Her Dominant SEAL (Midnight Delta Book 9) Page 18

  Even after everything, Drake still didn’t want his mom to be a part of the final take-down, how pathetic was that? Therefore, he had to figure a way to lure her out of the house. This sounded like a job for Evie.

  “Hold on for a minute. I need some expert advice.” He turned and glared at Aiden. “Expertise that should have been in this meeting.”

  He found Trenda in the living room, she was showing Bella a game on her laptop.

  “Where’s Evie?”

  “Pouting in her room.”

  “What’s going on between her and Aiden?”

  “According to the Great and Powerful Drake, there is nothing going on between Aiden and any woman in Jasper Creek.”

  “Cut the crap, Trenda.”

  “She’s upstairs if you need her.”

  Drake took the stairs two at a time. He hesitated going past Piper’s room when he heard Karen’s voice. Damn, he wanted to talk to her before having to see his dad. How sad was that?

  He knocked on Evie’s door. “Got a minute?” he asked his sister.

  She looked up from her laptop.

  “What’s up?”

  “I need your help. You should have been in the planning meeting.”

  “You found me when you needed me. It’s all good.”

  God, she was frustrating.

  “Do I need to beat the shit out of O’Malley. I can take him.”

  Her eyes were dry, but too dry if that made sense. She stared at him hard. “No. He’s an asshole. He made his position clear. I’m something to mess around with. Goody for me. Now, what do you need, Big Man?”

  “I need some way to lure Mom out of the house while we go in to visit with Dad.”

  Evie tapped on the top of her laptop, clearly considering the problem. “If what Piper said was right, you have to do something to get her to think she has some free play at the casino.”

  “Free play?”

  “Yeah. Like she gets to play five hundred dollars of free play at the slots or something. Knowing our mother, she’d call to confirm. So, you’d have to make it legit.”

  “Clint could do it.”

  “Yeah, he could,” she said sadly.

  “You could come down and tell him your idea yourself.”

  “Nah. Thanks for letting me be a part of it, though.”

  “I’m going to hit him.”

  “Don’t bother. It’s not like anything happened. I just expected better of him. I was wrong. I’m always wrong.”

  “Now I’m definitely going to hit him.”

  “Get out of here,” Evie said with a sad laugh.

  Drake took the stairs three at a time and was in the study in a heartbeat. He was extremely careful not to meet Aiden’s eyes, if he did, he would hit the bastard. He dialed Clint’s SKYPE number again.

  “Yo,” Clint answered, this time Lydia’s face filled the screen as well.

  “Hey, Lydia.” Drake smiled. “Hopefully, between the two of you, you can do this. My mom plays at the nearest Indian Casino. Evie was saying that if she got some free play, meaning some free dollars at the slots, she would be enticed to leave the house. Can you arrange that and have the casino call her?”

  Lydia damn near bounced up and down. “That’s not a problem. I’ll figure out where she has a player’s club card, and then arrange it.”

  “A player’s club card?” Drake asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Clint answered. “My soon-to-be-wife knows all. How soon do you need it?”

  “I’ll tell her that it needs to be redeemed in three hours. How’s that?” Lydia suggested.

  “That’d be perfect. But-”

  “But what?” Clint asked.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “No, say it,” Lydia demanded.

  “I said it’s nothing, drop it.”

  “Consider it dropped. Anything else?” Clint asked.

  “That covers it. Thanks, Lydia.”

  “No, thank you, this will be fun. Clint doesn’t let me have computer fun anymore.”

  “We play League of Legends,” Clint protested

  “Oh God.” Drake put his head in his hand. “That’s not a game. Call of Duty is a game.”

  “Good-bye, Drake,” Clint ended the call.

  Drake turned to his team, concentrating on Darius and Mason. “Sounds like we have three hours before we leave.”

  “Trenda was baking a cake.” Darius smiled. “It was chocolate.”

  “With chocolate chips,” Aiden chimed in, he opened the door and left with Darius hot on his heels.

