Rich Blood (Jason Rich #1)(3)

I’m sorry, Dad, but I can’t be around Mom right now. Every time I come home, she sucks me into her drama and it becomes a huge fight. I’m going to Destin with some friends. I asked Nola to come with us, but she said no.

Braxton flung his phone into a lawn chair and picked up the golf club, waggling it several times in frustration. Nola . . . his youngest daughter was sixteen. About to be a junior in high school, assuming she passed her summer classes. She’d been hit the hardest by his and Jana’s estrangement. Due to her poor grades, they’d had to pull her out of Randolph, the private college prep school in Huntsville, and she was barely getting by at Guntersville High. Once a bright-eyed, curious, happy-go-lucky child, she’d become a moody and edgy teenager who’d withdrawn into herself, barely speaking to him or her mother.

Jana said it was Braxton’s fault. That he hadn’t spent enough time with her. That he’d spoiled Niecy with attention and glossed over his youngest.

For a while, he’d believed her spiel. He was an orthopedic surgeon. One of the best in north Alabama and, by far, the most proficient in Marshall County. He had a ridiculous schedule of operations and worked sixty to seventy hours a week almost every month of the year. He’d tried to cut back when Nola switched schools, but dropping hours meant fewer surgeries and less money. Braxton was well off, but the mortgage on their house was steep, and Jana’s spending habits and drug use kept him in constant danger of being in financial peril. He was forty-nine years old, in the prime of his medical career. He needed to be working.

Braxton rolled another ball over. He took a three-quarter swing and this time hit the ball flush. He breathed a sigh of relief. Even when he was drunk and at the end of his wits with his crazy wife, the last thing he wanted to add to his plate was a case of the shanks.

He giggled at the absurdity of the thought and then plopped down in the lawn chair, surveying his texts. The only message from Jana today had come in around 6:00 p.m.

Out tonight.

Braxton scrolled down, pausing briefly at a message from Colleen, the CRNA who’d been with him for over a decade. For the past few years, since Jana’s craziness had escalated, they’d engaged in an on-again, off-again affair that was currently off.

Happy fourth! I wish things could have been different . . .

Braxton gave his head a jerk. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Truth was, he hadn’t been the perfect husband. He’d made mistakes, but his indiscretions were nothing like his wife’s. They hadn’t put his family in danger.

He clicked over to his phone call summary and looked at a set of unfamiliar digits with a Boaz location. Braxton had screened the number at least five times before answering yesterday afternoon. He’d figured it was another extended-warranty reminder and had readied himself to hang up, but instead the voice that had come over the line had sent a shiver up his arm.

“Dr. Waters, this is Tyson Cade. I’m sure you know who I am. Your wife owes me $50,000. She hasn’t paid, though she’s done other things to grant herself more time.” There’d been a pause, and Braxton had forced himself not to respond. “I’ve run out of patience, Dr. Waters. I want my money, or there will be consequences.”

“How soon?” he’d managed.

But the line had gone dead, and Tyson Cade hadn’t called back. Braxton had broached the subject with Jana last night, but she’d bolted before he’d gotten any of the details. “I’ve got it under control,” was all she’d said.

Braxton cringed, thinking about the sheer lunacy of his wife’s response. Nothing was “under control” in Jana’s life. She’d been a spiraling typhoon for years, which was why Braxton would be filing for divorce. He’d hired an attorney, told Jana, and let the girls know. All that was left was filing the paperwork, which he planned to do as soon as he figured out how to handle Mr. Cade.

He’d tried to call the dealer back today, but the cell number had already been disconnected. It had probably been a burner phone purchased at Walmart. Braxton figured that the methamphetamine king of Sand Mountain had a basket full of such devices.

“Tyson Cade,” he whispered. “What have you done, Jana?”

He’d thought her shenanigans would only hurt him financially. In fact, for a while, he’d embraced the concept of separate lives, having his own side fun, but Jana’s drug use and volatile behavior had finally forced him into pursuing divorce.

Dealing with Tyson Cade, though, was a new low, even for Jana. She’d put Braxton and their daughters in peril. He stumbled back to his beer, then took another sip and poured himself an additional shot of Patrón. He toasted the sky and chased the tequila with another long pull from his pint.

Braxton figured that, if Cade really wanted his money, the drug lord would call back. He’d been waiting all day. Nothing.

He’ll call back, Braxton knew. There was no way in hell Jana could come up with that kind of cash by herself, and Cade wasn’t going to kill the golden goose. Braxton had already called his banker. He could put together the funds, but it was going to hurt.

He stumbled back toward the mat but decided against hitting any more balls. Darius was now singing “For the First Time,” and Braxton collapsed into the lawn chair. He gazed up at the moon and wondered, as the song went, when was the last time he’d done something for the first time.

Yesterday, he thought. Yesterday I spoke with a meth dealer.