“Sure thing.”
JT turned and whistled his way into the office of the building supply warehouse. Trace finished tying down the roof shingles, his mind back on that morning. He didn’t believe she’d left the door unlocked, let alone open. And even though—according to the cons at Folsom—no lock was pick-proof, Trace had installed the highest-quality dead bolts to minimize amateur break-ins.
And JT was an amateur.
Through the office window, Trace saw JT talking to the woman behind the desk and slipped into the cab of the truck. With his gaze on the office, Trace grabbed the jacket JT had left on the seat and dipped his hand into one pocket.
Matches, receipts, gum.
He slid the jacket across the seat to reach the other pocket and felt the unmistakable weight of something heavy. He pushed his hand into the pocket and touched metal. Trace pulled out the object—and found a small black gun in his hand.
Trace’s stomach went cold, his chest tight. “Fucking A.”
“Hell, how do you know he doesn’t have a weapon?”
Trace glanced toward the office again before he set the gun aside and dug deeper into the pocket and found more metal. But this was small. And Trace pulled out a key. A single, shiny key.
Rage slammed against his rib cage, demanding release, but Trace knew he had to keep that emotion locked down if he wanted to stay out here in the real world.
JT exited the office with a box of nails and a piece of paper. With his teeth clenched, Trace tossed the gun into his glove compartment, grabbed JT’s jacket, and met him in the middle of the parking lot.
He held up the key. “Explain this.”
JT’s gaze jumped between the key and Trace’s face a few times. “Explain what? My apartment key?” His expression turned sour. “What are you doing? Going through my stuff? That’s not cool, man.”
He grabbed for his jacket, but Trace pulled it out of reach. “What’s not cool is me going out on a limb to give you a job and you cutting off the branch.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the way this key matches up with my key to the café.”
JT’s belligerence turned angry. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about.” Trace shoved the jacket against JT’s chest. “You’re fired. Get the fuck out of my sight, and don’t ever let me see your face again. You got that?”
Trace walked backward until he was out of jumping range, then turned for his truck.
“Dude,” JT yelled. “You lifted my gun. Give it back.”
Trace stopped and pivoted. “You can have your gun or peace with your PO. Which do you want more?”
JT read Trace’s threat to tell his PO about the weapon, and fury broke over his face. “That’s fucked, man. That’s fucked.”
Trace walked the rest of the way to the truck with JT yelling obscenities and threats, and drove away with JT’s furious gestures in the rearview mirror.
He drove two miles, then stopped on the side of the highway, where weeds and bushes lined the fence. Dragging the gun from the glove box, he pulled the clip, emptied the chamber, and wiped down the metal with the hem of his T-shirt—ironically, all things he’d learned inside prison. Then he made damn sure there were no cops in sight and tossed the weapon out the driver’s window.
Only when he was on the road again, free from JT and rid of that gun, did he breathe easier. Taking him on had been one of the worst decisions Trace had ever made. And the thought of that weapon so close to Avery, of JT so close to Avery, of what he could have done to Avery when Trace’s back was turned . . .
His teeth clenched, and a feral sound vibrated in Trace’s throat.
He spent the first fifteen minutes of the drive back just wrangling his fury under control. The next fifteen minutes planning how he’d finish the roof on his own before the rain came. And the last trying to figure out how to apologize to Avery in a way that conveyed his epiphany about how wrong he’d been.
He pulled off the highway with a sick knot in his stomach and dragged his phone from the center console to make a call to Gram to see if she could go check on George. Trace had to track Avery down to deliver the news and the apology he hadn’t figured out yet.
At the stoplight, he tapped the “Home” button. Instead of lighting up with the background and the time, a row of two missed calls and two awaiting messages faced him—all from Avery.
A