You're Busting My Nuptials (Tizzy/Ridge Trilogy Book 2) (25 page)

“Oh. Can I have some of that?”

“Sure. A little blush won’t hurt.”

“Can I have some eye shadow?”

“Just a little. Close your eyes—there, how does that look?”

“Pretty.”

Ridge glanced at the clock and bolted from the bed. “Tizzy! Why didn’t you get me up?” He grabbed his pants, and started to put them on. Tizzy peeked from the open doorway.

“Calm down. I texted Bubba and Jinx and told them you’d meet them at nine instead of eight.”

“Thanks.”

She smiled at him. “Yeah, after the night you had, I thoug
ht you needed the extra sleep.”

“No lie. That little scare about did me in.”

Gracie ran into the room, jumped on the bed and struck a pose. “Look at me, Daddy. See how boo-ti-ful I am?”

“I do. But you’re beautiful without make-up. Give me some sugar,” he said, and kissed her.

Gracie waved her hand in front of her face. “Your breath is stinky.”

Ridge laughed. “Sorry. I’ll brush my teeth.”

Gracie stood and twirled on the bed. “Do I look like a princess?”

“You’re the most beautiful princess in all the land.” He pulled his tee-shirt over his head.

“My first daddy says that too.”

Tizzy stepped into the room. “What did you say?”

Ridge lifted his brows. “She said her first daddy thinks she looks like a princess.”

Tizzy sat down on the edge of the bed and Ridge went into the bathroom.

“Tell me, Gracie. When do you talk to him?” Tizzy asked.

“At my tea parties. He always comes to my tea parties.”

“Really. Tell me about them.”

Ridge came back into the room, sat down next to Tizzy and gathered Gracie onto his lap.

“Well, I put my tea set on my table. Then I ask Mr. Teddy if he wants to come to my party? He says yes, so I put him in a chair.” Gracie ran her fingers across Ridge’s whiskers and giggled. “Then I ask Sally Sue, and she says yes, so I put her in a chair. I try to make Cuddles sit in a chair, but she won’t. She’s a naughty cat.”

“Go on,” Tizzy said. “You have your teddy bear and your doll, Sally Sue, at the table. I guess you sit with them, right?”

“Uh-huh. Then I get my first daddy’s picture and I ask him if he wants to come and he says yes, so he sits in the other chair.”

Ridge eyed Tizzy and she said, “Do you hold his picture when you invite him?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What do you and your first daddy talk about?”

“Lots of stuff. He tells me stories. But, Cuddles doesn’t like him. She hisses at him.”

Ridge saw tears welling in Tizzy’s eyes, so he asked, “Is he a good story teller?”

“Uh-huh. One time he fell out of a tree and one time he got a bicycle for Christmas and he couldn’t ride it. He tried and tried, but he kept falling over.” Gracie laughed.

Tizzy cleared her throat. “Well, let’s go get you dressed.”

Gracie climbed out of Ridge’s lap and ran down the hall.

“I talked to Boone about his visits,” Tizzy said.

“Really? What did you tell him?”

“I told him I didn’t like it and wanted them to stop. What will happen if one day he disagrees with a rule we make, or a decision concerning something she wants to do.
We’re
her parents and our job raising her will be hard enough without having a third party involved.”

Ridge put his arm around her. “I understand. However, she doesn’t seem to be freaked out or upset in any way, but she may be if you stop him.”

“I agreed to let him continue, but now I know how it works and if he becomes a problem, I’ll remove his picture and that should put an end to his visits. That’s what the baby monitor is for. I’m going to listen in on her tea parties.”

“Whatever you do, I’ll back you. Oh, who’s going to pick up Nana at the airport?”

“Synola, Rayann, and I. Her plane doesn’t arrive until after noon. We may leave early and stop off at a mall first. I wish the weather report was better. There’s rain in the forecast.”

“Will one of the hired birddogs tag along?”

