“What exactly does he know?”
Wyatt shrugged. “It’s up to you if you want to find out.”
I stood and put my hands on my hips. “Then I think we need to have a séance later on. Have you seen Christian?”
“He took off.”
“Did he say where?”
“Maybe for a Brazilian wax.” Wyatt pushed his sunglasses back up. “I’m not his babysitter.”
“Keep your calendar free. Meeting in your office tonight.”
Chapter 21
After parking my blue pickup in Crush’s driveway, I finished listening to the tail end of “Bad Company” before cutting off the engine. My father was on a ladder propped against the metal garage, a hammer in one hand and a spray can in the other.
I got out and squinted up at him. “What the hell are you doing?”
His hellhound sat nearby, head cocked to the side as he watched his master.
Crush sprayed the can, and a flurry of obscenities came pouring out of his mouth as he beat on a brown clump of mud with a hammer.
“Go on, you bastards! Not on my garage!”
As I drew closer, I realized he was pounding his hammer on a giant wasp nest while simultaneously spraying all the pissed-off wasps who were flying out to see who was demolishing their home.
“Crush! Get down from there before you fall!”
The ladder teetered, and I rushed to steady it. Part of the nest fell a few feet in front of me, and I wanted to bolt when the hornets flew out and angrily swirled around us. I waited until Crush hustled down the ladder, but not before one stung me on the arm.
“Fuck!” he growled. “I’m gonna get the gasoline.”
“Don’t you dare.” I gripped his shirt. “You’ll set the whole garage on fire. Just leave it here. They’ll go away. Come inside before they figure out what’s going on,” I said, spotting a red welt on his head. “How the hell did you live past thirty?”
The dog barked at the nest, ready to defend Crush at his own peril.
Crush clapped his hands, and his companion trotted toward the trailer and bounded up the porch steps. Once inside, Crush disappeared into the bathroom and then returned with a Band-Aid box. He ran the faucet in the kitchen, wiping a few stings. “You want a drink?”
“No, I’m good,” I said, sighing while I sat down.
He set a box of baking soda and a bowl of water on the table. “My mama taught me this,” he said, mixing them together into a paste.
“You don’t talk about Grandma much.”
“I guess there’s not much to talk about. They were old, even when I was young. They died before you were born, so I didn’t think you wanted me boring you with all my stories.”
“Bore me sometime. The only thing you ever told me was how your dad showed you how to fix cars, and your mom made you finish everything on your plate.”
“That shit was no joke.” He applied the paste to his hand and put a bandage over it. “She was the worst cook in the history of the world. You haven’t suffered unless you had that woman’s version of stew. She worked in a factory making clothes or something. That was before companies started making everything overseas. I guess she never had time to learn how to cook.”
I stood up to put the paste on his stings. “That explains a lot about your eating habits.”
“I left home, and then the military cooked my meals. Never had time to learn all that, but I’m a microwave champion.”
After applying the white mixture to his forehead, I dried the area around it and applied a Band-Aid.
“Dammit, Cookie. Your arm. Can you heal that?”
I reached for a strip of sunshine beaming through the window, but the painful bump didn’t go away. “I don’t think healing works on venom. It’s fine. It’ll look better than yours by tomorrow.”
When I sat back down, he took my arm and spread paste on the red spot. “I remember when you were about eight, you got stung by a bee at school. Remember that?”
“How could I forget? You showed up and flipped the principal’s desk over.”
He pressed the bandage on. “They didn’t tell me what happened. Just something about you being in the nurse’s office and how I needed to come and take you to the doctor. He was sitting on his ass, finishing a phone call. My baby girl comes first. For all I knew, you could have had a severed leg.”
I chortled. The places a parent’s mind goes when their child is hurt.
Crush gently rubbed his rough hand over my bandage and gave me a tender smile, flashing his silver tooth.
I patted his hand. “Hope you don’t mind me using your house. I got permission this time.”
“It’s fine as long as you ask. I don’t like you snooping around.”
“Afraid I’ll find your cigar stash?”
He sat back. “I don’t smoke those things.”
“Bullshit.”
He did that thing where he stroked his mustache and goatee in a sad attempt to conceal his smile.
I glanced into the kitchen and noticed an empty bowl on the floor next to a water dish. “So how are things working out with you two? He seems to listen.”
As if sensing we were talking about him, the bullmastiff sat next to Crush and gave me a happy smile as Crush scratched his floppy ears.
“I hate to say it, but I think he’s working out just fine,” Crush admitted with a look of pride on his face. “Keeps me company, and I take him to work. Looks out for the property when we’re busy. Don’t ya, boy?”
“Hope he’s not scaring off the customers.”
“Nah. He seems to know who the bad guys are. Dogs know. Maybe that’s why he keeps running after your man.”
“Then maybe you should keep him away from me.”
“You’re sugar and spice.”
I crossed my legs and thought about the cold-blooded murders we’d committed the night before. “I’m the bad guy.”
“Maybe so, but you’re bad for the right reasons. That cancels shit out. Isn’t that right, boy?” Crush gave the dog another good rub on the head before resting his arms on the table.
“Please don’t tell me you named him Pickles.”
His lips twitched. “He didn’t respond to that name anyhow.” Crush laced his fingers together. “Meet Harley.”
“As in Davidson?” I reached out and rubbed his jowls—Harley’s, not my father’s. “That’s a good name for a good dog.”
“I guess he heard me using it a lot around the garage and thought I was talking to him. Makes sense that a dog should choose his own name.”
A bike rumbled in the driveway.
Crush stood. “I guess that’s my cue to get lost. Come on, Harley. Let’s go for a walk.”
“Don’t you need a leash?”
Crush opened the door and winked. “Where’s the fun in that?”
The only traffic that went by was the neighbors, so he basically had the road to himself. I had a feeling he was enjoying showing off his big bad dog.
I walked onto the porch as Ren dismounted his bike. Ren had a leather vest over his white tee. He reached the steps and rested his arm on the wooden rail. “That is one big-ass dog.”