Officer out of Uniform (Lock and Key Book 2) (23 page)

“Big fat blister, right on my heel.” Troy had kicked off his shoe and was staring at his foot like he’d never seen one before. “Son of a bitch. Where’s mama?”

A loud crack echoed from inside the house, and sparks flew up in a swirling column, like dragon’s breath.

“Inside, I reckon,” was all Randy said.

“But…” Troy coughed and sputtered. “She can’t be inside! It’s…”

It was November, a cold night. Randy had dug the kerosene heater out of storage and set it up in the living room. Mama had forbidden him to light it until after his father was in bed for the night. She’d been afraid he’d fall on it and burn himself.

If it’d been up to her, she probably would’ve let them all freeze the whole winter through just to protect his drunk ass.

After their parents had gone to bed, Randy and Troy had run a trail of extra kerosene fuel through the house and knocked over the heater. The place had caught fire more quickly than they’d anticipated.

It was as if every weathered beam and curled wallpaper edge had been in on their plans. The walls of that house had seen enough and had leant themselves to the plan, silent co-conspirators in the destruction.

The blaze was an inferno now; no one was going to walk through that wall of fire. Still, Randy watched, more because he feared his father than because he hoped for his mother.

“Mama’s not comin’ out.” Troy’s voice was a smoke-roughened whine. “Don’t see how she could make it out, now. You reckon we’ve done something awful?”

The tremor in Troy’s voice made Randy feel stronger. He shook his head. “No. I reckon we’ve done what we could. Not our fault the fire caught so fast. Not our fault she didn’t wake up.”

“We coulda gotten her up – coulda let her in on the plan.” Troy was crying now.

“You fuckin’ crazy? She woulda tried to stop us.” Randy shrugged. “You ask me, she deserves this. She never tried to stop him hurtin’ us, even when we was babies. She coulda taken us away ages ago, gotten us all away from him. She chose not to – she chose this.”

Randy watched the house burn, going up like tinder dropped into a furnace. Everything had a price, especially freedom. Standing in the heat cast by flames devouring their home, he felt strangely cool, like he was watching a transaction between himself, Troy and whatever powers had been ruling their miserable lives.

Trading misery and the people who’d caused it for a new existence.

No price was too high.

The darkness surrounding Randy was a palpable thing. Really – he could feel the weight of it bearing down on him, making him itch. There was a single small, high window, but most of its light was blocked by items in storage: boxes, mostly. And what little bit of illumination filtered in seemed strangely weak. During the day, it was enough to see by, if he squinted. That was it.

Fact was, hiding out here made him uneasy, reminded him too much of prison. Coming and going as he pleased was out of the question – too risky. Instead, he’d been biding his time, doing nothing but thinking while he healed up.

His wounds seemed to be doing about as well as could be expected – not infected, as far as he could tell, but still open and aching. His right arm was stiff and didn’t move right. That fact burnt perpetually in his mind, filling him with frustration that was amplified by his confinement.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d scrambled into a trap, lured into this dark place by the illusion of safety and secrecy. He wished he’d chosen another place. Though he was alone, he could never shake the feeling that he was being watched. Sometimes he thought he heard voices too, whispers from people coming to find him, coming to get him.

Riley County was a small place – too small to hide comfortably. But then, that was the case with the whole world. It was why he would’ve come back even if it hadn’t been for what’d happened to Troy.

Life on the run wasn’t much of a life at all. When everything was a risk, when every little thing you did could end with you being locked up for the rest of your life, you couldn’t enjoy anything.

During his month on the run, he’d never so much as taken a piss without looking over his shoulder. His paranoid mind had been an IV drip constantly dosing him with adrenaline. The metallic taste of it had become the permanent, inescapable flavor of his existence.

He’d made it across the Mexican border easily by crossing a bridge with a bunch of tourists only to discover that there was a second border 25 miles in – one you couldn’t just traipse across. Funny how no one ever mentioned that when they talked shit about fleeing south of the border.

