Deadly Coincidence (Brantley Walker Off the Books #4) - Nicole Edwards Page 0,60

perimeter of the house, giving him the perfect opportunity.

Later he would wonder if Brantley had done that on purpose.

“Should we tell them we’re leavin’?” JJ asked, her words soft with a slight tremble.

“No.”

To his surprise, she didn’t argue and he didn’t elaborate.

Once in the truck, Baz buckled JJ’s seat belt for her, started the engine, and double-timed it out of the neighborhood. He hadn’t made it a mile when his cell phone began ringing, Brantley’s number on the screen.

He ignored it. Once he got her somewhere safe, somewhere the police wouldn’t find her until they solved this, Baz would call him and explain.

“Where are we going?” JJ asked a short time later, once they were on the interstate heading south.

“My father’s,” he said simply.

“Baz, that’s—”

“He’s not home,” he told her quickly, not wanting her to panic. “They’re out of the country. Won’t be back for a couple of weeks.”

Either she believed him and felt no need to argue or JJ was in shock, because she said nothing.

Every so often, he would look over, noticing that JJ’s eyes were closed, her head resting on the window. It made him nervous to think she might be injured more than she would admit.

Knowing it would likely infuriate JJ, Baz decided to make a call. If she wouldn’t let him take her to a clinic to get checked out, he would have someone come to her.

It was times like this when he appreciated his father’s wealth. Especially since it meant there was a doctor who made house calls.

Chapter Fourteen

“I need a fucking doctor,” Dante groaned, using the dollar bill he’d turned into a makeshift straw to sniff the white powder up his nose.

He sighed as the relief was almost instantaneous. Thank God for cocaine; otherwise, losing a finger would’ve fucked him all to hell.

“You’ll live. Quit your whining.”

Whining? He was whining?

Dante sniffed again, glaring at his partner. “I think I’ve earned the right.”

After all, they had agreed on the plan to go to JJ’s, knock her out with a dose of something that would keep her out for a while, then spill blood everywhere. The objective was to make her think Dante had been kidnapped and injured, so that way when the ransom demand came in, his father would be more likely to believe it.

But nowhere in any of the scenarios they’d come up with had it said anything about lobbing off his damn finger.

“Who’re you texting?” Dante asked, watching Marcus as he paced the room, phone in hand.

“My girl,” he said simply, leering as his thumbs tapped the screen.

“You mean my girl,” Dante countered.

After all, Dante had been talking to Kat first. He was the one who’d answered her from his online dating profile. He was still unclear how Marcus started chatting her up, but he found he didn’t really care anymore. The woman wasn’t all that interesting, anyway.

“What does she want?” he heard himself ask although he honestly didn’t care.

Marcus’s eyes were shining. He was definitely high. “She said she wanted to be in on the plan, so I was telling her how it went.”

Dante’s entire body went cold. “What? You asked a complete stranger to be part of this?”

Was the guy a total fucking moron?

“She’s not a stranger, and yes. She was excited. Even asked me to do something for her. Her contribution, she said.”

This man really was insane, and now Dante was neck deep in a scheme he wasn’t sure would play out. What was to stop this Kat chick from turning them in? Maybe she was a cop and this was a setup. Son of a bitch.

Closing his eyes, he thought back to last night, let it play out in his head as he’d done repeatedly since they’d left JJ’s. Everything had gone perfectly up to the point Marcus showed up. Dante had called, lured her back to her house, and she’d come without question. Of course, he had to give his acting skills some credit. He was rather believable when he wanted to be.

“What took you so fuckin’ long?” Marcus demanded when Dante opened JJ’s front door, his voice a harsh whisper. “Where’s she at?”

“In the kitchen. Be quiet.” Dante’s gaze darted behind him to ensure she hadn’t returned to the living room.

“What’s she doing?”

“Making coffee.”

“Good.” Marcus’s eyes glittered, a hint of insanity brightening them.

“You get the drug?”

Marcus held up a hypodermic needle, flipped it between two fingers, then stepped into the house. He strolled right by, leaving Dante to close the front door, doing his best to