  “Is everything all right?” Mason asked.

  “I’m not sure Aiden played by the rules?”

  Mason lifted an eyebrow.

  “Evie’s hurting, and it’s because of Aiden. She said nothing happened, but I’m not so sure.”

  “You’re going to have to talk to the man.”

  “Oh, I’ll talk to the man.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you will, but remember, I’m still going to need you to work together.”

  Drake grimaced. “I hear you.”

  As they walked out of the room, he still couldn’t help being worried about his mom driving the twisty roads in the snow towards the casino. What a fool he was.

  ***

  They got the message a half hour later that Wanda Avery had told the casino she would be on her way. The snow wasn’t coming down as fiercely, just soft flakes, which made Drake feel better.

  Seven o’clock on a Friday snowy night in February ensured darkness, but it still meant that there would be people in the neighborhood.

  “We’ve got to go in so that there isn’t gunfire,” Drake said.

  “Agreed. We don’t want stray bullets going through to other houses.”

  They had just checked their microphones, and now everybody was sharpening their knives when Karen walked into the study. Dammit, he’d thought he’d locked the door.

  “Dammit, you should have locked the door, Bella could have come in,” Karen admonished fiercely.

  All of the men looked up.

  “You’re right, that’s on me. I was the last one in,” Drake admitted.

  “We don’t have to do this, we can wait for the DEA,” Mason said.

  “I just wanted to let you know that there was fresh coffee,” Karen backed out of the office with one last look at Drake.

  “O’Malley. Stanton. Why don’t you go grab a cup of coffee,” Mason suggested. They were out the door before he was done talking.

  Drake and Mason stood looking at one another.

  “Are you sure you’re doing this for the right reasons?” Mason asked softly.

  Drake stood looking out the window at the snow.

  “Tell me what the wrong reasons would be,” he finally asked.

  “I was over here sharpening this knife of mine, thinking about getting a chance to cut your father. I keep thinking about what he must have done to you and your sisters growing up. I haven’t felt this much rage since the stuff with Sophia went down.” Mason swallowed. Drake could hear it in the quiet room. “I want to hurt him, and I can only imagine what you’re feeling.”

  “That time with Piper, it was the first time he went after one of the girls. It was always me. Which was fine. I was a boy, I could take it.”

  “You were a kid.”

  “Didn’t matter. As long as he didn’t go after the girls, it was fine by me.” And it had been. He would have done anything to protect his sisters. “It’s not going after my dad that has me twisted up, it’s my mom. I’m worried about her out in the snow. I’m worried about her being mad and sad again when he goes away. How sick is that? Like I should care when she already threw me to that wolf. Pretty pathetic, huh?” Drake didn’t look at Mason. He couldn’t. He was stupid.

  He almost jumped when Mason put his hand on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t expect any less of you. You’re constantly trying to save womankind, right after you’ve managed to offend them, all of it because you care so damn much. Hell m
an, out of all of us, you’re the one who cares the deepest, that’s the reason for the mask.” Mason paused, letting his words sink in. “So, what are you going to do?”

  Drake turned and looked at his friend.

  “I’m going after dad. But I have a bad feeling. If mom is part of this shit with Piper, whatever it is, then she’s going down too. My sisters come first.”

  Mason nodded.

  ***

  This time Drake went down Hemlock street. Seemed appropriate that it would be named after poison. It was three streets behind his familial home.

  “Okay, guys. I’m going to take you through some backyards to get to my old house’s backyard.”

  “How come I think this won’t be the first time you’ve done this?” Darius smiled.

  “Just remember, you’re in Tennessee, lots of dogs in the backyards. Hopefully, because of the snow, the owners will have them inside, but still, some of them could be outside, so we need to bypass those yards, and try not to rile them.”

  “Rile them? What language are you speaking?”

  “Fuck you. Do you understand that language, Dare?”

  “Can it,” Mason said. “Let’s go.”

