“Tex?” Ace asked.
“Yeah?”
“Are the children all right with the ex? I mean, with his less-than-safe occupation and the fact that he obviously has no problem separating them from their mother, are they safe?”
Bubba wasn’t surprised his friend had thought about that. He loved kids. He was born to be a father. And with the addition of the three girls he and Piper had adopted from Timor-Leste, and the fact that his wife was currently pregnant, he was more conscious about children than the rest of them.
Tex hesitated before saying, “If things happen the way I’m thinking they will, the kids are going to be fine.”
“What does that mean?” Ace asked.
“It means I’m gonna make sure they’re going to be fine,” Tex repeated. “Look, you guys know I work with all sorts of teams. Military, private security, and even some that work on the edge of the law. I know a guy who works out of Colorado Springs…he knows a team of men who won’t hesitate to do what needs to be done when it comes to taking out the worst of humanity. I’m saying too much already, especially considering where y’all are sitting, but sometimes the evil in the world gets a little too much control and the good side needs a bit of help.”
“What are you saying?” Rocco asked, leaning forward and lowering his voice. “That you know some vigilante group out there going around killing people outside the law? And you’re supporting and helping them?”
“You know me, Rocco,” Tex said tightly. “You know when it comes to protecting those I know and love, and my country, I’ll do whatever’s necessary. These guys have been burned by the very country and the laws that were supposed to protect them. They’ve taken it upon themselves to do what they need to do in order to sleep at night.
“I don’t talk to them directly, but I do discuss injustices that I’ve run across with their acquaintance. What he chooses to tell them or not tell them is out of my hands. I know without a doubt that he’ll either personally take care of making sure those kids are safe, or he’ll get in touch with this team, and they’ll take care of business.
“But I’ll tell you this—I sleep just fine at night. Anyone who would not only sell drugs, but get his girlfriend involved, and then leave her hanging out to dry when she’s caught, then manipulate the court system in order to steal her kids, isn’t someone I’ll cry over when I read his obituary in the paper. Understand?”
Bubba was seeing a side to Tex that he hadn’t ever seen before. He wanted to say he was shocked, but he honestly wasn’t. Tex had been around a lot longer than he or his team had. He’d seen and done things none of them knew about. If he was assisting a team of vigilantes who did their best to rid the earth of the worst of the worst, he didn’t give one little shit.
What he did give a shit about was Zoey. And his friends. And making sure no one hurt what he considered his. And maybe it was too much, maybe he’d lost his mind, but Zoey was sure as fuck his. Something had happened out there in the Alaskan wilderness. They’d connected on a level he’d never connected with anyone before. He’d be damned if someone hurt her. And if it took Tex doing whatever the fuck he had to do in order to make sure she was safe, Bubba would condone it a thousand times over.
“I don’t care what you do or how you get the information, Tex. Just get it.”
“I will,” Tex reassured him. “I’ll be in touch.”
Bubba clicked off the phone and put it back in his pocket. The urge to text Zoey, to hear her voice, to make sure she was all right, was strong, but he resisted.
“Is anyone else concerned that Tex has finally crossed a line he can’t ever come back from?” Gumby asked, his voice hushed.
Bubba opened his mouth to respond, but Phantom beat him to it.
“No. Fuck no. Tex is the most loyal and straight arrow I’ve ever met. Yeah, he does some illegal shit to get information, but he does it to save lives. We all know we’ve wished more than once that we could simply take out those who deserve to die, but our hands are tied. Imagine if they weren’t. Imagine if we could simply end those who abuse women. Kill animals for the fun of it. Rape defenseless children.”
Bubba heard the pain in his friend’s words, but didn’t know how to help him. But Phantom being Phantom, he rallied and his voice became stronger, more determined as he spoke.
“The goal here is to figure out who tried to kill Bubba. And if we need to enlist the help of a group of men we don’t know and have never heard of, fine. All it means is that if we’re questioned about them, we can’t say shit. I’d jump through fire for any of you, and Tex. If he’s okay with whatever he’s doing to get information, I’ll support him one hundred percent.”
“Me too,” Rex said.
“Same here,” Ace said.
Everyone agreed, and Bubba sighed. “I can’t believe this is happening, really. I mean, yeah, Pop left me some money, but most of it’s tied up in his business.”
“So who do we think did it?” Rocco asked.
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s really only two people who could be that upset about Pop’s will,” Bubba said. “Sean and Malcom.”
“You really think your brother would try to kill you over this?” Gumby asked.
“If you’d asked me a week ago, I would’ve said no way. But he wasn’t exactly thrilled about the results of the will.”
“What about other people your dad worked with?” Rex asked.
“It’s possible,” Bubba conceded. “Malcom brought up an interesting scenario that surprised me at the time…but the more I think about it, the more it worries me.”
“What’s that?” Rocco asked.
“Poison. Both Zoey and Mal said that Pop had been sick for a while, but he wouldn’t go see a doctor. And after Zoey left to go to Anchorage to visit her mom, Dad took a turn for the worse and died. Malcom actually suggested that Zoey was working with Ashley, the nurse who helped Pop when Zoey wasn’t around.”
“It’s not a bad theory,” Phantom mused.
Bubba was about to lose his shit when his friend continued.
“The poison scenario, not Zoey being involved. There was an autopsy, right?”
“No,” Gumby said. “Foul play wasn’t suspected, and Malcom had Colin cremated almost immediately. Official cause of death was a heart attack.”
“Any tissue samples taken before he was cremated?” Rocco asked.
“Not that I know of, but we can have Tex look into it,” Gumby said.
“Shit,” Bubba muttered. He hated to even think about this. It didn’t seem real that he was discussing not only his father’s death, but the possibility that he’d been murdered. “This seems more like a plot in a bad crime show than my life,” he muttered.
“It’s definitely looking premeditated,” Ace said. “But we don’t have proof that your dad was murdered. It could just be that someone took advantage of his death to try to get what they wanted.”
“Right,” Bubba said with a shake of his head.
“So who else could’ve planned this?” Gumby asked.