Page 37 of Longest Ride

Sometimes the killer will inject himself into the investigation.

Billy remembered reading that somewhere.

Sunburst Acres Trailer Park.

Billy sent me and Virge back to the trailer park to do a door-to-door for what the neighbors saw. I remembered Dad saying we wouldn’t get anything, but Billy was a little more by-the-book than Travis, so we were doing it his way.

An hour of door knocking and all we got was sore knuckles and no answers, just like Dad said. We were nearly done when Billy called my cell.

“Tim Perkins called and gave me a lead.”

“Oh yeah? Who does he think capped his brother?”

“Guy named Twig. Meet me at this address. Might be a drug depot with a lot of hands on deck.”

“Yeah, we’re about finished here.”

“Get anything?”

“Nope.”

“What’s Billy say’n?” asked Virge.

“Meet him at this address. Punch it in and I’ll drive us up to Sweetgrass.”

“Getting close to the border again, bro. Don’t like the feel of it.”

“Why’s the border making you antsy, bro?”

Virge sucked in a gulp of oxygen. “Reminds me of Tammy going nuts and leaving us, is all.”

Sweetgrass. Montana.

It was farther for Billy and Ted coming from the station than it was for me and Virge. We got to the address first and parked across the street to wait for Billy. He wouldn’t be happy if we rushed in ahead of him and got ourselves good’n dead.

The house was an old two-story brick with a couple of windows covered in plywood. Kind of reminded me of the crack house where I first saw Virge. This one was in a little better shape—still had doors and windows.

Billy pulled up behind us about ten minutes later. I butted out my smoke and unsnapped my holster and I was ready to go.

Virge watched me unsnap my gun and got his ready too. He wasn’t supposed to have a gun, but Travis let Virge do all kinds of things he never let me do at sixteen. Huh. Seemed like Dad was training Virge for some kind of special task force, but they never talked about it to me.

Billy motioned for us to come with, and while he went to the front door, we ran around to the back of the house and checked for a back way in. Virgie tried the door, and it squeaked open. Let us into a dark room stinking of trash and dog shit.

“Reeks in here,” whispered Virge.

“We’ll go halfway in and listen for Billy. See if he’s got it under control.”

Virge nodded and we sneaked along a back hallway trying to hear the chatter from the front room.

“Everybody down on your knees. Hands behind your heads. Do it now.” Billy hollered.

That’s when me and Virge started running. We sprinted through a dirty kitchen and sent two cats flying away from a bag of garbage they were chewing on.

Ted had his knee in the back of one guy while cuffing his hands. Billy saw us run in and pointed to the other three on the floor. Me and Virge took one each and cuffed them.

We were almost in control of the scene when a big guy about six four pounded down the stairs with a gun in his hand.

“What the fuck is going on in my house?” he hollered. Deep voice. Red in the face and red hair flying. He raised his gun at Billy and before I could aim, Virgie shot him in the knee and the big fucker fell down the last three stairs and crashed on the floor right in front of me. His gun skittered out of his hand and Billy grabbed it up.

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