Joe’s voice was a lot less tight and scary when he said, “Yeah, he’s found you. His problem is, you moved to the right fuckin’ place. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said but I didn’t believe him, not for a minute.
Joe read that and got closer. “He’s through dickin’ with you, Violet.”
“He’s pretty powerful,” I whispered, tipping my head back to look at him.
“He’s a man, just a man.”
“A powerful man.”
“Lotsa different kinds of power, buddy.”
I stared at him, tall, broad, strong, sinister Joe Callahan and the look on his face made his words penetrate.
I swallowed and said, a lot more convinced this time (but not thoroughly convinced, it must be noted), “Okay.”
Joe held the card up between us. “What’s this mean, ‘DH’?”
I looked at the card then in Joe’s eyes. “It’s his initials. Daniel Hart.”
Joe’s torso shifted back, his eyes cut to Colt and his face wasn’t granite, it was carved from ice, as were his eyes.
“You didn’t tell me it was Hart,” he said to Colt.
“You know him?” Colt asked and I stared at Joe in shock as his one word answer seemed to come from somewhere ugly in him.
“Yeah.”
“How do you know him?” I asked but Joe didn’t look at me, he kept his eyes on Colt.
“We gotta talk.”
“Joe –”
“We’ll talk now,” Colt said over me.
I butted in. “Hang on a second, Joe –”
“No, now I’m gonna fix Vi’s wiring, we’ll talk later,” Joe told Colt, ignoring me.
“But –”
“Gotcha,” Colt said.
Joe looked at Sully. “You deal with the flowers,” then to Colt, “get her outta here.”
“Hang on!” I snapped but Joe was moving away, Sully was moving toward the flowers and Colt had hold of my arm.
“Party time, Vi,” Colt said softly to me and I looked up at him as he pulled me gently away, “time to forget this shit.”
“But, I wanna know –”
Colt’s hand gave me a squeeze then it dropped to take my hand and he did this all without stopping as he walked me across my yard.
“Time where you deal with this is over. Hart brought this to my town, now it’s my problem. We clear on that?”
I looked at him and saw he looked weirdly both relieved and angry. I suspected the relieved was because now he had the excuse to get in my business and sort this, seeing as he was a cop. I knew that look, that feeling, Tim had it too. Tim wouldn’t let his neighbor be harassed by a crazy crimelord either. On the other hand, I suspected Colt was angry because he knew how this felt, having some creepy psycho sending flowers.
“We’re clear,” I whispered and said a short prayer of thanks to God that he steered me in the right direction and let this house in this town be on the market when I was looking for refuge.
“We get to my house, I’ll give you my numbers and Cal’s. You program them into all your phones and Kate and Keira’s. Okay?” Colt told me.
“Okay.”
We hit the street and he dropped my hand but his arm went around my shoulders and he quit talking.
So I called, “Colt?”
He looked down at me as we stepped up on the sidewalk on his side of the street. “Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
He didn’t reply except to give my shoulders a squeeze.
I looked to my feet thinking Tim would like him. And I thought Colt should know that.
“My husband Tim, he would have liked you.”
Colt looked back down at me. “’Spect I’d like him too, seein’ as he had good taste.”
That was nice so I smiled.
He stopped me in his yard, looked back at my house and then back down at me.
“You’re safe here, Vi.”
I hoped he was right.
“Thanks for that too.” It wasn’t much but it was all I had.
Even so, Colt gave me a look that said he understood I wanted it to say more and he understood what I wanted it to say.
He gave my shoulders a squeeze and led me into his house where we stood in his kitchen and he wrote out a bunch of numbers.
The first thing I did when I got home was program the numbers into all our phones.
Even Joe’s.
Chapter Six
Booty Call
“You’re quick,” Joe said to Kate and Keira, sounding impressed and surprised.
Kate looked at her toes. Keira beamed at Joe.