“Yep. Today, there’ll be two of them. I figure to keep Nana rounded up; I’ll need one just for her.”

~~*~~

Forty-five minutes later, Ridge parked at the station and got out of his car. He held his hat to keep it from blowing away. Now, one week before Halloween, the moan and whistle of cold north wind officially announced the end of Indian summer.

Pushing the door open, he eyed dispatcher Rita Pridmore
, short as a sprout and round as an apple, nursing a diet root-beer and eating a fried pie.

“Hey, Rita.”

She wiped her mouth, jumped from her seat and hugged Ridge tight. “I haven’t had a chance to welcome you home. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

He returned the hug. “Thanks, Rita. I’m glad to be home. Bubba and Jinx in the break-room?”

“Yeah, go on back.”

Ridge stepped into the room and found them in deep discussion.

“I think you’re crazy if you don’t,” Jinx said.

“I don’t know, man. Depends on who applies,” Bubba said.

“Hey, guys. Sorry I’m late. Bad night. What are you talking about?”

Bubba walked to the coffee maker and added to his cup. Holding the pot in mid-air, he said to Ridge, “You want some?”

Ridge shook his head, so Bubba continued. “Chief Ramsay is considering retirement. Jinx thinks I should apply for his position.”

“I agree with Jinx. You’re perfect for the job.”

“First, he has to make his mind up,” Bubba said, reclaiming his seat. “You made any progress on the case?”

Ridge took a chair at the table. “Yeah, thanks to something Tizzy said, I’ve developed a theory. Rayann and Synola tell you about Ramona?”

Jinx and Bubba nodded.

“We know Gwynn paid cash for the truck. I think she decided there had to be more where that came from and pulled a double cross.”

Jinx leaned forward, rested his arms on the table, and repeated, “Double cross.” A smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Makes sense. She rented the storage unit, but didn’t tell her partners. She stashed you and got Ramona to pick her up. If she demanded more money, that would explain why nobody came back for you. Hell, they didn’t know where you were!”

“Right, she wanted to milk them for all it was worth.” Ridge said. “But it backfired. Instead of paying, they came after her, and she went into hiding.”

“That could explain the tail we picked up after we left the strip club.” Jinx said.

“How so?” Bubba said.

“We were asking questions. It’s possible someone was watching the place, hoping Gwynn would show back up and they overheard Tawny talking to Tizzy and decided we could do their work for them. Follow us, find Gwynn.”

Ridge took the spiral from his pocket. “Here’s the timeline I have: Early Saturday, I’m taken. Saturday night your group visits the strip clubs and finds out Gwynn’s missing, then picks up a tail. On Monday, after leaving the sister’s house,
two
SUVs show up.” Ridge glanced at Jinx. “That about right?”

He nodded and started to speak, but Ridge held up his hand to stop him. “I need to back up. Even though Gwynn was the major player in drugging me, I don’t think she was the mastermind behind the plan.” Ridge leaned back in his chair. “More likely the two guys planned the whole thing and Gwynn was the accomplice.”

Bubba ran his hand across his forehead. “So who was in the second SUV?”

“That’s where it gets complicated, “Ridge said. “What if we’re dealing with more than the three players?”

Jinx tapped his fingers on the table. “That’s logical. You got Gwynn. You got the two guys. You got a
contractor
.”

“So let me get this straight,” Bubba said. “A contractor set up the abduction, hired two local guys and they hired Gwynn?”

“Could be,” Ridge said.

Bubba shifted in his seat and thinned his lips into a tight line. “And Gwynn double crossed all of them.”

“Bingo,” Jinx said.

“So, when the local guys tell the contractor Gwynn wants more money, they come for her,” Bubba said to Ridge.

“I’m not sure they passed the word on. Maybe they were putting the contractor off, making excuses, hoping to find Gwynn and get the problem fixed before their employer found out,” Ridge said.

“Any way you look at it, we’re dealing with three different entities here,” Jinx said. “Gwynn. Two helpers. Contractor.”

