Page 56 of Ava
CHAPTER22
Justin pulledhis truck into the driveway to the Flying E ranch, and slowed down the closer he came to the house. Before he parked, he looked at Ava with a gigantic grin on his face, and pointed. “That’s Dad’s truck. They made it.”
“I’m glad.” Ava didn’t know what else to say. “Are you going out to the barn where the cookers are?”
“I’m going to go inside first to see if they’re there, then I’ll go out to the barn.” He parked, and hurried over to help her from the truck. With his hand on the small of her back, they made their way to the back door, and into the mud room. After kicking off their shoes, they entered, and Ava stopped short at all the women in the kitchen. She recognized Dolly, Morgan, Peggy, and April, but not the other two women. It was Morgan who looked up and grinned.
“Hey, you’re back. How did it go?”
“Good and bad. Can we go to the office?”
“Sure, Justin you come too.” Morgan indicated for him to follow, but she had to wait when Justin hurried forward and took one of the women Ava didn’t recognize in his arms, hugged her, then picked her up and twirled her around. After kissing both of her cheeks, he set her down. He looked around, went over to Ava, gripped her hand, and brought her forward.
“Mom, this is Ava. Ava, Mom.”
“Hi,” Mom said, laughing. “But, you can call me Dottie.”
“Hi Dottie, I’m Ava Hanson.” They shook hands, then Ava held up her hand. “Sorry, but we have some business to do.”
“Go.” Dottie laughed and shooed them away.
They followed Morgan down the hall, and the first thing she did was hold out her hand. At their confused look, she sighed. “Guns. It’ll be better to lock them up here in the gun safe.”
“Oh,” they said, then lifted their pant legs and handed them over. Morgan looked at Justin, and said. “You can go now.”
“Thanks.” On his way out, he heard Morgan tell Ava to remove her shirt, and when he paused, Morgan yelled at him to close the door on his way out. He grinned as he did as told.
“Really, how did everything go?” Morgan asked as she began unhooking the wires the officer had attached hours earlier.
“Good, the DA’s assistant called us in, told us how to plead, but when we went in front of the judge, he started yelling at the DA.”
“About?” Morgan paused to frown at her.
“He said that I should have had three weeks before I was to appear, and that the ticket was incomplete. No place to mail it in, or to mark my plea.”
“What did the DA say?” She put the stuff on the desk, then had her redress, before she removed the camera from her button. With everything removed, Morgan opened a wall safe, put the guns and video equipment inside, then closed it.
“What’s that grin for?”
“The DA said I was a flight risk, because the address on my license said I was from out of state. The judge then told the DA that the ticket wasn’t complete, because that other information wasn’t on it. He threw it out.”
“Good for you, but what else happened?”
“When we arrived, Tanner and several of his cronies, I guess you could call them that. I think they were going to try to intimidate me, but Justin was there, and as soon as they saw we were together, they backed off.”
“Together how?”
“Just holding hands. But, when the ticket was tossed out, before we went back outside, Justin said he had his eyes on his truck almost the entire time. Did you know the BCI was going to issue Justin a permit to carry concealed?”
“No, did they?”
“Yes, when we were at Tom’s office. He showed us on the map where he would be when we got out, not in that county, about twenty minutes heading this way. We stopped and told him what happened. He pulled some equipment from the trunk of his car to go over Justin’s truck.”
“Did he find anything?”
“Yes, three tracking devices in the undercarriage, and though the truck was locked, there were two on the inside.”
“Shit,” Morgan said, and leaned her hips against the desk behind her. “Where is this Carl from? I’m assuming he took the devices?”
