“Thatch? I don’t know a Thatch,” I lied. I knew it was him, and more than that, I’d known before he told me. That voice had been rooting around inside my brain for a while now. Fucking Thatcher Kelly. He’d wiggled his way into my thoughts and hung around for-fucking-ever, seemingly quite the parasite.
Hopefully, if I continued to feign confusion, he’d let me go back to sleep.
He laughed again at that. “It’s the guy you’ve been finger-fucking that perfect pussy to for the past month. Don’t you remember? We were in a wedding together. I helped you find Walter after you lost him. You even called me from Key West because you missed me so much.”
“None of this is ringing a bell.”
And I didn’t lose that goddamn cat. He did.
“I even let you feel my dick. Which you fucking loved, by the way.”
“I did not fucking love feeling your dick,” I retorted. “It was hardly memorable, if we’re getting down to the real details.”
“How big is it?”
I was this close to fucking answering.
“Why are you asking me so many goddamn questions?”
He chuckled again.
Yeah, the whole Jolly Green Giant nickname was right on the money, wasn’t it?
But seriously, if he laughed again, I was adding “Kill Thatch” to my to-do list for Monday morning.
“Why are you calling me? Couldn’t it have waited until, I don’t know, the sun is up and I’m not sleeping?”
“Sorry,” he responded, clearing his throat. His breathing was muffled as though he was moving around. “But this couldn’t wait. I’m in a bit of a bind, and I could really use your help.”
“My help?” I asked, sitting up on the bed. “Right now?”
“Yeah.” He started to say more, but he was cut off when someone in the background shouted, “Your three minutes are up, Kelly!”
My eyebrows scrunched together of their own accord. “Where are you?” I questioned, highly suspicious. “And who was that?”
“Oh, that was just Sheriff Miller,” he answered, his tone nonchalant. I could almost picture him shrugging as he said it.
“Sheriff Miller?” I repeated his words, having a pretty good idea where this conversation was headed. I mean, I was still kind of half asleep, but it didn’t take a genius to deduce the basic details. “Tell me you’re not calling me from where I think you’re calling me from.”
“Yeah, about that…” He trailed off, voice uncertain. “Have you ever been upstate before?”
“For fuck’s sake, Thatch,” I muttered, rubbing sleepy irritation from my eyes.
“Listen, Cass, I know I’m a pain in the ass.”
“I’m gonna put a fucking pain in your ass, all right,” I grumbled, voice thick with sleep and exasperation.
Thatch forged on, unfazed. “But I kind of got arrested tonight and I was hoping you’d be a sweetheart and come bail me out,” he said, just as a robot-like voice warned that the allotted time for his call would be ending soon.
“Kind of got arrested?” I spouted back. “It sounds like you are arrested, motherfucker.”
“So you’ll do it?” he questioned, sounding far too hopeful.
“What about Kline? Or Wes? Or a fucking family member? How the fuck did I end up being your one fucking phone call?”
“I’m starting to realize fuck is your favorite word.”
“What?” What was he even talking about?
He laughed again, and I wanted to reach inside the phone and strangle him.
Go ahead and mark the time as 2:35 a.m.
Kill Thatch is now number one on my to-do list for Monday.
“You say it a lot. Any variation.”
“And?” I snapped when he didn’t elaborate further.
“I fucking like it, honey.” I could sense the smile in his voice.
“Are you hitting on me? In the same conversation where you just asked me to bail you out of jail?”
“That depends.”
I sighed and leaned my head against the headboard. “On what?”
“If I say yes, are you going to hang up the phone?”
“I’ve been about four seconds away from hanging up the phone since I answered it.”
“Thatcher!” A loud, booming voice called in the background. I could only assume it was Sheriff Miller. This was about the weirdest phone call I had ever received on a Saturday night. And that said a lot coming from me.
“So…you think you can help me out?”
“You’re gonna owe me big time.”
“Anything you want, honey.”
“Where are you?” I put him on speakerphone and pulled up Google Maps, ready to GPS the convict’s location.
“Upstate, in a little town called Frogsneck,” he answered and proceeded to give me the address. He even told me to drive his Range Rover. All I had to do was go get it from his apartment.
“Oh, for the love of God,” I muttered after seeing that it was going to be a ninety-minute drive. “Get ready, dickhead, because I’m about to get real fucking creative with payment for this favor.”
I expected to hear laughter, but when I looked at the phone, his call had already dropped. I tossed it on my nightstand and hopped out of bed.