Up in Smoke (King #8)

Longevity comes with the ability to be silent. I give Griff one more year before someone’s paying me to dig him a hole in the ground. Of all the people in the world he had to be the one to discover that Frank was the one responsible for the slaughter that took place at Morgan’s house.

A light turns on inside the girl’s bedroom, I watch as her shadow crosses over the window.

I don’t know if it’s my need for revenge or my conversation with Griff, but my patience is at an end. And so is this girl’s freedom.

I’m not waiting anymore.

Frances Helburn is mine.



I’ve switched out cars and clothes. I’m now sitting in front of the school watching as the students file in.

Frances is one of the last ones to enter.

She’s wearing the same school uniform she wears every day. Your basic plaid skirt, sweater, shirt combo. If the entire reason behind wearing school uniforms is to prevent indecent exposure then this school is succeeding because hers is three sizes too big and drapes over her body like a shapeless sack.

Even her socks are ridiculous. They’re forest green and ride high on her legs, almost to her knees, although one keeps falling as she walks. The black top she’s wearing under her sweater has a collar, but she walks with her shoulders hunched forward, hiding not just her face but any signs of having tits.

You can’t hide from me, Frances. Not under all those baggy clothes. I see you. I see you, and I’m coming for you.

Frances stumbles on the sidewalk, dropping a book. She bends to pick it up, and I catch a glimpse of the bottom of perfectly rounded ass cheeks, which are barely covered by red panties.

Red, huh? Surprise, surprise.

I have a moment of imagining the things I could do to that ass when I remind myself of who it’s attached to. Frances is awkward, and from what I can tell, she’s all elbows and knees. Shapeless.

I don’t give a fuck what color eyes or hair a woman has, but the women I like to fuck look like…well, women. Tits. Hips. Lips.

Today, Frances seems heavier than the rest of the girls piling into the front doors of the school. Not her body, she can’t weigh more than a buck twenty, tops, but heavy like she’s troubled.

It’s not like it matters.

Not my fucking concern.

I’m about to pile on the trouble and for the first time in a long time I feel excited. Amped.

Ready.

Frances stops. Her eyes travel over her shoulder, scanning the parking lot until they land on me. She pauses and turns her head to the side. The bell rings, and she pushes open the doors, disappearing inside.

I gotta give this Frances chick credit. She’s smart. Not smart enough to throw me off, but all the others Griff and I hired to find her father had failed to find her as well.

Now, I know why.

The others were all looking for Frances Helburn. A young woman in her early twenties. What they found instead was an eighteen-year-old catholic school girl named Sarah Jackson.

She was hiding in plain fucking sight. In high school of all places. Clever.

But not clever enough.

I open the car door in front of the school and step out into the blinding sunlight.

Her plan was decent, while it lasted, but that’s all over now.

Frances Helburn is about to learn that she isn't nearly as smart as she thinks she is.





Chapter Five





The receptionist looks me up and down. She can’t hide the surprise in her eyes as she takes in my tattoos and my police uniform. She stands from her chair behind her desk and brushes a strand of hair behind her ears. She sets her mouth into a polite yet worried smile.

“Can…can I help you, officer…?” she stutters, linking and unlinking her fingers together.

“Officer Wiggum,” I finish for her, using an emotionless yet polite tone. I inwardly chuckle because no one ever seems to notice that when I impersonate a cop I use the name of a character from the fucking Simpsons. “And yes, as a matter of fact, you can, ma’am.”

I hand her the phony paperwork and check my watch like this is the last thing I want to do be doing before my shift ends.

Her eyes go wide as she reads over the papers, her lips moving silently. She looks up to me and clears her throat which is now as red and splotchy as her face. “Just a…just a moment, officer,” she excuses herself, scurrying away like a rodent being chased by a cat.

She’s frazzled. I can’t blame her. It’s probably not every day a police officer comes in carrying a warrant to arrest one of their students.

A few minutes later, I’m standing in the middle of the principal’s office waiting for the principal herself to bring Frances to me.

I glance up at the framed United States flag hanging above the desk and watch my reflection in the glass.

It’s almost too fucking easy.





Chapter Six





Principal Gregory pokes her head inside my math class and clears her throat.

Mr. Timball stops his geometry lecture; his marker pauses against the dry erase board. He raises his eyebrows in a silent. What do you want?

“I need to see Sarah Jackson,” she answers, scanning the rows of students until she finds me in the back. Her eyes lock on mine. “Now.”

I feel every single set of eyes boring inquisitive holes into my skull as I slide out my chair and make my way to the front of the room. Thirty heads swivel around, gazes following me like some weird slow synchronized dance from an eighties music video.

“Grab your things,” Principal Gregory says when she sees my hands are empty. I nod. Grabbing my things means that whatever she’s calling me to her office for is going to take a while because I won’t be back to class today, at least not this one.

A foreboding pricks at the back of my neck, and it’s not from all the eyes watching my every move. It’s the dread pitting in my stomach and a feeling like everything is about to change.

Again.

I gather my bag and my books and wrack my brain as to what school-related thing this could be about, but I come up empty.

I make my way to the front of the room for the second time. Only the tapping of a pencil against a desk and the popping of gum can be heard along with the echo of my shapeless black shoes against the linoleum.

Principal Gregory holds the door open, and I follow her silently to her office with my head down and my long hair draped around my face like a shield.

She allows me to go in first, and it’s not until my knees have brushed one of the two chairs in front of her desk that I look up to see a police officer standing at the window with his broad back to me. Colorful tattoos take up every inch of space on his arms. His long dark hair is tied together at the nape of his neck under his hat. I feel like I know this man, somehow, or maybe it’s just deja vu.

Regardless, I begin to relax. I have no business with the police. Not that they could possibly know of, anyway. Whatever the officer is here for is probably just a misunderstanding of some sort.

Maybe, it’s about one of my neighbors. One side is a drug den, and the other side is occupied by a couple who fight all hours of the day and night and scream more than they talk. It’s more likely that one killed the other and they’re looking for witnesses than me being in any sort of trouble.