Page 14 of Stilettos & Whiskey (Deputy Gemma Stone)

My fingers drummed nervously on the command van’s control console.

The waiting was the worst. Waiting for Mom and Brent to get out of surgery.

Waiting for Roger and his cousins to show up at their rather ancient motor home.

Waiting for Nate and the bomb squad to arrive.

Even though Roger had done a piss poor job of booby trapping their RV.

Waiting for Grandpa to come back with the food. Waiting for the monsoon to hit.

While Devon tracked the storm, Logan and Jacob played cards.

Lucas busily texted God knows who.

I fretted. Mom was in excellent shape, but she had lost so much blood, and Brent was in critical condition.

A giant wall of rolling red dust slammed into the RV park. The command van rocked violently.

“Shit!” I clung to my chair. Mom actually flew in this crap.

Devon let out a whistle. ““The weather bureau is clocking the wind gusts at eighty mph!”

“Yippee,” I muttered. With all the shit that had gone down today, my nerves were shot.

Lucas put a chocolate bar by the keyboard. “Eat it, before you come after us with that knife.”

“Gotta admit, you’ve got psycho bitch down pat, Julie,” Devon chortled. “I got every minute of it on tape, and your squad’s gonna love it.”

I rolled my eyes. Ugh. I could imagine what Sergeant Bergman would say about violating a prisoner’s rights.

“Your scary face is worse than Dad’s. I was actually horrified when you were sawing away on Martin’s nuts,” Logan said with a dramatic shudder.

I threw the candy bar at him. “I didn’t saw, I jabbed. Want me to demonstrate the difference?”

“No, ma’am. Little Billy is just fine the way he is,” Logan replied.

I arched my brows. “Little Billy?”

The van’s back door flew open. The wind whipped around the interior, coating everything in red dust. It took Grandpa three tries to get the door closed. He stood there for a moment, breathing hard. “Damn.”

“You okay, Grandpa?”

Lucas snatched the bags out of his hands. “About time you got back. That burger joint is only three miles away.”

One look at the expression on Grandpa’s face and I jumped in front of Lucas. “Mom loves him, I don’t know why, but she does, and she would get really upset if you hurt him.”

“True.” He brushed the sand out of his hair. “Your sodas are in the van. Good luck getting them.”

“Water is fine,” Devon said.

Lucas handed me a burger. “Eat. It’s gonna be a long night.”

“Ya think.” I practically inhaled my burger and fries. Pancho’s made the best hamburgers in the Valley. Now all I needed was some chocolate. My eyes narrowed. Logan was unwrapping my candy bar. “Hey! Give it back. Now!”

“Nope.” He stuffed the entire bar in his mouth.

Lucas’s cellphone rang. “It’s Dad.”

“Put it on speaker,” Devon said.

He swiped right. “How did the surgery go?”

“Your mother is doing good and I’m bringing her home tomorrow,” Dad answered.

I interjected, “Is Brent out of surgery?”

“He’s in the ICU for now. The bullet did a lot of damage, but they think he’ll make a full recovery.” Dad blew out a long breath. “Jim Bob Duke bonded out of the county jail again, and he was trying to get Martin Evans released for lack of evidence and police brutality.”

I frowned. “But he was booked as a John Doe and the report isn’t completed yet.”

“We’ve got a mole,” Lucas snapped.

Grandpa nodded. “And we need to find out who they are now.”

“Or our communications got hacked,” I added.

“That’s not possible. I just ran a security sweep of our equipment and everything was secure,” Devon protested.

His mouth a hard line, Logan interjected, “Only our family knows what happened in that cave and none of us has talked to anyone.”

“Run another security sweep, Devon,” Dad growled.

“Yes, sir.”

Grandpa rubbed his jaw. “I think it’s time I gave Julie the Armageddon pendant.”

“Oh, hell, no,” Lucas hollered.

Logan barked, “Have you lost your mind?”

“That’s not a good idea,” Dad replied. “Once it’s released, it can’t be undone.”

Devon smiled evilly. “I think it’s a smart move.”

“What’s the Armageddon pendant?” Color me confused.

Grandpa pulled a glass pendant shaped like a vial out of his pocket. “This is a weapon of last resort.”

“Last resort?” I eyed the pendant warily. “What’s in the vial?”

“Think of it as a nuclear bomb. Once it goes off, it annihilates your enemy,” Grandpa answered.

My eyes widened in alarm. “It’s radioactive?”

“Worse,” Grandpa said.

I scanned my family’s grim faces. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, it’s a stink bomb,” Devon declared.

A giggle escaped me. “A stink bomb? Seriously?”

“But this is a military grade stink bomb,” Grandpa warned. “Once you break the vial the odor of rotting flesh, rotten eggs and skunk is released. Your enemy will immediately start vomiting.”

“Ugh and me right along with them.”

Devon grimaced. “The point is: they will want to get as far away from you as fast as they can.”

“Dogs like the smell, so they’ll hang around you, but bulls, horses, birds, and people will avoid you like the plague,” Lucas advised

“How long does the smell last?”

Grandpa rubbed the back of his neck. “Weeks.”

“Weeks! I’d smell like dead stuff for weeks?”

“Better than pushing up daisies,” Jacob said.

I frowned. “Not by much and what’s stopping them from shooting me as they’re running away.”

“Projectile vomiting makes accuracy difficult,” Lucas answered with a smirk. “The good news is, there is an antidote.”

I was almost afraid to ask. “Which is?”

“Cow manure mixed with baking soda, vinegar, activated charcoal and citrus oil. They coat you with it and you get to marinate in the sun for three hours.”

Was he making this up? “Is that true Grandpa?”

“It is.”

Uh huh. The guys all had their cop faces on, and I couldn’t tell if they were telling the truth or flat-out lying. “Gotta pee.” I stood up.

“Can’t you hold it? The wind gusts will blow a little thing like you all the way to the border,” Devon warned.

Giving him the stink eye, I opened the back door, and whoosh, was yanked out of the command van. A plastic bag slapped against my face, blinding me momentarily. Ugh. I ripped it off. My family? They were all grinning like hyenas.

“Better hurry, the rain’s coming,” Jacob called.

It took everything I had to close the door. Sand pelted my skin as I fought to stay upright. I stumbled into the community restrooms and sagged in relief. The wind was brutal.

I blinked. Damn, urinals. Lucky me, I had walked into the men’s room. Screw it. My bladder was about to burst. After the day I had had, I didn’t give a rat’s ass if somebody got offended. I entered the first stall and relieved myself.

Thunder reverberated off the mountains.

Shit! The way my luck was going, I’d get caught in a microburst. I flushed the toilet, opened the door and watched a rattlesnake slither across the floor.

My cellphone rang. I swiped right. “What?”

“You lied to me,” Gemma cried.

I winced. “About what?”

“Your apartment fire.”

The hurt and anger in Gemma’s voice made me cringe. “I may have omitted some details, but you’re in Hawaii and there is nothing you could have done to help.”

“Oh shit! You’re using your Debbie Sunshine voice. What else happened?” Gemma demanded.

Crap. I chewed on my lower lip. I didn’t know what to do.

Gemma snapped, “Tell me.”

“Dad hasn’t called you?”

A thread of panic in her voice, Gemma pleaded, “Just tell me what’s going on.”

If the situation were reversed, I’d want to know. So, I told her everything.

“We’ll be on the first plane home.” The line disconnected.

Dad was going to kill me.