to kick his ass myself this time.”

  “Where is he?”

  “We’ve got a friend watching him right now.” I looked at Cal. “Why don’t you call Will and find out what’s what?”

  “We’re going to watch them.” Cal pressed Will’s speed dial button on his cell. “Hopefully without getting caught this time.” He looked sideways at me.

  “He doesn’t know what I look like. I’ve changed a lot since juvee.” Jack’s gravelly voice was soothing me. I’d always loved his voice. It was what my mother would’ve called a whiskey voice. I could fall asleep listening to him, and I had, many years ago. “I always knew that kid would grow up to be way too dangerous. He was a flipping psycho back then.”

  “You really want in on this, don’t you?” I said to him.

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “You’re supposed to be watching my brother.” I didn’t really mean it. I knew there was no keeping Jack from getting Woodard now.

  “Patrick and Sean can watch him,” he said. “He’ll be okay.”

  “Well, I trust Patrick. I don’t know about Sean.”

  “Sean’ll watch his back. He’ll be there if it comes down to it,” Jack said.

  I knew he was right. Sean might be a bit of a space cadet but he wouldn’t let anything happen to Jesse without putting up a hell of a fight to protect him. We had a bond together. Me, Jack, Patrick and Sean. No matter what, we’d always step in to help each other.

  Cal closed his cell phone. “Will says Woodard’s pretty pissed. He could hear him screaming and yelling from the back lane where he was watching the house. Just as soon as his friends got the dogs into the backyard so he could get to his car, he took off to post bail for his buddy Finn.”

  “Awww, I’m touched. What a swell guy,” Jack said.

  “Okay, listen up.” I sat forward, placing my beer on the table. “I have an idea.”

  * * *

  We borrowed Sharon’s car and left it few streets over in the parking lot of a pizza joint. A mid-nineties grey sedan, it wasn’t going to draw a lot of attention. Jack’s shit-box of a pick-up wouldn’t have drawn much attention either but it wouldn’t fit all three of us comfortably with Jack’s gun. Well, I wasn’t comfortable being that close to Jack’s gun.

  He carried a .44 magnum. His shells were nestled in a nifty belt built just for such an occasion. You don’t want to have to waste time fishing around for your shells or pretty soon you’ll be looking down the barrel of a gun yourself.

  He’d also brought some choice cuts of sirloin for Woodard’s guard dogs, over which he was carefully sprinkling a rather liberal amount of crushed Dramamine.

  I cringed. “I can’t say that I really agree with drugging the dogs, Jack. But I can’t think of a better way to get anywhere near the house without getting our guts ripped out.”

  “They’re just motion sickness pills. Just enough to put ‘em out. It won’t hurt ‘em.” He glanced at me. “You know me, Leah. I’d never hurt an animal.”

  “Yeah, I know. I just hate doing it.”

  “It’s better than shooting them, which would’ve been my first choice,” Cal said.

  I stared at Cal, horrified. “Didn’t you ever have a dog as a child?”

  “Yeah, a poodle,” Cal replied. “Not one of those man-eaters guarding Woodard’s house.”

  “It’s all in how you raise the dog,” Jack explained. “A poodle can be just a vicious as a pit bull if you kick it around enough.”

  “Yeah, well I’d rather take on a vicious poodle than a pit bull any day of the week.”

  “Well, tonight you won’t have to, thanks to this.” Jack grabbed the handles of the plastic grocery bag that held the spiked meat and opened the car door. “You guys ready to rock?”

  I nodded. “Let’s go.”

  We took the back lanes, staying low and cutting through yards without dogs. There weren’t many in this neighborhood. It did seem, though, that pit bulls had become a staple in ghetto American life. There was the occasional Rottweiler and an old, rickety Doberman who’d obviously done his time as a ferocious guard dog. Mostly we came across pit bulls. And a couple of times I found myself praying that the dilapidated fences, which barely kept them in their yards, wouldn’t break apart under the weight of their frenzied body checks.

  We followed the dark laneway leading to Woodard’s house looking for Will. I knew he wasn’t going to be lingering in the open where any druggie or mugger would see him standing alone. As soon as we got close to the house, a figure stepped out of the bushes. Even though I knew it was probably him, I tensed and put my hand on my gun just the same. Jack and Cal did the same thing but Jack had his already drawn and
ready. He wasn’t one to take chances.