It wasn’t like he’d had a chance to plan it out himself, to research shit like that. The opportunity that’d presented itself on the prison bus had been a freak one and his escape had been a fly by night venture. From the very beginning, his main drive had been the urge to get as far away as possible.

Turned out there was no such thing as far enough away.

Mexico had been miserable anyway. A shithole brimming with people he couldn’t understand, a place where he’d stood out, which had been the opposite of what he’d wanted. There hadn’t been any work for someone like him, and so he’d had to break the law there too to get what he’d needed. By the time he’d fled, he’d felt the narrow 25 mile border zone closing in on him, threatening to suffocate him.

He hadn’t needed research to tell him that a Mexican prison would’ve been a darker hell than an American one, especially for a South Carolina native. And so he’d gotten out while he’d been able, had come back to where it’d all started.

Square one. The place where they’d meant to keep him, meant to snuff out his life slowly, year by miserable year.

Turning the tables and allowing himself to fight back, no matter what the cost, was the only true taste of freedom he’d had since running off that prison bus.

The truth was a bitch, and it had become painfully clear to him in Mexico: anyway he looked at it, his time was just about up. The only question was how many of his tormenters he was going to take with him. Returning to Riley County and deciding he no longer gave a fuck about staying alive had been the emotional equivalent of morphine.

The second he’d made the decision, it’d been like flipping a switch: his anxiety had flatlined, and a grim euphoria had taken its place.

Maybe things would’ve been different if they hadn’t killed Troy, after all. Maybe being on the run with his brother – having just one person he could trust – would’ve made the endless, exhausting paranoia worth it. But they had, and all he could do now was make them pay for what they’d done.

He’d spent all his time in his new hideout with a permanent headache, one caused by thinking as hard as he could, desperate to form a new plan. He’d counted on having the trailer at least until he’d taken out Dryden, but Reynolds’ kid and his girl had fucked that up. He was nothing if not adaptable though, and knew he could still salvage something from the wreckage of his original plan.

Something this town wouldn’t forget for a long, long time – something that would make little old Riley County a household name, something they’d make TV specials about for years to come.

What a thought. Tipping back his head, Randy looked up through the darkness and smiled.

* * * * *

“Sasha, if he means that much to you, go see him.”

“What?” Sasha nearly dropped the baking dish as she lowered it onto the hot pads she’d arranged on her kitchen table. It was nearly eight o’clock, and she and her mother were sitting down to dinner after a long day at the beach and a little shopping in Wilmington.

“Henry. Your boyfriend.”

Sasha carefully arranged the food on the table, though it didn’t really need it. She and her mother had discussed Henry briefly, but Sasha hadn’t gone into much detail about their relationship. “I don’t get to see you as often as I should, mom. I’m enjoying spending time with you.”

Her mother would only be in town for a couple more days, and Henry had been booking some serious overtime ever since he’d returned to work the day before. The search was ongoing and consumed the PERT officers’ waking hours.

“I’ll be fine on my own for a little while.” Her mother waved a hand. “Don’t worry about me.”

“He’s probably still at work,” Sasha said, unable to help glancing at the clock.

“But getting home soon?”

Sasha nodded. “Probably. They stopped around this time last night.”

“I heard you talking to him on the phone.” Her mother shrugged. “The walls are thin.”

“Oh, really?” Hopefully her mom hadn’t heard
everything
.

“Don’t worry,” she said, as if she’d read Sasha’s mind. “I turned on the TV and tried not to eavesdrop. But even the little bit I heard was enough to let me know that you’re crazy about him.”

“This coming from the woman who used to tell me I was the most boy-crazy teenager she’d ever met.”

“I don’t mean that kind of crazy. You were always a flirt – you get that from your dad. He could’ve charmed the skin off a snake, and I was the envy of all the girls on campus when we started dating.”

Sasha smiled. She couldn’t help it – her parents had been college sweethearts, and her mother always made it sound like he’d had hoards of girls panting after him. He, on the other hand, had claimed he hadn’t noticed – that from the moment he’d laid eyes on Sasha’s mother, he’d been stricken with tunnel vision.

