“Bar-B-Q. Want some?” Carlos said as he leaned his shoulder against the side of the SUV and crossed his legs at the ankles.
“You brought me to a Bar-B-Q?”
Cross shrugged. “We can do this downtown if you’d prefer. I think they are having leftover meatloaf.”
The mental picture of a cell door slamming with him on the wrong side of the bars flashed through Ethan’s mind and he shook his head as he stepped out of the vehicle.
“I wear an adult medium.”
Chapter 8
Josselyn
I released Baddon’s hand and walked around, looking, taking in the beautiful scenery that surrounded just the two of us.
The sun shone down brightly on magnificent white waterfalls, casting beautiful rainbows in every direction I looked.
“Where are we?” I asked in a quiet voice.
“Victoria Falls, just on the edge of Zambia. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, so it’s the only place I can compare to Heaven.” Baddon gave me a hopeful look. “Am I even close?”
It was very beautiful, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him his version of Heaven did not compare to the real thing, so I nodded and gave him a small smile. “You are close.”
He smiled as he looked out over the vast water, but the gesture didn’t reach his eyes. I could tell he yearned to be accepted into Heaven as Abigail had been, but as far as I could see that was never going to happen. Lucifer was smarter than anyone gave him credit for. Rhyan had just gotten really lucky and Lucifer had underestimated how far he was willing to go to rescue his soulmate.
I cleared my throat as I sat down beside him. My intentions had been to immediately get down to business about what he thought Lucifer was doing to Thoros, but when I opened my mouth that wasn’t what came out. “Why are men such pigs?”
Baddon’s head shot around to look at me, and then he let out a great belly laugh that even had me giggling. He clutched at his side and fell back on the rock to laugh some more. After a few minutes, his chuckles quieted to brief sniggers every now and then, and then he finally just smiled and looked over at me with a sigh.
“No wonder he’s such a mess.”
I tilted my head to the side and narrowed my eyes as I pointed at myself. “Me? You think this is my fault, too?” I got to my feet quickly and dusted the dirt and moss from my pants. “Man, you demons are a piece of work. I haven’t been around for three months, but I still manage to be blamed for someone else’s mistakes!”
Baddon stood, still grinning, and took my shoulders in his hands.
I tried to move back, but his fingers tightened, leaving me no choice but to stand there and look at his mischievous smile or fleet away. I needed answers and I wasn’t going to get them from the arrogant horse’s ass back in Vegas.
I huffed. “How is that even feasible?” I exclaimed.
He shook his head. “Open your eyes and really look at him, young angel.”
“I have. He looks terrible, but it’s nothing I’ve caused!”
He stared at me for a moment, like he was waiting for me to get what I obviously wasn’t getting! “What?” I demanded, and he chuckled again.
“Nothing,” he said, and then turned away from me, kicking a rock over the edge of the cliff we were on. “Five days ago Thoros summoned me to him. He was in an alley close to the end of Freemont Street, down farther than any of the pretty lights or the good girls go.” He paused, like he wasn’t sure how to say what so desperately needed to come out of him. “He was a real mess, that boy was.” Baddon stopped to shake his head as if the image in his mind haunted him still.
“Go on,” I encouraged, and he nodded, but turned and stared out at the waterfalls a minute or so before continuing.
“Thoros is a good guy, Josselyn. He has a good heart. I’m not saying he’s an angel—we both know that’s far from the truth—but he wouldn’t intentionally hurt anyone. To say the least, I was shocked to find a dead body at his feet, and even more stunned to hear him say that he thought he had murdered the guy. He couldn’t remember doing it, but there was nothing on the body to suggest a human had done it.”
“Wait—” I walked over to him and he looked down at me with sad eyes. “Why would you think that? How could Thoros killing someone be different from a human doing it?”
