Page 73 of Bull Rush

We watch as they disappear over the horizon as we catch our breath.

“What the fuck was that?” Bo asks, leaning over with his hands on his knees.

I stretch my neck, running my fingers over my cheek once again to make sure I’m still not bleeding.

“Fuck if I know.” I take a deep breath of the night air. Prison made me soft, I guess. Not enough time sprinting down a field, and I’m out of shape. I need a lot of time back with a trainer if I’m going to run for a living again.

“Do you think they’re headed toward the casino?” Bo breaks through my existential crisis as we watch the car speeding in the direction of The Avarice. It’s the only thing in that direction off the property, but it’s also the easiest way toget back to civilization if you can’t go out through our front drive.

“I don’t know. It seems like that’s how they came on to the ranch. There are a couple of gates out that way, I guess.”

“No cameras on them?” He looks at me.

“There might be one. I’d have to ask Haze. I don’t know what she kept of my parents’.” Given the business my parents were in, we’d originally had a lot of cameras on the property, but Hazel preferred privacy over technology.

“Back to the house then, I guess.” He stretches out his back, rubbing a palm across his chest as if it’ll ease his lungs.

“I need a fucking beer after that. That’s for sure.”

Once we get backto the house, Bo and I stand out on the back porch, sipping our beers and enjoying the crisp night air. It’s that time of year now when the temps drop low at night, even if they still manage to get reasonably warm in the daytime. Without a beer or a jacket to keep you warm, the chill runs down your spine and tunnels through your bones until its deep inside. The kind you can’t shake, a bit like the worry I have tonight after what’s unfolded. The blood’s still drying on my knuckles, and I’m studying the pattern of it when Bo finally sits up straighter.

“I have a bad feeling,” he says, staring at the pole barn in the distance that we’d found the intruders in.

“About them?”

“That’s the same place I saw Curtis.”

“That barn?” I guess I never did clarify. I’d just assumed it was the garage they park most of the cars in. “I thought you meant the garage that’s attached.”

“No. That one.” His brows lift in question, wondering ifI’m as worried as he is. I let out a long breath and take another sip of my beer. Definitely a bad feeling or two.

The barn we found the guys in really only has my and my parents’ things in it. They used it for extra storage when they were alive, and when they died, and Hazel and I took over the house, we moved most of their things out there. Then when I left, I’d followed suit. It’s essentially the Stockton family heirloom and furniture graveyard, but no one outside the family knows that either.

“Fucking weird that they’d pick that one and not one of the others,” I mutter.

“Right? If they were just off the street snooping around, you’d think they’d go for the stables where they’d know they might find some stuff of value.”

“Right,” I agree.

“This is what I mean… So much of this stuff happening has been weird as fuck. I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t like it.” He shakes his head and downs another sip of his beer.

“Yeah. The one guy’s voice. It sounded almost familiar, but I have no idea where—” I stop dead in my tracks because it hits me. His voice sounded like one of the guys from the other night at Seven Sins. The ones my brother had sent to the casino.

“What?” Bo asks, clearly realizing I was coming to terms with something.

“One of the guys. I think he might have been in Seven Sins the other night.”

“What makes you think that?”

“He got into it with Dakota. She said he was asking a lot of questions, and she didn’t like his attitude. It nearly came to blows. Her other bartender said they’d asked about the ranch.”

“That’s not fucking good.” Bo states the obvious; his face clouded with concern.

“No. It’s not. What’s weird is that my brother chased himoff and sent him to The Avarice. Then he headed back that way… might not be a coincidence.”

“Sounds like you and your brothers need to have a chat.”

“Yeah. I think that’s what I’ll be doing first thing tomorrow.”

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