Page 24 of Shine On Oklahoma

Jack tucked the cigar into his breast pocket.I’ll just keep you nearby, Stogie, in case this thing goessouth.

Ace laid his cards down. “I’m ou-ou-out.”Then he sneezed. Again.

Ace looked like you’d expect a guy with anickname like Ace to look. He embraced the whole gangster-greasercliché without apology. Slicked hair, leather jacket, inkedforearms. But his chronic allergies blew the image to hell. He raninto the bathroom for another Benadryl. The guy started sneezingand snotting every eight hours like clockwork, then popped anallergy capsule and got over it.

“I call.” The dough-faced ginger named Philwas Vester’s right-hand man. You didn’t see too many dough-facedgingers named Phil in the heroin business, but that was probably abenefit. Phil pushed in a stack of chips. He looked like the kindof guy who’d fold every hand. But Jack had seen him stab a man todeath with a rusty metal file because he didn’t have a knife handy.He was brutal.

And he was smart, too. Dangerouscombination.

Jack dropped two cards into his lap, producedtwo more from his sleeve, and programmed his handsome features toreflect abject disappointment. “You saw right through my bluff,didn’t you Phil?”

“Every fucking time.” Grinning, Phil hauledall his chips in. “You better be good for this, Kellogg.”

“I’m good for it, and you know it.”

“How do I know it?”

“Because your boss is gonna be paying mehandsomely once Kendra’s boy-toy inherits his old man’sracetrack.”

“That’s right,” Vester said. “And if shefails, you don’t need to worry about collecting, Phil. We’ll takeit out of his hide.”

“Hey, hey, now, that’s not part of the dealeither,” Jack said.

Vester sent him a wink. “Relax. You said yourgirl could charm this Russell fellow out of his liver if she puther mind to it. You telling me that wasn’t true?”

“I’m not stupid enough to lie to you,Caine.”

“Then you got nothing to worry about. Andit’s Mister Caine. Show some respect.”

#

“Change of plans,”the text message said.“Meet at OKCorral.”It came from a number Kendra didn’t recognize, andhad a cc line of a thousand.

Okay, four.

“Same time?”someonetexted back.

Thumbs-up sign. “C U there.”

She knew Sophie and Emily would be there, andassumed one of them was the initial sender. Maybe Allie Wakeland,the pregnant friend, was the third. But she wondered who the fourthnumber on the cc line belonged to. She supposed she’d find out whenshe got there.

She turned the ‘Vette onto Main Street andslowed to a crawl as she watched the town she’d grown up in takeshape around her. First she passed the giant circle of park. Theroad split around it, one lane circling it on the right, the otheron the left, and then met again on the other side. Nothing much hadchanged on Main Street. The Big Falls Diner looked just like it hadwhen they’d moved east. Rosie was running the place like she alwayshad, and never seemed to age. Everyone called her Aunt Rosie. Itwas a Big Falls thing. The bank hadn’t changed its window décorsince the 1890s, by the look of it. The drug store was still whereit belonged. Someone had put in a comic book store—she’d have tocheck that out. And that photo studio was new must be AllieWakeland’s. It used to be a hardware store, she thought. Edie Brandwas the only other photographer in town, but her studio was in herhome out by the Falls. The bakery was still the only business thatsported a pink and white striped awning instead of green and whitelike everyone else. It had always been a bakery with the wrongcolor awning. It had been Myrtle’s before it was Sunny’s, back whenKendra and Kiley were kids. Someone had put up a coffee shop on thecorner, the kind that served fancy brews, but not a chain. Theydidn’t allow chains in Big Falls. But she could see how that mightchange now that the place had a couple of bona fide touristattractions. She hoped not, though. Big Falls wasn’t a chain kindof a town. It was more of a Norman-Rockwell-goes-west kind of atown. More an honest-upright-people-live-here kind of a town.

More atoo-good-for-the-likes-of-Kendra-Kellogg kind of a town.

She wasn’t comfortable here. Never hadbeen.

She pulled off Main street and into theparking lot that the OK Corral shared with the next business,Armstrong’s Garage. She tried to remember the name of the guy who’downed it when she was a kid and came up blank. Not Armstrong. Ithad been a long time.

A black van with a batman logo on the sidepulled in beside her. She frowned at the design for about tenseconds before she got it. It was a V, not a bat. Vet Mobile. Cute.Then Doc Sophie pulled in and then a pickup truck. The woman whogot out was older—how much older, it wasn’t possible to say. Herhair was long, curly, and black with silver strands. She was shortand curvy, and not someone Kendra would ever think about conning.You learned early on in the confidence game how to read people. Ifyou didn’t, you were doomed. Kendra would not bet against this one,not on her life.

Another car pulled in, and Allie Wakeland gotout, belly leading the way. They all hugged, Sophie and Emily andAllie, and the lady. And then they all turned her way, arm in arm,smiling.

Kendra said, “Um, good morning?”

“Morning!” they broke like a football huddle,the ruler coming forward with her hand out. “Vidalia Brand,” shesaid. Oh, that made sense. The matriarch. “I’m glad you’re here forthe birth of your niece. Sisters need each other at a time likethis.”

Allie had come up to stand beside her, andKendra thought it was a deliberate move, like she was saying,“Don’t worry, I’ll be your ally.”

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