The big guy shrugged. “There were no broken bones, bullet or knife wounds… There were no lacerations of any kind on the bodies. It’s like they all died from fright or the life had just been completely sucked out of them.” His brow furrowed in thought. “Except for one. We found two dead bodies last night with Thoros, but only one of them was like the others. One man’s skull was crushed, but he was under a door when we found him, so that could have totally been the cause of death for him.”
Five bodies… Five days…No broken bones or wounds…The life sucked out of them… My mind was racing at a dangerous speed, and it was difficult for me to grasp onto one single thought. I blinked a few times as I focused on him. “And where are the bodies now?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded over his shoulder. “Back at the house, on the pool table in the basement. Why?”
“I’m not sure, but I think I need to see those bodies.”
Chapter 9
Thoros
Anxiously pacing the floor of the extravagant foyer, Thoros glanced at the gleaming door handle for the hundredth time. There was no use. Baddon wouldn’t bring her in through the damn front door anyway. Even knowing that, he spun quickly about face on the balls of his feet, and then glanced to his right, his eyes falling once again to the shiny handle.
“You’re an idiot,” Lameria said.
Thoros ignored the snide remark that came from the top of the grand staircase and continued his journey to nowhere with another about face, and then glance to his left at the handle.
“She doesn’t care about you anymore, Thoros. She probably never did.”
Step—step—step—step—step—turn—look to the right at the door.
“We demons don’t deserve to be forgiven for the wrong we have done.”
Right—left—hands clenched—right—left—hands unclenched—turn—look to the left at the door.
“Good people may be able to forgive, but they will never forget.”
Left—right—low growl—left—right—left—turn—look to the right at the handle.
“She’ll never be able to trust you after what you did to her—”
Right—left—sudden stop. Thoros turned to glare up at the innocent-looking female. “What you did to her!” he roared. “You knew how I felt about her, because you snaked your way into my head!” His bloodshot eyes fixed on her, daring her to move from her seated position on the top step. Thoros began to slowly ascend the stairs. His voice dropped to menacing as he glowered at the Princess of Greed, a female he’d once called his friend and lover, but not anymore. No, never again after what she had cost him. “Then, you told Lucifer.”
“Pfft!” Lameria rolled her eyes and nervously looked away from him. “Lucifer already knew of what—”
The rest of her sentence was cut off as Thoros rushed her and threw her up against the far wall. He pinned her to the Amazon-moss-green-colored wall, his fingers tight around her throat, leaving her bare toes fighting to find the hardwood floor eight inches beneath them.
No such luck.
He was pissed.
Lameria batted helplessly at his arm, and then squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she tried to speak, but only managed a “gaahch—kuuck—pal—eeahh—ze”
“Stay away from her, Lameria. And stay away from me. You may not be able to die, but I can promise you that if you don’t do as I say, before I am finished, you will have long wished for death a thousand times over. I will not have mercy on you,” he growled out.
He released his hold and took a step back from her as she fell to her knees, gasping for precious air she did not deserve. Thoros absentmindedly wiped his sweaty palm on his
pants, his face distorting in disgust, as if touching her was something vile and nasty and degrading to his status as a demon.
He squatted down and whispered in her ear. “You’re right, Lameria, you do not deserve to be forgiven for the wrong that you’ve done. Not even by someone as lowly as me. Stay out of my way or suffer the consequences. That’s your only warning. And you can bet your sweet ass I won’t forget it.”
Thoros turned away from the seething woman, walked down the stairs and left through the front door.
Ethan
“Can I have some more potato salad?” Ethan said around a half mouthful of Bar-B-Q chicken.
Cross slid him the bowl of potatoes, and then resumed her relaxed position in the chair to his right, with her arms crossed loosely over her chest.
Ethan nodded. “Thanks.”
“So this is Trick, eh?”
Mid-bite, Ethan looked up through his soft brown eyelashes at the new addition strutting his way into the room. His cowboy hat was cocked up high on his brow, the butt of his gun was peeking out from his tacky, brown blazer, and a shit-eating grin plastered below his cherry red cheeks. The guy looked like he was one drive-thru stop away from a heart attack. Right away, Ethan knew right away he didn’t like the man. He couldn’t pick out what bothered him the most about the guy, but he knew he didn’t want to stay here long enough to figure it out.
