by KB Winters
I was beyond hopeful I might set eyes on my sister for the first time in almost two years.
Cal had slipped me the name of the diner where she was rumored to work. I found it easily and pulled into the parking lot and pushed the heavy glass door open. Typical greasy spoon. I grabbed a seat as close to the middle as possible. I wanted to lay eyes on everyone who came through the front door, the kitchen doors, and even the hungry dogs who begged for scraps at the back door.
“Welcome to the Roadside Diner. What can I get you today?” The voice belonged to an older woman in a waitress uniform with the tightest silver curls I’d ever seen, but she seemed nice, so I flashed a smile in return.
“Can I get a plate of chili cheese fries with black olives and extra jalapeno peppers? Oh, and salsa too? Thanks.”
The woman’s eyes lit with mischief. “All that just for you, honey?”
“I have a fast metabolism. Everywhere but my chest, it seems.”
Why was I talking to some stranger about the size of my tits? Must be anxiety.
The waitress didn’t appear offended at all. She tossed her head back and laughed. “Had your same problem in my day. Now the damn things pull me down the other way. Enjoy it while you can.”
We shared another laugh. “So, listen, I was hoping you could help me with something.”
“I’m listenin’.”
“Do you know a girl named Molly? I heard she worked here, or she used to.”
“Molly? Yeah, she picks up some shifts, but not as many as she used to. She ain’t in no kind of trouble is she?”
“Nope. Well I mean, not that I know of. She’s my sister, and I’ve been looking all over for her.” “I’ll let her know you’re looking for her when she comes back if you want me to.”
I pulled my little notebook out of my purse and scribbled down my number and handed it to the woman. She stuck it in her apron pocket.
“I’ll see that she gets this. I’ll be back with your order.”
The older woman sauntered off, her back a little straighter, and I smiled once again, knowing I was so damn close to Molly even if I couldn’t see her. Not yet.
Too bad I didn’t know where she lived or who she lived with, because then I could finish these delicious damn chili fries and keep looking. But the diner was my first and last line of inquiry. I tried to call her old number three or four times, but it wasn’t her number any longer. Instead, it now belonged to some kid named Logan, probably a college boy with more money than brains.
I let out a long sigh. “It was worth a shot, I guess.”
I paid the bill, leaving a healthy tip for the busty old waitress, and headed back to my car debating whether to drive around to see if she’d show up just as my phone rang.
“Hey, Cal, what’s up?”
“I need you to come home, Maddie.”
“What?” I looked around the tiny desert town just off the highway and gave a sad sigh even though Cal couldn’t see me.
“Why? Are you okay? Is it Ava?”
“I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. Can you please come home?” He sounded desperate.
“Okay, but I’m not even close to Glitz. I’m up here tracking down the info you gave me on Molly. I’d planned on waiting until the shift change to see if I could catch up with her. It’ll take me at least an hour and a half to get back.”
“I know Molly’s important, but I need you now. Just get here as soon as you can and be safe about it. I’ll wait.”
The call ended, and I sat behind the steering wheel, staring in shock at the black screen.
What in the hell was that all about?
The cruise home wasn’t a quick drive, but I made good time, and by the time I strolled up the steps into Cal’s suite of rooms, he was totally on edge.
“Maddie, thanks for coming home. I really appreciate it. Can you watch Ava for me?”
His hands gripped my shoulders tight, but it wasn’t painful, and the dude was seriously wound up like an old watch.
“You know I can watch her, but I need you to tell me what’s going on, Cal. You’re starting to worry me.”
“Don’t worry about me, Maddie. I can handle myself, and I will. Promise.”
“Okay. Fine. Go do whatever secret mission you’re on, and I’ll take care of your baby girl.”
“Just you, Maddie. No one else but you.”
He was dead serious about that and I nodded to assure him I wouldn’t let him down.
“Just me. Nobody else. Got it.”
