Upper Hand (Cedar Tree Book 5) (17 page)

I can’t hold back an incredulous huff.

“Just in the bedroom,” I mumble.

“Just in the bedroom,” he agrees on a smile, the shadow of his dimple only just visible underneath his scruff.

“Coffee?” I offer, holding up the pot in an effort to change the subject, and he lets me, nodding his reply.

Subject dropped, for now, but the atmosphere significantly lighter, Clint slips Max in the highchair and I set about making some toast for us.

Such a domestic scene. That is until we’re interrupted by a knock on the door.

“I’ll get it,” Clint says looking me over head to toe. “You go get some clothes on.”

No, not bossy or controlling at all. Although this time, I don’t argue because I’m not comfortable greeting whomever is on the other side of that door in my nightie. When I go to grab Max, Clint beats me to it.

“I’ve got him, you go.”

With a mock salute that has his mouth twitch, I head for my bedroom, while Clint makes his way to the door, Max sitting in the crook of his arm.

I make quick work of pulling on some jeans and throwing on a shirt and a quick brush of my teeth. I can hear the sound of male voices as I approach the kitchen, where Gus and Neil are sitting at the counter.

“Hey, guys.”

“Morning, Beth. Sorry to barge in so early,” Gus says apologetically.

“No problem,” I wave him off before turning to Neil. “How long are you in town for this time?”

The youngest of Gus’s team of investigators shrugs his shoulders. “However long the boss needs me here.”

“Look,” Gus draws attention back to him. “Neil picked up some intel last night. An APB went out on a car with the same description as Dylan’s, after it was seen pulling away from a police raid on a warehouse just outside of Monticello. Cops were in pursuit for a bit, but lost him when they got clipped by a semi in an attempt to blow through an intersection. No one was seriously injured,” he answers before I have a chance to ask.

“I don’t understand? What’s he doing in Monticello? Was he working there?” I know I’m rambling, but I’m trying to wrap my head around this information. Oh, Dylan, what have you gotten yourself into?

I feel Clint coming up behind me after putting Max down to play on the living room floor. His arm slips around my waist, providing a much needed anchor for my wobbly knees.

“The warehouse was a chop shop for luxury cars. A large well-run organization, with the stink of organized crime, which apparently has been on the FBI radar for a while. ‘Collectors’ drive the stolen cars from as far west as Las Vegas and Phoenix and south from New Mexico and Texas. The cars hit the warehouse and are stripped for the expensive parts. Once stripped they’re virtually impossible to trace.”

Dylan’s words come back to me,
‘I’ve got this job offer that I can’t refuse,’
and sink like a stone to the pit of my stomach. Why didn’t he come to me? I try to stop the sob that’s pulled from my chest by slapping my hand over my mouth, but that only gets half the job done. I had a bad feeling right from the start but tried to ignore it.

“Sorry, darlin’.” Gus’s warm eyes almost do me in, and I swallow hard as I watch Gus and Clint share some unspoken message. “But there’s something else you should know before the cops or feds come knocking on your door. Seems Dylan got into gambling some time back. We found some pretty compelling evidence that he may have sought the help of the wrong person to settle their debts.”

This all comes as a shock to me. I would’ve sold my soul to help him out, if he’d only come to me. Even so, there is one detail in what Gus just tells me that nags at my brain.

“You said
their
debts?”

“Seems your daughter in law had expensive tastes,” Clint rumbles from behind me.

In one twist, I turn around and slip free of the arms holding me.

“You knew?”

Anger bubbles up inside at the thought of something so significant being kept from me and flares even brighter at the guilty look on his face.

“You knew and kept this from me? You had no right!”

“Didn’t seem necessary to worry you with it yesterday, Bean.”

Oh no he doesn’t. Ignoring the audience in the room I react.

