Death, Taxes, and Cheap Sunglasses (A Tara Holloway Novel Book 8) (32 page)

“Au contraire,”
Anthony said. “Unless you want to find yourself without a job, I’d suggest you release her immediately.”

It was four
A.M.
by the time I’d been able to speak my piece, prove my identity, and treat the guard to a well-deserved raspberry.
Pffft.

I turned to Anthony. “Can I use your phone?”

“Sure.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and handed it to me.

I dialed Josh.

He answered on the fourth ring, his voice hoarse from sleep. “Hello?”

“What the hell!” I yelled, fueled by fresh fury. “Why didn’t you get me out of jail?”

“Wait. You were taken to jail?”

“Yes!” I hissed. “I’ve been sitting in a cell for hours!”

“Sorry,” he said. “It was total chaos at the frat house. I showed my badge to one of the cops, and told him to turn Chase over to our marshals once they were done with him. The cops let me and Kira leave. I figured they’d let you go, too.”

“Well, they didn’t!”

His voice took on a defensive tone. “That’s not my fault.”

It
wasn’t
his fault, of course. But still, he could’ve stuck around, made sure I got out okay. Lest I verbally rip him a new one, I simply growled, hung up, and returned the phone to Anthony.

On our way out, we passed federal marshals on their way in to round up Chase and take him to the federal lockup for processing. Chase was apparently out of fight by then, his meager protests of “this isn’t cool” lacking volume and conviction.

Anthony was kind enough to give me a ride from the police station, though he insisted I sit on top of a plastic body bag he’d provisioned from the police department’s evidence supply. His Jaguar was his baby.

He drove me back to the frat house to round up my purse, then took me on to my car, which was still parked nearby.

“Take care, now!” he called as I climbed out of his car. “And take that sticky body bag with you.”

I dragged the bag out of his car, bleeped the locks open on my G-ride, and situated the body bag over the seat. I didn’t care much about the fleet car, but I didn’t want the seat to be sticky next time I drove it. I drove home, parked the car at the curb in front of my town house, and went inside.

“Holy hell, Tara!” my father cried as I came in my front door.

“My goodness!” My mother rushed over to meet me at the door. “What do they do at fraternity parties these days?”

Though my parents were both up now, their disheveled hair and droopy eyes told me they’d been asleep in bed at some point. Both were in their robes and slippers.

My mother’s face contorted in anxiety. “Dad woke up at two to use the bathroom and realized you hadn’t come home yet. We’ve been so worried! What happened?” Before I could answer, she looked down at the bag in my hand. “Dear Lord! Is that a body bag?”

As Annie eased out from under my couch and stepped over to cautiously sniff my leg, I begged their forbearance. “I’m wiped out and all I want to do right now is clean myself up. Can I give you the details in the morning?”

My mother frowned but acquiesced. “I suppose that’s all right. At least we know you’re okay now.” She took the body bag from my hands. “I’ll take care of this. You run on up and get a shower before you start attracting bees.”

My dad raised a hand to stop me. “At least tell us whether you got the guy you were going after.”

“Of course.” I offered him a smile. “Tara Holloway always gets her man.”

chapter thirty-one

R
edneck Rendezvous

Despite shampooing, rinsing, and repeating three times, my hair still bore a pinkish tinge the following morning, courtesy of the Red Dye No. 2 in the punch. My skin hadn’t fared much better, looking pink and blotchy in places. I could use a full-body glycolic treatment. Or perhaps a power wash.

But these aesthetic concerns were nothing compared to my buttocks, which had turned black and blue over the last few hours. I couldn’t even sit at breakfast. I’d had to eat my banana pancakes lying belly-down on my couch and drink my coffee through a straw.

My mother stood with one hand on her hip, looking down at me. “I can’t stand to see you like this, honey. I’m taking you to see the doctor.”

With all the pain I was in, I wasn’t about to argue. I lay down stretched out in the backseat of my father’s king-cab pickup with a bed pillow. My mother insisted I be buckled in and somehow managed to get all three seat belts strapped around me. Frankly, it seemed the belts posed a greater risk of breaking my neck or choking me than saving my life should she have to brake suddenly, but there was no arguing with my mom. She drove me to the emergency clinic.

