Watched Too Long: A Thriller (Val Ryker Series) Read online

  “Got to be a motel around here someplace.”

  “Right on,” Jet Row said. “We find a motel and burn it to the ground.”

  “We find a motel and sleep,” Hackqueem said. “We’ll get to the kid in the morning. Where’s the nearest motel, Sha Nay Nay?”

  “Motel 6. Two miles north. And yo, they got a free continental breakfast!”

  Continental breakfast? Hells yeah! They’d been in some cheese shop earlier, but some dumb ass pigs chased them out before they could order any food. A free breakfast would really hit home.

  And so they headed north.

  Val

  How Val got through the night without running screaming into the darkness while ripping out her hair, she wasn’t sure. He was a fireman, for God’s sake. Didn’t they have rules about blocking every escape route with gigantic stacks of guy stuff?

  And worse, as freaked out as she felt about the boxes invading every nook of her home, she knew she’d brought it on herself. And she didn’t have any earthly idea what to do about it.

  She loved Lund, didn’t she? Years ago, she’d agreed to marry him, someday. And last summer, when he’d suggested selling his house and moving in, she’d agreed to that, too. And yet…

  What was wrong with her?

  She climbed over a box of who-knew-what and set a glass of apple juice in front of Sam and a cup of coffee on the table in front of Lund.

  He smiled up at her. “Thanks. I’ll get these bad boys unpacked and out of the way this morning. After I help you make space in your closet. Okay?”

  Val stared at him, not sure what to say.

  “You feeling alright, Val?”

  “Sure, uh, fine.”

  “Nothing wrong, is there?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “I don’t want to put pressure on you. If you’re not feeling well, let me know, okay?”

  “Lund…”

  “Yeah, yeah, you don’t want to be coddled, but—”

  “I’m fine. I’m taking my medication. I haven’t had any issues in over a year. I don’t want to talk about MS. Okay?”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  Val felt like she was deceiving him. It was only natural he’d assumed her less than enthusiastic response to his moving in was caused by her condition. She should be upfront and tell him what was really bothering her. But truth was, she didn’t quite know. I love you, but not enough to get rid of my old 80s jeans and tacky silver boots?

  How weak was that? How petty? How self-destructive?

  “Okay then, we’ll get on it.” Lund set down his cup. “Sam? Can you and Harry the Bear help out?”

  “I can.”

  “Not Harry?”

  “No. He’s lazy.”

  “Okay then, maybe he’ll change his mind later.”

  “No,” she sing-songed. “He’s a Dickhead.”

  Lund plopped a box onto Val’s counter. It was labeled Kitchen Stuff.

  “It might seem like a lot,” Lund said, “but most of this stuff will just meld with yours. See?”

  He took out a pint glass with the Hooters logo on it. “This can go right into the cupboard, next to your tea cups.”

  “That’s bone China I got from my grandmother.”

  “I was wondering why you’d keep something that ugly. Family heirloom.”

  “It’s not ugly. It’s pretty.” Val reached for one of the saucers. “Sam, do you think this is pretty?”

  “I like the boobies,” she said, reaching for Lund’s glass.

  “None of my silverware matches,” Lund said, “does that bug you?”

  It went on like that for four hours.

  “Val, I moved your itchy, knitted blankets upstairs, and put my flannel ones in the hall closet.”

  “Val, is it okay if I put this antler lamp in the living room?”

  “Val, where should I hang Bigmouth Billy Bass? He sings Take Me To The River.”

  “Val, you got that bedroom closet cleaned out yet?”

  “Val, you’ve got a lot of space on your bookshelf, but all the books are alphabetized. Do you want me to alphabetize mine, too? I kinda like to shelve by size.”

  “Val, where can I put my collection of German pewter beer steins? Some of these are almost thirty years old.”

  “Val, this is cast iron cookware. It’s quality stuff. Can we move your pots and pans to the attic?”

  “Val, how’s that bedroom closet?”

  “Val, can I staple my eight hundred back issues of Hustler to the ceiling?”

  Okay, Val made up that last one. But it was pretty rough just the same.

