Page 92 of Existential
THIRTY-SEVEN
Hooch
We’re so close to finding out who the elusive buyer is. So damn close. And then this. How can I ride out for a couple of days to track them down when the one’s I can trust the least are those I never suspected? I knew Heather was a little loopy over Digits, but what the hell?
“I’ll take you to get checked over as soon as this is sorted out,” I tell Dagne, pushing her hands out of the way to check the red marks on her throat again.
“I’m fine. Really.” She grabs my wrists and looks me hard in the eye.
I’m still not convinced. Especially after taking a look around at the bloody mess on the floor and walls, not to mention Beth’s rapidly swelling face.
“What’s going on in here?” Crackers calls out as he enters the house. “We’re supposed to be on the road in fifteen …” His words trail off as he catches sight of Beth with the towel to her face. “Shit, babe.”
Digits hangs behind, his jaw slack as he surveys the scene.
“Got anything to say about this?” I step forward, jerking him into the thick of it by the collar of his cut.
“Is that your hair, Heather?” He smirks at the strewn extension. “Who won?”
I backhand the smug smile right off his face. “I’ve been told this has to do with you.”
He eyes Dagne, and then turns to Heather. “You best be explainin’ things, wench.”
“I’m sorry baby,” she blubbers, reaching for him.
He smacks her hands away. “What did I fuckin’ tell you?”
“That you were over her, but you’re not,” she hisses. “It’s all you talk about: Dagne this, Dagne that. I’m sick of it, Digits. You were supposed to be mine.”
“I ain’t anybody’s. Try and wrap your pea-sized brain around that, would you?”
“But you told me—”
“A heap of shit to shut you the fuck up,” he grits out between clenched teeth. “Now stop embarassin’ me.”
“I think you’re doin’ a mighty fine job of that yourself,” Murphy chimes in.
I couldn’t agree more. The last couple of days since he arrived back from Lincoln—late—I thought I’d seen a change in him back to the old Digits. He told us he’d taken the long way home to clear his head and get things straight, and it sure seemed like he had—especially when he showed up in my office with new information he’d supposedly sourced from a Wingmen rat.
Third party facts were usually more fiction than truth, but when we’ve been chasing down this ghost for the better part of six months, I’m game to try anything.
It’s why we were heading out.
“Tell them what you said to me, Heather,” Dagne coaxes.
She steps around from behind me, edging toward the upset whore. Heather’s chin dimples, her eyes full of betrayal, and yet she still chooses to direct that anger at my woman.
“Why?” She lunges for Dagne, yet stops short. “So I can ruin things more than I already have? Look what you made me do,” she hisses. The broken woman turns to Digits, her face softening. “I promise I won’t do anything like this again,” she pleads. “Let me prove it to you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Digits scoffs. “You’ll fucking prove it all right.” Before a single one of us can react, he pulls his piece out and shoots Heather right between the eyes. “Best way I know how.”
Crackers tackles Digits against the wall, wrestling the gun from his grip as the idiot laughs. “What the fuck did you just do?”
Beth wails, blood spatter adding to her already gory appearance. Fragments of blood, and brain matter paint the wall beside her as Heather lifelessly stares up from where she’s slumped to the floor, shock frozen on her features forever.
I gesture to Jo Jo to get Heather’s body out of there, and usher Dagne into the parlor. Her shoulders shake, yet her face is expressionless. She simply stares at me as I spin her around and seat her in one of the armchairs.
“What were you tryin’ to get Heather to say, babe?”