The receptionist looked up as I came in. “Uh-oh. From that look on your face I’m guessing your lucky streak is over.”

I gingerly edged up to the counter. “My butt is bruised. I got dragged down two flights of stairs last night.”

Kelsey stared at me a moment, turned to her computer screen, then turned back to me and blinked. “I don’t even know how to code that for insurance. There’s a code for sprained ankles, broken toes, burns. But there’s no number for butt bruises. The closest thing I have is hemorrhoids. Guess I’ll go with that.”

One pain in the ass was as good as another, I guessed.

Unable to sit, I stood in the waiting room while my mother perched on a chair and perused a six-month-old issue of
National Geographic
. A woman sitting nearby kept cutting glances at me over the top of her mystery novel, probably wondering if my pink tint was due to some type of flesh-eating bacteria. As unsanitary as that trash can punch had been last night, there was no telling what I might have contracted. Mononucleosis. Herpes. Ebola. Syphilis.

The door to the examination rooms opened and Ajay poked his head out. “I hear there’s a pain in the butt out here,” he called, a smile playing around his lips. “Come on back.”

I ambled to the door, my mother following along behind me. Ajay closed it behind us and led us down the hall to an exam room.

“Any word from Nick?” he asked quietly as we walked down the hall.

“Not since last time.”

“Damn.”

He opened the door to the exam room and held it for me and my mother.

“I’d say take a seat,” he said to me as he shut the door behind him, “but I’m guessing that’s not an option right now. What happened?”

As he stood there, his hands resting on either end of the stethoscope draped around his neck, I told him about last night’s events. The frat party. My attempt to cuff Chase in his room. Chase subsequently dragging me around behind him as if I were a Radio Flyer wagon.

When I finished, Ajay nodded. “All right. Turn around, drop your pants, and put your hands on the table.”

Embarrassing as it was, I did as I was told. I cast a warning glance at him over my shoulder. “You better not enjoy this.”

“If I can’t enjoy it,” Ajay shot back, “why do it?” He stepped over and bent down slightly for a closer look. “Ouch. Your butt is solid black-and-blue. On a positive note, it’s awfully cute. Firm, too. I’d call it perky, even.”

My eyes rolled on their own accord. “Gee, thanks.”

Ajay punched a button on the intercom mounted on the wall. “Bring two ice packs to room four please.”

The doc pushed gently on my tailbone.

I turned my head and tossed him a scowl over my shoulder this time. “Ow!”

He pushed a little harder. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad is your pain?”

“Fifty-three,” I grunted out, “point six.”

“Better get an X-ray.”

A nurse took me to another room, where a technician took an X-ray of my lower half. While I waited for the images to process, I rested facedown on an exam table with an ice pack on each of my buns. So much for my dreams of having a smokin’ hot ass. My butt was as frozen as an Eggo waffle.

I must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew Ajay had his hand on my shoulder and was gently shaking me awake.

“Bad news,” he said. “Your coccyx is fractured.”

Damn that Chase!
I had half a mind to march on down to his cell at the federal holding facility and give him a kick in the nuts to even the score. “What’s the treatment? Are you going to put me in some type of cast?” How would that even work? Would it be like some type of plaster girdle?

“No,” said the doctor. “There’s not much we can do for a broken tailbone. You just have to take it easy for a while, try to keep weight and pressure off your lower back.”

That would be difficult. My job involved a lot of driving around and sitting and wrangling unruly tax evaders. Then again, maybe the injury would convince Lu to provide me with a Segway for getting around the office. That could be fun. Did they make a model with a cup holder and a built-in television?

Ajay held up one of those doughnut-shaped hemorrhoid pillows. “This will help.” He pulled a small brown bottle of pills from the pocket of his lab coat and shook them like a maraca. “So will these.”

He handed me the pillow and pills. I looked down at the label. Vicodin, a common, and sometimes abused, painkiller. As much as I would love to have some relief from my sore buns and tailbone, I didn’t want to take anything that would prevent me from doing my job. In just an hour or so, my father, Eddie, and I would be heading out to Southern Safari to see about bagging a lion, doctor’s order be damned.

“Will these pills impair my judgment?” I asked.

“Not any worse than it already is.”