  The lackluster lunch of microwaved chicken nuggets gave Val a stomach ache. It was amplified by how well Lund and Sam seemed to be getting along. Sam delighted in every new box he opened, and seemed to soak up all the stories he told. When Val tried to engage Sam’s interest in an antique Singer sewing machine from the last turn of the century, Sam declared it to be farty and then sat Harry the Bear on top and made fart noises until she cried with laughter.

  Val popped some Tums, and brewed her fourth cup of coffee. Caffeine. That made everything better. A few cups of strong black coffee to settle her nerves and—

  The banging on the door was so abrupt, Val automatically reached for the sidearm she wasn’t currently carrying.

  “Expecting anyone?” Lund asked.

  Val shook her head.

  Another hard knock.

  “Seems urgent.” Picking his way through boxes, Lund sidled up to the door, opened it a crack.

  No one could have been more shocked than Val when she saw who it was.

  Sha Nay Nay

  Apparently, continental breakfast meant some stale-ass donuts and an apple.

  They ate it anyway.

  It hadn’t been a good night sleep. Hackqueem had booked them all into one room, so it was two to a bed. Bön Dawg had some weed, but there were huge signs saying tampering with the smoke detectors resulted in a fine, and the goddamn windows only opened an inch. At least it stopped Jet Row from burning them all in their sleep. Sha Nay Nay heard he did that with his parents. That was some cold shit, even for a cracker.

  Er… for a white guy.

  Hackqueem’s swelling had gone down enough that he didn’t look like a Cabbage Patch Kid no more, but they were still about forty miles from their destination, and still didn’t have a car.

  “Open to suggestions,” Hackqueem said, “that don’t involve setting fire to nothing.”

  Jet Row put his hand down.

  “Jack a car,” Bön Dawg said. He had the TV on.

  “Any of you know how to hotwire a vehicle?”

  “Naw, man. We jack it. Stick a gat in their face, take that shit from them.”

  “You know we gonna kidnap a baby, right?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “You know that’s some federal shit, right? Serious FBI federal penitentiary time. So before we commit some interstate felony that’s going to have every TV station in the world looking for our asses, you want to draw attention to ourselves by jacking a car?”

  “When you say it like that, it makes me sound stupid.”

  “It is stupid, Dawg! What you watching?”

  “Nuthin’.”

  “You watching pay-per-view?”

  “Naw.”

  “That shit is like $19.99 a movie! They took my credit card number, yo! You paying for that!”

  “I’m just watching the preview! Don’t freak out, man!”

  “How long the preview been on?”

  “Like ten minutes.”

  “You baby-daddy ditch weed stupid ass fool! You watch the preview longer than five minutes, it charges the room!”

  “How was I supposed to know that?”

  “It says it on the screen when you order the damn movie!”

  “So what are we supposed to do?” Bön Dawg said.

  “We need a plan,” Hackqueem said.

  “I meant with the movie. If we gotta pay for it anyway, shouldn’t
we watch ‘till the end?”

  “You don’t turn off that goddamn TV right now, I’m shooting you.”

  Bön Dawg turned off the TV.

  “We could call a taxi,” Jet Row said.

  Everyone looked at him. Hackqueem nodded. “Now you’re thinking.”

  “And burn that shit up,” Jet Row said.

  “No burning,” Hackqueem said. “But a taxi is a solid idea.”

  They tried to look up taxis on their phones.

  “No taxi service out here?” Hackqueem frowned. “What kind of podunk backward-ass town don’t have taxis?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” Sha Nay Nay asked. “Because we already know the answer.”

  “So what do we do?” Hackqueem pointed at Bön Dawg, who was reaching for the TV remote. “Other than watch television?”

  Bön Dawg left the remote alone.

  “Yo, yo, yo, I got it,” Sha Nay Nay said. “Uber.”

  “What’s Uber?’ Jet Row asked.

  “Regular folks who get paid like cab drivers, but it’s all freelance.”

  “We can call them?” Hackqueem asked.

  “Naw. It’s all app-based. Just gotta download it.”

  And so they downloaded Uber.

  Lund

  Harry McGlade stood at the front door, looking like he always did; wrinkled and sleazy. Plus he had an odor that for some reason reminded Lund of exotic birds.

