Kurt Read online

  “You can’t do anything about it?”

  “We’re trying,” he said, “but our hands are hampered by the law.”

  “Of course they are,” he said. “Off the record, having just found out I have a thirteen-year-old son,” he said, “I wouldn’t be happy at all to find out that he was forced into a similar situation.”

  “No, of course not. None of us want our families involved. But too often it’s the families busily working hard to put food on the table who have lost control of their kids. The parents have no idea what their kids are doing during the day, and, once it starts going sideways, it’s pretty hard to pull it back.”

  Kurt thought about that for a long moment, his face grim, as he realized just how lucky Jeremy was to have Laurie Ann as his mom. Then Kurt wondered just how much control or knowledge of what Jeremy was up to that Laurie Ann had. “If you know who they are, why haven’t you picked them up?”

  “On what charge?” Amos asked. “So far they haven’t committed a crime.”

  “Except shooting me.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about that shooting, now do I?” the detective said sarcastically. “Because some asshole forgot to file a complaint.”

  “Well, that’s because this asshole has been on the receiving end too many times,” he said, “so he didn’t figure he’d get a fair shot or that anybody would even listen to him.”

  The detective stopped, glared at him, and said, “Well, you would have. We have to look after criminals too, you know?”

  “Sure,” he said, “but who’s the priority here? I wouldn’t put in a complaint to have it ignored. I’d be much better off if I do something myself.”

  “And that’s what I don’t want you to do,” the detective snapped. “Again, no vigilante justice.”

  “I didn’t say anything about that,” he said, “but, if the gang is hooking up innocent kids, that’s not cool.”

  “Doesn’t matter if it’s cool or not. It’s none of your business,” he said. “You stay out of it, unless you’re a cop.”

  “Well, I hadn’t considered going into law enforcement,” he said, “but you never know.”

  With that, the detective shook his head and said, “Don’t bother. Your history is against you.”

  “No, not true,” he said. “I’m an adult now, and I have a hell of a lot of good references in recent history to take me where I need to go now.”

  “Yeah, did you buy them?” Amos asked with a sneer, as he hopped into his vehicle, not giving Kurt a chance to say anything. The detective took off driving down the road, obviously pissed at the world.

  While that was okay with Kurt, Amos could be pissed all he wanted. These kids though? Well, they deserved to have their clocks cleaned at least once to realize what they were up against. Kurt didn’t know if that would have helped him when he was that age or not. He’d been too cocky and sure of himself, but he hadn’t shot anybody or even attempted to. Something was going down, and he didn’t want to get involved in local gang issues, but they’d already involved him. So he didn’t really see that he had a whole lot of choice. And that would just put him up crossways with the law all over again. So maybe he wasn’t all that different now.

  Some things just seemed to never change.

  Chapter 6

  At noon the receptionist walked into Laurie Ann’s office and said, “You look beat.”

  Laurie Ann looked up, smiled, and said, “Well, I guess I feel a little bit better than that.” She looked at her watch, shook her head, and asked, “Where did the morning go?”

  “You have to be at your other clinic in about an hour, right?”

  “Two hours,” she said, “if the flooding has been controlled and if they’re accepting patients again. They were supposed to call me but …” She pulled up her phone and checked and said, “I’m not seeing any messages.” She quickly phoned the other clinic, only to find out that the repair work was still being carried out. So she had a second afternoon off in a row. She smiled and said, “I know I shouldn’t be so happy to have an afternoon off again,” she said, “but it really is a treat.”

  “Go home and do something fun,” she said. “You don’t have to stay here. All your clients are gone.”

  “Yeah, that’s good,” she said, “but it also feels weird.” She grabbed her purse and walked out to her car. She thought about whether she should detour to the truck stop. She wanted to know if Kurt was back there again and if he’d made any headway with the dog. It was an impulse that she found irresistible, turning in the direction of the coffee shop, where she’d met him earlier.

  She pulled into the parking lot on the far side twenty minutes later and smiled when she saw his truck. She parked beside it and hopped out, but she saw no sign of him. She frowned at that and walked around to the other side and headed into the coffee shop again. Again, there was no sign of him, but then he could be anywhere. She walked back outside and stood there, looking around for a long moment but again found nothing. She frowned, picked up her phone, and called him.

  When he answered, she said, “Well, I’m parked beside your truck, at least I think it’s yours,” she said, walking back over to it, “but where are you?”

  “I’m in the bush,” he said, his voice quiet. “I’m trying to connect with a little lady back here.”

  “Did you find her?” she asked in delight.

  “Well, I think so, but she’s deliberately being a shadowy figure. I can’t get close enough to see her clearly.”

  “Well, I don’t expect anybody would bond very quickly,” she said. “Trust takes time.”

  “Absolutely it does,” he said in a warm tone. “Anyway I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “I don’t want to disturb you,” she said. “If you need to stay there and work with her a bit, I can go on home.”

  “I’ll come say hi to you,” he said. “Be out in a minute.”

