Free Dark Lily: Shadows, Book 4 by Jenna Ryan Page B

shot of her own, an invisible board to the back of his head.
    Stubbins yelped, and then he got mad. More punches flew. She saw Mitchell dance back, could almost hear him calculating the odds. Out of nowhere it seemed, he landed a punch that toppled his opponent like a felled tree.
    Impressed, Gaby rubbed her still-tingling arm.
    “Are you all right?” Mitchell asked.
    “Arm’s sympathetic. I hit my head, but it’s clearing. Stubbins’s is a mess. His thoughts are all over the place. It’s tricky to follow a bouncing ball.”
    “Do what you can.” Going to one knee, Mitchell dragged the big man’s head from a pool of water. “Much as I’d love to let you drown, we need some information.”
    Stubbins glared one-eyed. “You wait’ll Baxter shows up,” he slurred. “He’ll go through you like a bullet through butter.”
    “So about the same effect as a bullet going through your brain.” Mitchell held the man’s face out of the water by his hair, which was long and a dirty-brown.
    Gaby put his age at about forty-five as she walked a tight circle around him. “I’m getting Leshad’s name more than Best’s,” she said. “But that could be fear. Leshad’s vicious and vindictive, and Stubbins knows it. I think it was CJ who actually sent him.” She glanced in the direction of Celia’s house. “Sent him and Baxter.”
    Mitchell smiled a little. “That’s a handy talent you’ve got there, Gaby. What does Baxter look like?”
    She offset the chill that wanted to crawl over her skin. “I can’t find it. It’s buried too deep in his mind. All I’m seeing is Leshad and snippets of Sherry Lynn.”
    “Who?”
    “Girlfriend. I’m being polite. If you want answers, Mitchell, Celia has some plant-based concoctions that run along the lines of truth serum.”
    “No fucking way!” As if shot with a super dose of adrenaline, Stubbins reared up. His backhanded punch missed, so he wrapped his arms around Mitchell’s waist.
    “Jesus.” More annoyed than concerned, Mitchell let the big man take him down. Then he used an elbow to clip Stubbins’s throat.
    Flopping onto his back, the big man reached inside his shirt. Fortunately, Mitchell was faster and straight-armed his police special before Stubbins’s hand made it all the way out.
    “On the ground,” Mitchell told him.
    Stubbins responded by snapping a gun in Gaby’s direction.
    Mitchell shot the weapon from his grasp. But Gaby saw the unswerving resolution in Stubbins’s eyes, read it in his mind. Not going to jail.
    “Don’t shoot him, Mitchell,” she warned.
    “Do it,” Stubbins bellowed, and bleeding from the wrist, surged to his feet.
    The next bullet grazed his shoulder.
    Roaring, he yanked a knife from the back of his pants. He used his massive body weight to propel himself forward.
    With Stubbins virtually on top of him, Mitchell jumped sideways.
    Stubbins hit the ground hard. Gaby swore she felt the swamp shudder. A long grunt bled into a watery groan. All four of his limbs twitched and then stopped moving.
    Swiping at blood on his mouth, Mitchell stuffed his gun in the waistband of his jeans. “Fell on his own knife,” he told Gaby. “Anything left in his mind?”
    “Not now.” She stared at the motionless man. “But as he was going down, I heard him think he was lucky to be getting off so easily.”

Chapter Eight
    One down , Mitchell reflected grimly, and God knows how many more to go . If Phoebe’s assertions had any merit, Stubbins could probably have retired on the payoff he’d have received for presenting Gaby to Leshad.
    Phoebe had given him a cell phone the night she’d come to his club. She’d told him to use it if, and only if, he needed to contact her. She’d said the signal wouldn’t be traced to either of them.
    Mitchell resisted a strong urge to call her after Stubbins’s death. He applied himself instead to the little matter of getting the massive body to town, then deflecting Deputy Fred’s questions about