The Prey Bites Back: A Jesse Watson Mystery Book #8 (10 page)

It was daylight before we left
the hospital. I was not happy, in pain, and wanted payback. I would have my
face-to-face with Gavin Preston, and the next time we met, he’d be the one who’d
be sorry—sorry he ever hurt me. Somehow, I would do to his body what he had
done to my face.

“Gavin Preston
is Dakota Stone’s driver,” Billy said on the ride home from the hospital.

“I knew you
were holding something back! I figured there had to be a reason the guy smashed
in my face. Why didn’t you tell the sheriff?”

“And let him
know that we were investigating the Stone woman?” Billy grunted. “We made a
deal, remember? One more slip-up and we’re going to jail. He let you slide on
this one. Next time he won’t let it go. We have to play it clean.”

“Dakota knew
you were in jail,” Mom added. “She had you arrested and then sent her henchman
in to rough you up. What better way to get to you? She’s a smart and dangerous
woman. I told both of you that.”

“Yeah, but… she
had to have known they could link
Preston
to her.
He is her driver.”

“She’d say it
was a coincidence… that she has no control over what he does off the job.
That’s what I’d say if it were me.”

“You know,
something isn’t right about
Preston
. His breath smelled like rotten chicken
mixed with a spoonful of molasses. How gross is that?”

No one
responded, as if his breath had nothing to do with anything. Maybe it didn’t,
but if he ever came near me again, I’d smell that rancid odor way ahead of
time.

“There’s more
bad news,” Mom sadly said, resisting the urge to cry as her eyes watered up. “That
urgent call the sheriff got was to tell him that Mae was dead.”

“How did you
find out?”

“Bad news
travels fast. Mae was murdered, suffocated with a pillow. The pillow was still on
her face when the nurse rushed in to check on her. Seems Mae managed to press
the call button before she died. We just found out, but didn’t want to tell
you—”

“Stop! I can’t
take anymore bad news.”

I felt like
crying, but I was all cried out. Mae was dead, and I had a pretty good idea who
had killed her. It was obvious that the blood trail would lead straight to
Dakota’s front door. I had to close my eyes to shut out all the death happening
around me.

By the time we
reached our house, the latest round of painkillers had kicked in and I had
fallen asleep. A bump in the driveway woke me, and after seeing two black
Hummers parked out front, I was wide-awake.

I glanced over
at Billy and thought about how much I loved him. Even after eight years of
marriage, I was still attracted to him just as much as I was when we first met.
He was handsome, strong and loving, and he had integrity. That means a lot to a
woman. I laid my head back for a minute and let the images of his naked body
flow through my mind like a slideshow. My sexual urges were getting ready to go
into hyper-drive again… but my body laughed at the idea.

Billy parked
next to Mom’s yellow canary, and then the three of us got out and headed for
the house.

“Are we having
a powwow?” I asked, walking in the door. “Is this a welcome home party or a
black ops meeting?”

“All of the
above,” Jonathan replied, walking to the door to greet us. “We’re glad you’re
home, and we’re getting ready to go silent. Mae’s murder changed everything.”

“It’s the same
thing as circling the wagons,” Mom explained as if I hadn’t heard that phrase
before.

The smile on
Billy’s face was such a relief. Since his mother’s illness, he had been in a
dark place, but now he was back and ready for action!

Helene, the
dogs, and another man stood by the dining room table. The other guy was an
extremely well-built, square-shouldered, chiseled jawed black man. Including
Billy, I was now standing in the middle of three men who looked as if they
could flatten you with their thumb.

Athena and Thor
were so glad to see me that they almost licked me to death. I smiled, instead
of telling them to get down like I normally do. After a few caresses, they got
bored and ran off to their food bowls, forgetting about me. A dog’s love is
unlike any other. All they want is affection and food. They had gotten their
affection, now it was time for food.

