That was why, when he followed the man he came to collect toward the furthest back room in the entire double-wide, where two women were also in that room, Boone didn’t hesitate. The guy was about to jump out of the window. Boone fired his gun beside that window, almost hitting one of the women and barely missing the man.
But it was just a warning shot anyway. The next one would be spot on. “Stop or I’ll blow your head off!” Boone yelled at the man, his gun aimed squarely at the back of the man’s head. Both women were sitting up in the bed screaming, which could have been a major distraction, but Boone wasn’t distracted at all. He’d know Dalbert Lee a mile away, and he wasn’t flinching this time. He had his man.
Dalbert Lee, the largest dealer of drugs in all of Hemingway, dropped his gun, lifted his hands in the air, and turned around.
“Assume the position you lowlife piece of trash,” Boone said, and Dalbert, knowing the drill too well, dropped to his knees, laid down prone, and spread eagle.
Dontay ran into the room. “You okay, Chief?” the young cop asked his older boss. Then he smiled when he saw that they finally caught their man. “You don’t have to answer that,” he said as he stared at Dalbert. “I know you are.”
But if Boone thought he was going to have a difficult perp in Dalbert Lee, he was mistaken. “I didn’t kill Rita Mae,” Dalbert said.
“Who said you did?” asked Boone as Dontay cuffed him.
“I was paid to get info on that lady. That’s all I had to do with it.”
This interested Boone even more. “On what lady?” he asked him.
“That new lady. That dean. Your woman.”
Dontay glanced at his chief. Boone didn’t even bat an eye. “What info you were paid to get?”
“Everything I could. He wanted me to call her and set her up, and I told him I did, but I didn’t.”
“Set her up how?” Boone asked.
“After his hired gun didn’t kill her in Low Town like he was supposed to, he contacted me. Told me to set up a meeting for later tonight. I was to tell her that if she wanted information on who tried to kill her, she can meet me in the back of Danley’s after it closes at eleven. And she had to come alone and tell nobody. Especially not you.”
“Midnight tonight?”
“Yes, tonight. Did I stutter?”
Boone hit Dalbert upside his head, causing Dalbert’s long hair to flap. “Get smart again!” Boone yelled, “and I’ll kick your ass next time!”
“Alright, man, you don’t have to brutalize me! I saw that video. I saw what you did to Billy Ray. It’s a crying shame for a cop to act like that.”
“Who paid you?” Boone asked him.
“This creep named Tabloski.”
Tabloski. That name again. “He’s the one who thinks she’s coming to meet him tonight?”
“That’s right.”
Boone exhaled. “Why does he want her? What did he say?”
“He was jawing on about how she snitched on his old man and sent him to prison, and how his old man died in prison, and how she was good for nothing and all that kind of bull. I don’t know. I didn’t care! I just know he paid me to set her up. So I told him I did. I figure if I can hide out from you, I could take his money and hide out from him too.”
Boone walked closer to Dalbert. “If your ass is lying to me, it’ll be the last lie you ever tell. You understand me, Dalbert?”
“I understand. I know you’re a bastard. You ain’t got to tell me twice.”
Boone exhaled. To know that Charly wasn’t just theoretically a target, but a target in fact, was a horrifying proposition for him. He had to stop this Tabloski in his tracks. “Get a crew out here to keep him and his men right here, under house arrest with full guard,” Boone said to Dontay. “Keep him here until I get Tabloski. Then have them haul his ass to jail.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dontay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Charly’s not your given name,” Boone’s mother said. “Or is it?”
Charly smiled. “No, ma’am. Charlene is my given name.”
“That’s right, you did give me your real name when you had the courtesy to introduce yourself. Unlike my irascible son. We call him Boone, but we just as well have called him Tarzan. Me Tarzan, you Jane. That’s how he communicates you know.”
Charly smiled, but didn’t respond. She wasn’t about to even pretend to diss the man who saved her life, and who had given her shelter when she needed it the most.
She and Boone’s mother were sitting at a big kitchen table inside the main house on the Ryan ranch. Boone’s mother had made coffee and they both were taking sips. There was also a rifle sitting on the table just in case.
“For the record,” Boone’s mother said, “my name is Barbara Ryan, but everybody calls me Babs. So I know what it’s like to have a nickname too. So let’s make a deal. If I can call you Charly, you can call me Babs. Unless you utterly hate your nickname.”
“It wasn’t my choice, as you said,” Charly said, “ but I’m okay with it.”
“My sentiments exactly,” said Babs and sipped more coffee. But she kept staring her expressive eyes at Charly.
Charly felt as if she was being assessed: is this person good enough for my beloved son? Although, Charly knew, she and Boone hadn’t even gotten to that point of knowing what their relationship was themselves. Right now, as far as she was concerned, they were just becoming friends. Friends with feelings, she’d admit. But friends.
“How do you like Hemingway so far?” Babs asked her.
“Not so much so far,” admitted Charly. “But time will tell.”
“No, it won’t,” said Babs. “I’ve been here all my life and I’m not crazy about it either.”
Charly smiled until the sound of the front door crashing open startled her, who, admittedly, was still shaken from what happened at her own apartment. She jumped.
Babs didn’t flinch. She just stared at Charly. “That’ll be my old man,” Babs said. “I know his entrance like I know my name. Back here, Duke!”
Charly felt more at ease when Babs explained who it was, but since the man didn’t respond, she wasn’t going to relax until she saw him for herself.
When the big, tall man entered the huge kitchen, looking like an older version of Boone himself, Charly did relax. Down to the sexiness and gruffness combined together, there was no doubt about it: this man was Boone’s father.
“You’re up early enough,” Duke said to his wife as he plopped down at the kitchen table, staring at Charly.
“Where have you been?” Babs asked him.
“I had to take care of my horses. Where do you think?”
Charly saw Babs give him a look that made clear she didn’t believe him, and then she sipped more coffee. There was a tension between the two of them that a knife couldn’t cut.
But Duke already seemed to have his sights on Charly. “You’re that new dean,” he said to her.
“Yes, sir.”
“The one who got shot at.”
“Yes, sir.”