Page 21 of Scatter the Bones

“Shit. I’m sorry.” She couldn’t have been more than thirty-two or thirty-three. “How?”

Maybe that’s rude but I’m not really known for my tact.

“Ovarian cancer.” His left hand strays to his side. “She fought hard, but doctors all caught it too late.”

Poor Ruth. She didn’t deserve such a miserable, early ending.

“She made me promise to find you,” he says, voice ragged. “After she was gone.”

The finality in his tone hits harder than I’m ready for.

Fucking hell.Cain and I reuniting was Ruth’s dying wish? What the fuck am I supposed to say to that? I should’ve asked Margot to come with me. She’d know all the right words.

Cain draws in a slow, measured breath, like he’s holding onto his pain and fury with both hands.

Feels like I’m sitting next to a grenade, the pin already halfway out—and I’m the one who pulled it.

“Where were you living?” I ask.

He glances toward the door. “We moved to New Mexico, after…”

You killed my dad and kicked us out of our home.

He doesn’t say that, but my guilty conscience hears it loud and clear.

“Did you like it there?”

The first hint of humanity cracks his robotic mannerisms. “Yeah. We settled into a nice place. Mom made pottery.” He works his hands in a circle.

A fuzzy memory of Ruth flashes through my mind—her hands caked in gray sludge, laughing while Jezzie tried to spin a crooked lump of clay.

“Sold it at this gallery nearby,” he continues. “Met my stepfather there.”

So she remarried. To someone normal or another religious zealot? “Was he good to you?”

He cocks his head as if he needs to think on it, then stares me dead in the eyes. “Treated me nicer than our father did.”

Maybe he’s not here to kill me after all.“That’s a low bar.”

He scoffs. “You could say that.”

“So how’d you find me? And why comehereof all places?”

He reaches into his hoodie pocket.

My body tenses and I sit up straighter in case he’s going for a weapon.

But all he pulls out is a folded-up piece of glossy paper that looks like it was torn out of a magazine.

“Mom really got to love country music after we moved.” He unfolds the paper and holds it out to me. “Big fan of Shelby Morgan.”

A smile twitches at the corners of my mouth. How about that? Rooster’s little songbird is somehow responsible for bringing my half-brother back into my life.

“She saw this in a magazine and recognized you right away.”

I take the paper and scan the page.

It’s a gossip piece from maybe two years ago when I was on tour with Shelby helping Rooster work security.

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