No one said
anything about the way my face looked. Not even Helene. I guess she’d seen
worse since she’d been living with us, and from the look of the guys around me,
I knew they had. I could just tell. They probably put my injuries in the same
category as a mosquito bite.

“It’s been
done,” Jonathan said to Billy. “Lu Ann has the children. They’ll be safe. Mason
and Gator are on the job.”

“My children?”
I looked around and then back to Billy. “Where are the kids?” I looked at
Jonathan. “Mason and Gator? Who are they?”

“The murder of
Mae Bridges brought this to a whole new level,” Billy said. “It proves there’s
something to what she told us about Dakota Stone. Why else was she murdered? People
are getting bumped off one by one, and we’re not going to let it go any
further. Dakota Stone’s reign of terror stops here.”

“I’ll fix
something to drink,” Helene said. “Coffee, tea, or booze?” She scanned the
faces in the room, and then excused herself as if she didn’t want to hear me go
into another one of my rages.

“It’s
seven o’clock
, Helene,” Mom shot back. “Who wants booze this early in
the morning?”

“I can’t
believe Mae’s dead, but I should’ve seen it coming. She was right to be
terrified of Dakota Stone and her buddies. They tried to kill me and failed,
and then they went after Mae and succeeded. I’m sorry about Mae. Next time
Gavin Preston comes after me, I’ll be ready… and I’m going to pay him back for
killing Mae.”

I soon learned
that Gator and Mason were part of Jonathan’s covert team of guys who had done
battle together in more ways than one. I knew of Jonathan’s past, and if these
guys were his pals, we had a real fighting force on our side. But what did we
need with them? We could handle the Stone woman and her killer friends.

“I need to sit
down,” I said, walking over to the kitchen table with Mom by my side. We both took
a seat and looked up at the men in the room. “What a bunch of scary looking
dudes,” I said. “I’d hate to meet either one of you in a dark alley—you
included.” I looked over at Billy.

They laughed. I
shivered. I figured Dakota Stone was the ringleader and Olivia Swales was just
another one of her patsies in crime just like Gavin Preston—except that
Preston
was the killer in the group. These guys were here to bring
them down.  

Jonathan introduced
his comrade as he motioned to the tall, black guy. “This is Shark. He’s the one
you really have to look out for. He’ll chop off your head in a heartbeat.”
Jonathan made a sweep across his throat with his hand to emphasize his point.

My mouth
dropped after sizing the man up. He was a mammoth, bodybuilding type guy,
six-two, and weighed at least one-ninety, and not an ounce of it was fat. His
head was shaved and he was dressed neck-to-toe in black—black T-shirt, black
pants, and black boots, the same as Jonathan. They both had a tiny gadget in
one ear, and strapped to their belts was a cell phone, gun, and some kind of
device I’d never seen before. Perhaps it was a ray gun. They had everything else.
I learned later that their gear also included knives in their boots and rocket
launchers in their Hummers.

“Shark… is that
your first or last name?”

“Only one name
is necessary, Mrs. Blackhawk,” Shark replied in such a way that I half expected
him to salute me. His build, mannerisms, and speech made me think of Denzel
Washington, only a much, much larger version… with no hair. He had to have been
a Marine in his other life. He was disciplined and tough. I remember hearing
that Marines were once called Devil Dogs. Now I can see why. Shark was like a Pit
Bull on steroids. Extremely dangerous.

On the flip
side, did I mention he was good looking, or that he had muscles that bulged
with each movement? Every man’s nightmare. Every woman’s dream.

“Please, call me
Jesse,” I replied in a soft voice. I wasn’t flirting, just trying to ease the
tension in the room. So many alpha males in one place were overwhelming. “Mrs.
Blackhawk is too formal if we’re going to kill people together. We’re a team,
right?” I looked at Billy for confirmation.

You see, I knew
that if Billy and Jonathan brought in this badass guy, he expected me to sit
this one out, but I wasn’t about to do that, and I told him so.

