Page 39 of Eye on the Ball
“I’ll help carry them,” Alejandro said cheerfully.
“We don’t need more drinks, and you’re not on duty here, Alejandro,” Rose said tightly, her gaze on the belligerent newcomers surrounding Brenda’s group. “Aren’t any of your Dead End police here, Jack?”
I stood and gave Jack a hug, surreptitiously scanning the room. “I don’t see Andy, and Susan isn’t here yet, either.”
“Like I said, we’re going to get more drinks.” Jack kissed the top of my head and ambled toward Ace’s family members, who were getting louder and louder.
“—did you do to him? We know you were the last one at his house,” Probie shouted.
Connor hovered in the background, trying to calm things down. “Hey, free drinks for all of you. Let’s?—”
One of the Truckmans stepped toward the pub owner and punched him in the stomach. Connor made a strangledoofsound and doubled over. Jack snarled loud enough that almost everyone else in the bar went silent. Hearing a tiger snarl or roar—even one in human form—was a humbling experience. Somewhere way back in our primitive cave person days, a saber-toothed tiger probably ate one of our ancestors, and our lizard brains still remembered that and froze at the sound of an angry apex predator.
Probie swung around, fists clenched at his sides. “Listen, Shepherd, this is none of your business. I just want to find my cousin, and we know this b?—”
“Watch your words carefully,” Jack said with icy calm.
Probie gulped audibly but didn’t back down, so he was either very brave or very foolish. “This …woman… was at Ace’s house. She saw that his place was trashed, and she even saw theblood, and she didn’t have the common curtsey to call the police.”
I resisted the urge to call out, “It’scourtesy, not curtsy.”
Jack, to his credit, didn’t laugh in Probie’s face. “You’re right,” he said instead.
“And I … what?” Confusion washed over Probie’s expression.
“I said I agree with you.”
“Hey!” Brenda said.
Jack held up a hand. “He’s right, Brenda. You should have called the police when you were still at Ace’s house. However, Probie, Brenda had nothing to do with Ace’s disappearance. So, how about I buy you a drink, and we all calm down and try to figure this out?”
I clutched my head with both hands and groaned. “Oh, no.”
Rose nodded. “Oh, no, is right. You never tell an angry person to calm down.”
The Truckmans, who’d been on the verge of backing off, all puffed right back up. Probie raised one fist and took a swing at Jack, who blocked it.
Another Truckman sucker-punched Alejandro in the back.
“Oh, no, he didn’t,” Rose said, raising her hands. “Hey! You! Keep your hands off my husband.”
With that, she murmured something beneath her breath, flung her hands toward the Truckmans, and a surgically targeted blast of wind lifted Probie and his crew up off their feet and out the front door.
Alejandro turned and blew a kiss at his wife, and Jack flashed a big smile at the heroic witch standing next to me.
“Well. Guess you showed them.”
“Nobody messes with a Cardinal witch,” she said darkly, and a tiny thrill of fear shivered down my spine, because I could see in her face and posture the history of her magical family. I’d heard they were a force to be reckoned with, but seeing was far more powerful than hearing.
She looked tired, though, and I remembered it wasn’t her first or even second magic expenditure of the day.
“Maybe now we should go home,” I suggested. “Long day. I’m ready to get some sleep.”
I wasn’t really all that tired, but I didn’t want Rose to feel like she had to tough it out for the rest of us.
She gave me a grateful smile. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m just tired enough to let you get away with it.”
Alejandro strode past me and swept his wife into a fierce hug. “Querida,we talked about this. Please don’t waste your energy on unimportant matters.”