“GettingAwayWithMurder”—PapaRoach
Ithought the panic I’d experienced when I was afraid of being run off the road and having something happen to Loralei was the worst.
No.
The worst was finding out that it had almost happened again and I wasn’t there. It was the worst kind of helpless.
“Coming up on your compound,” Jigsaw said through the speaker as we anxiously waited at the gate. He’d called and told us to have Angel at the ready, and my stomach had bottomed out. What he’d said was brief and that Roscoe was in a bad way.
“Open the gate!” I shouted, and two prospects rolled the gate open wide. The SUV came flying up and careened through the opening before it screeched to a halt and the doors flew open.
“Sorry about the mess, bossman,” said Jigsaw with a smirk as Loralei came barreling out of the SUV and into my arms. I looked over her shoulder at the man slumped in the seat. Confusion was followed by relief when I realized it wasn’t my prospect.
“Who the fuck is that, and where is Roscoe?” I asked, dread in my guts. He was a good kid with a lot of promise.
“In the back. It’s not good though, Venom. I’m sorry,” Jigsaw said with true remorse in his insanely blue eyes. He ran a tatted hand over his mouth as Phoenix, Blade, and Kicker opened the back doors.
Out the corner of my eyes, I noticed Chains had Jasmine wrapped in his arms around the front of the SUV where he likely thought he was out of sight. I’d deal with that shit after we got Roscoe squared away.
The loyal prospect was folded up in the back like Jigsaw said. It didn’t look good. Loralei buried her face in my cut as a sob escaped her. The guys lifted him out, and a knife clattered to the ground.
“What the hell?” Phoenix asked as he set Roscoe’s leg down and picked the blade up. There was blood, still sticky, all over it.
Loralei peeked and her jaw fell open. “That was in his chest!”
“Get him inside,” I ordered. They rushed him in, and I set Loralei back. “Will you be okay with the girls?”
She nodded, and we all followed the procession indoors. Someone had turned the lights on for the twelve-foot Christmas tree, adding a ridiculously festive air to what was a room full of solemn faces.
Loralei didn’t seem to pay it any attention as I brought her into the common area with the other ol’ ladies. With a quick kiss to her head, I rushed to the infirmary.
Angel was already opening Roscoe’s cut and ripping his shirt open where the knife had obviously penetrated. The disbelief on his face had me stepping forward to get a better look.
“What the fuck? No one touched him before he was loaded up?” I muttered in question.
Jigsaw shook his head.
We all stared at Roscoe as he lay unmoving on the table. With no chest wound. Angel placed two fingers to his neck, then looked up at me.
“No pulse,” he said in astonishment. “Are they sure he was stabbed?”
“Well, look at his shirt,” Phoenix argued. “You can see the blood all around where it has a damn hole in it!”
“And there’s blood all over his chest and down his sides where it ran,” Chains added from back by the door.
Raptor came busting in the room. “Holy shit,” he gasped when he saw Roscoe lying limp and pale on the gurney.
“Where’s Grams?” I asked him.
“Out with the ol’ ladies” was his distracted response. I nodded and returned my attention to Roscoe.
Rolling him to his side, we pulled the cut and his shirt off his arm. Then we checked out his back.
Nothing.
No wounds. No bruising. Nothing but dried or drying blood.
“Maybe it wasn’t his blood?” Facet offered, but I shook my head.