Pay the Price (Harmony Grove Book 3) by Carol Post (which ebook reader txt) 📕

he’d go first. A minute after jumping into his Jeep, he screeched to a stop on a deserted Main Street. The parking area next to the entrance was empty.

Maybe something happened and she went to BethAnn’s. No, she would have let him know.

He pulled out his phone, ready to dial 911. He needed to report her missing. At this hour of the night, Branch wouldn’t be likely to intercept the call.

Of course, he might have someone alerting him. Shane dropped his phone into his cup holder. He couldn’t risk it, because there was one place she might have gone, and if he tipped off Branch, he could get her killed. He jammed the accelerator. Several blocks down, he took a left and sped off into the night, frantic prayers swirling through his mind.

If she’d done what he was afraid of, she had put herself in grave danger. She’d known the kind of men she was dealing with, but had stubbornly refused to remain out of harm’s way. It was completely exasperating. He understood her desire to see justice for her sister, but nothing was worth her life.

God, please keep her safe.

If she made it through the night, he’d hug her and kiss her and say the things he should have said before but hadn’t.

Then he’d wring her neck.

The sky rumbled and the ground shook as a twin-engine plane descended out of the darkness and touched down on the well-lit concrete airstrip. It sailed past with a roar and a whoosh of air, and Jessica cringed. She stood some thirty feet away, hidden inside the row of trees between the factory and Driggers’s private runway. Hopefully close enough to learn what she needed to know, but far enough away to eliminate any risk of getting caught.

She had left her car alongside a dirt road a quarter mile past Driggers and hiked back to find Driggers’s parking lot deserted except for a single black Maserati. It apparently belonged to one of the Driggers brothers.

If there was a night crew, they’d been given the night off. Whatever work there was to do that evening, Hammy and Spike were handling it on their own. They’d carried box after box out of the warehouse and stacked them next to the runway.

Now Spike stood in the glow of the runway lights, with a hand on one hip, weight shifted to that leg, and a cigarette in the other hand. As he waited for the plane to stop, he took a long drag and slowly released it in a stream of gray smoke that curled upward and dissipated into the darkness. As usual, he radiated confidence, a dark sense of controlled power. With his black hair slicked back, impeccably-fitting silk shirt and tailored suit, success rolled off of him. Not like an owner of a multi-million-dollar business. More like a drug kingpin or a mafia boss.

Hammy didn’t possess the same self-assured air. He always came across as trying hard to emulate his smooth older brother but never quite succeeding. Now, he stood at the edge of the runway with Spike, hands resting in his pockets in what should have been a relaxed pose. But his stiff posture and the way he fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, broadcast his discomfort.

The plane skidded to a stop, and the whine of the props slowly dropped in pitch, then faded to silence, carried away on the late-night breeze. A half-moon bathed the scene in a white glow. The runway lights did even more, offering her a perspective not much inferior to daytime.

The pilot and his passenger emerged from the plane and walked back to where Spike and Hammy waited. The passenger carried a large leather satchel. His dark hair was secured in a short ponytail. When he turned, her heart jumped into her throat. He was the third man in Prissy’s photo. She was about to witness what her sister had.

She moved a little closer, still staying hidden in the shadow of the trees. She didn’t recognize the pilot. Whoever the potbelly and chin belonged to at the edge of the picture, it wasn’t him. He was too thin.

Spike spoke first. “Twenty cases, like you ordered.” He indicated the boxes with a wave of his hand.

The man handed the satchel to the pilot and approached the stacks. After slicing the tape on one of the boxes, he reached inside and withdrew a figurine.

Jessica watched as he turned it over in his hand, studying it under one of the lights. These weren’t ordinary figurines. Hammy and Spike wouldn’t show up in the middle of the night to pawn off some common knickknacks. There was something special about them. Just like the ones originally delivered to BethAnn’s.

Suddenly he thrust sharply downward, sending the figurine crashing to the concrete, and Jessica flinched. Shattered chips of porcelain lay at his feet, and he bent to retrieve something from the debris. When he straightened, he held a plastic bag filled with white powder.

“One hundred percent pure,” Spike said. “As always.”

The buyer opened the bag and removed a pinch of the powdered substance, manipulating it between his thumb and index finger. Apparently satisfied, he signaled the pilot, who handed the satchel to Spike.

Spike dropped to his knees and lifted the leather flap. Then he pulled out a thick wad of bound bills and fanned one edge. After removing several more and rifling through the bag, he stood to his feet. “I can assume it’s all here?”

“Of course.”

Jessica’s mind reeled as they loaded box after box into the plane. She’d just witnessed a drug deal go down. And this wasn’t your typical sell-to-the-neighborhood-crack-heads drug deal. This was huge. She would wait until the plane took off and Hammy and Spike had gone back inside. Then she’d get back to the safety of her car and call Shane. She finally had the evidence he needed to set up a raid.

After the last box was loaded, the pilot and passenger got back into