At Peace (The ‘Burg #2)(165)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“Feb –” he started but didn’t finish. Her eyes sliced to Vi’s house before she nodded and without a word hustled back into the house.

Colt started to jog back across his yard when his phone rang. He slowed to a walk, pulled it out of his blazer, looked at the display, flipped it open and put it to his ear.

“What you got for me, Sul?”

“Chris and Adam down.” The words sounded like they’d been dragged out of his partner’s throat and they made Colt stop dead right in the middle of the street.

“Down how?”

“Don’t know. They’re both breathin’ but they’re also both in ambulances.”

“Vi isn’t at her house,” Colt informed him.

“Mike called. She isn’t at the garden center either.”

“She didn’t have a shift today.”

“Yeah, Mike talked to Bobbie,” Sully said then hissed, “Fuck, why did we not know this?”

“Where was Chris found?”

“Car on the side of the road outside town found by a Good Samaritan. Door open. Radio smashed. Chris unconscious in a ditch.”

“Any idea why he was there?” Colt asked.

“No clue, but it looks like he didn’t make his shift,” Sully answered.

“Adam?”

“Mike found him.”

“Where?”

“Mike left the garden center, went to Cal’s offices. He found Adam in his car outside.”

“Cal?”

“No sign and his girl isn’t there either.”

“Struggle?”

Silence and Colt started walking again, his eyes on Vi’s house, both girls looking out the window at him.

“Sully, were there signs of a struggle?”

“Colt…” Sully stopped speaking and Colt stopped on the sidewalk, turned with his side to the girls but faced away, across the street so the girls couldn’t see him when he reacted to what he was about to hear.

“Sully, tell me.”

“You’re friends with Cal.”

“Sul –”

Sully sighed then spoke fast. “Mike says it’s bad. Boys are goin’ to the scene. Two men at the scene shot dead. Mike doesn’t know either of them but says there was no muss no fuss with the gunshot wounds. Mike says prelim looks like warning shots fired meant to incapacitate, not meant to take them out, kill shots fired when they didn’t stop. But he says there’s lots of blood, place is a mess, looks like it was bad and there’s no Cal.”

“Cal said he’d keep his gun on him, he wasn’t with the girls,” Colt muttered.

“Any chance he’d have Vi with him?”

“Girls say they left together this morning. Them for school, Cal headed for the office. Kate said Vi was hungover. He left her in bed. Somethin’ got her out of that bed but she didn’t make it and she also didn’t make a mess gettin’ ready. Nothin’ that looks like she even left in a hurry.”

“Cal wouldn’t –?”

“Grab her and go? Not without the girls.”

“I’ll get a man at the school, just in case they turn up,” Sully said.

“I’m doin’ another sweep of the house,” Colt told him then asked, “Where’s Mike?”

“Climbin’ the bloody walls at Cal’s office,” Sully answered, not being funny, being almost literal.

“He may need to be locked down,” Colt advised.

“Boys headin’ his way know, everyone knows. Sean’s off today but he’s been called and he’s headed to Mike.”

Colt looked back at the house to see the girls hadn’t moved.

“I gotta get into that house,” he told Sully.

“Yeah. I’m command central as of now. You get anything, you feed it to me.”

“Got it and what you get, you feed to Pryor.”

Sully didn’t have to agree, he’d do it. Instead he said, “While you’re lookin’ around, pray.”

Colt didn’t normally have time for that. He was of a mind that God didn’t need to be informed of his own business but with what was going down and those two girls looking out the window, he’d make time.

“Out,” he said to Sully.

“Later,” Sully replied and disconnected.

Colt forced himself to walk calmly to the house. He opened the door and both girls were no longer at the window. They were at the door waiting for him.

“Mom?” Kate asked and Colt shook his head.

“We’re lookin’. Feb’s comin’ over. Can you make coffee?”

Kate nodded but Keira spoke and what she asked meant Kate didn’t move.

“Where’s Joe? Has anyone called Joe?”

Jesus. How did he answer that?

Shit.

“We can’t find Joe,” he answered and Keira turned to Kate, her movement jerky, panicked.

Dammit, where the f**k was Feb?

Kate’s arms slid around her sister but her eyes stayed on Colt.

“Keirry, let’s make Colt coffee.”

“But –” Keira started and Kate looked at her sister.

“Coffee,” she whispered, Keira’s lip quivered and then she nodded.

Both girls moved to the kitchen and Colt went to the bedroom.

He stood in the center of the floor space and looked around. Unmade bed. Cal’s jeans on the floor. All of Vi’s clothes, including bra, tossed to the floor around Cal’s jeans. The top of the dresser was tidy, the drawers all closed, no clothes hanging out as if hastily pulled out and the drawers shoved closed. Some jewelry sitting on top but there was more on Cal’s nightstand.

She’d taken off her clothes before she hit the bed and she hit the bed on Cal’s side but he’d taken off her jewelry last night, put it on his nightstand. Her nightstand had a lamp, a book and a jar of moisturizer. Nothing else. If she took off her jewelry in bed, it’d be on her nightstand. Cal took it off her.

“Talk to me,” he muttered as he walked to the bed and he saw it.

The covers weren’t thrown back like you do when you get out of bed. It was like she slid out from under them. Colt walked to them, carefully lifted an edge of the covers and saw a phone in the bed.

“Fuck me,” he murmured and picked up the phone. He flipped it open and went to received calls. The last one was from Cal. Colt looked to the bedside clock. She got the call just over thirty minutes ago.

He looked back to the clothes on the floor.