  “Finally!” Will let out a deep breath. “Shit, it’s been creepy sneaking around back here. I’ve already been propositioned four times and none of them were women.” He shuddered. “Place is giving me the willies. I figured it was only a matter of time before they got together and decided to take me by force.”

  “What were you doing? Just hanging out back here in the open?” Cal said.

  “It’s a dark lane, man. I didn’t think anybody came back here.”

  Jack snickered and shook his head. “You didn’t grow up around here, did you? You had to wear one of those fancy little uniforms as a kid, right?”

  Will looked at Jackson, clearly not amused.

  I took the opportunity to introduce them then we all crouched in bushes Will had been hiding behind. I checked my watch. It was nine-thirty.

  We were quiet for a few minutes before Will’s stage whisper broke through the silence, making me jump. “This kind of reminds me when my friends and I used to raid gardens when I was a kid.”

  “Boy, you were a real bad-ass as a kid, huh?” Jack said. “Did you egg cars too, or was garden raiding the extent of your crime spree?”

  “Prank phone calls.” Will grinned. “But I still do those from time to time when there’s nothing on T.V.”

  Jack chuckled and shook his head. “How long has he been gone?”

  Will shrugged. “About a half hour, I guess.”

  “He’ll be back soon, if he’s coming back here.” Jack watched the house through squinted eyes. He was calculating. I’d seen this look many times. Nothing would turn him back once he was in this mode.

  “He won’t be back,” I said. We’ve watched him on and off and Will here’s watched him plenty—”

  “Yeah, without getting caught, I might add.” Will gave us a cocky smile. I wanted to knock that stupid fedora off his head.

  “Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. The night isn’t over,” I told him. “And maybe we’ll leave you out here for your night buddies if you don’t cut the shit.”

  Will clamped his mouth shut and lifted both hands in surrender.

  “Anyway,” I continued. “He usually goes out to a dance club at night.”

  Cal nodded. “Usually the same one. Once in a while he’ll go to a different one not far from here.”

  “Yeah, these guys are like spiders. They don’t stray far from their food,” Jack said. “Anyway, I want as much time as we can get to do this thing. So, with that being said…” He stood up and started toward the chain link fence. He grabbed the top of the fence and began climbing.

  “Jackson! No!” My whisper sounded like a scream in my ears. “Fiddlesticks!” I sighed. Fiddlesticks didn’t have the same effect in terms of tension relief, but it would just have to do.

  Already straddling the top of the fence, he turned toward me looking irritated and impatient. “What?”

  “What are you doing? The dogs. Hello?”

  Jack held up the plastic bag. “I’m going to give them their dinner.”

  “Ah, dude,” Will began. “They see you, they’ll eat you first and then have the meat later.”

  “Just toss the meat over the fence. Don’t go in there.” I pleaded with him.

  Jack jumped to the ground on the other side of the fence and started toward the house.

  Cal shook his head and heaved a heavy sigh. “Your friend is just as nutty as you are.”

  I shrugged. “Birds of a feather.”

  I watched Jack with my heart in my throat as he strode across the backyard as if he belonged there. Of course, Jack always walked like that. He always seemed to own the space he occupied.

  He stopped in the middle of the yard and began dumping the meat on the ground. I held my breath.

  It didn’t take long before the dogs came around the corner, ears up and heads tilted slightly. The second they saw Jack they started after him. Jack dropped the bag and started running. In seconds, they were almost on top of him.

  “Oh, feck,” I said. Feck was closer to what I really wanted to say than fiddlesticks. “Hurry up!”

  Luckily, he cleared the fence with one leg of his jeans torn to shreds just before the dogs could make a meal out of him.

  “Wow.” Will’s voice was shaky. “That was pretty good.”

  “I’ve done it before.” Jack looked at me and winked. “That’s why I wore my old jeans. After a while it just becomes old hat.”

  Will nodded his head. “Uh. Right.”

  We all watched the dogs as they barked and growled at us. Soon they lost interest in us in favor of the meat Jack left them. They sniffed it first, cautious.

  “Ah, man. They’re not going to go for it,” Will said.

  Jack nodded once. “They’ll go for it. Some people train their dogs not to eat anything from strangers. This guy Woodard isn’t one of them. He wants nothing to do with these dogs. He just wants them to guard his drug stash and whatever else he’s got going on.”

