Page 6 of Secret Squirrel

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“I don’t want to go to work today,” Bowie whined, tossing an arm over his head.

“I didn’t tell you to stay up all night drinking.”

“No, but you shoved the drinks in my hand,” he grumbled.

I tossed a pillow at him. “Stay in bed. No one said you had to go to work the day after you got out.”

“I would if you had bothered to give me a bed,” he said in a muffled voice under the pillow.

“Hey, you passed out on my couch. What did you want me to do? Carry you in there like Cinderella?”

He groaned, pushing the pillow off his face. “I’m pretty sure her fairy godmother never got her wasted.”

I grabbed his arm and hauled him off the couch. “Don’t throw up in the bed or on the floor. I’m not cleaning it up. And I’m not dragging my ass home from work to hold your hair back.”

“I don’t have any fucking hair,” he grumbled as he stumbled down the hallway with me.

“Sleep it off and have dinner ready for me when I get home.”

“Yes, dear,” he sighed as I pushed him through the door to the guest room. Dust floated in the air from lack of use, but he didn’t give a fuck as he sloughed across the floor and face planted in bed. I shook my head, closing the door behind me.

I desperately wanted to go climb into my own bed, but work was calling, and if I didn’t get in soon, I would have to stay later. First, I needed a shower. But before I could head that way, my phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Hey, is this Duke?”

“Yeah.”

“Duke, it’s Cash Owens.”

“Hey, man. How’s it going?”

“Not bad. Are you busy?”

I looked longingly at my bedroom and sighed. “Not really. What’s up?”

“Can you come to my office? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

I rubbed at my eyes, tired as hell, but was curious as to what this was about. “Um…yeah. Give me fifteen minutes.”

“Good. See you then.”

I tore off my clothes and hopped in the shower for all of two minutes, just long enough to wash off and wake the fuck up. Cold showers were good for that, even if they did put me in a shitty mood. I was pretty sure I had some coke in the fridge, which would have to do to get my ass moving. After swiping one, I locked the door and took off in my truck.

There were rumors about the new guys in town. They’d been here long enough to raise suspicion, mostly because there were so many of them, and they all seemed to work out of that building on the edge of town. But there was something else there that not many people knew about. An old missile silo was abandoned in the exact location where the building was. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

I’d done my own research on Cash after I met him. The man was former military, a sniper. Until last year, he ran a security company out of California that burned to the ground. According to his website, they were rebuilding the site. Yet, he was here with a bunch of retired military guys. There was no way that was a coincidence.

I pulled into the lot of the small building and chuckled to myself. He might have everyone else fooled, but I wasn’t buying that the office was just an office. I shut off the truck and got out, checking out the surrounding property. There was a house in the distance, an old mansion that hadn’t been used in a long time. And wouldn’t you know it, there were a shitload of vehicles parked outside it.

I pulled the door open and nodded to the woman behind the counter. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Cash.”

“You must be Duke,” the woman said, picking up the phone.

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