“You got a writeable DVD?”

“Yes.” That one I answered.

Tate looked at me. “Make copies. Get one to Nina, hand delivered. Express one to Peña, you give him a head’s up to look for it and you send it from the post office in Gnaw Bone. Mick Shaughnessy is the top cop in Gnaw Bone, clean as a whistle and, because of that, he hates Fuller’s guts. Fuller doesn’t step foot in Gnaw Bone, he did, Mick would lose his mind. You’ll have no eyes on you there. You put one in your safe and then you spread them around. Krystal and Bubba, Deke, Jim-Billy, Wood. The fact you have it has to be dropped in the right ear, I’ll think about which one that’ll be and do it. What I’ll also do is let people know that they got a lot of work to do if they think they can sweep them all up. That shit heading to Dallas, they’ll figure it isn’t worth it even to try.” Tate then looked at Ty. “But this means two things, one, even the boys in the inner sanctum are turnin’ on each other which leads us to two, desperate times, desperate measures. You’re close to bein’ cleared but you aren’t. Somethin’ goes down and you got a gun, currently, you’re f**ked even if it means protecting yourself, Lex, your home. Still, you feel you need that insurance, I’ll go get your gun.”

I looked at Ty to see him shaking his head. “Not gonna trip on my own feet now.”

“Smart,” Tate muttered. “Fucked that you can’t have that insurance, but smart.”

Talk about guns and insurance, anonymous men silently wandering up our stairs to leave envelopes, Ty closing us in, I felt a full body tremble and Ty’s arm around me got tighter.

“All right, Tate, again, I owe you but right now, gotta get Lexie home. We haven’t had a great day so we need it to be done.”

Tate nodded and stood, his eyes coming to me.

“Stay strong, darlin’, this’ll be over soon.”

I nodded too. Tate’s eyes moved to Ty, they exchanged a look then Tate led the way out. There was idle chitchat in the kitchen with Laurie but not much before Ty shut it down and got me out to the Viper.

We were winding our way down the hill when he asked gently, “My mama okay?”

I wasn’t.

But I hoped soon I would be.

So I lied, “Yeah. Fine.”

“Bullshit,” he muttered but said no more and reached out a hand to mine, he squeezed firm and warm then he let it go.

As we were waiting for our garage door to open, I was thinking, doors locked, blinds pulled, no gun, anonymous men lurking in the dark with sick-ass sex tapes, I was still glad to be home.

Ty pulled in, shut the Snake down and I was ready for his tee, a beer then bed so I had my buckle off, the door open and was folding out before he hit the button to bring down the garage door.

Again, at the corner of my eye I saw movement, turned my head, froze half straightened from the car with my eyes aimed over the roof and I hissed urgently, “Ty!”

But he’d seen him before me and Ty was already out, standing in his opened door, turned to look in the opened door of the garage where Rowdy Crabtree was standing two feet in.

“What the f**k?” Ty rumbled and it was his pissed rumble that, even not directed at me echoed in my chest.

“Close the garage door,” Crabtree ordered.

“Fuck that, Rowdy, get the f**k outta here.”

“Close the door, Walker!” Crabtree snapped, taking a step closer.

“Not one more move,” Ty growled, Crabtree stopped then his body went completely still and I noticed then he did not look good. Not dirty but his hair was a mess like his hands had been going through it, he had serious stubble that said he hadn’t shaved in a good long time, his eyes were bloodshot, his body was frozen but it still communicated he was wired and he, surprisingly but fortunately, held no weapon.

“We gotta talk.” Rowdy’s tone had changed, wheedling, borderline needy.

“Gonna say it one more time, get the f**k outta here,” Ty warned low.

“Got somethin’ for you, we need to talk deal,” Rowdy told him.

“Nothin’ I need from you, no deal I’d make,” Ty replied.

“You’ll want this.”

“Rowdy –” Ty started but Rowdy cut him off, talking swiftly, urgent, the desperation coming closer to the surface.

“I didn’t do Misty.”

Ty scowled at him and asked, “No shit?”

Rowdy shook his head emphatically. “No way, Walker, no motive. Don’t barely know the bitch.”

“And you think I care about this because…?”

Rowdy shook his head again, this time communicating Ty was getting no more until he agreed to the terms. “We need to talk deal.”

“I’m seein’ you don’t get this but I don’t need shit from you. You been to ground so you don’t know I don’t need you. Right now you need me and I got absolutely no f**kin’ love for you so you can go f**k yourself. Now get outta my garage or I make the only call to Carnal PD they want to get from me and that’s me tellin’ ‘em you’re in my garage.”

“What I have is good, Walker,” Rowdy rushed to say.

Ty moved to pull his phone out of his back pocket.

Still rushing, Rowdy informed Ty, “You went down for Fuller’s brother in LA.”

“Not tellin’ me somethin’ I don’t know,” Ty muttered, flipping open his phone then, eyes to it and not to me, he said to me, “Mama, get your ass over here, behind me. Now.”

I shifted out from the door, slammed it and moved.

Rowdy spoke. “He’s got a partner.”

“Know that too,” Ty said as he moved out of his door, slammed it and I moved close to his back. He was also hitting buttons on his phone, I could hear the beeps.

“It was about dope,” Rowdy quickly put in.

“LA Fuller likes his blow, this too is not news,” Ty murmured, lifting the phone to his ear.

“LA Fuller likes his blow and also doesn’t like a middle man. Killed that dealer you went down for not because he owed him so much as because he took over his business,” Rowdy said, I felt Ty’s body get tight and he dropped his phone hand, flipping it closed.

Oh my God!

Rowdy kept talking, taking another step in, Ty’s entire body went tight making it look like it expanded and he was bigger than he was which was already big and Rowdy wisely stopped.

But he didn’t stop talking. “He owed him, he owed him a whack. But he also learned from that mistake. Distribute, you got a constant supply without havin’ to pay for it; just skim it off the top. He had connections all over the place, set up a network of sellers and, as a cop, he could provide them excellent protection. Shit worked great for him, a couple years later, he and his buddy expanded the business, took over another dealer’s supplier and territory, same way as you, dealer goes down, another guy gets framed, they take over. They had it sweet. Now they got heat.”