  Years fell away as he passed through yards that he remembered from childhood. It wasn’t until he got to his own backyard that his smile left. It was big, and there was a broken-down swing set that was barely discernable underneath all of the snow. Lights were on in every window, as well as in the carport. Small shrubs littered the yard making it easy to creep up to the house. Darius took a left near the master bedroom, Mason the right near the carport, and Drake went up the middle to the kitchen window again.

  “Fuck.”

  “What?” Mason asked into the microphone.

  “Mom’s in the house with Dad, but the good news is, it’s only the two of them in the kitchen. Dad has a gun in a shoulder holster. There’s a sawed-off shotgun on the kitchen table.”

  Shit, shit, shit. Why hadn’t she gone?

  They’d already had a plan for entry. The back sliding glass window in the dining and kitchen area. The side door through the carport, and the window through the master bedroom on the first floor.

  “Keep with the plan. Let us go in first, you go in last Drake. We’ll see if there is anybody to flush out.”

  “Yep.” Drake’s eyes were on his parents. Again, the window was cracked to let out the cigarette smoke.

  “Quit your whining, Wanda.”

  “But it was free money.”

  “We’re gonna have all the free money in the world, so quit your yapping and play your card.”

  Wanda Avery sniffed and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her yellow sweater. Then she played a card that Norville picked up. He threw down a card, got up and went to the fridge.

  There was a switch, Dad actually getting his own damn beer. Norville turned to her and glared.

  “What kind of mother are you, that your own daughter won’t meet up with you? Goddammit, we need her gone, how did you manage to fuck things up so bad?”

  “Trenda probably didn’t even tell her.”

  “Don’t blame Trenda, you shoulda taken care of this before I was outta Pikeville!”

  “How dare you. I couldn’t do it! You promised you’d take care of it.” Wanda actually looked distraught.

  “Fine, then you should have at least gotten the paperwork. We still need that, Goddammit.”

  He slammed the beer down on the table, suds flying all over the cards.

  “I didn’t know to keep the paper,” she said miserably.

  “If you weren’t such a good fuck, I wouldn’t waste my time with you.”

  Wanda sat up straighter. “That’s not true, everything comes to me, not to you. You need me.”

  He stared at her.

  “I’m in. I’m proceeding upstairs.” It was Dare.

  “I’m in. I’m sweeping the lower floors,” said Mason.

  Drake ghosted over towards the sliding glass door at the formal dining room. He checked. It was latched, but the lock at the base wasn’t fastened. He made quick work of the lock on the handle and quietly and quickly eased the door open. The chill would give him away.

  He stepped inside, and went around the corner, his gun pointed at his parents. It was his mom who made the move towards the shotgun, he yanked it off the table and aimed it at the two of them.

  “Carl! Robbie!” Norville yelled. Drake laughed, confident in the knowledge that whoever his dad was yelling for were now being personally ministered to by either Mason or Darius.

  “They’re indisposed, Old Man.”

  Those words seemed to inflame Norville, he pushed up at the table, upending it. Drake saw him reach for the pistol in his holster, and he threw down the shotgun, praying it wouldn’t go off as he lunged for his father.

  The men were of equal size, Drake had the training, and Norville had the rage and skill honed from twelve years in the Tennessee prison system. Before the first fist flew, Drake felt fire along his arm and realized his dad had a knife. He grinned. Just made the battle a little more fair as far as he was concerned.

  Norville tried for Drake’s ribs and was met by body armor.

  “Fucking pussy, you’re wearing a vest,” Norville said as he tried to jab the knife at Drake’s head. Drake grabbed his wrist and slammed it into the ground. He didn’t go for his knife. He used his right hand and delivered three rabbit punches to his dad’s kidneys.

  “Ooof.”

  His dad shoved at his chin, then thought better of it and grabbed Drake’s head and tried to bring it towards his mouth so that he could take a bite of his son’s face. Drake slammed his forehead into his dad’s nose and twisted his knife hand so that the knife fell out of it.