His eyes cut over to watch Cross stiffen in her chair and assumed this must be Boggs, the boss.
Ethan looked back to his fork and, before taking the bite, he said, “My name is Ethan. Only my friends call me Trick.”
Boggs lost his smile and slapped the table with his palm, causing the red SOLO cup beside Ethan’s plate to slosh iced tea onto the doily. Boggs moved closer to Ethan and leaned down to talk by his ear. “Listen here, boy, from what I hear you are more than capable of holding your own out there with the criminals and punk kids with bad attitudes, but I put little snots like you away every day for thinking they can get one over on me. So I advise you to check your attitude and tell me what I want to know. Otherwise we can take a nice little ride downtown and have this conversation in a room a little smaller and a whole lot less comfortable. What do you say? You feel like talking yet?”
Ethan blinked down at his spilt drink, and then looked up at the fat man without fear in his eyes. He shrugged. “I never said I wouldn’t talk to you. I was only introducing myself. What should I call you? Captain Panties-in-a-Wad? Or is it Lieutenant Crabby-Pants?”
There was a short chuckle/cough that came from somebody in the room, but Ethan didn’t look around to see who had done it, nor did Boggs. Ethan guessed Boggs didn’t have any friends at this party.
Ethan watched as the man stood back upright and moved his blazer out of the way to reveal a six-pointed gold star. “I’m a U.S. Marshal, son. Find your manners, and find ’em quick, or I’ll make sure Bubba knows your first, middle and last name before you even get past intake.”
Ethan had no interest in ever meeting up with Bubba, nor was he particularly keen with the idea of being on a first name basis with the dude, so he decided the puns could wait, at least until after the Marshal left the room.
Swallowing what was left of his dignity, Ethan nodded in understanding. “Nice to meet you, Marshal. My name is Trick.”
Boggs grinned, and then looked up to meet the eyes of a very livid Cross. “Right, I knew we could all play nice together. How’ve you been, Cross?” He looked over to Cabrejos, who was leaning against the wall, looking out the window. “I want to thank you nice folks for cleaning up a lot of the drug business in Vegas, but I’ll be taking it from here.”
Cross shot to her feet. “Like hell you will! This is my case, Marshal! This is not your business—”
As Boggs’ eyebrows disappeared behind the brim of his hat, he shook his head. “The original case is still yours—by all means go find your drug dealers—but when five of the last ten people a person has come in contact with turns up missing, with two of them being drug enforcement agents, well, that person becomes a suspect for kidnapping and murder real fast around here.” Boggs placed his hands gently on the table and leaned in closer to Cross. “And that, honey, makes it my business.”
Ethan looked at the Marshal, and then over to Cross’ red face and trembling hands.
Is he talking about me? I haven’t murdered anyone! What the hell is this?
Ethan jumped to his feet and quickly backed up to the entrance of the dining room, but two guys in slacks and shoulder holsters stopped him from going any farther. “What the hell’s going on?” he shouted, and fought to tear his arms away from the men, but they only tightened their grip on him. Breathing heavily, he looked at Cross. “You know I haven’t killed anyone! You were there with me when that monster killed those guys last night, and you were there when his friends showed up and took him and the bodies with them! Tell them! Tell them that you saw three guys come in the hotel room, pick up the psycho killer and the two dead bodies, and then just disappear into thin air!” Ethan twisted and jerked free of the guys and then took a step toward Cross. “Tell them the truth!”
Boggs chuckled. “They have medicine for this sort of thing down at the jail, son. We’ll have you fixed up in no time.” He nodded to the two men at Ethan’s back and they grabbed his arms again.
