Cash Braddock by Ashley Bartlett

Author:Ashley Bartlett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781626397071
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2016-11-15T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I hadn’t considered the possibility that Jerome might not be home. I’d been sitting outside his house for an hour and there were no signs of life inside. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. I wasn’t dumb enough to break in to a house that was potentially occupied.

I was almost ready to ring the bell just to see if he would answer.

This neighborhood was disgustingly similar. The homes looked like they had been built in the late eighties, early nineties. Apparently, there had only been four models to choose from. In the intervening decades, people had added extra rooms and expanded garages, but the result was multitudes of cheap, identical houses screaming for their own identities and failing. I was a little bit surprised that Jerome had chosen such an unimaginative place to live. I couldn’t imagine having a beige house with beige trim and a beige door.

My phone rang. It was Henry.

“Hello.”

“How goes the stakeout?”

“It’s shockingly boring. I have no idea if he is home. And if he isn’t home, maybe I should just go in. Or if he is home and he leaves, I don’t know if we should follow him just to make sure he isn’t going out for milk and will be back in five minutes.”

“Whoa, there. You need to chill. Is this your first stakeout?”

“Yes. Normal people don’t do stakeouts. I don’t like it.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. If he leaves, follow him and call me so I can take over. Sit tight.”

I was pretty sure he was trying to reassure me, but it didn’t help much. Thirteen minutes of drumming impatiently on my steering wheel, and Henry pulled up behind me. He got out of the car and came around to my passenger side. I rolled down the window.

“Any movement?” Henry asked.

“No.”

“Here are the photos.” He handed me an envelope from the drugstore down the street.

I opened the envelope. It was ten copies of the same photo. And the photo was perfect. I was leaning over Jerome Sr.’s shoulder and smiling rather wickedly. He looked like a clueless, drooling man. There was something nefarious about it. It was a facsimile of a sweet photo, but I’d managed to look predatory.

“This is disturbing,” I said.

“Damn right.” Henry grinned, pleased that everything was going according to plan, I guess. “You stay here. I’m going to drive around the corner and see if I can get a better look. He might be in the backyard. Hold on.”

Henry returned to his electric blue muscle car and climbed in. He gunned his big ass engine and eased around the corner. So much for subtlety. Two minutes later, he pulled up behind me again. My phone rang.

“Nothing.”

“So we wait?” I asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Can you wait and I’ll go buy a coffee?” I looked in my rearview mirror. Henry was shaking his head.

“You want a coffee?”

“No, I want an iced coffee. A big one. With crushed ice that I can chew on.” Damn, that sounded amazing. I was going to die if I didn’t have it right now.

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