Page 129 of Them Bones

Susan put down her coffee and grabbed Kim’s arm, pushing the sleeve back up her arm.

“Oh my God, Kim!” Susan exclaimed. “What the fuck?What the fuck?”Kim’s wrists were almost black, her arms covered in brown bruises that looked like… “Are thosefingerprints?”

Kim went beet red, shoving Susan away and yanking her sleeve back down. “It’s nothing,” she mumbled.

“Thatis notnothing!”Susan said, horror in her voice. “Kim… you look like you’ve taken a beating…”

“Oh myGodSusan, it’snothing,okay?!” she snapped. “Cary just likes it a little rough.”

“A little rough? Kim, that’s notrough.That’s…”

Their radio crackled, interrupting the conversation. “Werner? Orson?” came Sherry’s voice over the CB.

Kim picked up their radio, glaring at Susan. “Yeah,” she said.

“You guys at the Tim’s on Charles? Over.”

“Yes, over.”

“The roads are pretty gnarly, ladies. You might want to take Bristol back to the station, Yonge’s a bit of a mess, few cars are in the ditch. Over.”

“Should we be heading to Yonge? Over.”

“Nah, cops got it covered. No injuries. Over.”

“Okay, thanks Sherry. Over.”

Susan turned over the ignition, eyeing Kim warily. She’d been absurdly jealous of Kim all year. Cary had shown up at the station, charmed the socks off her, gotten her to give up Kim’s address, and the next thing you know Kim was taking themovie starhome to meet her mom.

But as Kim absently rubbed her wrists and shifted her legs like she was in pain elsewhere, too, Susan wondered for the first time where the hell Cary had come from.

And what he was capable of.

JOHN

John was avoiding going home.

He’d dodged a bullet, last Christmas. For whatever reason, nobody told Cary that John had been plowing Linette. While he wouldn’t have wished anything bad on Laney, her little incident had bought him much-needed time and distracted the ever-living shit out of Cary.

But at the time, he hadn’t known that nobody would find out. So he’d told his wife.

To his horror, Suzie’s response had been, “Well, John, we’ve all been there.”

“I’m sorry… what?” he asked, his eyebrows hitting his receding hairline.

“Everyone’s fucked a Hawton,” she said coolly.

“You… you’ve… who?”

“Don’t play stupid,” she’d snapped.

“Cary?” he asked incredulously. “You’ve… fucked Cary?”

“Of course I’ve fucked Cary,” she said nonchalantly. “And you fucked his mom. Aren’t we a pair.” She’d snorted two lines and then spent the weekend at her sister’s.

Things had been strained, since then.

“Don’t you need to get home to your wife and kids, or some shit?” Cary asked, tossing down his cards and letting John sweep up the pile. The rest of the guys had disappeared hours ago, and it was late.

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