Death, Taxes, and Cheap Sunglasses (A Tara Holloway Novel Book 8) (31 page)

Whuh???

The boy was less civilized. “You’re a pussy, Bellmead!” He followed his declaration with a hooting laugh and a sloshing swig of punch that left three red drip stains on his toga.

Josh glanced up at me, his brows angling inward when he noticed my unusual curves. I reached into my toga and pulled out the cups, tossing them aside onto a pile of damp, musty-smelling towels. He angled his head to indicate the desk. I stepped over the laundry and garbage, peeled a sticky burrito wrapper from the bottom of my sneaker, and took a closer look.

In a haphazard pile on the desk lay response e-mails from some of the thief’s victims and potential victims. One of the responses said
Screw you and the horse you rode in on, cyberscum!
That person had obviously recognized the e-mail for what it was, an attempt to scam him out of his personal financial data.

The response we’d sent under the guise of Thelma Pucketts lay on top, the withdrawal slip, torn in two, next to it. A mop head perched on top of a basketball on a chair next to the desk.

My heart beat faster than the techno bass.

We’ve found our guy.

Now all we had to do was take him in.

Given his drunken state, corralling him could prove either much easier or much more difficult than usual. A drunk might give in, too sloshed to put up resistance. On the other hand, drunk people could sometimes become belligerent. With any luck he’d be the former type. After the chase at the library today, I wasn’t up for another prolonged arrest.

I flopped down on the bed next to Kira and softly asked, “How’d you and Josh end up here?”

She kept her eyes on the screen as she replied under her breath. “Josh noticed this guy had an Alexstrasza tattoo.”

“A
what
?”

“An Alexstrasza tattoo.” She kicked her legs casually in the air behind her. “She’s a character from World of Warcraft. The Life-Binder. She’s one of Josh’s favorites, too. I pretend to be her sometimes when we—”

My palm shot up, stopping her before she gave me a visual my mind wouldn’t be able to erase. “I get it. You two are into role-play.”

“Right. Anyway, Josh told this guy he liked his tatt and the guy challenged him to a game. So here we are.”

“What’s the kid’s name?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what his real name is, but his character name is Lieutenant Longwiener.”

Classy. Mature, too. This kid was sure to go places.

I let myself relax for a moment. This party plan had worked out perfectly. No search warrant was required if law enforcement working undercover was invited in by a suspect. The deception didn’t matter. Anything we collected here tonight would be admissible in court. This frat rat was going down. Heck, he’d practically served himself up on a silver platter. The deceiver was now the deceived.

Neener-neener.

“What’s your name?” I asked the boy.

“Chase,” he said.

“Chase what?” I asked.

“Chase Burkhalter. Why?”

I shrugged. “No reason. Just curious.”
Just curious, my ass.
I liked to know the names of the targets I took down.

I stood and pulled out my phone to snap some photos of the evidence before we collected it. First, I took a snapshot of the entire room from the doorway. Next, I photographed the withdrawal slip on the desk. Lastly, I took a pic of the stack of e-mails from victims. I slid the phone back into my pocket and retrieved my cuffs from the belt I wore under my toga. I put them behind my back when the guy glanced up at me.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Why were you taking pictures of my stuff? That’s so not cool.”

“No reason,” I said, slowly, carefully approaching my prey.

“There’s gotta be a reason,” the guy spat, his brow furrowed, clearly angry now. He rocked forward in the chair to stand, nearly falling sideways as he tried to get to his feet. That trash can punch sure could do a number on a person’s equilibrium.

I decided to strike while he was off balance and at a disadvantage. Grabbing his left arm, I clicked the cuff in place on his wrist. Click.

“What the fuck?” he hollered. “That’s so not cool!”

“I’m not trying to be cool,” I snapped. “I’m trying to cuff you.”

As I attempted to take hold of his other arm, he swung it into the air over his head and waved it all around, keeping it out of my reach as I grabbed at it.

“We’re federal agents,” I snapped. “You’re under arrest for your e-mail scam. Give me your arm.
Now.
”

“No way!” He continued to wave the arm, bending this way and that randomly to make my attempts to catch it even more difficult.

