Make It A Double(Book 2 of The Last Call Series)

Make It A Double(Book 2 of The Last Call Series) by Sawyer Bennett


Dedication


I would like to dedicate this book to Sarah Jessica Farber, one of the most wonderful legal advocates you will ever find in the State of North Carolina. Although I’ve been practicing law for sixteen years, it’s been on the civil side and I know almost nothing about criminal law. She not only gave me the idea for Brody’s crime, but she patiently helped me learn the law about it and also explained a great deal about the prison system to me. While I had oodles of juicy criminal information to use, I did have to fictionalize some aspects of Brody’s crime, including the terms of his parole. However, that’s one of the great things about fiction… I can make stuff up!!! Seriously… I could not have brought you Brody’s story without her help, and I owe her big time.

To start, Sarah… next beer is on me!




Prologue


Brody

Six years ago…



“I had the best time tonight,” Stacy purrs as she reaches over and lays her palm on my thigh. Her touch is warm but when she flexes her fingertips, causing her nails to bite into my skin, it turns carnally hot.

The music is pulsing in the background… Black Eyed Peas… and we have the windows down, allowing the warm summer air to swirl around us as we ride down West Franklin Street. My second year of medical school starts tomorrow, and Stacy and I are blowing off steam the best way we know how. With a good college frat party and then a trip back to my apartment, where we’ll probably f*ck each other to death.

It would be a good way to die, in my humble opinion.

“I love you, baby,” she calls out to me, the air causing her blonde hair to float all around her face. I have just enough beer in me to be entranced by it before my attention is diverted by her fingers sliding up my leg.

Grabbing onto her hand, I pull it up higher, pushing it down against my erection. Smiling at her, our eyes locked momentarily, filled with young love, I tell her. “I love you, too.”

We stare at each other, for what seems like minutes, but it can’t be because we’re in the car. My blood is racing from the promise of her touch, but my heart is squeezing deliciously over the love radiating off her. I’m a lucky man.

My lips quirk up and, almost by mutual agreement, we release our gazes and turn to look out the windshield.

The headlights pick up a flash of white… maybe I see some Carolina blue, getting closer. Too damn close.

The brakes are slammed hard. The nose of the car starts to dive down at the sudden deceleration and then a blur of white and blue hits the front of the car, rolls up the hood, and smashes into the windshield. I see the glass spiderweb outward, and then whatever was on the windshield is flipping up and over the roof.

We veer off the road, tires screaming loud on the pavement.

I see a tree coming closer.

Nothing to do but close my eyes and grit my teeth for the impact. The last thing I remember before I kiss the airbags… Did Stacy have her seatbelt on?

Then it goes dark.





Chapter 1





Brody





I put the last of my groceries away, fold up the brown paper bags, and tuck them in the space between my refrigerator and the kitchen wall. Turning around, I observe my little studio apartment. I see it all in just a quick glance, because it’s about the size of a postage stamp.

While I just helped Gabby move into Hunter’s house, I certainly didn’t need to ask them to reciprocate the favor. The only things I own are my clothes, and those were gifts to me from my mom. She had taken me out shopping the day after I got home from prison, outfitting me with an entirely new wardrobe. I mean… new as opposed to wearing prison garb for five years. I felt ashamed that my mom had to buy her twenty-eight-year-old son clothes because he didn’t have a dime to his name.

Past my clothes and some basic toiletries, I have no other possessions. The car I’m driving is courtesy of my parents… on loan, of course. It’s an old Chevy Malibu that had been sitting under a tarp, which Dad used to drive. They don’t use it, but it runs fine. Mom and Dad tried to give it to me, but I wouldn’t accept it. Instead, I capitulated only by agreeing that I was borrowing it until I could save up enough money to buy it from them.

Luckily, this studio apartment came completely furnished, and the kitchen was stocked with dishes, pots, pans, and utensils. I had all the basics that I needed to survive, because let’s face it… it wasn’t too f*cking hard to boil some Ramen noodles for dinner, and that was a huge step up from the prison food I’d been eating.

So with my duffel bag filled with clothes purchased by my mom, I drove my old Chevy borrowed from my parents to the grocery store and stocked up on some basic provisions. Then it took me all of five minutes to move into my new home.

A knock on my door has me glancing down at my watch.

Right on time.

In three regular strides, I’m from one side of the apartment to the other and opening the door. There stands my parole officer, Jimbo Peaks. He is six-foot-six of solid muscle, his neck as thick as a tree truck, and his biceps the size of smoked hams. With skin darker than midnight, his light hazel eyes are spooky as shit when he looks directly at you, in that contemplative sort of way I’ve come to know over the last two months since I’ve been home.