“Anyway, I think Henry is the first man who’s caught your eye that I’ve heard you talk to
without
flirting. You sounded so serious. That’s what tipped me off.”

“You make it sound like I’m some kind of tart!” Sasha grinned and grabbed a serving utensil, then lifted salmon fillets out of the dish and onto her and her mother’s plates. She’d made a special dill sauce for them – an easy favorite that rarely went unappreciated.

“That wasn’t what I meant at all. But Sasha, this is the first time you’ve served burnt food since that time you put cornbread in the oven and got distracted by a televised Backstreet Boys concert when you were thirteen.”

Sasha’s cheeks burnt, much like her homemade cornbread had that day. She’d nearly reduced their house to a pile of ashes. The bread had been a charred disc with a faintly yellow center. It was one of her top five worst culinary disasters, most of which had occurred during her boy band phase.

“Can you blame me?” she asked. “I was in love.”

Her mother raised a brow. “I’m tempted to say you’re in love now.”

Sasha didn’t deny it, though she felt vaguely guilty talking about it with her mother. After all, she’d lost the love of her life … how could Sasha gush to her about her feelings for Henry? It seemed like a cruel thing to do.

Her mother looked down at her salmon like she was reading tea leaves. “Even if you try to hide it, I know it must be driving you crazy that he’s out looking for that psychopath.”

Sasha didn’t deny that either, just took a long sip of her water.

“Why don’t you go see him tonight, even if it’s only for a few minutes? I’ll take care of Wolf while you’re gone.”

Sasha cast a glance at the dog, who’d stretched out on her couch and was lounging contentedly. She’d volunteered to keep him at her place until the search ended, since Henry was working such long hours and Wolf needed to be cared for. Yesterday Wolf had been a little freaked out by the change of scenery, but he seemed to have settled in.

“Okay.” As she agreed, relief washed over her like a tidal wave. She was dying to see Henry – she thought about him constantly, even while she was at work. Worry had become her constant companion, and she longed to hear his voice in person, ached to feel his arms around her.

Her mother smiled. “Don’t feel guilty just because I’m here. The chances that he’ll come out of this just fine are overwhelmingly good, but if he didn’t… Well, trust me, you’d wish you’d spent whatever time with him you could.”

Sasha’s heart sank as guilt assailed her again.

“I don’t mean to be dramatic,” her mother said. “I just want you to know that I understand. And even if it weren’t for the current circumstances, life is short and we all have limited time with the people we care about. That’s why I’m here. I’d never ask you to ignore someone you love.”

“Thanks mom. I’ll go after dinner. I won’t be gone for too long, though.”

Mostly because Henry would have to be up early in the morning for work again. Still, though… She was thoroughly determined to fit in a quickie.

“Wow, I really did burn the fish, didn’t I? I was counting on the sauce to hide it, but I don’t think it’s working.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve always liked meat with a little char on it. This is sort of the same thing.”

Sasha laughed. “Not really, but thanks for pretending. I’m having flashbacks to when you actually tried a bite of my Backstreet Boys cornbread.”

“Well…” Her mother laid down her fork. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I gave it to the dog when you weren’t looking.”

“Poor old Charlie. Is that why he died when he was only seven? Now I feel guilty.”

Sasha’s phone buzzed from where she’d laid it at the edge of the table. She didn’t even have to read the screen to know the text was from Henry. When she did, the message confirmed what she’d hoped for: that he was home safe.

“Is that him?” Her mother gave her a knowing look.

Sasha nodded. “He made it home okay. No luck with the search though.” She frowned. That meant he’d be heading back out in the morning.

When Sasha looked up, she saw that her mother was wearing an identical expression. “Be careful, honey. It scares me half to death knowing that creep could still be in the area. If he came all the way back here to avenge his brother, I can only imagine what he might do to someone who attacked
him
.”

Sasha nodded. It wasn’t like she hadn’t thought of that herself. “If it helps to know, I’m armed.”

Her mother’s eyes widened. “You bought a gun?”