“C’mon, kid,” I said. “Quit being an ass. You’ll only add resisting arrest to your charges.”

He continued waving his arm around.

“Little help?” I said to Josh, who had continued to play the video game.

Josh rocked back and forth a couple of times until he could leverage himself out of the beanbag chair. Once he was on his feet, he jumped as high as he could, trying to grab the kid’s arm, but had no better luck than I had. Kira stood on the bed, knees bent for better balance, and attempted to assist us. Despite her long arms, she had no luck, either. This kid was the king of evasive maneuvers. He must’ve been great at dodge ball back in grade school.

As I held on to his cuffed arm, Chase began kicking out at us while moving toward the door to his bedroom, probably to attempt an escape. After the escapade at the library today, I was in no mood for another chase, especially one in which I’d be chasing someone named Chase. It would be too ironic. Besides, trying to catch this boy if he managed to get out into the thick crowd would be difficult and dangerous.

What to do?

I realized that, though I might not be able to get the second cuff on this jerk, I could put it on myself.
Let’s see the turd try to run when he’s got a federal agent shackled to him.

“Fine,” I said. “You won’t give us your arm? We don’t need it anyway.” I clicked the cuff onto my wrist and held up my hand, his shackled arm raising with it as if I were some type of puppet master. “Try to get away now, jackass.”

My words had been intended as bluster, not an actual suggestion. Chase, however, seemed to take them as a challenge. With his free right arm, he swept Josh aside and took off running, dragging me along with him, the puppet master now the puppet, like Pinocchio in reverse.

Chase yanked me out through his bedroom door and began pulling me down the hall after him. He ran to the railing that looked down three stories to the open foyer and grabbed it with both hands.
Dear God! Is he going to jump over the banister and take me with him?

“Narcs!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Narcs!”

The cry was picked up by kids on the second floor. “Narcs!”

The students on the first floor took up the battle cry. “Narcs! Narcs!”

The house exploded in noise. Girls shrieked. Boys hollered. Warning whistles blew.
Tweet-tweet-tweeeeet! Tweet-tweet-tweeeeet!
The music ended abruptly as someone pulled the plug on the stereo.

“Narcs!” Chase yelled again. “Narcs!”

Red solo cups hit the floor with rapid-fire
thunk-thunk-thunks
followed by wet
splish-splish-splishes
as kids fled in every direction, colliding into each other as they slipped and slid on the punch-drenched floor.

I grabbed at the railing with my free hand as Chase started down the stairs, but my grip was no match for his momentum. My shoulder wrenched as he yanked me after him, and my purse, which contained my gun, badge, and cell phone, dropped to the floor out of my reach. As Chase rushed down the steps, I leaned back, hoping my weight would slow him down. Unfortunately, the motion only managed to trip me up, landing me on my ass. Chase dragged me backward down the stairs, my butt thumping hard down each step—
bump-bump-bump!
—as I tried futilely to get back to my feet. Josh and Kira rushed after us but were a half flight behind.

The cries of “Narc! Narc!” continued as Chase dragged me down both flights, bruising my butt and—
OW!
—quite possibly breaking my tailbone. When he reached the bottom landing, he swung his shackled arm and yanked me off the steps and onto the wet floor. He proceeded across the floor, dragging me behind him.

“Look out!” I screamed as frantic partygoers nearly trampled me.

One of the blond girls from earlier tripped over me and fell, her knee like a cannonball in my stomach.
Oomph!

Forging his way to the trash can, Chase grabbed the rim with both hands and turned it over on me. “Narc! Narc!”

A rush of red, sticky liquid cascaded over me, filling my eyes and ears and nose. I gasped and sneezed and sputtered, trying to clear my orifices. My toga might as well be a diaper for all of the liquid it absorbed.

Josh finally caught up with us and pulled out his pepper spray, aiming an acrid stream at Chase’s face.
Psssssh.

“Fuck!” yelled Chase. His hands went to his eyes, jerking my shackled arm upward.

At this point, real narcs arrived, a force of seven police officers streaming in the front door, shouting at everyone to “Stay right where you are!” Another added, “And shut your mouths!”