  With that, she put away her phone, walked closer to his truck, leaned against the tailgate, and waited for him. Hearing sounds off to the side, she looked to see a bunch of kids, then revised her opinion from kids to young adults coming toward her. Five of them. They all wore identical sneers on their face. She looked at the leader and frowned. “Can I help you?”

  “Is this your truck?” he asked, motioning at Kurt’s truck.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s not.”

  “You’re leaning against it.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Is there a law against that?” She wasn’t sure what she was getting into, but just something about his attitude bothered her. She looked closer at his buddies and asked one of the kids, “Hey, aren’t you Reggie?”

  “How do you know who I am?”

  “You’re a couple years ahead of my son,” she said, “Jeremy.”

  “Jeremy?” He frowned and then nodded. “Big kid?”

  “Yep, big kid,” she said with a bright smile. “I think you guys were on the same basketball team or something.”

  He looked sideways at his buddies.

  “Nah, basketball’s lame,” the leader said, twirling a piece of bar in his hand.

  She turned to face him, looked at the bar, looked at the kid, and asked, “What are you doing carrying around that pipe?”

  “None of your business,” he said.

  She nodded slowly. “So why are you standing here with me?” she asked. “Just so I understand what it is that you’re planning on doing.”

  “Well, we were planning on beating the hell out of the truck,” the leader said with a sneer.

  But Reggie turned and looked at him. “No, we aren’t,” he said. “We’re just leaving.” He tried to drag his friend away.

  “Fuck that shit,” the bar-swinging leader snapped, pulling free.

  “Is this what you do with your life?” she asked. “You attack vehicles parked here?” She knew the amazement in her voice was a little overdone, but she was struggling to understand how somebody like Reggie—who’d seemed to have so many good things going for him in his life—was here with this group. She looked at Reggie. “Is this what you do with your spare time?”

  “No,” he said, but the other kids crowded closer and said, “Yes.”

  “So which is it?” she asked, looking from one to the other.

  “It’s none of your business what it is, bitch,” the leader said. Reggie frowned and took half a step forward, almost protectively, as the other guy said, “Don’t even fucking play games with me now. You know what we came here to do.”

  “Yeah, but she wasn’t supposed to be here.”

  And Laurie Ann realized that they knew who owned this truck, and she was literally in the wrong place at the wrong time. “So hang on a minute. You’re trying to beat up the truck, or is it the guy who drives this truck that you’re trying to attack?”

  “Why? You sleeping with him?” the smart-ass kid said.

  She shook her head slowly. “No,” she said. “But I sure as hell wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.”

  “Yeah, and why not?” he asked.

  “Well, for one, he’s a war vet, and the world doesn’t take it kindly when you start beating up war heroes,” she said. “Two, he’s from around here and is fairly well-known, although he’s been gone for more than ten years.”

  “I don’t give a fuck who he is,” he said. “The guy’s a drip, and he pissed me off, so he’ll pay for it.”

  “So you’re some big tough dude, and this guy pissed you off?” She didn’t even know where her bravado was coming from because it’s obvious that these kids were out for trouble, and it didn’t matter where. These kids would cause trouble.

  “Yeah, and now you’re pissing me off,” he said, turning the bar toward her.

  “What are you doing? You plan to attack an innocent woman, standing here, not hurting anyone. Is that who you are?” She couldn’t believe what she’d gotten herself into. How long would Kurt take to get here?

  “Fuck, yeah,” he said, “that’s who I am.” He swung his arm back, when Reggie grabbed it and said, “No, that’s not who we are. We don’t go attacking women who were just talking to us. What’s wrong with you, man?”

  But the leader turned around and wailed on Reggie hard with the bar. “Don’t you fucking talk to me like that,” he said, “and don’t you ever talk to me like that in front of somebody else.”

  Reggie’s face twisted in pain, but the attack had been effective, as he pulled back, holding his shoulder. “It’s still wrong,” he insisted.

  At that, the punk leader stepped forward, raising the bar, as if to hit him again, and Reggie took several more steps back, and she saw the fear in his face.

  “You know, Reggie, that you don’t have to hang around with guys like this,” she said. “They are heading down a path you don’t want to go.”

  He looked at her and shook his head. “It’s all right.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “You can get out of this.”

  No,” he said, “I don’t think I can.”

  “You’re fucking right he can’t,” the punk leader said, turning back on her. “And you need a lesson yourself.”

  “Yeah, and you’re the guy who’ll do it, huh?”

  “You’re fucking right, bitch,” he said. “By the time we’re done with you, you’ll be begging for us to kill you.”

  Hearing a single soft footstep behind her, she said, “Well, you could try that, but I really don’t think that’s a wise move.”

  The gang leader looked at her in stunned amazement. “You fucking daring me to do it?” And he swung the bar back again, his face twisting in fury. The other three guys—two of them with maniac grins and wide dilated eyes on either side of the leader—nudged forward with their leader, but Reggie stepped back. And she noted something else out of the corner of her eyes.

  Just then Kurt stepped in front of her, grabbed the bar, and smacked the punk hard across the shoulder. She could hear the bone take a hell of a blow, and then Kurt turned the bar on the other three punks and dropped them to the ground. The four young men stared up at him in shock.

