Read Off You Go for Free Online

and checked into rehab that day. And she was now
seventy-one days sober. No eyes were dry by the time she
finished.
    T.A. Reddick pulled up in his old CJ7 Jeep
as the meeting was finishing. Dewey asked for ten minutes and went
over to say hello. The bluegrass world is a small one, and Dewey
kept hearing T.A.’s name, but everyone said he never took the
stage. Desperate for some musical companionship, Dewey had finally
found someone who knew where T.A. lived and paid him a visit with a
mandolin in his hand. T.A. invited him into his James Island home,
they picked music on the dock overlooking the marsh late into the
night, and a friendship began. That was five months ago.
    T.A. hopped down from his Jeep in cowboy
boots and jeans. Dewey had never seen him in anything else. The man
was in good shape, built tough, but nothing was out of place and
bulky. During their picking sessions, T.A. had shared stories of
his life with the DEA, and it was a wonder he was still alive. You
could see the scars of rough living. He’d left that all behind,
though, and was now living off an inheritance from his murdered
father and some good money he was making from writing country songs
for well-known Nashville artists.
    “ Thanks for coming.” Dewey
reached out and shook his hand.
    “ I’ll play for anybody
willing to listen, brutha.” He pulled his banjo from the back.
“How’s your jumper case?”
    “ Jumper case?” Dewey
asked.
    “ The girl who
jumped.”
    “ Oh, coming along.
Actually, I have a favor to ask you.” Dewey handed him a brown
bag.
    “ What’s this?”
    “ A pregnancy test and a
hairbrush.”
    “ I appreciate it. You
saved me a trip to the store.”
    Dewey laughed. “Do you think you could find
out if the test was used by the same person who owned the
hairbrush? I’m sure there is DNA, if not prints. Do you still have
connections?”
    “ I could probably make it
happen.”
    “ I’ll trade you for a
basket of my veggies and a big bag of those Cajun boiled peanuts
you like.”
    “ Give me a
day.”
    Dewey and T.A. tuned up
and played for those lost souls of addiction for more than an hour,
and it made their audience damn happy. It made Dewey happy, too.
They both sang and played their asses off, performing like there
was ten thousand people watching them, and as T.A. wrapped up the
set with a “Shave and a Haircut” lick,
Dewey looked at each one of those addicts with encouragement,
hoping they would keep fighting the good fight. Keep fighting, keep
hoping, and keep loving.
     
    ***
     
    Dewey got back to his
place around seven, eager to find out if the Hungry Hippo had
responded. Still in a bluegrass state of mind, he put on Church Street Blues and
let Tony Rice get after it for a while.
    With little hope, Dewey opened up Gina’s
computer. “I don’t even know why you’d still be checking this
e-mail unless you have some other women on the line. I guess I
won’t put that past you. It’s a slippery slope, my friend.”
    He got to her account. The Hungry Hippo had
replied. “How about that!” Dewey yelled. He clapped his hands. “How
about that!”

CHAPTER 6
     
    The e-mail read: Oh, my God, baby. Is this really you? What did
you do? I’m so happy. Can we meet tomorrow at 11 a.m.? Same place
as last week? I can’t get away until then. Are you still in
Charleston? Be careful. He didn’t sign his
name.
    Dewey read it several times. “How the hell
am I going to figure out where you met the last time?” he asked.
Dewey pulled a smoke from the deck of Spirits and put one in his
mouth. No smoking inside but he liked to let one dangle sometimes.
Without thinking much more about it, he replied to the e-mail in
the affirmative, figuring he worked best under pressure. He now had
fifteen hours to figure things out.
    He pulled up Gina’s calendar, thinking that
was a good place to start. Maybe she had written the meeting spot
down, though it was unlikely. Matter of fact, judging by what he’d
heard about