  It only took a few seconds for the dogs to gulp down the meat. They licked their chops and sniffed around on the ground to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. Once they realized there was nothing left, they came back to the fence and began their steady tirade of dog obscenities at us.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Will said to them. “Feels like I’m back with my ex-wife.”

  This struck me as funny because Will didn’t quite seem like the marrying kind.

  He looked at Jackson. “How long is this going to take?”

  “About ten minutes.”

  “I don’t know if they’re barking because we’re here or because Jackson didn’t leave more for them.” Cal was standing back as if he thought the dogs might come right through the fence.

  I moved closer to the fence and watched them for signs of sleepiness. With how pissed they were, it didn’t look like it would happen anytime soon. I doubted Jack’s fifteen-minute prediction. “I’d love to leave Woodard for them.”

  “It can be arranged.” Even though it was dark, I could see the gleam in Jack’s eye. He wasn’t kidding.

  “Food for thought,” I replied. “No pun intended, of course.”

  No one said anything for a few moments. Will started fidgeting. Come on poochies. Go to sleep. You’re getting veeeeery sleeeeeeeepy.” He was wiggling his fingers at them as if they held some magical powers.

  I pressed my forehead against the fence and counted to ten to keep myself from clocking him. Thankfully, the dogs began weaving and staggering and soon they were lying on the ground, their eyes still half-open.

  “They’re still awake. Shit,” Cal said.

  “Barely,” Jackson said. “Don’t worry about it.” He looked at me. “You ready?”

  “Let’s go.”

  We decided that Cal and Will would stay outside as lookouts. Before I turned toward the fence, I felt Cal’s hand on my arm.

  His eyes were serious under the light of the moon. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go in there with you?”

  “Yeah. It’ll be okay, trust me.”

  “Please be careful, Leah.” His voice was barely a whisper.

  “I will. Don’t worry.”

  Jack and I climbed the fence easily. It’d been a while since I’d done it but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was just as limber as I’d been as a teenager. We cleared the fence and walked past the dogs that managed a faint, low growl and nothing more.

  We walked quickly to the cellar door. It was open. I guess with two pit bulls in the yard, there wasn’t much of a need for a lock. Jack opened the door and we went down the old, sagging stairs into the dank, sour cellar. Jack held his magnum in one hand and a penlight in the other. He played the light over the entire cellar and I breathed a sigh of relief that none of the women were kept down there.

  We quietly made our way up the stairs and I turned the doorknob but the door wouldn’t open. It was locked from the other side. “Shit,” I said under my breath. I pushed from the bottom
and then all the way up the door. It had a little give until I reached closer to the top of it. “It’s one of those hook locks at the top of the door. It’s too tight for me to open it enough that I could shove something through a crack and lift it out of the hook.”

  “There’s enough give for me to break it open pretty easily,” Jack said.

  I sighed, weighing he pros and cons. There could be someone in the house watching the women. In all likelihood there was. “Just be ready. And move fast.”

  “I’m always ready.” He slammed his huge bulk against the door and broke it open on the first try without even damaging the door or frame. “These little hook locks are a joke,” he whispered as he moved quickly through the door and into a dark kitchen. “Why the hell do people even bother with them?”

  I shrugged, following him with my gun raised and ready. It wouldn’t be my choice of lock if I were a drug lord who ran a porno ring. I smiled. This was a routine Jack and I’d begun long ago. Whenever we were in a dangerous situation, we tended to try to make light of it, if even just a little bit. It kept our nerves from getting the better of us. If you let fear dictate your moves, chances are that you’ll end up in a pretty bad scenario. Anything that works to keep your mind clear is a good thing. Some people like to sing. Some whistle. Jack and I kid around. And I’m well known for giggling at inappropriate moments.

  The kitchen was clear. We moved silently through to the living room, staying low, guns ready, but not held too far out so they’d be easily knocked from our hands.

  I signaled to Jack that I was going to check the bathroom down the hall. He nodded once and continued through the living room, checking behind furniture, anything a person could be hiding behind, but moving fast so that he wouldn’t be an easy target if someone did have a weapon trained on him.

  It had occurred to me, back behind the bushes when the dogs were barking at us, that if there were guards in the house, the barking would’ve alerted them long ago. I held on to the hope that the dogs barked a lot, at just about everything, so the guards would be immune to the sound. I’d grown up close to a railroad track. We had trains go by at all hours, not a hundred yards away from our house. The house shook each time a train went down those tracks. After a while, we never noticed. We stopped hearing the trains in the middle of the night.