  Reggie turned and bolted, but she knew where to find him.

  The punk leader was screaming about his shoulder as he jumped to his feet, barreling his head into Kurt’s chest and stomach area, but Kurt raised his knee and smashed his jaw hard. Once the punk was down on the ground again and groaning, blood spurting from his jaw and his nose, Kurt turned to look at her with a hard gaze. “You okay?”

  Shaky, she nodded and pressed her fingers to her temples. “I am,” she said, “but I don’t know what the hell’s going on with the world. Is this what we have for kids nowadays?”

  Kurt pulled out his phone, made a phone call, while she stared at the kids on the ground. The two who seemed high on drugs were unconscious, as was the third. The fourth one, the foul-mouthed leader, was probably wishing he was knocked out because he still screamed in pain.

  “Do you know the kid who got away?” Kurt asked.

  She hated to answer this one, but she nodded and said, “Yes, his name’s Reggie. He’s two years ahead of Jeremy in school. They were on the same basketball team for a while.”

  Kurt passed the name off to whoever was on the other end of the phone. When he put away the phone, he said, “The cops will be here in a few minutes.”

  And she took a long slow deep breath. “I’d just as soon avoid that.”

  “Can’t now,” he said. “I tried to avoid it myself. But, with this punk here coming back for another lesson, returning for a second round, we need to bring the law into it.”

  “Fucking asshole,” said the punk, who just poured out more obscenities nonstop.

  Kurt looked at her and said, “You know what? If you weren’t here, I’d have shut that kid’s mouth a long time ago.”

  She nodded. “I appreciate the restraint.”

  “Makes no sense to me,” he said. “A mouth like that needs to be taught a lesson.”

  “You don’t think this would be a big-enough lesson?”

  “No.”

  Kurt hooked an arm around her shoulders and tucked her up close, dropping a kiss on her temple.

  Laurie Ann wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. “I was really scared,” she murmured. “The only reason I even stayed on my feet was I knew you were on the way.”

  “And I was here,” he said. “I was maneuvering into a better position, where I could take him out.”

  “Well, I’m glad you didn’t just kill him outright,” she said with half a smile.

  “Should have,” he said. “Once he heads down this pathway, it gets ugly.”

  “You were never this bad,” she said, hearing something in his tone.

  He looked down, smiled, kissed her forehead gently, and said, “Maybe not, but I don’t know that I was far from it.”

  “The gangs are supposed to be much worse now,” she said, as she looked down at the kids. “What will happen to them?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “Unfortunately probably nothing.”

  She stared at him in shock.

  “They didn’t attack you, did they?”

  “Well, they surrounded me and tried to attack me, but you stopped them.”

  “And that will make a bit of a difference, but, if it’s a first offense, they will probably get off with a warning.”

  “That’s scary,” she said. “I don’t want to be around this area of town then.”

  “And unfortunately one of them knows you and Jeremy, right?”

  “Yes, and where we live then,” she said, a shiver passing along her spine.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Not good.”

  In the distance they heard the sirens. Two cop cars pulled up, and the detective was among them. Amos walked over, two more cops with him, took one gander at the four on the ground, turned toward Kurt with a hard look, and asked, “So you attacked them?”

  “Hell no,” Laurie Ann said, stepping forward, anger in her voice. “They surrounded me, intent on attacking me with those pipes. Kurt stepped in to defend me.”

  Amos looked at her in surprise. “Seriously?” The pair of cops with him looked on, silent.

  She nodded and explained what had happened.

  Amos shook his head, looked down at the kids, pried open their eyes, and checked their vitals. “These two are too high to tell us anything and likely won’t even remember what happened,” he said.

  “You can check with Reggie,” she said. “He was the other guy here, but he got popped for sticking up for me and left.”

  “You had another one too?”

  “The fifth one, he’s two years ahead of my son in school. And when Reggie tried to stop the gang leader from attacking me, the leader turned that nasty bar against him. I don’t know how badly hurt Reggie is, but, when the leader threatened me again, Reggie tried to interfere. I told him that he needed to get clear of this crap, and he said he didn’t think he could get out of the deal now anyway.”

  “And that’s what I mean,” Amos said, the two cops nodding. “These gangs get into the kids’ lives and make it impossible for them to get out.”

  “How though?” Laurie Ann asked.

  “It’s hard to say for sure, but they find a way to blackmail them or to get them to do something either illegal or that they’re ashamed of or something the gang will then hold over their heads, until they’ve got them where they want them. Once they start doing major crimes, there’s no going back anyway.”

  “What’s this then?” she said, motioning to the gang members on the pavement. “Is this just nothing then?”

  “No, this is a major crime at this point, but we’ve also only got your word for it that they attacked you and that you’re not sitting here defending him,” he said with a head nod toward Kurt.

  She stared at Amos in shock. “Seriously?” She faced the other two cops. “What about you two?”

  But they remained silent, glancing at Amos.

  “Sure, you were in his arms when we got here. You would do anything to defend him,” he said. “We’ve seen that time and time again.”