Bingo

Derek gives Jess a warm smile. All he can do is watch her leave, incredibly curious now. He knew who she was. He knew she'd called. But he hadn't expected her to actually come. And if he knew Axel, Axel wouldn't have expected her to come either.

Derek lets the screen door fall shut again, and closes the inside door to keep the chilly air out.

"Dad, who was that?"

He turns to Liz. "I'm ninety-nine percent sure that was Jess... Axel's talked about her."

"Oh yeah, the gal he likes."

Derek lifts an eyebrow. "Now don't go spreading rumors."

Liz grins. "I'm not. I'm a woman and I can see that look in his eye."

Derek shakes his head. "Well, now you can pray that she finds him, and when she does, that he'll be receptive."

"You think he'd walk away?"

"At this point, I don't know. If he does, I know he'll regret it for the rest of his life."


Rick lets Misty help him straighten up, though he holds his side. "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay," he grumbles. "That sure was stupid. I don't know why I didn't think he'd do something. I must be more tired than I thought."


As Alec comes sprinting around the corner, he skids to a halt, running into another stranger. Though it was the tank of a man behind Nate that made his eyes go wide. Distracted, he doesn't even see Nate's fist coming at him. In an instant, everything goes black.

Con's eyebrows shoot up. "Whoa. Nice one. Who is this clown?"

By now, Rick has managed to get closer, though is still a bit out of breath. "He's one of the guys who jumped Scott last night."

"What?" Con had been too distracted to hear about that. "Is Scott okay?"

"Yeah, he will be. He killed this guy's partner."

"Scott did?" Con found that hard to believe.

"Yep. Bullet right to the head."

"They break into his house or what?"

"Apparently."

Con's anger just boils. It was bad enough they had everything else to worry about. Why couldn't these goons go find someone else to pick on? Stepping forward, he grabs Alec by the shirt and lifts him up just enough to start dragging him back to the cell.

Rick rolls his eyes in annoyance. "Don't kill him, Con."

Con throws him a look. "I'll try not to." Dragging Alec the rest of the way, he pulls him across the floor near the toilet. Grabbing a set of handcuffs he'd swiped from the supply room, he cuffs one of Alec's wrists to a sturdy pipe that ran up the wall.

Rick peers in on him. "A little much?"

"What?" Con frowns. "You can still feed him, and I was even nice enough to put him next to the toilet. What more should he want?"

Rick shakes his head. "Yeah, fine." Moving slowly, he goes in and sets the now-cold food down on the floor just within Alec's reach for when he would wake up. "Guess it serves him right."

Only now does Con notices that Rick himself looks a little pale. "You alright?"

"Oh sure... I'll just have my assistant here take a look at this rib, but I'm pretty sure it's broken. Otherwise I'm fine."

"Well, I'd ignore this goon for a good while. Make him need you. He'll fold eventually." Con turns back to Nate. "Now... where were we?"


Axel pulls into the little gravel parking lot of the Roadside Grill. He had a lot of memories connected to this family-owned restaurant. Many noon or evening meals had been eaten here with the Stevensons. They were in a small town, so business never was booming. But the daily customers liked it that way. And so did Axel. This was his kind of sleepy town.

Shutting off his car's engine, he's just about to get out when a shooting pain courses through his hand. Groaning in disgust, he stops with the door open, trying to rub away the sensation. Today it was either in pain or numb. It had never lasted this long or been this severe... and Axel's fear was that the injury had finally won. He'd been warned about that when he'd refused surgery.

Flexing his fingers, he can't really feel them move too much, but the muscles were still working. He'd just have to be careful not to pick anything up with it.

Getting the pain to at least reduce to a dull ache, Axel finally gets out of the car to head inside. He had so much on his mind... he just wanted... he didn't know what he wanted anymore.

The bell on the door jingles as he enters the grill, and a few people who are there turn around to look or give a friendly nod. A waitress comes to him - one that he didn't remember. "Hello," she greets warmly. "Are you alone?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, I got a table right back here you can have."

"Um..." Axel stops her. "Can I have a table by the window instead?"

"Oh sure." The girl nods and starts to lead Axel down to a corner table, unaware that he'd chosen that table as his favorite a long time ago.


Carson yawns, leaning back in the TJY van. "Come on, Peter," he mutters. "Where are you, ya scum?"

Suddenly, his question is answered. Peter's car pulls up to the Bullseye.

"Bingo." Carson's pulse quickens and he straightens up, watching intently from a half block away. Seeing Peter go inside, Carson gets out of the van, taking his time to walk casually to the bar. He'd take just long enough to let Peter get settled, then go in. If he could time it right, he'd get Peter out the back where they could have a little "come to Jesus" meeting."


Bryce puffs on his cigarette, watching people in the park. His buddies had warned him to stay out of town, but he didn't have any fear. So far no one had found him - they'd all been looking too far away. No one expected him to stick around. Besides that, Laura was probably too scared to testify anyway.

Leaning back against his car, he checks his watch. He'd be meeting his buddies in a while to go have some fun, then tonight it was party time.