Bad to Be Worthy (Bad to Be Good #2) - Andrew Grey Page 0,52
He was all ready to eat. Gerome thought it adorable.
“Where’s Cheryl?” Gerome asked Tucker.
“She had a sandwich and then went to bed.” Tucker drummed his fingers on the table. “She says she’s fine, but I’m not so sure. I would have expected her to be tired after being ill, but it’s been a while now, and she’s still worn out.” He smiled at Andi and placed an order for himself and Joshie. Terrance ordered his beer and a mountain of food. Gerome just got a soft drink and sat back. He liked that everyone was here, and when Richard joined them for a little while, they had what seemed like a weird kind of family dinner. Daniel and Coby were all that was missing.
GEROME TOOK Tucker and Joshie home once they had finished their dinners, leaving Tucker to look after the little boy and to check on Cheryl. Terrance went to his place to clean up, but Gerome had little doubt that he would stop back down. He got out the beer, and sure enough Terrance sauntered in barefooted, grabbed a beer, and flopped down on the sofa. “God, you have no idea.”
Gerome grabbed one as well and sat across from him. “What happened?”
“The second place was going well, but then I heard voices and had to rush. A group of people got on the boat, and I ended up hiding in the head, ready to take out anyone who found me.” Gerome got a vision of Terrance jammed into one of those tiny spaces. Boat bathrooms weren’t known for their size.
“Finally the smoke started coming from the back, and they hurried off the boat, but I was stuck. It was either break my cover or go down with the burning piece of junk. I ended up climbing out of the damned cabin. There was so much smoke I could hardly breathe, and I managed to jump to the boat next door. I could barely see a damned thing, but I managed to get to the next boat and then off and onto the pier. I had to hide behind one of those damned pier boxes until it got dark enough, and then I climbed a fucking fence to get off the far end of the pier and onto dry land. I about kissed the ground and hurried out of there.” He gulped his beer. “I hid in the brush until I could get to the car, and finally made it to the restaurant.”
“And no one saw you?” Gerome asked.
“You’re damned right. With all that smoke, no one was going to see shit. The last I saw, that boat had sunk in place and was one hell of a mess.”
“Where did you start the fire?” Gerome asked.
“Off the battery. The wires were in bad shape, so I made them worse and added a little help. It took longer because the damned idiots didn’t turn on any lights right away. Once they did, it went up like I hoped.” He leaned forward, tapping Gerome’s bottle with his own. “Those assets are out of commission, and their shipment is gone. If the money was also paid, then that’s gone too. These guys should be hurting big-time.” He grinned. “I’d love to hear the panic that’s going on about now.” Damn, Terrance practically cackled after that. “Whoever their supplier is isn’t going to be happy, and the police are going to investigate, so those guys aren’t going to get off scot-free. This should scare the shit out of anyone dealing with these yahoos.” He grinned and finished his beer, the smile fading from his lips. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”
“Don’t give me that crap,” Gerome teased back. “You love stuff like this… always have.”
“Yeah,” Terrance retorted without heat or excitement. “So what do we do next? They have to have other assets in the area. There’s no way they could be operating out of just those two boats.”
“Probably, but I don’t know what the other assets are, and we can let the police track those down. We turned up the heat on them a lot, and hopefully the fire is going to send the rats scurrying to a safer place.” He finished his beer and set the bottle on the coffee table.
A knock pulled his attention, and Gerome got up to open the door to Tucker, letting him in and handing him a beer. “What’s going on?”
“Just shooting the shit. How are Cheryl and Joshie?”