Those in the vicinity froze, while the scraping and shouting noises coming from out back told me that others were attempting to escape over the eight-foot wooden privacy fence that surrounded the frat house’s backyard.

Chase attempted to run away but, anchored by me and blinded by the pepper spray, managed only to run nose-first into the wall two feet away. His hands moved from his eyes to his nose as he fell to his knees. “Shiiit!” he cried, his voice muffled by his cupped fingers.

Apparently, some type of sting was taking place. The police rounded kids up left and right and marched them outside to waiting paddy wagons.

When a middle-aged officer stepped our way, I wrangled myself to a stand. I looked around for Josh, but he was nowhere to be seen, the two of us having been separated in the mayhem. I turned to the cop. “I’m a federal agent. I came—”

The cop put his face in mine. “What part of ‘shut your mouth’ do you not understand?”

A drop of spittle flew from his lips and landed on my cheek. I wiped it away with my free hand. “Sir, if you’ll let me find my purse I—”

“You don’t know when to stop, do you?” He looked down at the handcuffs. “What’s with the cuffs? Some kind of kinky sex thing?”

I gritted my teeth. “Not at all.”

He grabbed my free arm and dragged me and Chase to the door, hollering to a younger officer outside. “Get these two in a wagon!”

*   *   *

Despite my vociferous protests, I spent the next two hours locked in a jail cell with one bunk bed, one toilet, and thirty-seven inebriated sorority girls who’d drunk a collective five hundred gallons of trash can punch. I had to give them credit, though. A group of the more sober girls managed to fashion a private tent around the toilet by situating one girl on each side of the commode, another in front of it, their toga sheets stretched between them. Between peeing and throwing up, the girls kept the toilet flushing constantly.

I feared the girls might turn on me if they realized I was the “narc” who’d started the brouhaha at the frat house. I might be tough, but without my gun or pepper spray there was no way I could fight off this many girls. They’d rip me limb from limb before the wardens could stop them. Luckily for me, the scene at the frat house had been such chaos that nobody quite understood what had happened. When the girls had noticed the handcuffs connecting me to Chase, they hadn’t realized I’d been trying to arrest the punk, instead, like the cop, assuming it was some type of kinky
Fifty Shades
situation.

The time was a blur. Several of the girls cried. When they’d run dry of tears, they lamented the condition of their mascara. A couple theater majors turned the bunk bed on its side and improvised a sock puppet theater, putting on a remarkably good performance of
Barefoot in the Park.
A group of music majors serenaded the guards with prison-themed songs, including “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis, the Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody,” and “Prison Song” by System of a Down. When they’d exhausted their playlist, I taught them the lyrics to Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.”

One by one, the girls were released. Those with parents who lived in the area were sprung first, while those from out of state had to wait until their parents had been able to contact a local defense attorney and provide a retainer via credit card. Lucky them. I hadn’t even been allowed to make my phone call yet. The guard had said, “Someone your age shoulda known better than to get mixed up with these out-of-control kids.” He’d followed this declaration with the suggestion that I “shut my piehole” and “use this time to think about what I’d done.”
Sheesh.
Nobody had said that to me in years. It made me feel irritated. On the bright side, it also made me feel young.
Housemother,
my ass.

I sat on the floor, rested my head against the wall, and closed my eyes, trying to catch some shut-eye. It wasn’t easy. The adrenaline was beginning to wane and my buttocks and lower spine throbbed painfully.

“Tara?” came a male voice. “Is that you?”

I opened my eyes to see Anthony Giacomo standing outside the cell. Though not in his usual business suit, he looked nonetheless perfectly stylish in his silky green shirt, designer jeans, and Italian leather loafers. I was surprised the guy recognized me. By then the punch had dried, turning my skin into sticky flypaper. My hair was matted and stained with punch.

I raised a hand. “Hey, Tony.”

He cocked his head, his eyes narrowing in question. “What are you doing in this cell with all these college kids?”

“That’s a damn good question.”

Anthony turned to the guard. “You know you’ve got a federal agent locked in there?”

The guard, who happened to be the same one who’d told me to shut my piehole, glanced my way. “You mean she wasn’t shittin’ me?”