“Nope,” he said again. “You’re hanging with me. And I can’t get over to Low Town just yet.”
“Then where are you going?”
“To find out why Malcolm, or Dreads as you call him, would have lied on Les Pataki.”
“How do you know he lied?”
“Because I knew it all along,” said Boone. “I was just making sure.”
“Do you always go by your first instincts?”
“Always.”
“What were your first instincts about me?”
“That you were hell on two legs,” he said, “but worth it.”
Charly smiled, and then laughed.
But then Boone’s look turned serious. “Pataki did tell me something interesting about Rita Mae.”
“What?” Charly asked. “That she was a hooker?”
Boone stopped walking and looked at Charly. “How would you know that?”
“Come on, Boone. Amos was interested in her wellbeing. Dreads was interested in her. I pegged Amos as a man with an unhealthy sexual appetite, not a man with a bloodlust. He didn’t kill her, is my impression, but he did other unsavory things to her. The same for Dreads. Dreads was pointing the finger at others to keep that spotlight off of him.”
Boone stared at Charly. He was impressed. But he wasn’t going to give her the big head. “Smart ass,” he said, Charly laughed, and they headed out together.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Dreadlocks lived on a backroad where houses were miles apart, and Charly began to feel queasy. “What if this was the plan all along,” she said to Boone. “To lure us back here.”
Boone smiled. “Malcolm knows not to try that with me,” he said.
“You’ve known him a while?”
“Ever since he was a kid knocking old ladies in the head and stealing their purses.”
“Really? Dreads is like that? I didn’t take him for a thief.”
“Because he isn’t anymore. That’s when he was a kid. He’s still a criminal, but his crimes tend to be of the domestic variety.”
“Fights with girlfriends?”
Boone nodded. “You got it,” and then he turned into the driveway of one of those small houses. “We’re here,” he said.
But he turned and looked at Charly. “You wait here.”
That made no sense to Charly. “Wait here?” He was the one who wanted her at his hip.
“Let me make sure nothing’s weird. Then you can get out.”
Charly nodded. She couldn’t help but appreciate a man who was always looking out for her best interest first. It was so new to her that she didn’t quite know how to handle it. “Okay,” she said, and Boone got out of the truck.
But as soon as Boone walked across the dirt yard and up to the front door, that same door flew open and Dreads came running out.
“Get him!” he was crying, holding his stomach. “He shot me! He shot me!”
“Where is he?” Boone yelled as he pulled out his gun.
“Inside,” Dreads said as he ran toward Boone’s truck. “We got to get out of here!”
“Charly, drive!” Boone yelled, as he ran into the house.
Charly was already getting behind the wheel of Boone’s truck before Boone told her to go, and she waited until Dreads jumped into the truck’s cab.
But to his amazement, she still didn’t go.
“Drive!” Dreads yelled. “He told you to drive!”
But Charly hesitated. She wasn’t going to leave Boone there to die! She didn’t drive.
Inside, Boone was aiming his weapon toward every corner, every crack, every crevice in that small home. But he didn’t find the shooter. He ran toward the backdoor, opened it, aimed, and looked out too. But no shooter.
He ran in the back rooms of the house, and aimed at every corner in those rooms too. But no shooter.
But when he ran back up front, he realized what he had missed all along. It was the house. The house was pristine. There was no sign of any kind of violence whatsoever, let alone a shooting!
And then he realized what else he had missed.
Blood on Malcolm. There was no blood on Malcolm. And now, he was with Charly.
“Charly!” Boone cried, and ran out of that house faster than he had run into it.
When he realized Charly was still on the driveway, he felt better. But as soon as he saw his truck, he saw Malcolm rising up, with a gun in his hand, and aiming it through the window of the cab. He screamed Charly’s name when he saw Malcolm aiming that gun directly at her head.
“Charly!” he screamed and aimed his own gun, ready to fire, but Charly, God love her, he thought, turned around and beat him to the punch. She fired once at Malcolm. She mostly missed, but she was able to graze his shoulder just enough that he dropped his gun and grabbed that shoulder.
And Boone pounced. He ran down those steps and over to his truck so fast he looked like a ninja to Charly. But however he looked, she was glad he was okay and coming her way.
Boone jumped onto the back of that cab, grabbed an already injured Malcolm, and beat what his old man called the snot out of him! He punched him and punched him. The idea that that bastard would try to kill Charly kept him punching him.
Charly stayed behind the wheel, and was looking back and watching it all. She’d never condone violence and especially not police brutality, but she was condoning it that day. When she had looked through her rearview mirror and saw Malcolm raise up that gun toward her head, she had a split second to react. A split second to lift her gun, turn and fire. She fired awkwardly, because of the urgency, but it was enough to stop him from firing. But that was too close for her to be comfortable. She would have beat his ass, too, if she was in that cab with Boone.
Boone finally grabbed him up as if he was a rag doll, and pointed his gun directly at his nose. “Tell me all you know,” he ordered him. “Tell me now!”
“He made me say Dalbert did it,” Malcolm cried. “He made me say Dalbert killed Rita. He made me say Pataki was Dalbert’s boss. He made me say it!”
Boone didn’t ask who yet. He wanted all Malcolm had to tell him.
“Why did you try to kill Charly?”
“Who’s Charlie?”
“Dean Johnson,” Boone said. “Why did you try to kill her?”
“He said I had to. He said they’d kill me if I didn’t do it.”
“Who said that?” Boone asked him.
“Amos,” said Malcolm.
Boone was shocked. So was Charly. “Amos?” Boone asked. “Why would Amos tell you to kill Dean Johnson?”
Malcolm was shaking his head. “I don’t know. He’s the one who told me to say Dalbert killed Rita Mae. He’s the one who said they’d kill me if I didn’t do everything he said.”
“Who’d kill you?”
“The same people who killed Rita Mae.”
Charly was shocked. Amos really was involved in Rita Mae’s death?
Boone stood erect in the cab of his truck. “If you’re lying, you’re dead,” he said to Malcolm. Then he thought again about how Malcolm could have shot and killed Charly. “Bastard!” he said, and punched Malcolm so hard that he knocked him unconscious.