Still feeling the effects of last night’s pregnancy scare, Ridge rubbed the back of his neck. It was going to take days for his muscles to return to normal. “The only gap in the theory is where the hell does this Tawny woman fit in, and why’d they kill her?”

Jinx fiddled with a stir stick, then stuck it in his mouth. “Clearly Tawny knew more than she said to Tizzy at the bar. She probably knew where Gwynn was. Maybe the bad guys got what they wanted from Tawny and killed her before she could warn Gwynn.”

“Or—maybe she warned Gwynn and they
didn’t
get what they wanted and killed her anyway,” Bubba said.

Ridge tapped his pen against the table. “There is another scenario.”

Jinx and Bubba gave him their full attention and Ridge continued. “Tawny’s dead. Gwynn’s MIA and there’s no sign of the two guys who helped her. They all served their purpose. They’re not needed anymore. If the contractor cleaned house and killed them all, the trail goes cold. If that’s the case, we’re looking for bodies and not suspects.

After agreeing about the possibility of another player being involved, Ridge and Jinx headed toward Double D
’s and Bubba left for his appointment with the President of the Clown Association of East Texas.

Outside, a sharp wind whipped in from the north. Ridge smiled at Tizzy’s earlier warning.
Take a jacket, Ridge. A Blue Northern is blowing in and without it, you’ll be colder than one of those Lide Avenue hootchie mommas’ in fish nets.
Damn, the woman made him laugh.

The
‘nooner’ special was just beginning when Ridge and Jinx entered the club. Two half-naked women danced on tables while a third gyrated on stage. The men slid onto stools at the end of the bar, and Three-D, wiping a glass with a towel, came over to them. He focused on Ridge’s badge. “What can I get you guys?”

“I’m Texas Ranger Ridge Cooper.”

Three-D set the glass down. “I guess this is about Tawny?”

Ridge eyed Jinx and played along. “Yeah, what can you tell us about her?”

“Not much. She worked here on and off for almost five years. Got along with everybody. Showed up on time, did her job, drew her pay.”

“I can see you’re real tore up about her getting murdered and all,” Jinx said.

“Look, I’m sorry she’s dead. As an employee, it’s like I said. She was better than most, but in this business dancers meet some bad people.”

“You saying Tawny got involved with shady characters?” Ridge asked.

“I’ll tell you like I told the other Ranger. What the girls do outside this building is their business, not mine.” He swiped the bar with his rag, then continued. “She had a guy pick her up after work for a while. I’d see him in the parking lot, but he never came in. I figured they had something going, but then he stopped coming.”

“Got a name or a description?”

“Never saw the guy get out of his car.”

Ridge took his notepad from his pocket. “What k
ind of vehicle was he driving?”

“Black SUV. I thought he was married. Figured he got caught, and that’s why it stopped. You know, trying to keep the little woman at home happy.”

Ridge’s thumb fiddled with his wedding ring. “What makes you think so?”

“Never coming inside tells me he didn’t want to be seen.”

“Ever hear her talk about him or call him by name?”

“No, but it’s not in my nature to nose around in the girls’ private lives. Too much damn drama. I learned that early on.”

“Okay, let’s move on to Gwynn Skylar. What can you tell us about her?” Ridge wrote Gwynn’s name at the top of a new page.

“What about Gwynn? Is she dead too?”

Ridge ignored the question and shifted on his stool. “Why haven’t you reported her missing? She hasn’t been at work in what . . . two weeks? Don’t you think that’s odd?”

“Look, man, girls come and go in this business all the time. I figured Gwynn moved on. Before you ask, Tawny told me she was taking a few days off. That’s why I didn’t report her.”

“What’d she say she needed the break for?” Jinx asked.

Three-D took a step back and eyed Jinx. “Damn! I’ve just now recognized you. You were in here the last night Tawny danced. When those three hotties came in looking for work. I believe you got a lap dance from one of ’em. Paid top price if I remember correctly.”