Page 86 of One In Vermillion

“We are the cavalry.” He reached out and pulled me to my feet and into his arms, holding me tight. “Well, you and me, and Anemone and George and some others.”

I nodded into his shoulder like a bobble head, so glad his arms were around me again. “Good. I like that.” I pressed closer. “We should stay like this for a while. Or always.”

“I told you not to worry,” he said in my ear.

“Yes, that was a great help. Did you find out who ran Jimmy off the road?”

“I found the truck, I think, but there’s no way to prove it. Anybody could have been driving it.”

“Cash,” I said, still holding on to him.

“More likely it was Pete OneTree or one of the Wolves,” he said.

“That he’s even a suspect is bad,” I said. “I think you’re right. He’s crazy.”

“Which is why we stay like this.” His arms tightened around me, and I nodded.

“Yeah, I am now full-in on us spending every minute together from now on.” I pulled back and looked at him. “Because it’s the only way I can be sure you’re not doing some damn fool hero thing and gettingdead.”

“You must be hungry,” he said, and I didn’t know whether to punch him or kiss him.

But I was hungry, so I took him up to the Pink House to see if there were leftovers. I like the Big Chef, but it’s not as easy to defend as the Pink House if a horde of bikers came after him for shooting their boss. This is not the kind of thought I used to have very often. Ever.

But if that’s the price I have to pay to keep Vince Cooper, I’ll think it.

CHAPTER 40

Rain was at the Pink House, even with her being warned off Burney, since Molly was staying there, and I think that’s where she was spending most of her nights anyway. When I told Rain what I needed to do next, she didn’t hesitate, she was in—just like old times—and agreed to go with me to Burney HQ to use the computer there to see if we could enhance the video I’d just taken at River Vista.

We left Liz and Molly safe in the Pink House kitchen around ten making chocolate milkshakes with Amaretto in them. In hindsight, of course, I can see that was a mistake, but at the time, I just thought it was very girly of them.

Rain wasn’t optimistic about the video enhancement, pointing out that my cell phone was old. It worked, which was all I’d ever cared about. I wasn’t big on talking on the phone, or taking pictures, or technology, but apparently that translated to having an old model with a not-so-great camera. Rain chatted phone specs to me during the ride down Factory Road into town after dark, telling me how much better the cameras had gotten in the years since I’d purchased mine. I “uh-huhhed” and said “right” at what seemed the appropriate intervals.

Rain didn’t want to use her laptop, which was top of the line, because she was concerned it would leave an electronic trail and technically Burney was still off-limits to her professionally. I didn’t mind leaving a trail at HQ since Bartlett was chief. Plus, there would be no one there after dark. Any police-related 911 would automatically get forwarded to the on-call officer.

I unlocked the door and we went in. I booted up the computer, put in Bartlett’s password which he’d conveniently written on his blotter, then let Rain go to work. As she predicted, there wasn’t much more detail even enhanced. We might be able to identify one or two of the Wolves at best. And while it looked like drugs, there was no proof.

“Why do you have a big stuffed animal in the back of the Gladiator?” Rain asked me at one point.

“Doing Peri a favor.”

Rain nodded in approval. “Good.”

We worked on it for an hour or so and were ready to call it quits when my cell phone rang. It was George.

“You have a problem,” he said. “Your girls are out joyriding.”

I thought,Our girls?and then realized he meant Liz and Molly.I have a girl,I thought and laughed at the thought of what Liz would say if I started introducing her as my girl.

George went on. “I was with Anemone and didn’t notice at first, but it was too damn quiet. I checked the garage and Liz’s car is gone. And Anemone says Liz bought paint today. Red and yellow.”

“Oh, hell,” I said.

I knew exactly what she was doing.

CHAPTER 41

Iwas so angry with Cash’s enablers who had given him the power to screw up our lives that I wanted to take them all out, Cash most of all.

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