“I would never
leave you out, `ge ya,” Billy said, winked, and then looked at everyone else.
Then, he focused his attention on Jonathan, waiting for him to dole out orders.

Jonathan took
command and said, “Shark, I want you to take Minnie to her house…”

“What?” Mom
asked.

He looked at
Mom. “He’s going home with you so you can pack a few things and then come back
here. It’s the only way we can keep you safe. He’ll help you with Eddie.”

“Hold on,” I
interrupted. “What am I missing?”

Jonathan
reached over, grabbed the folder that had been sitting on the counter, and then
handed it to me. I opened it, looked at some of the paperwork and sucked in my
breath. I looked over at Billy. “When did you find out about the others?”

“Just last
night,” he replied. “Jonathan had to do some serious digging before he pieced
it together. Nobody, not even the cops made the connection that there have been
two other men that were murdered, and the one thing they all had in common was
that their wives belonged to the same spa. Guess that never came up.”

“Figures,”
Helene sneered. “A simple connection and the cops still couldn’t get it right.
You did good, Jonathan.”

“Actually, Lu
Ann’s the one who came up with the connection. She’s the criminal profiler in
the family. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff she can piece together. It’s
as if she sees into a killer’s mind. Give her the details of the crime and she
can tell you all about the suspect. Sometimes it’s almost scary.”

“I can’t
believe anything would scare you, Jonathan,” Mom said, lovingly. She adored him
and everyone in Billy’s family. She made it a point to tell everyone she could that
I was lucky to have married into a family like Billy’s. They were the absolute
best, so diverse in their careers, and so close and loving. On and on and on. Bless
her kind heart.

“These deaths
weren’t just random acts of violence,” I said, flipping through the pages in
front of me. “One a year for the last three years. Hmm. She’s been a busy gal.”

“Mae swore
Dakota was running a hit shop and not just a spa!” Mom added. “Not in those
exact words, but that’s what she meant. And now she’s dead, and it wasn’t the
lightning that killed her.”

Jonathan
reached over and pulled out a photo from the bottom of the file. “Here’s an
image of the person who was last seen leaving Mae’s room before she died. It’s
not the best, it’s a little fuzzy, but you can see the eyes. Maybe you’ll
recognize the face. A nightshift nurse didn’t get a good look at him, but she
definitely saw him walking out of Mae’s room. I got this photo from a hospital
camera, and don’t ask me how.”

I looked at the
photo. It was grainy, but there was no doubt about who those eyes belonged to.
“It’s him! It’s Gavin Preston.”

“We know,”
Jonathan said. “Just wanted to see if you concurred. This photo was captured an
hour after he was released from jail, so he had the opportunity, and this
picture proves it.” He passed the photo to Mom. “Have you ever seen this guy
before?”

“Oh, my Lord!”
she exclaimed. “I think I might have passed him in the hallway at the hospital.
Who could forget those menacing eyes?” She thought for a second. “Are you
telling me he snuck into Mae’s room and killed her while we were still at the
hospital with Jesse?”

“According to
the time stamp, it looks that way,” Billy added.

“I can’t
believe he was that close to me again,” I murmured. “He killed Mae right under
our noses. He could’ve gotten to me if I’d been alone.”

Mom cocked her
head as if she was thinking about something, and then asked, “Shouldn’t we give
this information to the police? I mean, I think I saw him at the hospital, and
we know he’s connected to Dakota.”

We all glanced
back and forth at each other.

“Hmm…” I said.
“A question we’ve come up against before.”

It was the same
question we had asked ourselves on a previous case. We made a wrong decision
then, and it wound up landing me and Billy in hot water with the sheriff. If
we’d just given Sheriff Hudson the gun when we found it, instead of holding
onto it, our life would be as it was. We wouldn’t be working on the sly, taking
a chance we could land in the pokey for an indeterminate amount of time. We’d be
out there kicking butt. Now we were reduced to sneaking around in the bushes
like panthers waiting to pounce. But hey, isn’t that the way we’re supposed to
operate?