gym.
The teens cursed. One of them kicked the wall, then the bag. Dash dropped to his knees and began shoveling the drugs back inside. “What the hell are you thinking? Inside my gym?” He didn’t want to know what they’d been planning. To stash them in a locker? To set up a side business for his clients? I should’ve called the cops months ago. But he’d never imagined these kids would have the balls to walk in his front door and bring their stupid decisions here.
“Here.” He shoved the bag at the closest one. “Don’t let me ever see you in here again.” The sirens had gotten closer. Then they stopped. Dash turned in time to see three cops walk into the gym. Hans gave him a thumbs-up from the front desk, and his heart dropped as he realized that his trusty right-hand man had called the police.
Except Hans doesn’t know about my prison record.
Or the fact that I’m on parole.
And being found anywhere near illegal drugs gets me tossed back in prison.
Dash cracked his knuckles and took a deep breath. Maybe he could talk his way out of this. Maybe the cops would ignore the teens and take his word for it there was nothing to see here. He was the owner, after all. He’d been doing nothing but walking a straight and narrow line since the day he came back into Whispering Pines. I’ll explain I didn’t know anything about it. That they just showed up today. Hans’ll back me up. Then a fifth teen walked out of the locker room with a pill bottle in his hand and a look of total fear on his face.
Dash went cold. He recognized the shaggy hair, the faint moustache, the dark eyes and high cheekbones Louie Cruz shared with his sister. No wonder Louie hadn’t wanted to sit down and share a meal with Dash the other night. For all Dash knew, he and his buddies had been planning this for months. Are you kidding me? This would destroy his parents, not to mention Sienna. Dash didn’t know whether to shake sense into the kid or level him with one punch.
“Dash?”
He jerked back to his visitors to see Ernie West, the local police chief, pull out a notebook and lick one fat thumb to flip to a blank page. Dash thought of Sienna on her way to the gym, probably just moments away. What if she got there in time to see her little brother led away in handcuffs? He had seconds to act. And so Dash pivoted, stepped between Louie and the cops, and wrenched the bottle from Louie’s hand. Then he clasped his fists behind his back and waited.
“Yeah, Ern?”
“Got a call from Hans that you’ve been having some trouble down here.” Ernie squinted at Dash, then at the knot of teens who remained frozen in place. He scribbled something on his notebook and looked up again. “You wanna fill me in?”
“Don’t know much. These kids just showed up today.”
Ernie sighed and pushed back his hat. “Search ‘em,” he directed the other two cops. “Start with the bag.” He scribbled some more notes. “Principal at the high school called us last week. Said he found a few kids selling their parents’ pills in the student bathrooms during lunch. One girl got airlifted over to Silver Valley after OD’ing. Hw wanted to know if we’d seen anything outside of school.” He stared at the teens. “You all got some ID for me?”
Dash could feel the fear rising off them. He stood his ground, but sweat poured down his back. He kept his hands behind his back, gripped together so tightly his fingers tingled from lack of blood.
The bag was opened first, the kids questioned in turn. Every one of them had something else on him, in a pocket or slipped down the back of his jeans. Every time a bottle or baggie or pocket knife was added to the growing pile in the middle of the floor, Dash cringed.
“Sorry to have bothered you,” Ernie finally said. “Looks like we got what we need here.”
“Sure thing.”
Ernie gave him a long stare and then tucked the notepad back into his pocket. “Ya know I gotta ask, Dash.” He motioned to Dash’s hands. “Got anything there to show me?”
He thought about lying, about just shaking his head and hoping for the best. But he’d known from the beginning this wouldn’t end well. He’d known it was just a matter of time before