All Through the Night (Liar's Web) Read Free Page B

him if he even looked at her brother sideways from here on out.
    “ No one messes with my family, Ronnie,” she murmured as she drove the deserted back roads toward the center of town. Ronnie Devlin. She'd known him since she was in kindergarten, and he'd always been trouble, in an out of reform school and wayward youth problems since he was ten. In high school, her senior class had voted him “most likely to do hard time”. In her opinion, it was only a matter of time before their prophesy was fulfilled.
    The Sugar Shack was a deserted two-story building most people in town wanted to see condemned and demolished. When she was a teenager, the Sugar Shack was a popular hangout for the over twenty-one crowd, who'd congregate at the club to listen to music and learn the latest dance steps. A firestorm had erupted when a sixteen-year-old girl was raped at the club after being dragged in one of the back rooms.
    The Sugar Shack had never recovered from all the bad publicity and the torrent of negative public opinion. Located on Hangman's Wharf, the Sugar Shack was now a local hangout for thugs, criminal-minded individuals, and wannabe gangsters looking for nothing but trouble. More nights than not, they found the action they were looking for, judging by the number of times she'd read in the Liberty Creek Gazette about violence breaking out at the Sugar Shack.
    A perfect full moon hung in the pewter sky. It was a beautiful night. Too beautiful to be spending a single second of her leisure time waiting for a deadbeat outside the Sugar Shack. At the moment the place looked deserted. And dangerous. The hairs on the back of her neck began to stand up as she began to nervously look around the darkened parking lot. She reached for the lock button on her car, pressing it down firmly until she heard the clicking of all four doors.
    She wasn't taking any chances, particularly in this neighborhood. Impatiently, she drummed her nails on the steering wheel. It was already ten past one. She had no intention of sitting around all night waiting for a no-good bum like Ronnie. Where in the hell was he anyway? No doubt he was shaking down another customer or hanging out at a strip club.
    There were two other cars parked in the far corner of the lot, so it was possible he was inside the building. Matter of fact, the yellow Hummer with the gaudy rims looked familiar. She could've sworn she'd seen Ronnie riding around in it a few months ago. Figures he'd buy the flashiest car on the lot, way flashier than my red Lexus.
    She had a good idea he was hanging out inside the Sugar Shack, but there was no way she was getting out the car to find out where he'd gotten to. Mama hadn't raised any fools…or had she? She was stuck down here at Hangman's Wharf at an ungodly hour doing a fool's errand while Lenny was getting his beauty rest. That fact alone had to make her some kind of fool.
    She found herself getting drowsy, and her eyelids began to close against her will. I'll just rest my eyes for a minute ,   she thought, as she drifted off to sleep. Just a few minutes of rest and then I'll be all ready to deal with Ronnie and put an end to all this madness.
    A loud popping noise rang out in the stillness of the early morning. Her eyes opened, and her body jerked to an alert position as she looked around the car in a blind panic, searching for signs of an intruder. What was that noise ?   She looked outside the car as another loud popping sound went off. Her heart began to thud with dread as the realization hit her that the noise sounded like a gunshot. She'd watched enough Law and Orde r   to know the sound by heart. Although the night was pitch-dark, a florescent streetlamp illuminated two figures, both male, standing in the back entrance of the building. She leaned forward in her seat so she was pressed against the steering wheel and squinted out the window.
    One of the men was Ronnie! She would know that egg-shaped, bald head anywhere. She watched in