Pike (The Pawn Duet #1) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,42

everything.

Well, almost everything.

I leave out the information Pike so desperately wants, amongst other things that could hinder my plans.

After all, I have an IQ of one sixty.

I’m not fucking stupid.

Chapter Fifteen

Pike

After I fix Gutter’s motor, we take the boat a few minutes deeper into the Everglades to where Gutter’s houseboat is anchored. It’s a tiny one-room shack on a raft with tin sides and a thrown away set of closet doors that lead inside. Two bundles of thick sticks are tied to each side of the entry forming a redneck archway. Above the porch hangs the skull of a gator with the skeleton of a large bird in its mouth.

“It ain’t much, kid, but it’s home,” Gutter says, extending his hand to Mickey.

She looks over the small shack and smiles. “It’s very…you.”

He tips his hat to her. “Imma take that as a compliment.”

“It was meant as one,” she responds.

Gutter smiles his missing tooth smile. “Why don’t you go inside. There’s running water and more beers in the cooler by the table. Imma have me a little chit chat out here with your man.”

We exchange looks, but neither of us correct him. I jerk my chin to her, and she disappears inside.

Gutter wastes no time, turning to me with his thumbs under the suspenders of his overalls. He rocks on his heels. “What in the name of Merle Haggard have you gotten yourself into with this girl?”

I sigh, straddling a broken chair on the deck.

Gutter pulls up a folding chair with a large tear on the back and takes a seat next to me. For a moment, we both stare over the black water. The glowing greenish yellow eyes of a gator appear a few feet away before it disappears into the reeds. An animal turned supper for another animal higher up the food chain echoing over the long grass.

“She tell you everything?” I ask.

Gutter nods. “She told me some things but can’t be sure it’s everything because I ain’t her. He takes a swig of his beer. “I’m assuming you brought her out here, so I can tell you if the chit is lying or not, but I gotta hear it from you now.”

“Hear what?” I ask.

He jabs his finger in my chest. “Your version of the story.”

I rub the back of my neck where the tension has been building over the past few weeks, then proceed to tell him how I originally met Mickey and everything else leading up to this very moment. Even as I retell it, I find myself running through various stages of anger. By the time I’m done, my knuckles are tight on the back of the chair and wait for Gutter to weigh in on what I’ve just said.

Gutter isn’t one for speaking without thinking. It’s one of the things I’ve always liked about him. When I’m done, he doesn’t launch into anything. He simply sits in silence, allowing my words to sink into his brain.

The song of a million crickets grows louder in the quiet until it’s humming so loud I can feel it vibrating against my skin.

Finally, Gutter speaks. “My question for you is what are you hoping to learn from bringing her here?”

Before Gutter was, well, Gutter, he was Christopher Andrews, a phycologist in the military. He spent his time studying how the mind is affected by torture and deciding which techniques worked best and which didn’t work at all. He was good, too. They used to call him the human lie detector. Not because he could necessarily tell you if the person was lying or not, but because he knew exactly what means to use to extract the truth.

Needless to say that lying to Gutter is pointless, so I never have. “I just need to know if I’m wasting my time with her. If she’s ever going to tell me what I need to know”

“You said she suffered a head injury. How?” Gutter asks.

I recall the moment right before I found out that Mickey was a she and not a he.

“By way of headbutt,” I answer. “After that, she seemed confused for a little while. When I first met her she was the same way. Thinking people were around her who weren’t there. Don’t know what happened to her that night though. She says a kayaking or swimming accident or some shit, but I don’t fucking know.”

“What do you know?” Gutter asks.

I feel like I don’t know shit anymore for certain except for two things. I need the information only