Page 72 of Daddy’s Fortitude

“That’s the word she used too. She said that a fight broke out.”

“Sure did,” she said as she reached down to pick up another can of food, then she stood.

And the world went black.

Ammo stared down at the letter in his hand.

He’d decided to do some laundry tonight while he waited to go pick up Aimee from her job. So he’d stripped the sheets off her bed, put them into the washing machine before putting some clean sheets he’d found back on her bed. Then he’d gone through his own clothes.

That’s when he’d found the letter that Webb had handed him yesterday.

He studied the letters that had been cut and pasted onto the sheet of paper. Someone had a proper sense of the dramatic, didn’t they? Why not just print this letter off on a printer? Cutting out the letters and pasting them on showed real dedication.

And hatred. He could definitely feel the hatred.

YOU WILL DIE

There was no mistaking that message for anything other than total and utter hatred.

He wondered who was doing it. Unfortunately, it could be almost anyone. It wasn’t like Ammo really got along with people.

And this town was doing nothing to improve his opinion of the human race.

You don’t mind Aimee, though.

Well, of course he didn’t mind Aimee. There was a lot to admire about Aimee. She was doing her best to hold her life together and move on from the crap that Charlie had put her through.

He wished that fucker wasn’t dead because he’d like to teach him a lesson for the way he’d treated Aimee.

You didn’t have a woman like her and treat her with anything but the utmost respect and care.

You treated her like she was fucking fragile. Like, she was the most important thing in your world.

Because that was what she should have been to Charlie. Instead, he’d had something amazing, and he’d stomped on it. He’d trampled it until it had become bruised and slightly broken.

But Ammo wanted to help her grow again.

Fuck, why was he thinking about this in gardening terms?

It must be because he’d been working on the yard for most of the day.

You also don’t mind when she touches you.

His phone rang, and he glanced over, surprised to see Aimee’s name come up. Maybe she was finishing early and needed him to come pick her up.

He grabbed the phone, answering it as he folded up the letter and put it in his pocket.

“You need me to come get you?” he asked.

“Hi, umm, this isn’t Aimee. This is Jeremy. I work with her. She said to call you.”

Alarm filled him, and he got to his feet. “Is she all right? What’s going on?”

He couldn’t think of a good reason why she’d have someone else call him.

In the background, he could hear alarmed voices and someone saying that they didn’t want an ambulance called.

A fucking ambulance? Who needed an ambulance? And was that Aimee’s voice?