Page 64 of Rock Chick Bonus Tracks

“Well, you’ll get that. Both, it would seem. It’s simply that the maximum should have been five years, not fifteen. So I’ll be eligible for parole next year.”

“And you didn’t want to tell Sadie this because…?” Hector prompted.

Again, he looked sick when he said, “Because I don’t know whether she’ll be glad to hear it, or won’t want to know until it happens, so she can figure out how she feels then. And youdoknow where she stands on that.”

He suspected he looked sick when he replied, “She’ll want to know.”

Seth smiled slow. “Then you have good news to give her.”

Even if Seth wasn’t done, they were done.

Hector stood.

Seth waylaid him by calling his name.

He looked down at the man, and surprisingly, Seth didn’t move, even if he wasn’t at an equal or advantageous position.

Uncharacteristic.

“Is she giving Lizzie her gardenias?”

“Every Sunday,” Hector informed him.

Seth nodded.

Right. Now they were done.

Hector weaved his way through the tables of family and friends saying good-bye to inmates to get to Sadie.

When he got to her, she didn’t delay. “What was that about?”

“In the truck,preciosa.”

She rolled her eyes.

He slung an arm around her shoulders and guided her to his truck.

When they were in his new vehicle, the one she gave him for Christmas, the heater blasting to force out the cold (and it didn’t take ten minutes for the heater to do this, like it did in his Bronco), and they were on their way home, she snapped impatiently, “Well?”

“I see I got Attitude Sadie,” he teased.

“Oh my God. This is the worst. We’re close to a prison when I need to murder someone.”

He burst out laughing.

“Hector Chavez! What did my dad say to you?” she demanded.

“Calm down,mamita. He just wanted to make sure I got more security on you than a three-month-old puppy. And he wanted to share the state of his appeal, which might be looking good for him.”

“What?” she breathed.

He glanced at her and saw he was right.

She was digging building this slightly-less-fucked-up-but-still-fucked-up new relationship with her father. And it would be easier to do if she didn’t have to wait a month between visits.

“He’s appealing the sentence, not the verdict, and he might have been handed too strict of one.”

“Is that even possible?”

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