I had so many damn questions but I didn’t ask any of them because I’d never seen Cal like that before. He didn’t even ask me about Molly. There would be plenty of time for all that later.
I hoped.
I settled in after bathing the baby and propped her up on the floor, then settled myself down next to her.
“All right, Ava the no-longer-stinky Rose, what would you like to do now that you’re fresh and clean?” I held her up and she kicked those chubby little legs as if she was going somewhere. “I know, plush puzzle fun!”
“Agghh! Ggaaggh!”
“Exactly,” I said laughing. “Same thing I was thinking of, right?”
We sat on the floor for a while, and I watched with a smile at just how strong the little girl was these days. She could pull herself up with her own weight; she could sit up straight with almost no help, and her favorite activity lately, was to kick things over with her feet like a curious little kitten.
“Maddie, there you are! Damn, girl, I’ve been looking all over the place for you.” Maisie breezed in wearing a wide smile, her lips still a shock of red from her hours at the casino.
“Hey, Maze, what’s up?”
“Just checking on you. How are you? What’s been going on with you? I feel like we haven’t spoken in forever.”
“Not much, just working and keeping an eye on this little angel when I’m needed. How’s married life treating you?”
Her cheeks pinkened instantly.
“Wonderful. Or maybe it’s not wonderful and maybe I’m just drunk off all the little ways Virgil continues to romance me. Married life, I highly recommend it. Five stars.”
“That’s how it should be, right?”
“At least according to me. And you, Maddie? Are you seeing anyone?”
I didn’t want to share Jamie with anyone, not yet. And definitely not his cousin. “Nope. No time. What about one of these,” I asked and held up Ava Rose. “Plan on making babies anytime soon?”
“Probably, yeah. Right now we’re just practicing.” She wiggled her black brows suggestively before she collapsed in a fit of laughter. “Wow, that laugh felt really good.”
Sometimes I forgot that Maisie and Bonnie had been good friends at one point. That wasn’t always clear, not in the time I’d spent at Ashby Manor. “Is it hard for you, having her gone?”
Maisie smiled but her rapidly blinking eyes told me that she was thisclose to tears.
“It’s beyond hard, Maddie. I feel terrible for Calvin and all that he’s going through, but I also feel awful for me. Does that sound bad? Selfish?”
“Not at all.”
“Bonnie was my best friend since I got here. She was like my sister and my confidante for so many years, and now she’s just…gone. We won’t get to raise our babies together.”
Her words broke on her tears and those tears turned to anger.
“What the fuck was she even doing with Mueller anyway? He’s a fuckin’ pedo pervert. None of it makes sense to me. I wish she’d have come to me and told me what was going on.” She took Ava’s little hand in hers. “And now baby girl doesn’t have a mama.”
It didn’t make sense, and I could see the gears churning in Maisie’s head, but whatever conclusions she came up with, if any, she kept to herself. She let out a long breath and said, “Well, I just wanted to stop and check in. Take care of you, girl.”
“Always.”
“See you soon!” She gave me a quick hug and lifted Av
a for a snuggle session. Then she left almost as fast as she had entered. I was grateful she stopped by. Couldn’t have too many allies in this mansion.
It was good to know I wasn’t the only one who thought the whole Bonnie thing stank to high hell, but Maisie was a member of the family, and she had the freedom to say such things. I kept my opinions to myself, and my eyes wide open because it was the only way a poor girl who grew up in a trailer park with a revolving door of stepdads and fake uncles could survive.
There was so much drama in this big ol’ house, so instead of focusing on all that crap, I decided to focus on Ava and Molly. I knew where she worked and it was only a matter of time before I finally found her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jameson
It was Friday night, and Charlie had texted me earlier to get to the clubhouse. I didn’t know what he needed, but I hoped it was to make amends. I missed my brother.