  “You lost?” Lund asked.

  “Hey, the fire guy. Lump, right? Val here?”

  “It’s Lund. David Lund.”

  “Right, Lund. You live here now? You guys couldn’t make it alone on your public service salaries so you pooled resources?”

  “Something like that.” Lund looked past Harry, focusing on the screaming red Winnebago parked in the driveway. “Nice RV, Harry.”

  “It’s the Crimebago Deux. Like a Winnebago, but built for fighting crime.”

  “Of course, it is,” Lund deadpanned. “And the tank? Don’t tell me. You’re still collecting weird vehicles to have sex on.”

  Harry beamed. “Remember the duck?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “Right?”

  “Really, I tried.” And tried. And tried. “What do you want, McGlade?”

  “Val owes me a favor. I’m calling it in.”

  Val sighed so loudly, Lund could hear her from the other side of the kitchen. “Let him in,” she said.

  Lund fully opened the door, surprised to see that McGlade had a child on his hip. “You have a kid?”

  “This is Harry Junior. I need you to watch him for a few days.”

  “Uh…” Val said.

  “Listen Val, it’s Jack. Someone she put away, he broke out of prison. He’s the War Chief of the Folk Nation. And he’s got a big grudge. Me and some friends are going up to warn Jack. She’s not answering our calls.”

  “Do you think…”

  “I dunno what to think. But I figure you’re already watching Sam, and I don’t want to take Junior into any firefight.” He looked at Lund. “The shooting kind, not the wimpy firefighting kind that you do.” Back to Val. “Junior and Sam are already buds. It would only be for a few days. And you owe me one. Actually, you owe me two.”

  Val sighed. “At least two.”

  “Hi, Dickhead!” Sam had waddled up. “Hi, Dickhead junior!”

  “She calls me dig it,” Harry said. “Like, can you dig it?”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Lund offered.

  “Blababaglab ba baaa!” Harry Jr. said.

  “He’s still working on the talking thing. No worries. I didn’t talk until I was nine years old. Also, he’s still not potty trained, and I’ve only got the one cloth diaper. But you can use anything. Old shirts, table cloths, wrap him in paper towels. I once set him down in a silk plant. He was fine. Got a list of instructions and allergies in his diaper bag. This cool?”

  Lund deferred to Val on that one.

  “Oh shit, Harry. Go find Jack. I’m not going to tell you no.”

  “Yeah, we know you have a hard time saying no. Right, Lump?” Harry waggled his eyebrows.

  “Who exactly is after Jack?” Lund asked as Harry handed him his child.

  “A street gang.”

  “A big one?”

  “Mid-sized. No more than two or three thousand members.”

  “Are we in danger?”

  Harry laughed. “I’d know if I was followed, Lump. I’m a private detective. You’ll be fine. Just don’t open the door to strangers, like you just did with me. That was stupid, by the way.”

  “No shit,” Lund muttered.

  “I’ll call you when I hear something. High five, Junior!”

  McGlade held up a palm. Harry Jr. didn’t return his father’s high five. Instead, he peed right through his cloth diaper, dripping onto the floor and forming a large puddle, some of which started soaking into the cardboard of the nearest box.

  “Gotta run, talk soon!”

  “Bye, Dickhead!” Sam waved.

  And McGlade was gone.

  Lund brought Junior to the sink, and Val broke out the mop. “Have you seen the mop bucket around here?”

  “Dickhead went pee-pee,” Sam said.

  “Yes, he did, sweetheart.” Val picked up McGlade’s diaper bag. “Maybe there are wipes in here.”

  Lund eyed the bag, then instead of waiting for a miracle, he reached for a paper towel and turned the tap on warm.

  Val opened the bag, releasing a distinct, pickled egg odor. While Val dug through it, Lund unpinned and removed the wet diaper, washed the little boy up, grabbed a nicely absorbent dish towel from a drawer, folded it into a triangle, put it under Junior, threaded it between the toddler’s legs, spread it out just right, and pinned it into place.

  Not so bad, even if he did say so himself.

  Lund checked back to see how Val was doing. “Find anything?”

