“Fuck you,” I said. I didn’t have to explain my actions to him.
He turned on me, anger sizzling around him. “And you’re at the scene of a crime, fucking an escaped murderer.”
“We weren’t fucking, and Reyes didn’t kill his father,” I said, frustration sharpening my voice.
“Not his father. Farley Scanlon.”
I blinked in surprise. “What? You think he killed Farley Scanlon?”
He laughed, the sound harsh as it echoed off the cheap wood paneling. “If the razor-sharp blade fits.”
“Garrett, wait,” I said, running after him as he stalked to his truck.
“We have to get the cops here before he gets too far.” He took out his phone and dialed 911.
“No,” I said, grabbing his phone before he could stop me. I closed it, hoping the call didn’t make it through.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He reached for his phone.
I jerked it back. “Keeping it for a while.” I hurried to Misery and started her up. He followed me and opened the driver’s door before I could lock it.
“Give me the phone,” he said from between clenched teeth. It was not a suggestion. The anger seething inside him had turned his aura to a smoky black. I’d never seen Garrett so furious before.
I held the phone away from him, hovering it over the passenger’s seat, which was stupid, since his reach was almost double mine.
“Charles, I swear—”
Since he couldn’t get past me and the steering wheel to the phone, he clutched on to my arm and literally dragged me out of Misery. I had no choice. I kicked his shin to divert his attention, then threw the phone as hard as I could. Garrett cursed and raised his leg, but oddly, the sound of a watery plop brought us both up short. We stilled and turned to the sound as a cold dread crept up my spine.
I stood there stunned and more than a little surprised by the fact that there was a pond beyond the tall grass and weeds. We both stared a long moment, then slowly, menacingly, Garrett turned to me, his expression hovering between shock and utter rage. Before he could do something we’d both regret, I jumped back into Misery and locked the door. A microsecond later, he pulled the handle hard enough to rock the Jeep. Considering the fact that my windows were made of plastic, I started Misery and tore out of Farley Scanlon’s lot like I had a reason to live. In my rearview, I saw Garrett stand there glowering a good ten seconds before he sprinted to his truck.
I was so dead. I was so amazingly, inarguably dead.
I called Cookie. “Hey, Cook,” I said, my voice light and airy.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. Apparently I was a little too light and airy.
“Well, Reyes held me at knifepoint, but that was just a ruse to get Garrett’s gun away from him, which he did and then proceeded to hold the gun to Garrett’s head point-blank right before he kissed me, then jumped through a freaking window.”
After a long moment, Cookie said, “So, it went well?”
“Damn straight. Garrett’s a little hot under the collar right now, though. I’m giving him time to cool down. Oh, and I stole his phone and threw it into a pond, so don’t bother calling him again.” My voice turned accusative.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just so worried about you. How the heck did Reyes get out there?”
“Who the bloody hell knows? He probably ran. God, that man is fast.”
“My goodness. Garrett on one end and Reyes on the other. It’s like a really hot, melty s’more.”
“Did I mention that Garrett is really pissed?”
“Oh! I just found out that Ingrid Yost’s mother died one month before she did.”
“No way. Who’s Ingrid again?”
“Dr. Yost’s first wife?”
“Right. I knew that. Wait, how did her mother die?”
“Same way she did. Heart attack.”
“That was convenient.” Nathan Yost was turning into quite the serial killer.
“And I talked to your uncle. Are you ready?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“Nathan Yost has property in Pecos.”
“Really?” Score. “That’s the best news I’ve had all day.”
Since I had quite the drive ahead of me, I decided to call my BFF at the FBI.
“Agent Carson,” she said, all sharp and professional sounding.
“Dude, you’re so good at that.”
“Thank you,” she said, suddenly perky.
“Did you know that Dr. Yost might have tried to kill Yolanda Pope’s niece as a way to get revenge on her?”
“No,” she admitted.
“And that he killed Ingrid Yost’s mother one month before he flew to the Cayman Islands and killed her?”
After a moment of thought, she asked, “Can you prove any of that?”
“Not even. But the bodies are racking up. This guy needs to be stopped. Have you found any evidence that Teresa Yost was planning on leaving him before she disappeared?”
“None. According to everyone on the planet, they were the perfect couple.”
“Yeah, didn’t everybody think the same thing about him and his first wife as well, until she fled the country and filed for divorce?”
“Pretty much.”
“She knew she was in danger,” I said. “That’s why she went to the Cayman Islands. To get away from him. Apparently, he has abandonment issues.”
I filled her in on everything Yolanda told me, including the part about her niece and what we’d found out since; then I told her about Yost’s alter ego, his alias Keith Jacoby, before adding, “Again, I can’t actually prove any of that. We should try to get ahold of that forger. He was doing business in Jackson, Mississippi, last we heard.”
“So, this Keith Jacoby was in the Cayman Islands at the same time as the late Mrs. Yost?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, I’ll try to get someone in the Jackson office to have a talk with your forger.”
“Yost also has land in Pecos.”
“Yeah,” she said absently, clicking away on a keyboard, “we had a team check it out. He has a cabin there, but we couldn’t find anything.”
“I’m on my way to interview a biker gang right now. I want to look the property over, just in case, but it may be tomorrow before I get to it.”
“Knock yourself out,” she said, then added, “Wait, you’re joining a biker gang?”
Chapter 19
I am an instrument God uses to annoy people.
With an extremely annoyed Garrett back on my ass, I took the Coal Street exit and steered Misery toward the Bandits’ hangout. The sun hovered low over the horizon, preparing for a good night’s rest, when I pulled to a stop in the front of their house. It sat beside the asylum itself, which was kind of cool, but I’d always wondered how a biker gang went about buying property. Whose name goes on the mortgage? A handful of leather-clad bikers sat on the front porch. A few more tinkered with their bikes in the dusky light. Loud music leached outside the cracks in the walls, of which there were many. Bikers were probably really hard on dwellings. Either that or this really was a crack house.
I’d never seen so many bikers there at one time before. Donovan must have called them in for the witch hunt.
“You’re late,” one of them said from a shadowy porch. I couldn’t tell who was talking to me, but every man there stopped what he was doing and turned toward me.
I pulled my jacket tight and stepped closer until I spotted Donovan. He sat leaning back in a lawn chair on the porch, his booted foot on the railing, a beer in hand.
“How is she?” I asked, stepping past several unsavory-looking fellows, my very favorite kind. They were probably all sweethearts deep down inside.
The prince was there. He braced an arm on the railing as I tried to get past and spent a very long minute checking out the girls.