“Wait!” Cross shouted, and then her eyes shifted back and forth between Boggs and Ethan. She swallowed, audibly. “He’s telling the truth. I don’t know how to explain it, but it happened just like he said it did.”
Boggs glared at her through narrowed eyes. “You ’spect me to believe that?”
Cross huffed and shook her head as she looked back at Ethan. “No, I don’t, but it’s what happened, regardless of what you believe. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Cabrejos still doesn’t believe me, but the fact remains that every dealer Ethan has delivered to this week has gone missing before we could bust them. I had to know what was going on, so we set up a fake deal and had Ethan carry for us. He brought the product to Blake and Donahue in a suite at Caesar’s Palace. Everything was going fine until we heard a knock at the door. Donahue went to check it out and then the door was blown inward, on top of him. Ethan and I hid under the bed and watched as a guy walked into the room and killed Blake, and then he took the decoy product from Ethan’s backpack and sat in a chair. After screaming for a few moments, as if he were in some sort of horrible pain, he closed his eyes and went to sleep or passed out. I’m not sure what the hell happened to him, actually; it was all real confusing and unexpected, to say the least.”
“Uh-huh,” Boggs said. “And why didn’t you do your job? This murderer should be in custody or dead right now.”
“I—I was just about to, but then we heard footsteps and three other men came into the room and picked up all three of them, and then just disappeared.”
“You just let them all walk out with a killer and two dead agents, without trying to stop them?” He shook his head. “We have medicine for you, too, honey. That statement will probably cost you your badge and—”
Cross slammed her fist on the table between them, getting everyone’s attention, and then she glared at the Marshal. “No! They didn’t just walk out of the room! They disappeared, just like Ethan said. They vanished into thin air, without a trace left behind. Believe what you want to believe, but I’m not letting you take my witness with you today, Marshal, not until we figure out what happened to the missing people, including Blake and Donahue.”
Eight more guys walked into the room and stood by Cross and Cabrejos, and then turned to face the Marshal. The familiar ‘chick-chick’ was heard throughout the room, and then the barrel of a shotgun came into Ethan’s view. A further glance showed him a little, old, white-haired lady with her finger on the trigger, pointing it at one of the two men behind Ethan.
One of the guys beside Cross picked up a chicken leg and took a bite. He pointed what remained of the leg at Boggs a
nd said, “You three won’t be the first dead bodies my granny has buried ’round here. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste any more of my time here if you intend to leave.”
The two guys released Ethan and he walked slowly to stand behind Carlos.
Boggs’ face turned a brighter shade of crimson as his eyes widened in anger. “You’ll all lose your badges and go to prison for—”
“Get on outta here!” Granny spat, and waved the barrel of the shotgun at the Marshal. “We’ll deal with them if and when anybody else is dumb enough to show up.”
Boggs eyed her warily, but backed out of the room with his men. “I’ll be back—”
“Yeah, and I’ll be waiting for ya! Go on! Get your ass outta here!” Granny said, and then pulled the trigger of the double-barrel shotgun, sending a round of buckshot right above their heads, into the wall and ceiling.
The Marshal and his men turned and ran out the front door without looking back.
Ethan took in a deep breath and turned to look at Cross. “I hope you have a plan, because I don’t think he will be so friendly when he comes back.”
Cross raised the hem of her skirt and tucked away a small pistol in the thigh holster on her left leg. “I do have a plan: to not be here when he returns.”
Ethan observed the rest of the men in the room as they put away weapons he hadn’t even realized had been exposed. He felt a gentle tug on his arm and looked down to the little old woman that had scared the Marshal away.
“C’mon over here and finish your meal, hun. Ain’t nobody gonna hurt you while you’re here at Granny’s house. It’s gonna take that ole boon a while yet to talk anybody into coming back out here with him anyway.” She sniggered a little, and then gave him a subtle wink. “Let’s just say the rest of the Marshals like me a bit more than they like him,” Granny said, and then gave him a warm smile.
Good Side of Sin Page 6