I sat back in a chair at a round table with an ice cold beer in my hand and a smile on my face. I should have been having a good time, with the music blasting hard rock through six-foot speakers, shot glasses that never emptied, and half-naked chicks happy to show off newly bought tits or freshly drawn tats.
It was the same Friday night I’d experienced with this same group of men and women for as long as I could remember, except tonight none of it felt real. Authentic.
Everything was off. Just fucking off. Like I didn’t belong here anymore.
Charlie clapped me on the back and flashed a wide smile. “Hey man, glad you could make it. I want to apologize. I was going through some stupid shit, with Savannah and being the new Prez, Mom and Dad busting my balls. You’re my brother, man. I love you.”
“We’re cool. Just don’t let it happen again.” I smiled. Glad to have some semblance of a brother back.
Charlie nodded, silent and contemplative. “You know, it’s harder having a kid brother who’s a cop than I thought it would be.”
“Regretting that you gave me your support?”
“Hell, no. I’m proud of you. Glad you’re out there helping the community. You have a lot of Mom in you. I just really wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you.”
“Fuck, yeah, you do.” Charlie smiled again, and I let out a loud laugh. Then he whistled and yelled across the room. “Hey, Chickie, can you bring that bottle of Patron over here?”
“She still here?” I felt like I hadn’t been here in years. Although I knew it was only months.
“Always, man. Lousy fuck but makes a helluva waitress.”
“Please tell me you aren’t fucking her.” I snorted after she left the bottle on the table.
Charlie put the bottle to his lips and took a long pull. I cringed. “Nope, just that one time when I’d just turned eighteen. Damn, Mom was pissed at her.” He laughed. “She was almost forty, I think. Bitches be bitches for sure.”
It was good to laugh with my brother again over random bullshit, but I wondered if a time would come when I would have to choose between being a cop, an Ellison, or a Reckless Bastard. I didn’t have any answers, so I shook that shit off with a shot of tequila and a long pull of my beer.
“If you don’t find a way to turn off that big brain of yours, Jamie, you’ll burn out before you have a chance to figure out what happened to Luke.”
At my look of surprise, Charlie laughed. “You think I don’t remember? You two were tight as fuck and his murder changed you. I had no idea how much until later, but it was obvious. Even back then.”
“You’re right, but I don’t know how to shut it off yet. How do you do it? And don’t tell me Chickie is the answer.” I snort-laughed.
“Usually I get lost in good pussy. For days. If that doesn’t help, a few shots of tequila and then get lost in good pussy.”
A smile it up his face just as Savannah walked in, tall and confident as if she owned place. She greeted everyone with a smile, except the Reckless Bitches, which made me snort, before greeting my brother with a hot kiss that sent the probies into fits of whistles and catcalls.
Before the longing for Maddie set in, my phone buzzed with a message from Agent Beck. Meet in 15 at The Guinea.
The Guinea was a local cop bar where cops could have a beer and talk shop without worrying about civilians or fucked up reporters with phone video. It was an ideal meeting spot for a Friday night, and when I walked in, I spotted Beck looking like she was too young to order a beer at a back booth. She was a fine looking lady, but her personality sucked.
“Hey, little girl, are you lost?”
She flipped me off and I laughed. “I’ve got your little girl right here, fucker.”
“You kiss your mama with that mouth?”
Beck laughed again. “Only when she pisses me off. Sit.”
I grabbed the seat against the wall because it gave me the perfect view of the entire bar just in case some shit popped off. “So what’s so important on a Friday night, Beck?”
“I think we should arrest Calvin Ashby. I know you don’t think he had anything to do with the murders, and the truth is I don’t either, but we need to get Sadie or Jasper to do something rash, and this is one way to accomplish that.”
Beck let out a regretful sigh that surprised me. “By all accounts it seemed like he really loved Bonnie, and I think he wants to know who killed her as badly as we do.”
“I don’t like it, Beck. What if this winds up with him dead. Have you thought about that?”
“Collateral damage is part of the job, Ellison. Can you handle that?”