“Don’t use that name! Not now that you’ve shown me what a huge mistake I was about to make. Don’t want to be controlling? Fuck you, Clint. It’s all about control with you, deciding what the
little woman
can or cannot handle, and manipulating me with sex is so fucking typical. And the play you gave me this morning? I call bullshit. I’m going home.”

With that I walk over where Max is looking at me wide-eyed, pick him up, and head for the bedroom. Max is surprisingly quiet and letting the anger feed my resolve, it takes me only minutes to grab our stuff together and stomp back out. Making a point not to look at Clint, I give Gus a hard look, knowing he’s the one who went to Clint instead of coming to me with that information. It puts him in the doghouse too, smack beside his buddy. Neil looks only slightly embarrassed, and at this point, I don’t give a flying fuck. I grab a few of Max’s toys off the floor and toss them in my bag, balancing Max on my hip. Without a word I’m out the front door, my grandson in one arm and an overflowing bag in the other. The cold hits me right away, making me realize I’ve forgotten our coats. However, before I have a chance to go grab them, Clint walks out with both mine and Max’s in his hands, but when I try to take them from him he pulls them back.

“Beth...” There’s a plea in his voice that I just don’t want to hear right now. “Just let me put on Max’s jacket, okay?”

I stand there holding Max while Clint works his little arms in the sleeves, trying with all my might not to burst into tears right now.

“I’ll put him in his seat, you should get your coat on before you get sick, too.”

I allow him to take Max from my arms, but in a childish act of defiance, I toss my jacket into the passenger seat and slip in behind the wheel—teeth almost chattering with the cold. I startle when Clint leans over the back of the front seat and holds something out to me.

“Here, I grabbed these. Max is gonna need ‘em.” I don’t look at what he pushes in my hand. Not until he’s safely backed out of the car and shuts the door. I don’t really have to see to know he just pushed Max’s medication in my hand. The sweet concern behind that hits me hard, and I quickly start the car and back up before I let those tears run unchecked down my face.
Damn
.

-

-

T
ough. Standing here watching her drive away, but I’m letting her have this play. Fucked up as it may be, I think she needs to walk away with the upper hand this time, and I’m going to let her.

When I walk back in, Neil has an amused look on his face, but Gus’s eyes are concerned.

“We messed that up,” he says solemnly. “I’ve already put a call in to Mal, who’s gonna keep an eye out until you can straighten this shit out. Don’t need to tell you that the type of people that son of hers has gotten involved with won’t stop at anything to get their money. The raid on that chop shop is only going to add urgency. Tell me again what he said when he dropped the little guy off and on the phone?”

For the next half hour we go over what little I know from firsthand observation and what Beth has told me. When Neil assures me he can keep track of her calls through an app he installed on the cell phone of every person in our group, I’m pissed. Gus jumps in to admit it was on his instructions Neil did it and would only be used in emergencies. So much has happened in the past few years to our friends that he wanted a chance to protect them should anything happen. Now that’s something I can understand. Hell, I did the same with Beth, trying to protect her, although it didn’t quite pan out the way I anticipated.

“Fine,” I give in. “But I’m not going to lie to her again, not even by omission. So that phone app thingy? It’s gonna come up and unless you want a mutiny on your hands, I suggest you inform whoever has that...thing on their cells.”

“Understood,” Gus replies without much enthusiasm. “But just for safety’s sake, why don’t you give Neil yours, so he can hook you up too. Yours is the only one we haven’t had access to.”

“Are you for real? You want to bug my phone?”

Gus just shrugs his shoulders unapologetically. “With you in the hospital there hasn’t been an opportunity.”

My instinct is to say hell no, but then my mind starts working. I’m planning to stick as close to Beth as she’ll let me, and the thought of having that one extra bit of security in place may not be such a bad thing. I trust Gus.

With some lingering reluctance I fish my phone from my back pocket and hand it over to Neil. It takes him less than two minutes before handing it back to me.

