“He was shot while conducting club business earlier this afternoon.”
With the words, conducting club business, it was Crockett’s way of saying she’d never know what happened, and she better not ask.
Holy shit.Poor Oliver.He was going to be so heartbroken.How was she going to tell him that his father had died and was never coming home again?She succeeded in pulling one of her hands free and ran it through her hair, trying not to freak the hell out.Oliver!Where was Oliver?She shot to her feet so fast, Crockett lost his grip on her other hand.Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was nearly five o’clock.School dismissed at three o’clock, and if no one picked him up by 3:30, the school would have called Breaker.If they couldn’t reach him, they would have called her.
“Oliver.Oh, my God.I’ve got to go find Oliver.”She turned to leave, only to come up short when Crockett grabbed her arm.
“Calm down, sweetness.”
“No.I can’t.”She was so caught up in panic, worrying about her nephew, she missed the hard glint in Crockett’s eyes, signaling she needed to tread more carefully.“Why didn’t the school call me when Breaker didn’t pick him up?I’ve got to go find him.”She tried to leave again.Crockett tightened his grip on her arm and shook her hard.
“Listen to me!”He growled in her face.
Despite how worried she was for her nephew, she wasn’t so far gone that she didn’t see the mean look in Crockett’s eye or the way he bared his teeth.
“We have Oliver.”
“What?!How did you manage to pick him up?”She was no longer panicked or scared.She was pissed.
“Nickle’s wife posed as his mother and picked him up.”
“What?She’s not on the parent pick-up list.”
“It doesn’t matter how she did it.It’s done, and we have him at the clubhouse.”
“When do I get him back?”Her tone was deceptively calm.
“Breaker owed the club money.When we didn’t find it in his room at the clubhouse, we had to come here to search.Do you have any idea where he would have kept it?We know he spent the night here a few times a week.”
“I don’t know,” she responded.He was lying.Any money her brother made, he put in the bank.Some he gave to her to help provide for his son, and the rest he wanted to save to buy a new car to transport Oliver safely without having to borrow her car and leaving her stranded.
“Found it.”One of the brothers was coming in through the door leading to the garage, waving a stack of money.Where did that come from?
“Where’d you find it, Tuff?”
“Hidden in the Christmas tree box.”Smiling widely, he handed it over to the PFMC president.
Crockett looked at her like she should have known it was there.
“I had no idea.He doesn’t tell me everything.”Now that they had their money, maybe they would leave, and she could get Oliver back.“Can I have Oliver now?”
“Sure, I’ll have Nickle bring him back.”
She knew she was pushing it, but she asked, “Can you text him now, please?I have to fix him dinner.”Hopefully, she still had a few dishes that weren’t broken.On second thought, maybe she’d take him to a hotel tonight as a treat, and she’d take off tomorrow to clean up this mess while he was at school?No, she couldn’t do that.She still had to tell him about his dad.Goddamn Crockett for putting her in this situation, and goddamn him for getting her brother killed.
“I really don’t like your tone.How did Breaker put up with you?”Crockett pulled his phone out and texted Nickle to bring her nephew back.After that, they’d cleared out and left her alone, standing in the middle of the mess.
She wasn't sure where to start cleaning this mess, but she had to try to get as much done as possible before her nephew got home.Seeing his room hadn't been spared, she started there.Some of his toys were broken like they’d been stepped on, and his books flung about the room.His bed had been torn apart, but not cut into, so she counted that as a blessing as she made the bed with clean sheets.The thought of any of those disgusting pigs touching his things pissed her off.
Stepping into her room, she wasn't surprised by the mess they'd left behind.Like with Oliver's bed, she stripped off her sheets and replaced them with clean ones.Instead of putting her clothes back where they belonged, she just gathered them all up, along with the sheets, and took them to the laundry room to start a load of laundry.
She was just starting to straighten the living room whenOliver got home.He came in, took a look around, and asked what had happened.After flipping the cut-up cushions over, she sat him on the couch and explained that they'd had a break-in.Then she had the heartbreaking task of having to tell him that his dad had been killed and wouldn’t be coming home.They’d held each other and cried for what felt like forever.It was the saddest day of her life.
She should have known Crockett wasn’t done with her even after they found the money in her garage.He came back wanting the money from whatever life insurance policy he had.Again, he threatened to take Oliver away.He’d proven they were able to get to her nephew at any time, so after the funeral costs were deducted, she turned that money over, too.She’d had enough presence of mind to transfer all of the money from his bank account to hers.There had been $23,315.She took $20,000 and left the rest because she knew Crockett would come looking, and it was better for him to find a little than none at all.
She didn’t know what woke her from a fitful sleep, but her headache was gone, and it was time to get up.She needed to find a new job.“And thank you so much for that, Jed,” she mumbled as she sat down at her computer and crossed her fingers.
* * *
