“Not anymore?”
“No, he lives here, but he stopped selling to Benny when he stopped being able to come up with the cash.”
“Can you hand me my gun, please?” he asked evenly. If there was a possibility that Benny had somehow made it to the dealer…yeah.
Charlie opened the glove box and took out the gun in a way that suggested she was used to handling them now. A big part of Quinn hated that so, so much.
She put the gun on her lap. “You’ll get it once we stop.”
“Okay.”
“It’s in the back road near the mountain,” she said. “Near where Brody tried to grow his own weed.”
They both smiled at the memory. That had been an unmitigated disaster. At least Aaron’s dad had been—no, Quinn couldn’t think of Sheriff Larsen right then.
“What’s he like?” he asked instead as he concentrated on avoiding most of the potholes in the old dirt road.
Charlie chuckled. “Stubborn. Incredibly kind. Brave. Too old for his years.” She glanced at him and then back to the road. “He likes Marvel more than DC and will fight you if you disagree. He gives some of his allowance to his grandpa even though he knows Benny will just buy drugs with it. Lennox says it’s because he doesn’t want his grandpa in pain.”
Quinn could relate. To the pain, that was. Withdrawals sucked.
“I just got out of rehab couple of weeks ago.”
She turned to look at him sharply. “What for?”
“Coke mostly. I did ninety days and I’m sober. I don’t even drink and I don’t smoke weed.”
“Ninety days? That takes funding. How did you manage that?” Her tone was more curious than anything.
She wasn’t wrong. “That’s a longer discussion, we should have a talk—” He slammed on the brakes and his right arm shot out to protect Charlie even though she had her seatbelt on.
“What the fu—oh shit!” She handed the gun to him and was out of the car before he could move.
He could see what had to be the dealer’s trailer in the distance. There were at least two angry-looking dogs barking at the very end of their chains. Benny Kyle hadn’t made it there, he’d collapsed at the last bend of the road, and Quinn had almost driven over his stick-like legs that pointed out from the brushes.
He left his gun on his seat and went to grab a blanket from the trunk. When he made it to Charlie and Benny, he grimaced at the state of the man.
Benny was barely fifty, but he looked eighty.
“He’s alive,” Charlie said, and glanced at Quinn. There was an unsaid “for now” that passed between them.
He handed the blanket to Charlie and she spread it nearby. Benny weighed next to nothing when Quinn lifted him onto the blanket. He watched Charlie wrap it around the frail, used-up, barely dressed form, and then picked the bundle up.
They got Benny into the car and Quinn made a U-turn next to the closest dog.
“Where to?” he asked.
“His place.”
No hospitals for Benny. Quinn understood. Benny would just walk out when he woke up. He was alive for now, and whatever shit was in his system had clearly protected him from the worst.
Once they were on Main Street again and headed for yet another trailer park, Charlie looked at him.
“Did you know that Aaron is in town?”
Quinn nearly swerved off the road. “W-what?”
“Aaron is in town. I went to check up on him. He’s at their old house.” She glanced at Benny in the back seat, probably to see if he was stirring in the oppressive heat of the car. When she turned back, she added, “I didn’t tell him about Lennox.”