  Using both of his hands, he put his thumbs against the front of his throat and started choking his father.

  “No! Stop! You’re killing him,” Wanda wailed.

  That was the point, Drake thought, as he pressed harder. He watched his father’s eyes bulge. He replayed in his mind that moment when Piper went crashing against the wall.

  His mother’s small hands shoved at his face.

  “Drake, stop! I hate you! Stop it, you bastard!” Wanda Avery screeched.

  “Drake,” Mason said calmly. That was all it took, and a flip switched. His vision cleared and he released his father, who rolled over and started to vomit.

  “Norville. Are you all right?” Wanda hovered over her husband.

  Drake watched dispassionately as Wanda rushed around the kitchen, getting Norville a damp towel for his neck, and water to drink.

  “I want a beer,” he gasped.

  “If he wants a beer, he’s okay to talk,” Drake said as he righted the table. He grabbed his father and pulled him into one of the kitchen chairs.

  “You sit down beside him,” he said to his mother. She sat.

  She looked so much smaller than he remembered. Her face was heavily lined, and her fingertips were yellow.

  He pulled out a chair, turned it backwards and sat down.

  “So, who wants to tell me about the piece of paper?”

  His dad’s eyes flashed hatred, his mom’s eyes turned calculating.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “The paperwork that you didn’t know to keep, Mom. The paper that Dad says you need.”

  “Eavesdropping is a bad habit,” she tried to scold. She just sounded desperate.

  Dare snorted as he came into the room.

  “How about you, Dad? Wanna tell me about the paper? Wanna tell me why you think killing Piper is a good plan?”

  Both of his parents went stock still. He’d hit his mark. Then Wanda went for the Oscar again, she turned to Drake. “it was all your father’s idea. I love Piper.”

  “Keep your mouth shut. He doesn’t know anything. He can’t prove anything.”

  Her head swiveled between her husband and her son.

  “I know plenty, Mom. I know that if you don’t fess up, you’
re going to the women’s prison up to Nashville. Hell, you probably are anyway. You let dad in the house knowing he was going to kill Piper, that makes you an accessory to attempted murder. Come to think of it, you’re an accessory twice. Cause he tried to kill me too. I wonder how they’ll feel up at the prison that a mama tried to have her kids killed?”

  Wanda shriveled up like a raisin in the sun right in front of him.

  “He woulda killed me if I hadn’t done what he said.”

  “That’s bullshit!” Quick as a snake, he backhanded his wife. She would have fallen out of the chair if Darius hadn’t caught her.

  Drake was out of his chair like a shot and slapped his dad across the face, loving the look of shock on the old man’s face. He turned to his mother and saw her pressing her hand against her cut lip. She stared at Norville who straightened up in his chair. He pointed at Wanda.

  “Your mama said the land was worth money. Then she left it to Piper and not you. You’ve been pissed ever since. This is all you, woman. I already had my own business that was going just fine. If it hadn’t been for Piper calling him, things would have been running smooth.”

  Drake still didn’t quite understand everything. “I thought Granny Laughton’s land was worthless.”

  “She told your mom that there was gas on the property. She’d had it surveyed. Then she willed it to Piper,” Norville explained. “If Piper dies, the property goes to your mom.”

  Drake looked away from his parents, his eyes desperately colliding with Mason. He took solace. Then he stared back at the filth that sat in front of him.

  “And the paper?” he asked coldly.

  Norville shrugged.

  “And the paper?” he demanded, his fist slamming into the table.

  “It showed where the gas was. It was a mineral something or other,” Wanda whispered.

  “Survey. It was a mineral survey, you dumb bitch,” Norville said.

  “Where was it?” Drake asked, somewhat under control.

  “It was in one of them there books of Piper’s,” Wanda explained.

  “I couldn’t find them,” Norville said.

  “Got it.” Drake sat back. He looked up at Darius and Mason. “Did you get all that?”

  Darius pulled out his microphone. “I got it. This should do the trick.”

  “You taped me?” Wanda screeched.