Page 19 of Jack

“My name is David Sledge. I want to book your boat for the next three days.” For whatever reason, Colby’s lion wrapped around him as if to warn him of danger. “It’ll only be for the three days, and I’m willing to pay double your rental fee if you could just let me and my crew have the boat for that amount of time.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t rent out my time like that.” He said it would only be for three days. “I heard you, Mr. Sledge but I’m not in the habit of renting out something without my being on the ship as well. It’s not the way that I do business.” He said that he’d rent the boat but how about if it was just himself but with his own crew that went out. “Again, I don’t work like that. I’m sorry. You’ll have to keep looking. To be honest, Mr. Sledge, I don’t know that there is anyone that rents out a boat without her captain and crew.”

“You’re just starting out, Mr. Tucker. How can you have those kinds of rules when you’ve not even taken out your first group?” Again, his lion wrapped tighter around him. The man knew that he was new and that was why he’d thought to get him to do what he wanted. “I mean, can you really turn down something like double your fees at this stage of the game? It’s just for three days. Two and a half if you’d like. Come on, now. I’ll triple your fees, and neither of us will be out much of anything.”

“I said that I’m not going to rent out my boat to you, Mr. Sledge. Now, if there is nothing else, I’ve things to do.” The man growled low, and that was when he realized that he might be in just a little bit of trouble here. Reaching out for Parker Foster, the grand witch of all witches.“I’m in trouble here. Big time, I think.”

“The phone call?”He told her that was it, and she told him not to hang up. He knew that one of the Fosters, he was too nervous to remember their name, could touch a phone and know just who was calling and where they were. Today, he just wanted not to be killed. Even if he couldn’t, he didn’t want to be hurt either. She told him that she had it.

“Listen here, buddy. You’re going to rent me your boat, and you’re not going to have one little bit of—Christ.” When the line went dead, he gripped it harder to his face and sat down. If not for the chair being just behind him, Colby wasn’t sure what he might have done. Landed on the floor for sure.

“I have it taken care of, Colby, my friend.”He thanked her and asked what he needed to do now.“Just hang up the phone. He’s not going to bother you again. This I promise you.”

That sounded scary to him. Very much so. So, doing as she said, still, a little weak-kneed to do any walking, Colby sat at the desk and waited for her to come to him. He figured that she would, just to explain a little of what happened but he wasn’t even sure he wanted any information right now. Just as he was getting up to do the rest of the work on the boat, Parker appeared in the room with him.

“You were smart to call someone to help you.” He asked her if he’d wanted him to dump a body. “Smart man. Yes, that’s exactly what he wanted from you. Mr. Sledge had two, as a matter of fact, that he needed to get rid of quickly. You’re a smart man.”

“I’m a terrified one, is what I am.” She laughed, and so did he. “As soon as he wanted to rent my boat without my crew scared me enough to know that I was in over my head. Will that happen a lot, do you think? That someone will think they can just rent my boat for nefarious things?”

“Yes. You’re new to the area and they figure that you have no experience with dealing with that sort of pushy person and that you’d cave when he got aggressive with you. Or that you’re so desperate for money that you’ll do just about anything to get a few bucks to keep you going. I’m going to make it so that you won’t have that problem again. When men of his caliber are looking for a way to get out of a sticky situation call, they won’t see your number anywhere.” He thanked her. “You’re so very welcome. Also, if something happens while you’re out on a fishing trip, I’m going to give you a faerie to help. She’ll be able to keep you apprised of anything that is going on from now on.”

After Parker left, he felt a bit better. He’d even remembered to ask her about the trips that he had booked and she told him he’d be just fine. Deciding that he needed to have some things on the boat to keep him and his crew safe, Colby got online and looked at things that they could use. He never thought of how far out in the water he would be with perfect strangers.

“I have a couple of questions for you.”He smiled when Jack contacted him.“Do you have a menu that they can choose from? Like you know, lunch is sandwiches. Dinner will be three or four courses. Anything like that?”

“No. Though I think that sandwiches for lunch would be perfect. They can still enjoy fishing while eating. And smaller bags of chips to hold onto.”They talked about having things easier to eat than what he’d have in his restaurant and then things to have for dinner.“If the crew catches some of the fish, will you be able to serve those up as well?”

It was great to be able to bounce ideas off of Jack, too. He was a smart person to go to when he had questions about food and serving things to his guests. The one thing that he’d been sure to go over with him was a drinks menu.

