The Shack series

Chapter 17

"I thought she changed it after you opened it to get Dad's g*n?" Tara eyed Delaney.

"She did, but they worked so hard to ignore me all the time they forgot I was there. It was like being invisible." She stopped for a second. "I was thinking of taking the money in the safe and running away, but running away hadn't worked out so well the first time. I needed to go somewhere I was wanted." She settled back onto the sill.

Tiffany chuckled softly. "God, she hated that. She tries to hide it, but it still eats at her every day. She'd rather you joined the Manson family, or a cult or something."

A look between anger and sadness flickered across Sheree's face. "Lord forbid Delaney ends up with a family that loves her, huh?"

"Yeah, I know." Tiffany looked at the floor. "I don't know why she's that way. When we were little I know she really cared. Maybe it was the money." She looked helpless. "I don't know."

Delaney sat up, her face suddenly tight. "I don't give a Damn. I know where I belong. I'm never going back." She hissed it furiously.

Tara held her hand out cautiously. "We know. And you're right. Even if something happened to Dad, Sheree has guardianship. I set the papers up and made Mother agree to it." She looked over at Sheree. "I hope you don't mind, but I just don't trust Mother anymore. You and Dad just have to sign them."

Sheree was beaming. "We'll never have to use it, but of course I don't mind. She belongs here."

Delaney looked like she was having trouble breathing but finally settled silently into a crooked smile.

I nodded. "You might have trouble if Charlotte contests it. She's on a lot of painkillers."

"If she does, the whole truth about Charles will come out. I'll make sure of it. She knows it." Tara's face was painted in anger.

*****

The next morning, we met Tara at Charlotte's ridiculously oversized McMansion.

Delaney and I had caught a glimpse of the car Sheree had described when Sheree dropped us at the yard to get my Mustang.

The little brown car turned out to be a 1973 Ford Pinto, and it was almost impossible to believe it was actually running. I had rusted hulks on the lot that looked like they were in better shape. We didn't get a chance to hunt it down because we'd promised to meet Tiffany and Tara at Charlotte's house, but we knew what to look for.

Tara let us in, grinning. "Mother would have a fit if she knew you were here."

I stepped in past her. "You'd think she'd want people to figure out who the hell shot her in the back."

"She'd rather die than let you help her, Dad."

"Believe me, I'm not trying to help her, I'm just trying to protect Delaney."

Delaney walked right into the study and slid open the panel that covered the wall safe.

I glanced around, trying not to smile when I thought of the last time I'd been in the study. The day that Senator Charles Morris had decided to eat a bullet rather than go to prison for trying to murder his own daughter, though he didn't see her that way.

It'd made the world a slightly better, slightly cleaner, place.

Delaney managed to open the safe on the first try, turning back to us with a smug smile.

Tara stepped over. "Three thumb drives and a stack of paperwork."

I started sorting the paper work while she fired up her laptop and started trying out the thumb drives.

"Bills. A couple overdue notices. A ledger for a 'C&M Consulting'." I began sorting it more carefully. "Chuck's death must've really shaken her up. The overdue notices are all from just after that. Jesus, that's a lot of money. Just what does that pool service do for her?" I was about to make a "pool boy" c***k but stopped when I realized Delaney was listening intently.

Tara raised one eyebrow but stayed focused. "The thumb drives are encrypted, I'll have to get the passkey from Mother. Any recent overdue bills?"

"Looks like it's all caught up. Damn that woman spends a lot on spa treatments."

"Yeah, I remember her saying that a Senator's wife has to look the part."

"Look the part of what? High Queen Empress of the Damning Galaxy?"

Delaney snickered but just kept poking around the office.

Tara sat up and closed her laptop. "People have different priorities."

"Charlotte's priority is always Charlotte."

Tara nodded. "Yeah, it is. At least it has been since she met Charles."

*****

"That Damning Pinto is behind us."

Delaney kept looking forward, just shifting her eyes to glance in the mirror; the lessons she'd learned at "Camp Mayhem" had sunk in all the way to her bones. "Do you think it's that Stein asshole?"

"Not a Damning clue, but I'm done Damning around and waiting for someone else to do something. We're going to find out who it is. He's hanging back too far. When I round this corner, you slide over and take the rollback half a block down, stop, then put the disco lights on."

She released her seatbelt and braced herself, ready to slide along the bench seat and take my place. I waited until I was even with a large tree and popped the door. We'd done this dozens of times, picking up wrecks. I dropped out the door and Delaney, half-standing, shifted over, and took the wheel. She could barely reach the pedals, and could still drive better than most of the guys out there.

I stepped behind the tree, pulled my 1911, and waited while Delaney took the rollback a precise half block, stopped and put the emergency lights on.

For a second I thought the Pinto had turned off, but it eventually crept up and came to a shuddering stop about 50 yards back from the truck. As I walked up, I could see the back of the driver's head as he nervously peered forward.

I walked up and tapped on the window of the car with the butt of my g*n.

I expected a bit of shock, maybe a hasty apology or stammering excuse. Pretty much anything but what happened.

My ears nearly blew out with his high-pitched shriek, and the car screamed backwards with no warning at all. I barely danced back in time to keep from getting gutted by the mirror. The Pinto bounced over the curb backward into the ditch and flipped up, standing up on end, wheels spinning.

I just stared at it for a minute as Delaney sprinted up beside me to look inside.

"Jesus, what did you do?"

"Knocked on the window."

She c****d her head sideways and looked at the driver frantically clawing at his seatbelt. "Mooky?"

