100 Proof Stud (The Darcy Walker Series) (25 page)

Today he came dressed as (wait for it…wait for it) an encyclopedia salesman. Suit, tie, and shiny black shoes a little too tight. Alias of Herb Ferrari. I nearly choked on my caramel latte because I wasn’t sure encyclopedia salesman existed anymore with the Internet. That being said, Vinnie (excuse me, I mean
Herb
), successfully granted us entrance into the abodes of all five people that’d been tardy. Did I smell anything nefarious on any of them? Not a doggone, stinking thing. One was a band geek; the other smelled like a tweaker too brain-dead to construct a sentence; the third was in the Honor’s Program and a goody-goody; and the final two actually dated one another (tardy because they’d been caught in the early stages of the horizontal mambo in the parking lot). Yes, I pulled that detail out of the girl by shooting the breeze as Vinnie presented encyclopedias to her parents. Then she told me what constituted the mambo, and I honest to God, didn’t understand it.

Anyway, that left us cramming in the last of the detention list before I went into work. We’d already hit four residences because they were close—none were home—and immediately took off for the address listed for Brantley McCoy.

On the drive there, I told Vinnie about Nico Drake—evidently, the story didn’t end with him being expelled. Nico left me a voicemail last night. He never apologized (red flag) but claimed he knew what I’d been doing and might have information I’d find useful (red flag, number two). First off, I was doing two things: Coach’s car and The Ghost. I replayed the message multiple times, looking for clues, but any way you turned this Rubik’s cube, the situation remained a jumble. Nico Drake, point blank, ambushed me from behind.

Buuuuuuut…

If he had something beneficial, then I’d be a fool to not listen.

Vinnie volunteered to visit him personally to gather the intel—he didn’t have a good look on his face when he offered—but it was either Vinnie or Dylan. Vinnie was hardcore; Dylan was straight up horror show.

Um, I’d take Vinnie.

Vinnie swung a right into a new neighborhood called Calypso Cove. Calypso Cove was in the BFE section of Valley and only a year old. Still under construction, homes in the suburb were one of five modern styles with a single tree in front, landscaping along the front edge of your home, and two bushes in the backyard.

Brantley McCoy lived at 9139 Calypso Cove Drive. My mind swirled with frustration at the mere mention of his name. Who was he? And why wasn’t he on Valley’s radar? He hadn’t appeared in the yearbook, and when I randomly polled Valley’s grapevine, no one even recognized the name.

Vinnie pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine, downing a Red Bull and crumpling the silver can. Tossing it in the backseat, he whipped a moon pie out of his blazer and ripped off a big bite. Vinnie needed to be careful of the extra calories because although football season had ended, if he continued to eat his way through snack cakes, he’d never make the weigh-in for next year.

As per all the other stops, he made me endure a quick sound bite regarding his current girlfriend, Donatella Ricci. I’d never heard of nor met Donatella, but Vinnie remained convinced she was the “love of his life.” Only time would tell because he was a notorious skirt chaser. When he finished talking about her “rockin’ bod and nice rack,” (Gah! No matter how you spun it, that never sounded respectful), I exited the car behind him, straightening the only dress I owned. It was a two-year-old long-sleeved black jersey—so short it rode up to the hoochie zone when I took a step. Couple that with black tights and leather spiky boots, and I looked like the bimbo of the encyclopedia world.

“You’re going to get fatter, Vinnie.”

“I overeat as therapy,” he answered. “Therapy,” I repeated laughing.

“It helps me suppress a past too painful to acknowledge.”

Here-here to that.

Vinnie’s pink Bug came equipped with black plastic eyes lashes on the headlights. When I exited my side, one of its lashes fluttered in the wind. Up and down. Up and down. I pushed it back into place, briefly wondering if I’d poked it in the eye.

A leather satchel in one hand, Vinnie strode out of the car, his beefy hand palming the half eaten moon pie in the other. I ripped the pie from his grasp, throwing it to the ground with a stomp. My foot twisted into the plastic and white marshmallow oozed out the sides.

“Tell me you just didn’t do that!” he roared, his eyes gone wide.

I found it a waste of breath to verify what he knew to be true.

