Im pimped.

TOMMY:.

RUSS:.

Idiot.

DAVE:.

f.c.u.k you.

RUSS:.

This is killing me. Please stop inviting Dave on these text chains.

STEVE:.

And me.

DWAYNE:.

Okay. Game at 6. See you at the cages at 5. Playing Reese Pepper's daddy baseball team. It'll be a bloodbath.

STEVE:.

I'm a.s.suming Reese won't be there, due to being dead.

DWAYNE:.

He'll be under 2nd base if you need him.

TOMMY:.

LOL.

Dwayne walked into the kitchen after he finished getting dressed for a day of a.s.s kicking at work. He gave Estelle a big kiss and a smile.

"Is everything okay, babe?" she whispered in his ear.

"No worries, hon," he replied. He slapped her on the a.s.s and walked over to the table where Alex was seated.

"Time to go brush your teeth, buddy," Dwayne said, punching Alex softly on the shoulder. "I'll meet you out front at the truck."

Alex stood up and hugged his dad, then headed off to finish getting ready. Dwayne shoved a piece of toast in his mouth, then grabbed his bag and headed out the door to his truck.

When Dwayne opened his truck, he saw another envelope resting on his seat. He didn't like these envelopes. He was quite certain that he would kill whoever had been leaving them.

This time, the anonymous person left a message written in black marker. "Your whole life is a lie ... quit while you're ahead."

Dwayne opened up the envelope. It was more of the same-photos of Estelle posing nude, doing things he wished he'd never seen. The men's faces were always cut off, unidentifiable. But this time, Dwayne caught a new detail ... something he hadn't seen before. These photos had dates on them. They were barely two months old.

Blind rage flooded over him. Dwayne understood that the photos were taken before his reconciliation with Estelle but still ... these dates were so close. He gripped the side of the door tightly as he remained standing beside his truck.

Then he noticed something else.

One of the naked guys in the background appeared to be black. Or was it the lighting? He couldn't tell. Logically, Dwayne knew the guy could've been anyone. Unless he was black, that is. He knew only one black guy.

Dwayne told himself that there was absolutely no way that Tommy would ever do such a thing to him. He decided not to think about anyone in the picture, especially Estelle. Things were different now. He pulled himself together and slid the envelope into his pocket just as Alex came through the door.

Dwayne sat in his office, trying not to think about the latest batch of photos. Who was leaving them? What did they want? How much did they know? Whoever it was obviously knew too much.

He peeked inside the envelope again and then threw it in the garbage can. There was a baseball game to prepare for. Those pictures were taken in a previous life, before he had been anointed into the Jedi Alliance. They didn't reflect the world as it now stood.

The office phone buzzed, shaking him out of Estelle's photo shoot at the orgy. Dwayne's secretary was on the line.

"Dwayne," she said in her nasal tone, "there's a Detective Loffland with the Fort Worth Police Department here to talk to you."

"Send him up."

Dwayne supposed he should've been nervous, especially considering the fact that he had two black eyes from the fundraiser fight. He knew that most people in his situation would be freaking out. But Dwayne was cool as a cuc.u.mber.

A few seconds later, there was a knock at his office door.

"Come in!" he shouted.

The office door opened, and in walked Detective Loffland. Dwayne thought he looked smaller on television. The detective wasn't tall; he was just built like a brick s.h.i.thouse. He stood about 5 feet 11 inches tall and probably weighed 230 pounds. He was solid muscle. His head was shaved bald and shiny, and he had a short white goatee. He couldn't have been more than forty years old.

The two men shook hands, and Dwayne offered the detective a seat.

"I'm sure you know why I'm here, Mr. Devero," Detective Loffland said firmly.

"Lots of people going missing in my neck of the woods," Dwayne responded. "I'm glad you're on top of it."

Dwayne figured that the detective was probably a pretty good dude, based on the way he carried himself. He didn't appear to throw his power around.

"You mind if I ask what happened to your face, Mr. Devero?"

"Not at all, sir. I've had issues with my sinuses since I was a kid. Dr. Tom Johnson fixed it for me a few days ago. He had to break the bone in my nose to access my sinus cavity. It caused bruising under my eyes and made me look like I was dating an R&B singer."

The detective nodded approvingly at Dwayne's answer. Dwayne smiled back, satisfied that he'd created such a believable bulls.h.i.t story on the fly.

"What was your relationship with the deceased, Mr. Ricky Dale?" the detective asked.

"He coached my son's baseball team."

"And Pete Rearden?"

"He stepped in to coach after Ricky Dale died."

"Were you friends with them outside of baseball?"

"No sir. They were ... ummm ... Can I speak freely, sir?"

Detective Loffland smiled. "Please do. I've had enough of these pretentious douchebags trying to fake sincerity about all of this s.h.i.t."

Yup. Dwayne definitely liked this guy.

"They were c.o.c.ksuckers, sir. I couldn't stand them. The same goes for all of the missing people. They were s.h.i.tty human beings. I can't begin to imagine how long the list must be of people that would like to see them dead."

"But you didn't want to see them dead, right?"

"It wouldn't be my first choice, Detective, but I can honestly say I haven't lost any sleep over it."