*****

Mooky sat nervously between us, glancing back over his shoulder at the Pinto on the back of the rollback.

I looked him over. "What the Damn is going on, Mooky; why are you following us."

"I... I mean... I'm not following..."

Delaney punched his shoulder with her bony little fist. "Cut the crap. It's been a rough week. He may just shoot you, but I Damning swear, I'll stab you in the nuts if you don't answer." She pulled a screwdriver out of the glove compartment and shook it in his face.

He looked at me, then finding no support, he slumped in misery, hands crossed protectively over his groin with one eye on Delaney. "I'm just... trying to get my s**t back."

"What s**t?"

He went silent until Delaney waved the screwdriver at him. "Seed. I accidently gave you a half pound of prime seed."

"Gave?"

"I freaked out and grabbed the wrong bag, stuffed the tacos into it and gave it to you. The s**t was taped in the bottom. I was storing it in the cooler at work and was about to take it home."

I shook my head. "You're gonna have to buy more seed somewhere, Dumbass. We tossed that bag a week ago. We don't keep fast food bags in the truck."

He looked shattered. "Where?"

"Look, it's probably in a land fill by now. Where ever the trash pickup dumps stuff."

For a moment, I thought he was going to cry. "I can't buy more. You can't buy this stuff at all. It wasn't just seed, it was G13 seed."

Delaney gave a dramatic sigh. "The stuff is bad for you anyway."

"I've been sparking up since I was twelve and it hasn't hurt me at all."

Delaney stared at him in disbelief. "Jesus. You actually think you're Damning normal?"

Rather than let Delaney go down that pointless road, I asked a question I knew I was going to regret. "What the Damn is G13?"

"It's like, the best s**t ever. The CIA developed it. It's pure magic. Lotsa people sell s**t they say is G13, but this was really it. My cousin worked in a lab at the University of Mississippi, and she smuggled it out. I put new stuff in my trailer, even put on a better door. I wanted to protect it."

"Have her get more."

"She died, man. They said it was a car accident, but I don't know. CIA, you know?"

Delaney rolled her eyes. "Paranoid much?"

He looked over at her. "You don't get it, this s**t cures cancer. It really does, Janice heard them say so; that's why she got some seed out of there and gave it to me. A couple of suits came by asking if Janice had sent me anything, said they had a reward for it. I told them I didn't get anything."

"So you can save mankind?" I chuckled.

"I was gonna grow it for seed, give a bunch of it out. That's the righteous thing to do. The suits out there just wanna make money."

We pulled into the Taco Grande parking lot and I shut the truck off. "Can't help you, unless you want to dig through thousands of acres on one of those landfills."

Delaney opened her door, suddenly stopped and looked at me past Mooky. "What if we still had the bag?"

I shrugged. "He could have it. I don't want anything to do with it."

She wrinkled her nose pensively. "I think... we may still have it."

"What?"

"I saved the last two tacos for Mrs. Edwards' basset hound."

"You hate Mrs. Edwards."

"Yeah... I saved two Cheesy Bean tacos."

I thought about the effect of a Cheesy Bean taco on an aging basset hound's digestive system. "You really hate Mrs. Edwards."

She nodded, hopped down and opened the right side tool box, pulling out a ragged bag. "Eeewww, mice got the tacos."

"Which is why we don't keep food bags in the Damning trucks, Delaney."

She tore the bag apart until she found a neatly folded plastic package that had been taped into the bottom of the bag. "The mice got into this a little too, just a little though." She pointed at a chewed-off corner.

Mooky stared at the bag in wonder. "That's it, see the University of Mississippi sticker on it?"

I looked it over, just some laboratory standard batch information, and "Strain G13" in marker letters on the corner of the label. There was no University of Mississippi logo just "Hackmann Pharmaceuticals" neatly written at the top. Delaney studied it, sounding it out as best she could.

She looked at me quizzically and I shrugged. "Big companies give research grants to universities all the time. It costs less than doing it themselves. An agriculture project like this takes space, and the university might be able to get permits to grow stuff a company couldn't."

"Weird."

I pulled his Pinto off the rollback; other than a broken taillight it'd come through okay. Delaney watched him in amusement as he reverently taped up the corner of his precious cargo with some electrical tape from the toolbox.

When he finally walked over to go to work, he had a definite spring in his step. Or maybe he just had to pee.

Delaney watched him and giggled. I looked at her warily. "No."

"No what?"

"Just no."

"We can't keep him? Our very own d**g dealer?"

"Jesus, no. He ain't exactly Scarface. He'd hurt himself with a Damning water gun."

She snickered as we watched him walk in the front door, finally pulling it open after trying to push it first.

*****

We stared at the single wide we'd just managed to get into the lot. It was the last thing we'd pulled off the abandoned property that the county had paid us to help clear. Six vehicles, four refrigerators and a water-heater tank that had all been dumped there. The mobile home had been left behind a couple of years earlier. It was in better shape than I expected it to be.

"What are we doing with this?" Delaney looked over the trailer.

"Sell it. Its 30 years old, but somebody will probably want it if we deliver it. It's not in bad shape and it'll make somebody a decent little home. We don't have to charge a lot; we got it for free, so anything is a profit."

"That's kind of neat." Delaney had a different idea of what was 'neat' in a house, but obviously, the idea of a little house for someone who couldn't afford more than fit the bill.

We walked up into the office, and Delaney picked up her helmet and pulled it on. "You want a Jalapeno dog?"