Hunt and Prey (Kelsey's Burden Series Book 8) by Kaylie Hunter (novels to read for beginners txt) 📕

area. He’d know the story of my finger chopping event. I was hoping it’d be enough of a warning to loosen his lips.

Mickey was standing outside the barbershop talking on the phone when we arrived. Bones and I exited the car, walking toward him.

Mickey glanced at us as he finished his call. “Find him. Now.”

I glanced at the barbershop door and saw a sign taped to the glass: Gone Fishing.

Bones looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “I get the impression Benny doesn’t want to talk to you again.”

“It happens,” I said, sighing.

“He’ll turn up,” Mickey said, tucking his phone inside his jacket pocket.

I pressed my hands and face to the glass to look inside. The lights were off. No one was in the front room. That didn’t mean Benny wasn’t hiding in the back, though. I could enter through the back door, picking the lock.

The bells on the front door jingled, and I stepped back to look at the door.

Bones held the glass door open, waiting for me. “What? It was unlocked.”

“Like I’m dumb enough to believe that,” I muttered as I walked through the door.

Mickey’s men rushed past us, heading toward the back rooms. I was okay with them going first. I walked over to Benny’s preferred customer chair and dug the cutting board and knife from the bag, setting them in the chair on display. Then I pulled a lipstick from my handbag and wrote on the mirror: Call me.

Mickey had been watching me before walking over and grabbing a towel from the shelf. He used the bottle of disinfectant to spray both the knife and cutting board before wiping them down.

“Paranoid much?” I asked him.

“About a decade ago, Benny used another man’s knife to take out a target. The guy who owned the knife is serving a life sentence.”

“Damn.” I looked back at the knife. “Should I pull the file on the guy wrongfully incarcerated?”

Mickey’s face turned hard again. “The guy raped two teenage girls.”

“Well, in that case, I hope he’s having a miserable time.”

“All clear, Boss,” Mickey’s guy said as the pair of thugs returned from the back room.

I looked at Mickey and gestured toward the door. He followed me outside. “I have a question for you. Off the record,” I said.

“What’s the question?”

“Jameson crew in New Jersey gets their product from someone with a large pipeline. I’m trying to identify that pipeline. They might be the ones who hired someone to take out my neighbor.”

“Drugs are a dangerous business. People who buy them, sell them, and transport them, all seem to face either death or imprisonment. Why would you think I’d know anything?”

“I have reason to believe their network has already reached Miami. And we both know you keep a tight grip on all things criminal in southern Florida.”

He was about to answer when something over my shoulder caught his attention. The next thing I knew, Mickey threw me to the ground, his arms wrapped around me like a straightjacket, as he rolled us toward his town car. Gunfire. Glass shattering. A car’s tires squealing away.

With my shoulder bag under our bodies and my arms still pinned by Mickey, I couldn’t reach to pull my weapon. “Get off me!” I yelled in Mickey’s face.

He glanced down at me, his nose less than an inch from mine. “You could at least thank me,” he said without moving.

“Thank you? Are you kidding me? I’m a cop! If you hadn’t pinned me to the ground, maybe I could’ve caught the bad guys!”

A slow grin formed. “You’re sexy when you’re pissed. And with your face bright red, the bruises aren’t as noticeable.”

“Get. Off. Me!”

He chuckled as he rolled to the side and sat upright. I grabbed my bag, swinging it in front of me as I shifted into a sitting position.

Bones ran from the building, along with Mickey’s other goon. Spence ran over from the direction of our car. The goons pulled Mickey up from the ground. Once standing, Mickey stepped behind me and lifted me up as well.

I knocked his hands away and looked around. The front of the barbershop was shredded. Both our cars had broken windows and bullet holes.

I looked over at Bones and Spence. “Clear out. I’ll stay here and deal with the cops.”

“You sure?” Bones asked.

“No reason for all of us to get dragged into this mess.”

Bones jogged back inside, returning seconds later with the knife and cutting board. Taking both with him, Bones and Spence took off jogging down the sidewalk.

I turned around and watched Mickey slide into the back seat of his town car. The door closed, before pulling away from the curb and speeding down the street.

I stood alone, surrounded by shattered glass and bullets, as the first squad car barreled down the street toward me. “Well, this is going to be fun explaining,” I said to myself.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

CHARLIE

Tuesday, 6:05 p.m.

After wasting an hour repeating over and over to internal affairs that I couldn’t possibly be the shooter, I was finally cleared to leave. When questioned about the message written in lipstick on the barbershop mirror, I told them I’d found the door unlocked and I couldn’t find a piece of paper to write on. They didn’t believe me, but since there was no law against leaving someone a message in lipstick, their hands were tied.

As I watched my car, hitched to a tow truck, disappear down the street, Wild Card pulled up to the curb in my Mustang. The top was down.

From behind the wheel, Wild Card wore dark sunglasses but he flashed me his playful smile. “I heard you might need a lift. Hop in. We have a meeting to get to.”

I stepped over the door into the bucket seat before dropping