“All done,” is all he says, smiling his cocky smile. “It’ll only be accessed in an emergency, but it may be helpful to know it has an emergency feature. Press the pound key three times and hit send and an alarm will go off on my computer or my phone,” Neil continues. “Something we probably should inform everyone else about as well, if the cat’s gonna claw its way out of the bag.”

Not long after, the guys get up to leave, but Gus lingers by the front door, clapping me on my shoulder.

“Shouldn’t let too much time pass before you go after her. These women here are made of strong and stubborn stuff. My guess is she’ll hole up with her friends in no time, and they’re even more impressive as a group.”

Damn.

“H
e what?”

“I’m telling you it scared the shit out of me. Pulled right out in front of me, just as I was pulling into my street. Intentional too, I’m sure of it. The guy just sat there, pointed at me and then to his own eyes and took off again.”

The sudden stop had jarred Max from the light doze he was drifting into and made him cry. Out of nowhere, this sleek black car pulled out of a drive and right into the road. If I hadn’t had my wits about me, I’d have broadsided him. By the time I dislodged my stomach from my throat, the guy was already staring at me, sending shivers down my back.

“You need to call Gus, right now,” Arlene urges. “If what you told me about Dylan, that he may have gotten  involved with the wrong people, is true, then you’ve gotta take this seriously.”

“Not calling him. I’m home now, Max is in his own bed, finally. I’m sure I’m just being overly dramatic.”

“Fine, then I’m coming over.”

Before I have a chance to dissuade her, she hangs up.

Sure enough, not fifteen minutes later, she’s knocking at my door. Damn woman. She’s not alone either; close behind her is Emma. The cavalry has arrived.

I wave them in and as seems to be the custom, they make their way into the kitchen where they both sit down at the table.

“What was the make of the car?” Emma wants to know. Being married to Gus, some of him must’ve rubbed off on her, because she looked to be all business. I stifle a snicker, because Emma looks far from a hard-nosed investigator with her riot of curls and sweet round face.

“It was a dark color; black or maybe deep blue, it was hard to tell. I don’t know make but I know it was a four-door and looked expensive. Oh, and the back windows were blacked out. You know? That dark tinted glass?” I just realize that even in my shock, I was able to pick up a few details. Walking over to the table with mugs and the coffeepot, I see Emma open her mouth for the next question when her phone rings.

“Hey, honey.” Her face goes from serious to soft at the sound of her man’s voice. I can hear his rumble on this side of the table. Asshat.

“So. Wanna tell me why you’re suddenly here and not at Clint’s place?” Arlene pins me with a look as Emma’s soft voice continues in the background.

“Not particularly, no.”

“Spill.”

Knowing she won’t let up—it’s simply not in her genetic make-up—I let out a deep sigh. “Fine. I found out that Clint kept some pretty important information from me. All in the name of not ‘upsetting’ me. Bastard. Don’t know why he thinks he can just bulldoze right over me with his charm, feed me lines about not wanting to control me, when at the first opportunity he takes charge. Your Gus is no better.” I point at Emma, who just hung up the phone and looks surprised.

“Why? What did he do?”

“Oh, he went to Clint with information about Dylan. Not to me, mind you, his mother, but to Clint. As if my constitution is to weak to take the news. Fucking men.” I’m rolling now and open my mouth for the next volley when Arlene’s hand on my arm stops me.

“You’re pissed, I get that, but for God’s sake woman, what information about Dylan?”

Just like that, my little self-righteous balloon deflates. Worked well as a distraction for the bigger issue, for a bit, but I can’t ignore the real danger Dylan’s gotten himself into.

“He’s in big trouble,” I start and in as much detail as I have, I tell them about the APB on his car, about the raid, and about the bit of news that these idiots had tried to keep from me, his gambling problems.

“I never liked that Tammy bitch,” Arlene commiserates.

“You’ve only seen her twice. At a distance,” I point out, an inadvertent smile on my lips at Arlene’s fervent defense of anyone she considers her family.