Vinnie dropped to his knees—a miraculous feat, considering I would’ve guessed it anatomically impossible—and talked to it like you would a dying man. His plumber’s crack greeted me with about three inches. I giggled, “I see London, I see France.”

“Shut up, Dolce,” he grunted. “Donatella can’t keep her hands off my glutes.”

Let’s hope Donatella used hand sanitizer.

Standing up toting a smashed pie with no hopes of resuscitation, he threw his hands up in the air, frustrated. “I’m eating because I’ve got good news.
100 Proof Stud
was picked up for distribution, and there’s a spin-off. The spin-off is called
Fat Men from Venus
,” he said proudly. “I’m eating because I’m a method actor. I get into my characters by actually becoming them.”

I burst out laughing, bending over to grab some oxygen. They’d need one heckuva CGI department to morph Vinnie’s body into stud material. Mid-laugh, a troubling thought hit the smart part of my brain. I grabbed his forearm. “Is this like, um…er—adult entertainment, V?” Oh, God, please tell me Vinnie was smart enough to not become a…how do I phrase this?

I couldn’t even say the words in my mind.

Vinnie shoved the smashed pie in his pocket. “Sure it is, Dolce. Everybody loves a good love story.” I wasn’t sure what he’d admitted but put the thought on the backburner.

“How’s our boy?” Vinnie asked me as he rang the doorbell. My sigh could’ve been heard in Timbuktu. I desperately needed a friend’s advice regarding Dylan, but the friend I’d normally go to was the person asking me to date him. Vinnie would be the perfect candidate for an unbiased opinion, but it made me feel disloyal to Dylan. See, this wasn’t good all the way around. I’d be flying solo, screwing up unencumbered, with no sounding board anywhere.

“He’s good.” I shoved my pinky nail in my mouth and ripped off the tip.

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You always chew your pinky nail when things aren’t right between the two of you.” I didn’t give him jack. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Yes! No! Maybe? “I dunno,” I sort of shrugged. Heck, I didn’t know how to answer anyway.

Vinnie punched the rectangular doorbell again.

Then again.

And again.

The black front door was ajar by about an inch. Vinnie yelled, “Hello!” then creaked the door wide with his foot. Just went right in—not even waiting for an invitation. This qualified as a maverick move—and felt freaking nuts—but I didn’t care, and God knew Vinnie’s conscience was harder to find than mine.

The front room looked like your normal home: modest blue fabric sofa, two chairs, flatscreen TV, a bookshelf on the back wall behind the TV, and a multi-colored oriental rug in the middle of a scratched hardwood floor. Beside one of the end tables was a bowl of uneaten popcorn in a gold plastic bowl. Vinnie plunged his hand inside and ate the crap out of their popcorn, flipping through his texts while I snooped down the hall.

Two bedrooms were adjacent to the restroom. I popped inside the first one and knew instantly I’d hit the nerve center. Half a dozen laptops and desktop computers were fired up, all idling on Google. A white box sat on top of the desk containing several Visas and MasterCards, social security cards, and even King’s Island season passes. Thing was, no name had been assigned to any of them. They simply waited there for someone to stamp a name on the front and hand out to their new owners.

I sucked in a breath.

Brantley McCoy had some major secrets that needed to remain underground.

I squeaked open the door to the adjacent bedroom and was met with an empty twin bed. A rumpled white sheet draped the bed, no comforter. Pivoting around, I did a quick scan of the gray carpet, found nothing overly suspicious or weird, so moved onto the closet.

By that time, Vinnie nipped at my heels. “I’m getting a funny feeling, Dolce. We need to roll.”

My thoughts exactly. But when I stepped inside the walk-in closet, no way in the world would I ever have been prepared for what I’d find. There’s an idiom about skeletons in your closet. Trouble was, the skeleton I’d discovered still had meat on it.

“Vinnie,” I whispered, “there’s a skeleton in the closet.”

Vinnie munched on his moon pie behind me; I heard the crinkle of the wrapper. “Ha-ha, Dolce. Is this some metaphorical test I’m supposed to decipher?”

“No, like a
real
skeleton that I think is a man.”

Vinnie took one step inside and dropped the f-bomb. Then added mommy-effer.

“Do you smell that?” I asked.

