Page 4 of Avenging Kelly

I grinned at my brother. “Feel like dealing with snow and freezin’ ass cold?”

Dal laughed and held out his fist for me to bump before he pulled me closer and gave me a hug that turned into a headlock and a Dutch rub. Fucker.

We both heard Mom knocking on the window to let us know that breakfast was ready, so we hurried back into the house before she started yelling again. It was good to have a home to visit and get babied by our mom.

Dal had stepped up and taken over as head of the family, and I would be forever in his debt for making sure I stayed on the straight and narrow growing up in New Mexico. He’d been an excellent role model.

* * *

Dallas and I filed into the sanctuary of Our Shepherd’s House in Jamaica, Queens, both of us tugging at the necks of our dress shirts, which were too tight. It was fucking torture.

Mateo’s husband Shay insisted we all wear ties and jackets—he actually bought a tie for each of us so we didn’t “clash.” Dal had laughed but took one when Shay handed them out, so I had to take one, too. I planned to burn that fucking thing in a trash barrel on a street corner when the service was over.

“Good morning,” Reverend Nate Sinclair greeted everyone in a firm voice. I couldn’t believe the man could conduct his own son’s funeral. That was an admirable thing for a father to do.

The man started the service with a prayer for Mathis, and then he told us stories about Mathis’ childhood and how much good he’d done in the neighborhood.

Apparently, when Mathis hadn’t been working at his day job, he’d been helping at the community center to spend time with the kids. He’d helped with homework and had taught the younger kids how to play soccer. He’d even coached a couple of teams the center sponsored, which wasn’t anything Mathis had ever talked about with me.

No way could there have been a dry eye in the place when Reverend Sinclair finished, including all of my brothers from GEA-A and my actual brother.

An amazing choir sang beautiful songs, and the attendees clapped along, which wasn’t anything Dallas or I were used to. We hadn’t gone to church growing up—too many terrible memories of do-gooders trying to save our souls after Dad died. Even Mom had shunned the nosy bastards who’d come around our house to rope us in, as she used to say.

Mathis was going to be cremated, and his parents were going to sprinkle his ashes in the Sinclair family cemetery in Nassau, Bahamas, later in the year, so there was no graveside service. We all went to the community center next to the church, where there was a meal for everyone who had attended the funeral. After filling our plates, Dallas and I sat down with the other operatives from GEA-A.

“Hey, Dallas,” Austin greeted. He and Nemo knew my brother, but nobody else did, so I quietly introduced him to everyone.

Dal hadn’t gone with me to the office the previous two days after we returned from New Mexico, choosing to clean my “fucking pig stye” instead. I didn’t really think it was dirty, but apparently, my brother had developed some sort of clean fetish.

Casper sat down next to me. “How you holdin’ up, brother?” he asked me, which was kind, considering the fact we were all under a hell of a lot of pressure.

“Anything come up on that partial license plate?” I asked.

For the last two days, the nine of us had sat in the large conference room at the Victorian going over the printouts from one security feed after another that we’d been able to get from all the businesses on the routes leading to Solé.

We’d been able to piece together one letter and three numbers from the rear license plate on the Plymouth Fury that had run over Mathis. “C” and “428,” or “423.” The New York plate was dirty, and from different angles, the last number seemed to change to the point I was sure it could have been damn near anything.

There had been about two hundred license plates that had turned up with those two number patterns and that single letter. Casper had been running registrations on them twenty-four-seven to weed out those that had expired or been destroyed.

He’d been able to delete about fifty-two, which had left us with 148 plates to track. Sadly, not one plate was registered to a 1978 Plymouth Fury, leading us to believe someone could have stolen them from any car and ditched them after the hit-and-run.

The plan—though I had to wonder if it had been a good one—had been to investigate all the registrations, individually. Unfortunately, that strategy would take a lot of time and manpower. After a discussion, we’d all decided it was worth the effort if we could bring the driver to justice. We’d each pledged to do our part.

I’d spoken to Mia, who was due any day, and her mother, who had come to the funeral to honor Mathis for all of his work on bringing Mia home. They were both sobbing messes, and my heart broke for them.

Shep and Parker had agreed to take them home after the repast because someone had stolen the license plates off of Mrs. Boone’s car before Christmas, so she couldn’t drive it until she could get to the license office to report them stolen and get new ones.

Mia blamed herself for Mathis’ death and seemed inconsolable, claiming it was Daddy Rick, her former pimp. I was wondering if she might be right, and I could see Mateo was, too. That was the next thing we needed to look into—where that mother fucker was.

When we left the dinner, we all went home, some with their spouses or significant others, and me with my brother. It was the darkest day I’d had in a very long time.

2

KELLY BROWN

Late January

Time seemed to drag along in slow motion, especially in snow-covered Kansas at the end of January. It went even slower when someone was waiting for something important to happen in their life. Nobody knew it better than me. Nobody had ever wanted it to end more than me.

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