“I can handle it but making false arrests just to get a rise out of your enemies isn’t what I signed up for. We should be focusing on Mueller, rather than your crazed obsession with the Ashbys.”
“Excuse me? Obsession?” Beck spat out.
“You heard me, Beck, and I’m not judging.”
“Sounds like judgment to me,” she snorted into her beer.
“Well it’s not. But Mueller was a Fed who was deep undercover and we’re just focused on the Ashby family as if there aren’t at least a thousand other people who wanted this man dead. We should be casting a wider net, not a smaller one.”
I shook my head because she was being stubborn as fuck and I didn’t like it. “Who in his world had the juice to find out he was undercover?’
Beck took a pull of her beer and smacked her lips. “You found out pretty easily.”
“Yeah, well, I have excellent sources. You need to consider that maybe Bonnie Byrne Ashby was nothing more than collateral damage in all this.”
There was a play of emotions on Beck’s face. She was a petite woman who hated to be challenged, and when her blue eyes narrowed in my direction, I finally understood why Agent Marshall wasn’t here. He didn’t agree with her either.
“Getting the Ashby’s can also help your family as well, or maybe you don’t care about that.”
“You’re right about that, Beck. I don’t give a fuck about that. I want to know who killed Bonnie and Father Mueller. End of fucking story.”
Beck let out a low, angry growl before she pushed away from the table and stormed off. That was her thing when she didn’t get her way. She ran off to lick her wounds and find another way.
I had no doubt I’d hear from Agent Beck again before the weekend was over, I pushed all thoughts of her from my mind and took a long ride on two wheels to clear my head of all the week’s bullshit.
So far, the job was more politics than crime-solving, which made every fucking day harder than it needed to be. I had a lot to learn about being a cop while wading through the muddy waters of government politics and trying to solve a double homicide. It was a lot to deal with. But I knew I’d get there. Get some real answers.
Then, there was Maddie. Sweet and sassy, Maddie. Goofy and unexpected and so damn wonderful I didn’t even see her coming. She was a breath of fresh air when I needed one, and a hot, exciting woman when she wanted to be. She was great, and we were good together, but we were doomed
from the start. She was, for all intents and purposes, an Ashby—or at least, an Ashby ally. She had a certain sense of loyalty to them, whether she realized it or not, but she hadn’t hesitated to provide me—unprompted—with information she thought I might find useful.
It was a fucking mess, but I wasn’t ready to give it up yet. And I could just hear my mom’s voice in my head. Don’t go borrowing trouble, son, trouble finds its way in good time. Always.
My mom was a very smart woman. Especially dealing with my dad all these years.
I pulled my bike over to the side of the road to text Maddie.
Jameson: You up?
Shit. That sounded like a booty call, didn’t it?
The phone rang immediately in my hands and I answered just as quickly. “That depends on whether or not this is a booty call.”
A bark of laughter escaped, right there on the side of the road, at her playful words. “I was worried it might sound like a booty call.”
“I’m up for a booty call but it sounds like you have something on your mind. What’s up, Officer?”
I let out a small sigh and smiled as I leaned against my bike. “Who says there’s anything wrong?”
“Just me and the sad bastard tone of your voice. I know I’m right, so let’s just move ahead to the part where you tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Everything is just a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. Does that make me sound like a pussy?”
Maddie laughed, and I could just see her shaking her head at my words. “Nope. You wish you were a pussy. Pussies are strong and resilient, and right now you sound like a weak ass ball sac. But the good news is that things worth having are usually hard. You want to be a cop, right?”
“You know I do.”
“And you want to become a detective so you can right the wrongs and all that?”
My lips twitched at her words. “In a nutshell, yeah.”
“Good. You want my advice?”
“Yeah, I do.”
For some reason, I trusted Maddie’s judgement and talking to her again just solidified that. She wasn’t a cop or a criminal, but her opinion meant the world to me.