While there weren’t going to be any drinks on his boat that he provided, a person could bring on some of their own so long as they signed a waiver saying that they were responsible for themselves if something were to go wrong when renting the crew and boat out. Also, he would provide the fishing gear for the trip. Again, so long as they signed a waiver if they were to bring their own, they were solely responsible for it.

There were other things that they discussed while talking, and when he realized it was coming up on six, Colby said that he had a date and needed to get ready for it. Of course, that got his brother to teasing him, and when he closed the connection, he was still smiling.

He knew this woman wasn’t his mate. Colby had been out with her before. They were just fuck buddies. Each of them knew that nothing could ever be more than it was at that moment. Still, she was fun to have on his arm when he wanted a nice dinner and perhaps a play to go and see. No attachments were his favorite way to date.

Picking up Olivia at seven, they were headed to the restaurant when she told him about her job. She was a beat cop and enjoyed her job a great deal. There had been a murder-suicide happening today, and she was telling him how they’d found two frozen bodies in the place after the police were called. Colby nearly ran off the road when she mentioned frozen bodies.

“Are you all right?” He nodded, afraid that he might confess to something that he didn’t have anything to do with. “You looked a little frightened there for a moment. Did you hear about it downat the docks?”

“No, I didn’t hear about it. The radio was on. Maybe I heard something about it then. You know how much Randy loves to have his music blaring.” She laughed and said she wondered if he could hear very well he liked it so loud. “So there was a man that killed someone, and you found the bodies in the freezer?”

“Something like that. The guy was a big-time thug that we’ve been trying to get for a few years. When the call came in about hearing gunshots, they sent someone to his residence and found four bodies on the front steps. In the house, they could see this guy named Archer sitting at his desk with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. It looked like he’d shot the other four men then himself. He actually left a note on his desk telling the police where to find the other two bodies. As you can imagine, it’s been a day at work with this call.”

Olivia trusted him as much as he did her. However, he thought that his trust of late was a little less than she was to him. Since the call today, he’d been jumpy, too, not wanting to tell anyone what he was feeling or going through. Colby was sure that even if the murder-suicide hadn’t happened that way, that was the way everyone on the scene was going to see it. Parker would make sure of it.

After dinner, the two of them decided to go see a movie. It was still light out enough that they figured they’d walk to the theater and enjoy some popcorn as well. He couldn’t believe how much it cost to just see a movie but he was willing to pay it for a night of good conversation and fun. Colby didn’t realize how much he needed this night just as he was dropping Olivia off at her place. She said it was a bad night for him to stay over, and he found that he was all right with that. He wanted a good night’s sleep, and being at home would pretty much guarantee that.

At three-thirty, his phone woke him up. It took him three tries to get the person on the other end of the line to stop talking long enough that he could figure out what was going on. It wasn’t until he was sitting on the side of the bed, a faerie with him, that he understood that he needed to go and rescue someone. From where, he wasn’t that caught up yet, but he’d do it for the family.

“She’s powerful upset.” He told Crumble that he would to if he’d been arrested. “Not Arrested, sir, but she’s a witness to a death.”

“Oh, I thought that she was in jail. Didn’t you tell me that she was in jail?” Crumble explained again he thought it was the forth time that while the woman was at the jail, she hadn’t been arrested. Just the witness to a murdered human. Thinking he’d finally gotten it figured out, he drove them both to the police station and asked for Officer Colrain who had been in charge when Crumble had been there.

“Is she your master?” While he hated that word, he knew that it was the only one that the little faerie would understand when talking about the person he was supposed to be looking after.

“Nay, she is my friend’s master. Darling was off tonight, and I was with her. I didn’t see anything. She kindly kept me away from the murderer. But she asked me to get one of the Tuckers and you were the closest one that I knew to her.” He was there because he was a Tucker and close. Better, he supposed, than being the one dead, he shivered. “I don’t usually go out on trips like this one, but Darling’s wife just had them a baby, and he wanted to be there with her. Emma, the master understood and said it was fine by her to have another in his place. She’s very nice, Ms. Emma. The others, your family has taken her under their armpits and want her to keep safe.”

“It’s wing, not armpits.” Crumble looked confused and said that humans didn’t have wings. Letting it go, Colby changed the subject. “So why am I here if she’s not in trouble? I’m assuming that she had some kind of part in the accident?”

---