I cast Ajay a look. The look said “shut your piehole.” My look sounded suspiciously similar to that cop at the jail last night.

“You shouldn’t drive or operate machinery,” he said. “So no heading over to the GM plant in Arlington to build cars. No driving a forklift at Home Depot. No filling potholes with a steamroller. Use extra caution when using your vibrator.”

My mother eyed Ajay over the top of her magazine and emitted a disapproving
“A-hem.”

“What about my guns?” I asked.

“Guns?” Ajay waved a hand dismissively. “For you, no problem.”

*   *   *

I paid my copay and left the clinic with my party favors—the pillow, pills, and ice packs.

When my mother and I arrived home, we found my father decked out in his standard hunting gear. Camouflage pants. Camo shirt. Camo ball cap. He looked every bit the trophy hunter.

I went upstairs and put on a pair of khaki pants and a green T-shirt, makeshift camo. My best sneakers were a trendy Day-Glo orange. Not exactly the thing you want to wear on a hunt, even if it wasn’t going to be a real hunt. I gingerly got down on my knees and dug around in the bottom of my closet until I found a navy blue pair.

My doorbell rang a half hour later as Mom and I were packing a cooler and picnic basket in the kitchen. Though I’d assured her that a couple of water bottles and a sandwich apiece would be enough, she’d insisted on making half a dozen sandwiches. She put them in the basket along with an enormous jar of dill pickles, a thermos of warm baked beans, and a tin of her homemade pecan pralines.

“That’ll be Eddie.” I left my mother to finish stocking the ice chest and went to my front door. I opened it to find Eddie standing on my doorstep. Like my father, he was fully decked out in camouflage, though Eddie’s was clearly brand-new. He’d put a cap with the Lone Star Beer logo on his head and tied a red bandana around his upper arm.

I couldn’t hold back a snicker. “I do believe you’re the first black redneck I’ve ever seen.”

“I feel like an idiot.” His eyes moved to my father, taking in Dad’s gear as he stepped up behind me. “No offense, Mr. Holloway.”

“None taken,” Dad replied. He meant it, too. He didn’t give a rat’s ass whether anyone approved of his clothing. He didn’t give a rat’s ass whether anyone approved of his simple, country lifestyle. And he didn’t give a rat’s ass if anyone voiced their opinion, whether or not it matched his own. Dad did nothing to promote movement in the rat-ass market sector.

“Come pick a gun or two,” I told Eddie, motioning for him to follow me to my dining room table where my father’s gun collection, as well as my own, were laid out.

“Jesus!” Edde cried when he took in the veritable arsenal displayed there. “You’ve got an entire armory here.”

My father picked up one of the rifles. “This one’s not bad. The range isn’t as long as some of the others, but it’s lighter weight, which makes it easier to handle.”

He handed it to Eddie, who moved it up and down, testing its heaviness.

Dad picked up a second rifle. “This one’s a bolt-action muzzle loader.”

The two exchanged weapons.

Eddie held the new rifle to his eye and pretended to take aim at the wall. “Not bad.”

Dad showed him a third. “This one’s a semiautomatic carbine.”

By this time I’d grown impatient. “Just pick one, Eddie. It’s not like we’re actually going to be shooting anything. Not unless it attacks us first.”

Dad cut me a narrow-eyed look, annoyed that I’d interrupted him showing off his collection. You get the man started on his guns and he was like a grandmother bragging about her grandchildren.

“Sorry, Dad,” I said. “I’m just anxious to get moving. And my butt hurts so I’m cranky.” The pain in my ass was turning me into one.

We packed several rifles in a carrying bag. As Dad went to zip it, I told him to wait a minute.

Hustling upstairs, I retrieved Nick’s samurai sword and brought it back downstairs.

“What the heck is that for?” Eddie asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. In case we run into another rattler or something.”

He made a face that told me he thought I was being ridiculous, and he was probably right, but he knew better than to argue with me. I added my night vision scope to the bag, too, as well as my father’s. This bust should be wrapped up before nightfall, but it never hurt to be prepared for any eventuality.

Mom emerged from the kitchen with the cooler in one hand, the picnic basket in the other. She set them at our feet. “Don’t want y’all going hungry while you’re out there.”

My father picked up the picnic basket and immediately set it back down. “This thing weighs a ton.”