Page 51 of Rebel

“Yeah, someone trashed Lacey’s parents’ home last night too,” I said, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to tell him.

“Shit! Are Mr. and Mrs. Livingstone, okay?”

“No one was home,” I responded.

Celt added, “We need to have a little chat with Mark Shepard, just to make sure that he really is all talk and no action.” Turning to look at Sherman, he asked, “Do ye know where we can find the fecker?”

Sherman grimaced before responding. I watched him go back and forth in his mind about ratting his friend out.

Trying to tip the scales in our favor, I quickly assured him, “We just wanna talk to him, like we did with you. If it turns out he had anything to do with it, we’ll call the cops.”

Sighing, he told us, “He’s normally drinking at the Boar’s Head about now.”

After a few more exchanges, we said our goodbyes and I stalked over to my bike. The others followed suit. “Let’s run down this last lead,” I told them. “If this doesn’t pan out, I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell Lacey.”

Storm strapped his helmet in place and muttered, “Let’s cross one bridge at a time here. Rome wasn’t built in a damn day, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. The thing is, I’m getting sick and tired of all our leads turning out to be dead ends.”

While we were talking, Celt found the address for the Boar’s Head. We set out with grim determination to find the bar and finally get some answers. It was located on the other side of the county line in Spartanburg. Usually, we had to hunt all over town to find someone. Sherman had been easy to find by comparison. With any luck tracking down Mark would be the same.

***

When we walked into the Boar’s Head, we found Mark sitting front and center at the bar. He was eating pork barbeque and drinking a huge mug of cold beer. I recognized him too from the day Lacey fired the two of them. He’d been arrogant and condescending and told her to move because she was in his seat. He’d been shocked when Lacey fired him. She’d since told methat her mother wouldn’t put her father on the phone, so Mark had never gotten the opportunity to make his final appeal to her father.

I slid onto an empty chair on one side of him and Celt sat on the other, hemming him in. He went into a full-blown panic when he casually looked up to find me staring at him.

“What the hell do you want?” he asked belligerently.

The way Mark responded to me immediately got my hackles up. This man was a weird mixture of scrawny and just plain mean. His hair was neatly combed back and looked slick like he still wore old-fashioned hair oil or something. His angry blue eyes were ice cold. I couldn’t help but notice that one ear was noticeably bigger than the other.

I decided to give him the same energy back. “Why the fuck is your default cursing at me? Did I do something to piss you off in another life?”

He pointed at me with one finger, still holding his bun full of pork barbeque. Some of the filling spilled out onto the counter. “You sassed me when that bitch fired me and took my job.”

My eyebrows flew up as I tried to parse what he just said. “I sassed you? What the fuck does that mean?”

Throwing his bun down onto his plate, he clarified, “It means you didn’t show me respect and threatened to throw me out if I didn’t leave on my own.”

“In other words, I enforced the boundaries your boss was laying down, back when you thought you could do an end run around her and get your way by talking to her old man. Is that about the size of it?”

He shook his head as he wiped his hands on a napkin. “They did me dirty and you were part of it, so don’t sit here and pretend you don’t understand why I’m pissed at your sorry ass.”

“Point taken, I guess. Exactly how pissed are you about this situation?” My question was of course designed to gauge if he was furious enough to seek revenge.

“I was a lot more pissed before I found another job that pays better and is whole fucking lot less stressful.”

“What kind of job is that? I’d sure like one of those myself.” My words were meant to calm him down and dial down the tension.

Mark wasn’t having it though. He snapped back harshly, “It ain’t none of your business, shithead.”

“Here’s the problem, the reason for our visit. Someone broke into the office and tore the place apart.”

He snorted a laugh, picked up his beer, and took a huge drink before responding. “I heard all about that. It’s a real shame and couldn’t have happened to a nicer family.”

My eyes narrowed on this arrogant asshole who took joy in another family’s hardship. “Now, you wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

Going back to looking angry, he growled, “I’ll tell you what I know about that break-in. If the Livingstones didn’t treat people like garbage, folks wouldn’t be dying to mess their shit up.”

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