“You’re stayin’ with me until Colt finds this f**ker,” Morrie told me and I broke eye contact with Alec to stare at my brother.
“I am not.”
“You stay with him or you stay with me.”
This came from Alec.
I transferred my stare to him, thrown for a moment because while I was perfecting the art of avoiding Alec, I pretty much figured he was returning the gesture.
“I’m not doing that either.”
“Two choices, Feb,” Morrie stated, his arm getting tight around my shoulders.
“I didn’t see anything!” My voice was getting higher.
“Not takin’ chances,” Morrie didn’t sound like he’d be easily swayed.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, getting pissed.
I was a normal person and kept myself to myself meaning I liked to keep myself to myself. Not have myself living with my brother and definitely not Alec.
“Ridiculous?” Alec said, his voice weirdly soft and compelling, drawing my attention to him and his face was hard again. He was angry, at me.
And I knew why.
I’d seen it, all the gruesome, bloody evidence of it in the alley.
“I’ll stay with Morrie.”
Morrie’s arm gave my shoulders a squeeze.
Alec bit his lip again, still hacked off about something, what at that point I didn’t know, but he kept staring at me, making me think it was me. Then he let go of his lip and clenched his teeth, making both of his jaws flex and I wondered if he was biting back words.
He succeeded if that was what he was doing since without saying anything, he nodded to me then to Morrie and he walked away.
* * * * *
Before Colt walked into his house, he knew Susie was there.
“Fuck,” he muttered while entering.
He should have never given her his key. They’d been seeing each other off and on (mostly off) for three years and he’d managed to steer clear of doing it. He’d only done it because he needed someone to look after his dog when he went fishing with Morrie two weeks ago and Susie had begged him to do it. She’d never given the key back and he’d not had the time to ask for it or the patience to deal with the tantrum when he asked.
He ignored the fact that Susie was there and went directly to the kitchen, pulled a beer out of the fridge and used the edge of the counter to snap off the top.
He was halfway through downing it when Susie came in.
His chin came down as did his beer and he looked at her.
She’d been the town beauty since practically birth, homecoming queen, prom queen. Her father owned a variety of local stores and a shitload of property until he’d sold them all to big chains and land developers, making a mint and making his daughter, upon his death, the only multi-millionaire in town.
Susie Shepherd had been engaged twice, never married. Both men begged off, Colt knew, even though the story was spread that Susie had been the one to get cold feet.
After three years, Colt knew why they’d fled.
She was a beauty, she could be sweet when she had a mind to do it or she wanted something and she was a great lay but she also could be a total bitch.
She was blonde, like February, but Susie’s blonde hair wasn’t thick and long and wild like February’s. Even when February did whatever she had to do to make her hair almost sleek, it still flipped out at the ends, defying her, laying testimony to the deeper personality trait that February couldn’t hide even though she tried.
Susie was also tall, like February, she just didn’t have February’s great tits and abundant h*ps and sweet ass. And, even though Susie’s legs were long, they didn’t seem to go on forever, like February’s, like they could wrap around you twice to lock you close while you were f**king her.
And Susie just simply didn’t have that look about her, that look February started to get when she was fourteen, that look that matured as she did. That look that promised she’d suck your cock, and get off on it. That look that told you she’d sit on your face, and f**king love it. That look that told you she’d let you do her doggie style, or any style, and she’d want more of it, beg you to do it harder. That look that said you could leave her on her belly in bed after you’ve just f**ked her, and she’d be totally okay with you going to meet the guys at the bar. Hell, she’d get up, clean up and come with you if she felt like it, but she’d have a mind to your space as long as you gave a mind to hers.
“You’re late,” Susie said, like she’d know what late was for him which she f**king didn’t.
“Angie Maroni was murdered this morning.”
He heard her suck in breath and he wondered what world she lived in. Everyone else in town knew about Angie by noon.
Then again, Susie had never stepped foot over the threshold of J&J’s Saloon as everyone in town over drinking age, and some of them under it, had. Susie shopped in the Indianapolis, had her hair done there, met her friends there. She just lived here so she could pretend to be queen even though no one really liked her.
“How’d that happen?” Susie asked and Colt saw Angie again in that alley but, even though he wanted to stop it, for the life of him he couldn’t and he saw her with Feb’s eyes.
It was a small town but it was close to a big city and two race tracks, shit spread and, as a cop for over twenty years, a detective for over sixteen, he’d seen his fill of crime and definitely his fill of death.
But Angie, Christ, he could pick hundreds of deaths, even murders he’d prefer Feb to see.
“Knife,” was all Colt would tell Susie.
He was close to ending it with her, he had been now for months; he’d just never got around to it. Still, he had no intention of telling her how Angie was murdered with a hatchet. She’d likely find out eventually if she started paying attention, but he wouldn’t be the one to tell her.
She started to come closer, saying, “I’m sorry, Colt.”
“Don’t be sorry for me, it’s Angie in the morgue.”
Her lip started to curl up before she caught it. She knew that’d piss him off.
But he saw it and it pissed him off.
“Angie was a good woman.”
She started to roll her eyes again before she caught it.
That pissed him off more.
Susie saw it.
“She sleeps with anything that moves,” Susie defended.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t a troubled woman, I said she was a good one.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about your work,” she suggested, “get your mind off it.”