Save the low chirp of summer crickets, the street is quiet, which Valero interrupts with a knock at the front door as he tries to turn the knob, just in case Jamie’s as lazy about locking up as he is about paying what he owes. But there’s no response and the knob doesn’t turn. Tyler walks to the side of the house, disappearing around the corner of the wrap-around porch while Valero pushes the front doorbell. We don’t hear a chime from inside.
Tyler reappears. “Over here,” he says. We follow him to the side of the house, where he’s found a door. “Front one’s probably too heavy, don’t you think?” he says. “And there’s no dead bolt on this one.” He cocks his head and raises his eyebrows at me. I know the follow-up question he’s implying.
Here’s the thing: I’m a generally nice guy in a not-so-nice business. But something you learn as a fighter is that if someone throws one punch, there’s always more where that came from. You have to be willing to punch back. Do what’s necessary to defend yourself.
And as they say: the best defense is a good offense.
“The sooner we’re in, the sooner we’re out,” I say, standing back to give Valero some room as he raises his foot. With the grace and precision of the Falcons player he was, he kicks the door in and it swings back into the house, the whole thing quieter than you’d expect, like when glass bounces but doesn’t break on a hardwood floor. The door droops to one side, two of the three hinges busted, and we enter what appears to be the kitchen.
Our eyes adjust to the darkness. I’m hoping the kid’ll help us do this the easy way and just come downstairs to see what all the racket’s about, that he’s not going to make us pull him out of his bed or throw open a shower curtain to find him trying to hide like a character in a movie or chase him down the street in his boxers. I don’t know exactly where the hell we are, but it seems like a decent neighborhood, and I’m sure the families next door would appreciate Jamie’s compliance with our requests. I’d hate for them to wake up because he’s escaping out a second-story window. Or being thrown out of it by Valero.
We wait a beat in the kitchen, but no one appears. Hard way it is, then. And it’s not a lie to say I’m unhappy it’s come to this—breaking down doors and roughing people up reminds me too much of my old life, the life I’ve worked so hard to put behind me. But I can’t afford to forgive and forget. Not in this business.
“Let’s go,” I say, heading to the foyer. I point Valero to the living room to do ground floor recon as Tyler follows me up the staircase, the sound of our footsteps dampened by the carpeting that covers them.
The second floor hallway is lined with several doors, but only one at the end is closed. I head toward it as Tyler systematically flips on lights and inspects the open rooms just for good measure—a bathroom here, a hall closet there, a guest bedroom, complete with an afghan quilt Grandma McEntire must have made. Too bad she didn’t teach her grandson not to be a degenerate gambler.
I put my ear against the closed door, hear the quiet stirrings of an unsuspecting sleeper who’s about to get a big surprise.
The knob turns quietly. The outline of the bed is just visible by the moonlight through the blinds. I can make out a figure curled up in the middle of the sheets: Jamie, in the last peaceful sleep he’ll have for a while. Even if he doesn’t know it yet.
I switch on the bedside lamp. “Rise and shine, asshole,” I say, bending over Jamie’s head and rustling up a dose of the old Ryder.
I yank back the sheet and reveal a girl in black panties, the side band twisted and pushed down a little below her hip, and a white t-shirt worn thin to the point of see-through, stretching over her breasts and coming only to just above her belly button, tiny even on her small frame.
A hot blonde, half asleep.
Not Jamie McEntire.
Not that I’m complaining.
CASSIE
CH. 3
I’d been dreaming about England again, and for once it had been almost nice. Restful, even. Not the nightmare I usually experience when England sneaks into my subconscious.
Maybe that’s because my subconscious knew there was a real nightmare going on in my house, standing right next to my bed.
When I first woke up, I thought maybe I was having some kind of jet-lag-induced hallucination, like maybe my knackered mind was seeing Jamie but processing him as someone else. I didn’t recognize the voice, but I’ve been surrounded—some might say drowning—in British accents for so long that Americans almost sound strange to me now anyway. Unfamiliar.
But, still, it’s disturbing to be the one who’s disoriented in your own house while the stranger looks unbothered. Even pleased. Amused.
Maybe it’s my old University of West Alabama t-shirt, the one with the cartoonish Luie the Tiger across the chest, or the fact that I don’t have on pants. Mental note: wear full pajamas from now on. You don’t want to give intruders any ideas they may not already have.