Page 35 of Avenging Kelly

I swallowed down the bile that was trying to creep up from my gut. “Young, female, the less used, the better.”

She smirked. “Ah, one of those virgin hunters, huh? Well, you need to talk to Ricky about that.”

Sally pointed toward the back of the bar where the card game seemed to have broken up. A familiar-looking guy headed toward the back door, and after a second, I remembered where I’d seen the bastard.

He’d been in the photo with Charlene Devaney on her phone’s lock screen. The guy was young—maybe in his early thirties—but he was too young to be Charlene’s son. Maybe he was a nephew, which meant that Rick probably knew the woman, too. I was sure the guy leaving out the back door was Philippe Trudeau, and I wondered if he had anything to do with Charlene’s death the previous night. An awful feeling crawled up my spine about what might happen next.

Suddenly, a young woman walked into view—a very pregnant young woman. Hell, she wasn’t a woman—she was a young girl no older than fourteen.

Rage filled me in a heartbeat, but I composed myself as I strolled back to the table where the scraggly man—Daddy Rick—was sitting with the young girl next to him, all the card players having left. The prick was counting a stack of money that would choke a horse.

As I got closer, I heard a loud clatter coming from the men’s room, but I didn’t stop walking. When I reached the table, I mustered a friendly grin for the man.

“You’re Rick, I’m guessin’?”

“Who wants to know?” the slimy bastard demanded.

A thought crossed my mind to tell him I was the man who was going to gut him like a carp, but then my common sense engaged. “I’m Bill. I heard from a buddy that you’re the guy with a good connection for some entertainment.”

I glanced at the young girl sitting next to him and heard him laugh. “She’s not exactly ready for public consumption, but after she drops this little moneymaker in a few weeks, she’ll be my new superstar. I have a few girls a little older than her you might wanna take a look at. Did I see you here with a friend? It’s the same price for each of ya, even if you use the same girl. Five bills each per hour or two grand for the night,” Rick stated.

Just then, London walked up next to me. “What’s up?”

“Rick, here, was just talkin’ about settin’ us up with a little fun. I think we wanna pick for ourselves. You got more than one?” I asked the son of a bitch.

He gathered all the money in front of him and shoved it in a zip bag, sliding it into his belt as he stood, revealing a Smith & Wesson Shield Plus in the waistband of his pants. “Yeah, that’s right. I’m always strapped, so don’t try anything stupid because I’ll blow your balls off.”

I wanted to laugh at his threat. The only balls he’d be blowing off were his own because he hadn’t engaged the safety, the stupid douche.

London chuckled and held his arms out to his sides, swaying a little. “We’re lovers, not fighters, man. We got two days of PTO before we deploy, and we wanna have a little fun, ya know? You wouldn’t begrudge a little fun to two brave soldiers fighting for your freedom, would ya?”

“Where you boys here from?” Rick asked, his face skeptical.

“We flipped a coin—come here or go to Vegas. I like the beach better than the desert, so we drove down from Irwin. He’s pissed because he wanted to go to Vegas,” I lied.

London spoke up. “Fuck yeah! I wanted to make a little money to send to my baby momma before we deploy, but no—this fucking pervert wants a tight pussy. He’s my best friend and brother-in-arms, so I couldn’t deny the asshole a last chance to get his dick wet.”

I glanced London’s way. “Two grand.”

He chuckled. “Better be some prime pussy.”

Rick stood. “Youngest and tightest in town. You can go shop for better—hell, I’ll even give you names of my competitors.” The man then laughed. “I promise ya, you’ll play hell finding anything like it.”

His eyes unconsciously shifted toward the ceiling, and he smirked, signaling that was probably where he kept his girls.

Based on a quick perusal of the area, I couldn’t tell where the stairs were to get to the second floor, but I knew for sure there had to be a fire escape.

Reading London’s face was something I was becoming very good at doing. Something was up. “Okay. We need to go to the bank. We’ll be back in an hour,” I stated.

Rick chuckled. “I’ll be here.”

London and I headed toward the front of the bar, me tossing a fifty onto the scarred wooden top as we hurried passed. When we were on the sidewalk, London turned us toward the alley and to the through street behind it where we’d parked Marianna’s car.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“That big fucker I followed into the men’s room? He put up a hell of a fight. He tore a fucking urinal off the wall, so I had to knock his ass out and basically hog-tie him. I don’t think he’ll stay out for long, so we gotta get moving. Are we going to take out some money for this?”

“Fuck no. It smells like a setup to me, don’t you think? My gut tells me the asshole thinks we’re easy targets because we just wanna get laid before we deploy. I’d bet he’s gonna have a couple of buddies around when we get back and shake us down. He’ll probably threaten to turn us into our C.O. for misconduct.” Things were becoming a lot clearer to me.

---