Vinnie’s inhale was audible. “Yeah, smells like O-positive to me.” Loosely rolled in a faded navy comforter were the remains of a man. He lay facedown with a small patch of flesh and short black hair still clinging to his head. This wasn’t the only dead body I’d encountered, and neither was the body of a man I’d found in a dumpster last spring. I, eh, well…I found a head…buried in the sand on vacation in Orlando. I had a habit of stumbling upon dead bodies and/or body parts. Something the majority of people could go a lifetime and not have happen once, I’d experienced one too many times to count. The smell wasn’t as bad as bodies that’d recently expired, but it smelled like death, nonetheless. Death has a peculiar smell you never forget. Covering my nose with my hand, I lifted the tip of my boot and kicked the blanket back, starting at the naked feet. Black boxers framed femurs that barely had any flesh left, and a plain white t-shirt adorned the crumpled torso. A vintage concert t-shirt from The Minstrel Cramps, a local all-girl band popular back in the day, lay beside the corpse’s head.

A memory played in the back of my mind I immediately tried to erase.

A memory that’d haunted me since I was nine years old.

I couldn’t do this…not again…
noooooo
…this particular scene was too raw and familiar. If I didn’t get out of here soon, I’d flip the freak out, and I wasn’t sure Vinnie could screw my head back on.

I quickly turned, braced both hands on my knees, and dry-heaved three times. Bile scorched my throat, and I struggled unsuccessfully to swallow it back down. Spitting into a handkerchief Vinnie shoved over my mouth, I sucked air through my nose, trying to find calm.

Vinnie laid a gentle hand on my back. “Breathe, Dolce, breathe,” he coaxed. Stumbling to the bathroom, I worshiped at the porcelain throne and still couldn’t rid myself of the nausea. I ultimately gave into biology and used the commode in a half-stand, half-sit position. Do you know how hard it is to pee this way, praying you don’t leave any fingerprints or DNA behind?

Inhaling deeply, I found my calm, realizing Vinnie and I needed to leave ASAP and phone the authorities. Those plans hit an iceberg because once I joined Vinnie in the front room, I heard a
Pfffft
. Then another. I was a little slow on the uptake but soon realized the
Pfffft
was the sound of something striking the couch. Yellowed batting exploded out of a bullet hole in a puff of white smoke.

Call me a genius, but I didn’t consider this good.

“Down!” Vinnie roared, launching himself toward me.

Unfortunately, my legs went moron and glued to the floor. For a moment, I had a flashback of running from a shooter last spring. They say lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place…evidently, it does. My legs felt like rubber, and the room went to a dizzying whirl. Tears welled in my eyes, but I commanded them to dry up. You couldn’t think rationally when you cried. Emotions ruled. I didn’t make the rule; someone else did. Problem was, my tear ducts didn’t comply. I boo-hoo’d like a little girl.

Vinnie heaved us both off the floor, pitching me his keys I caught in one hand.

“Oh, God, Vinnie,” I breathed, adrenaline nearly slicing me in two. This was like a
Scarface
shootout, only we didn’t have a gun.

Vinnie’s eyes glowed black and angry, but he took time to tenderly touch my cheek in an order. “Snap out of it, Dolce. Go. Out the back. I’ll follow.”

I still couldn’t move.

When Vinnie whipped off his jacket to do God-knew-what, voices boomed outside as three more gunshots landed on the hardwood floor. The wood splintered into pieces, sawdust pooling like an ant mound. When a sixth shot hit near my feet, I lost my balance and cartwheeled across the floor, landing on my knees. Vinnie snatched me up and shoved me in front of him, clutching my back to his front, acting as a human shield. Praying vehemently he didn’t get struck in the mayhem of gunfire, I still was worthless while he kicked out the window and tossed me onto the ground. I landed on all fours, my hands hitting the gravelly dirt of a backyard in need of upkeep. My tights split at the knees, and the air left my body on a hiss. I crawled in an uncoordinated manner like a baby intent on learning a new method of transportation. My eyes blinded with tears, and when I made it around the air conditioning unit, my hands hit something thick and mucousy.

Pulling my shaking hand to my eyes, I recognized the red, viscous fluid immediately…blood. Blood that’d partly dried and led me to the body of…oh, God help me…help me…Nico Drake.