Keep My Heart

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Trey covered his pounding head with his pillow. He had no recollection of last night’s events or what had possessed him to go out on the balcony in the middle of the night. A broken whiskey bottle on the floor told him that he had downed the whole thing. No wonder he didn’t remember anything.

Needless to say, he had been quite surprised to find himself out on the balcony this morning, and even more shocked to see Millie out there with him. She obviously didn’t have much sleep during the night and yet her appearance hadn’t been in the least bit of disarray.

He tried to keep himself from thinking, as it hurt his head too much. The constant throbbing caused him to press the pillow harder to his face. One would think he was trying to suffocate himself. A knock on the door made his head throb even more.

“Come in” He said, annoyed.

It was Clayton. “You have a visitor, Mr. Shannon”.

“If it’s Adam, Wes, or Jed, tell ‘em…” Trey sighed. It could be important. “Send whoever it is in”.

“It’s me, Boss” Adam’s voice said.

Trey removed the pillow from his face. “What now?”

“There’s a problem” Adam seemed hesitant.

“Well?”

“The money’s gone,” Adam blurted.

“G-gone?” Trey sat straight up, feeling like his head was splitting in two.

“I have no idea where it is. I hid it where you said to, but it’s gone now. Not a trace of who took it or anything” Adam explained.

“I knew I should have put it in the safe with the rest of the money,” Trey groaned. “Where’s the other two?”

“They’re outside” Adam replied.

Trey huffed and stood, holding his head. A draft of chilly wind from the window reminded him to replace his shirt.

“Did you see anyone suspicious around?” he asked Adam.

“Nope. Not a soul ’cept us” Adam seemed awfully nonchalant about the whole thing, and Trey wondered at that.

“Well, let’s get out o’ here” Trey buttoned the top button of his shirt and grabbed his gun from the back of the straight-backed chair he kept in his room for that purpose.

*****

Millie started carrying Quinn downstairs and ran into Trey, Clayton, and another man she had seen around before at the end of the hall.

Trey looked as irritable as a wet hen, and Clayton took on a more annoyed expression.

“You’re too sick to be goin’ out, Shannon,” the latter said.

“I’m finer ’n a frog hair, Clayton” Trey growled as he slapped on his dark brown Stetson and began his pounding decent down the stairs.

Clayton looked at her and rolled his eyes. “That boy’ll kill himself”.

Serves him right for drinking himself into a stupor

. Millie thought.

The man with Trey followed him and Clayton followed suit. Millie shifted Quinn in her arms and wondered where the men were going in such a hurry. She followed farther behind and stopped at the platform at the bottom of the stairs. If Trey was leaving for longer than a day, he might want to say good-bye to Quinn.

The three men stopped at the front door and exchanged a few muffled words. Trey looked up and saw her.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he asked irritably.