Page 86 of Real Good Love
No fucking way am I going to lose her now.
“You’re like a bad case of the clap, city girl. Just showing up when you least expect it and completely unwelcome,” Emmy says. “But thankfully, I know how to get rid of both.”
I close my hand around the grip of my gun and launch myself at Emmy from behind, yanking her feet out from under her. Her shot goes wild, and someone screams.
Fear that rivals what I felt when I drove up on my shop in flames tears through me faster than the shot. I pounce on top of Emmy, my 9mm inches from her face.
“Banner!”
“The bitch shot me!”
My Glock has no safety, and the only thing stopping me from pulling the trigger is the sound of Banner’s voice.
“Where? Memphis, get to her!”
As Memphis rushes toward Banner, I wrap a hand around Emmy’s wrist and flip her over, wishing I had a zip tie or a rope, anything to tie her up with. But I don’t, so I crush her wrists together with a near bone-breaking grip.
“You’re hurting me.”
“Banner! Answer me!”
“I’m okay. I think. Mostly.”
Banner’s voice comes closer and I look up. Memphis is walking with an arm around her, and blood drips from the upper edge of Banner’s arm.
“Grazed her.”
“Crazy bitch!” This comes from Julianne as she stumbles down the cabin stairs, the door slamming shut behind her. “You could’ve killed her! You killed him!”
“Everyone, put your fucking guns down. Hands up. Right now,” Cody yells from the path leading to the cabin.
I lower my pistol and raise the other hand. “Emmy tried to kill all of us. She killed Rusty. Maybe Timmons too.”
“What the fuck? Someone needs to explain what the hell happened. Now.”
Chapter 42
Banner
Cody puts a hand on Emmy’s head and shoves her into the back of his cruiser. The coroner pronounced Police Chief Timmons and Rusty dead on the scene—Timmons from blunt force trauma to the head, and Rusty from the gunshot wound to the chest. Cody called the county forensics unit to investigate because the whole scene was a clusterfuck.
Emmy started singing immediately, telling Cody she and Rusty showed up at Nicole’s cabin to find out what Nicole told the police, and then they lured Timmons by making Nicole tell him she’d sleep with him if he’d look for information elsewhere and leave her alone.
Nicole told Cody they tried to pay her to kill him, and she pretended to go along with the plan until Timmons showed up and she outed them on purpose. Rusty bashed Timmons in the head and tied him up, but he died from the injury before they could decide what to do with him.
Rusty beat the hell out of Nicole and shot Julianne in the shoulder. EMTs swept them off to the hospital in an ambulance, but I refused to go until Cody understood that Logan had done nothing wrong.
Memphis took notes through the whole thing, and called her cameraman immediately. As soon as they finished filming, she left in a hurry to edit the piece and get it back to her network.
Luckily, Emmy barely winged me, and the paramedics cleaned the wound and slapped a few butterfly bandages on it since I wouldn’t leave the scene. The bitch did ruin my shirt, though.
As soon as I heard that first gunshot, I called Cody from Logan’s phone. He told me to do the same thing Logan did—stay put.
But I’ve never been really good at following directions.
Apparently Emmy had overspent on building her little house, and started “borrowing” money from the restaurant until it was running in the red. Rusty had done a few odd jobs for her and found out about her money problems, and told her he knew a good way to make them go away.
Once she put the cash back, she couldn’t stop. I think the country saying ispigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. In this case, Emmy and Rusty were both hogs.