  “Six cans of energy drink. Four of them empty.” She stacked them on a box then went back inside. “This.” She pulled out a crumpled sock, possibly the source of the pickled egg smell.

  “Anything else?”

  She held up a six-month-old copy of Entertainment Weekly.

  “Perhaps diaper bag is a misnomer.”

  “And the real treasure.” She pulled out a plastic cutting board with some words printed on it in black Sharpie.

  Lund picked up Harry Junior and moved close to Val to read the writing over her shoulder.

  JR’S ALLERGY LIST

  —PENISILAN

  —SOME KIND OF BERRY

  —PEANUTS

  —BEES

  —OTHER BUGS THAT STING LIKE BEES

  —COBRAS

  —THE AMISH

  —JACK’S EXPANDING BUTT

  —YOU READING THIS JACK? TIME TO LOSE THAT BABY WEIGHT! PHIN IS GONNA CHEAT ON YOU!

  —NAH, HE PROBABLY WON’T. HE’S A GOOD DUDE. PROBABLY.

  Man, that Harry McGlade was a piece of work. “I don’t see any instructions.”

  Val searched the bag’s outer pockets, pulling out some dried up baby wipes, a used Chipotle napkin, and a DVD titled Anal Blasters 7.

  “I didn’t know they made any past part 5,” Lund said.

  “Huh?”

  “That DVD. You never told me you were into that kind of thing, Val.”

  “It’s from Harry’s bag.”

  “Sure it is.” Lund set Junior on the floor, on his butt, fencing him in with a cluster of boxes.

  “DVD!” Sam yelled, reaching for the disk.

  “No, honey. That’s not—”

  “DVD!”

  She and Val played tug of war, while Lund struggled to keep a straight face.

  “You don’t really think that DVD belongs to me. Do you?”

  “Of course not. Why on earth would I think that?”

  “You don’t.”

  “Moving in with someone means accepting all of their eccentricities.”

  “Lund, come on.�
��

  Unable to hold it in, he smiled.

  “Smart ass,” Val said.

  “Smart ass. Smart ass.” Sam giggled, pointing at Lund.

  “How about this one, Sam?” Lund grabbed a DVD from one of his boxes, the movie Cars.

  “Okay, smart ass!”

  Val groaned. “Jack will never forgive me.”

  “Hey, she already knows Dickhead, so how bad could this be?”

  Val offered him a relieved half-smile.

  Now that was more like it. Lund ran his fingers down her arm. “Children aren’t fragile, you know. I heard that somewhere.”

  “Hmm, sounds familiar.”

  “I’ll tell you what, I’ll take care of these two, okay? You just relax.”

  The half-smile turned into the full, beautiful thing. “That sounds terrific.”

  Lund started up the movie, and Sam settled on his lap. Harry Junior also crawled up onto Lund, along with Sam’s bear. Val couldn’t help but notice how adorable the scene looked.

  “So, you don’t think we’re in any danger from that gang Harry mentioned, do you?” Val asked.

  “You know McGlade better than I do. He’s irresponsible. But he dropped his kid off here to keep him out of danger. Go relax. We’ll be fine.”

  “Thanks, Lund,” Val said from behind him.

  He shot her a grin. “Not a problem. This will give you a chance to clean out your closet in peace.”

  Bön Dawg

  When he was a kid, Tyrell Jean-Phillipe Ginsberg, now known by his street name Bön Dawg, thought the key to cracking lots of dollars was joining a gang.

  Then he and his homies spent over two hundred bucks on Uber fare to get to Lake Loyal, and Bön Dawg realized that gangbanging was bullshit. If you really wanted to get paid, drive for Uber.

  “That wiped out the rest of my PayPal account,” he whined. “All that cheddar I made selling my old Star Wars toys on eBay.”

  “You sold those, Dawg? Man, that Princess Leia figurine was def.”

  Bön Dawg shook his head in regret. “Mint in the box. Never even took it out the package to touch her titties. You guys gotta pay me back.”

  “I got nothing,” Sha Nay Nay said, pockets turned inside out like a broke ass hobo.

  “Did he jack us?” Hackqueem said. “Couldn’t see the meter.”

  “Because your eyes are all swole shut.”