Dan, the police officer who had helped out with Faith's case, had shown up to take statements and make a report. When he heard there was a video, he said to let him know about that personally. He didn't want an official record right now. And then, once all that was done, Berto cornered him to ask about the state of the town's police force.
And me? I was running on pure caffeine. Somehow, I had managed to get both kids awake at a decent time this morning. Zeke didn't have any clothes here, and Darnell had no intention of letting that kid head back down to the cottage on his own. Emily was still passed out upstairs in Berto's room, and none of us wanted to wake her, so Darnell offered to play security. He also stayed down there until the bus showed up and the kids were safely on board.
Now, Darnell was sprawled out across one of the couches, snoring softly. Because Mike asked, I went ahead and brewed him a cup of coffee, and made myself another, then I waited. And I waited some more. Eventually, my phone began to buzz in my pocket with a notice from the gate. Activating the camera, I saw Mike sitting in his truck, so I opened the gate to let him in, then grabbed both coffees and headed out.
We met at the front of the house, just beside where Violet's now-destroyed car was easy to see. Mike backed his truck up next to it, and then hopped out. His eyes immediately ran over the spray-painted message on the driver side door: fag fucker.
"Damn, that is one helluva message," he said as he headed to the bed of his truck. There, he began to unload tools. "Why did they have to fuck up a damned nice car? I mean, can't they mess with…" Mike sat his tools down a little too hard and moved towards the back end of the line of vehicles. "What the hell is that…" He breathed.
Naturally, his eyes were on Billy's car. It was the one parked closest to the house, which hopefully was the reason why it survived. Next to it was my truck, and Vi's car was on the other side. My old truck was parked around behind the barn, out of the way. Cy's bike had a home inside the barn next to the tractor. Berto's car and Darnell's SUV were now parked in the space in front of the barn doors. It wasn't a perfect arrangement, but we had managed to make it work.
"Is that a fucking Maserati?" Mike asked.
"I honestly have no idea," I admitted. "I can tell you that -" I stopped as the front door opened.
Naturally, it was Billy. Thankfully, the man had decided to get dressed at some point this morning. I was pretty sure it was when the cop had arrived. Now, Billy once again looked like a pretty casual guy in his T-shirt and jeans, but there was something a little intimidating about him. From the way Mike stood straighter and backed away from the car, clearly I wasn't the only one who thought so.
"Is he good, Luke?" Billy asked.
"Yeah, this is my old friend, Mike. Mike, that's Billy. He owns the car you were just drooling over."
Mike pointed at it. "You mind if I look through the windows? That looks like this year's Maserati, and I've never seen one up close. I am dying to know what the dash on that thing looks like."
Billy shoved a hand into his pocket. "Here, catch." Then he tossed over the keys. "It's actually last year's model, but I haven't put enough miles on it to consider trading in for a new one. I'm assuming you're the guy that's gonna fix Violet's car?"
"Yes, sir, I am," Mike assured him. "I can probably get that spray-paint off in my shop, give the whole thing a thorough cleaning, change out the tires, then replace the windshield. It's not really that bad, even though it looks like it. I mean, it'll take me a few days to get the right window in, because I don't really keep Audi stuff in stock, but yeah, I'm gonna make that thing as good as new. Gotta take care of my best friend's girlfriend."
"Well, I'm gonna need the oil changed on that thing before I head back home. If you can drive a manual transmission, no reason why you can't use it to do a little running around today, right?" Billy offered.
Mike looked down at the keys in his hand, up to Billy and then back down to the keys as if he couldn't believe what he'd just been told. "Are you serious as shit? You're gonna let me drive your car?" he asked, the words a breath.
"Yeah, and you can get me back for it later. I dunno, help me out with a favor when I need it." And then Billy just turned around and walked right inside.
"Is he serious?" Mike asked me. "I mean, you probably have no idea how much this car cost, but I know, and I'm not gonna make that amount of money in my entire life. This thing is like my own personal wet dream, and he just gave me the keys like it was no big deal? That means it has to be a joke, right? Because, things like this don't happen to guys like me, so this is clearly a joke."
"Mike!" I snapped. "These people are rich as fuck. Just don't forget that when Billy asks you to repay that favor, you had better do it. It's kind of what he does."
Mike pushed the keys into his pocket and turned back around for Violet's car. "Shit, man. I'd do a favor for him anyway. He's one of your friends. I mean, I might give him a little shit about his ride, but only because I'm jealous. If you want to do me a favor and grab the jack, we can get these spares on Violet's car and take care of your girl."
I headed over to the back of Mike's truck and pulled out the jack. He grabbed the first wheel, and the pair of us got to work. Now that it was daylight, looking at the sidewall made the damage very obvious. It looked like someone had shoved a knife in it, which meant patching was out of the question. However, Violet didn't seem like the kind of woman who would worry about things like that.
He pulled off the damaged wheel and put on the good one. Granted, these new wheels did not fit Violet's car at all, but it would be good enough to get us down the road to his garage. When that was done, we moved to the back tire to repeat the process. A few too many times, Mike looked up at the words painted across the side. Just as we were finishing up with the second tire, he finally decided to ask.
"You know who did it?"
I shook my head and helped pile everything into the back of his truck. "We saw three people, but none of us were able to get a look at their faces. Right now, the guys are going through the videos to see if there's any way to identify them."
"What videos?" Mike asked.
I pointed over to the edge of the house. "After someone broke down the gate, they installed a whole new security system. Top-of-the-line stuff, which means little bitty cameras that aren't real obvious. I mean, we got those big ones up by the barn aimed at the front door, but pretty much everything up and down the driveway is covered. So is Emily's cottage down by the front."
"So how do I help?" Mike asked.
All I could do was blow out my breath and flop my hands against my side. "Mike, I honestly have no fucking clue. All we want to do is open this place back up to be a teen rehabilitation center. Is it really that big of a deal that I'm sleeping with a couple of guys? Would someone really do this because Violet is just too pretty? Is Paul Simmons honestly cruel enough to convince someone to do this because he wants to buy some land?"
Mike patted my shoulder a little awkwardly. "Yeah, man. To all of the above, yes. Luke, you know that some of these guys don't put up with shit. Doesn't matter what shit. They ran those Mexicans out of town, and they've been talking about the Black guy up here for months now. You add gays to that? Yeah, they're going to do something stupid, but mostly it's because they're not smart enough to do anything else."
"So what do I do, Mike?"
