The Redeemers Read Online Free Page B

hound in front of my three-year-old niece.”
    “And so you jumped on him.”
    “He just sat there cocky as hell, sitting back in that La-Z-Boy and pointing at me with his crooked finger.”
    “What he said was that you have BIG DAWG written on the side of your tool trailer and that it should have read something else. He never said ‘pussy hound.’”
    “Well,” Mickey said. “I heard it.”
    “You heard the Dickel sloshing around between your ears.”
    Mickey let out a long breath and shook his head. You couldn’t reason with a Cobb. Any of them. Picking Tonya Cobb as Mrs. Walls number three was a hell of a bad bet. But Tonya was newly divorced herself and a hot little number, not looking a damn thing like her fat, red-faced daddy or painted-up momma. Tonya had gotten the hell out of Jericho and then come back a couple years before the storm to open a combination coffee shop and tanning parlor. She was stick thin, blonde, and had a pair, about as real as a set of Goodyears, that stuck out like torpedoes. She and he had partied a hell of a lot on his boat down in Gulf Shores, gone to a Jason Aldean concert at the Hangout, and eaten shrimp with their fingers out on Robinson Island. Damn, he’d been drunk as hell when they’d gotten engaged. Can’t fault a man for that.
    “Good-bye, Mickey,” Debbi said as Mickey walked past her to the door. She leaned in, expecting a kiss on her cheek after dog-cussing him in front of his employees. Damn, if he couldn’t help himself, bending down and kissing the woman’s cheek, covered in a good inch of makeup. Debbi probably bought the stuff in tubs like it was spackling. “Do right by Tonya.”
    Do right by Tonya? Mickey wanted to tell her about the time her little angel tried to kill him for the third time. She’d poured paint thinner into his whiskey and served it up to him in a crystal glass as if he couldn’t tell the difference. But he kept his mouth shut, glad to see Debbi on her way, watching her short old ass switching and swaying in those black jeans down the hall.
    The Cobbs wanted alimony on top of the goddamn settlement Larry got for that horseshit business deal. These people wouldn’t leave him alone until they’d picked him dry or they were ruined themselves.
    And Mickey Walls wasn’t one to sit around with his thumb jacked up his damn ass. He searched through his desk for the number he needed for some professional help.
    •   •   •
    C addy’s a real mess,” Luke Stevens said. “I’m glad you went up there and found her. I don’t think she would’ve lasted another day.”
    “Wasn’t me,” Quinn said. “Lillie called in a few favors with her Memphis people. Tracked a number to a throwaway phone she’d been using. It put us in the neighborhood, and, after that, it didn’t take us too long.”
    “She was nodding off in the waiting room,” Luke said, standing in the hall in his hospital coat. “Low on fluids, nothing in her stomach. She nodded off again, she might not have woken up. Y’all need to get her into treatment. If she goes back to where she’s been, she’s not coming back.”
    Luke and Quinn used to be friends. They’d known each other since second grade. Luke’s dad had been the town doctor, while Quinn’s daddy had gone off to Hollywood to be a stuntman. They had played together, fished together, played high school football for the Wildcats. And they both had loved the same girl, growing up. Anna Lee Amsden had been Quinn’s first and only love until he joined the service. But she’d gotten married to Luke, had a child, and all looked right until Quinn came back to Jericho and complicated matters a good bit.
    “I gave her a shot that will help with the withdrawal,” Luke said. “And I gave her a scrip for Valium to help her sleep and clonidine for the anxiety. She probably would be a lot more comfortable, and safer, in a detox clinic, if she’s going to get better. But that’s got to be her call. You can’t