Page 64 of Lone Star

It was Ten not liking Reese that cracked Fox up. “I asked him what he thought about your little two-more-victims idea.”

“It’s not an idea,” Ten snapped. “That’s what happened.”

“According to you.”

He felt the weight of Ten’s glare against the side of his face, and shrugged. “You’re well-trained, I’ll give you that. But you aren’t a genius, and you aren’t perfect.”

Tenny halted.

Fox went one stride farther, and then turned back to regard his brother, so the sun hit Tenny full in the face, highlighting every bit of checked rage he fought to conceal.

“You could be right,” Fox said, “or you could be dead wrong. You’ve been coddled.”

“Beg your pardon?” he asked, voice brittle, glass-edged. The most emotion he’d ever shown.

“You’re not working black ops for the British government anymore. Drop the attitude, and open your eyes.”

Fox turned away, dark satisfaction brewing in his gut.Good, he thought, savagely. He was going to keep pushing, until the façade finally cracked and he met the real boy underneath all those many, many layers of veneer.

If he even existed.

Twenty-Four

“The clerks that work the midday shift all know Candy and the boys,” Michelle explained, as she and Eden crossed the old cracked pavement of the Citgo station, headed for the door. Axelle was gassing up her GTO, slumped against the back fender, wind playing with her long, wheaten hair. With her beat-up boots and denim jacket, she looked right at home against the Texas landscape.

Eden less so.

She didn’t seem uncomfortable; quite the opposite. Composed, confident, she looked like a woman who knew what she was about. But even with her scuffed Docs and her black leather jacket, there was something sharp about her. Somewhere between the tight ponytail, and the huge shades, and the particular set of her mouth lay hints about her former profession. Not just a tough woman, but one who’d been paid to be so.

“Will they recognize you?” Eden asked, as they reached the sidewalk.

A man pulling a bag of ice out of the cooler paused and stared at them – at Eden, Michelle thought.

“Yes.”

“Hm,” Eden acknowledged, and opened the door.

The first time Michelle had ever come into this particular station, she’d realized why it was the one the club boys frequented most often. The linoleum yellowed with age, scuffed from thousands of footfalls; the lights above the drink coolers always flickering; the slurpy machine you couldn’t have paid her to use. It always smelled sharply of fresh cigarette smoke, and sometimes weed; the counter was fortified on all sides by candy bar racks, and Skoal racks, and cigarette racks; lotto machines and stands of Bic lighters and a forest of dangling key chains.

It was kind of a dump, the sort of place tourists and uppity types would have avoided, choosing instead to go across the street to the shiny new brightly-lit BP. But for an outlaw, grungy and smelly was a worthy trade for a lack of prying eyes.

The bell jangled overhead when they entered. Two clerks loitered behind the counter, one paging disinterestedly through a magazine, the other frowning and tapping at one of the keychains – one shaped like a little cactus wearing sunglasses. Neither of them glanced toward the door when Eden and Michelle entered. It smelled more like weed than smoke today.

They traded a look, and Eden nodded.

Michelle approached the counter, casually, gaze flitting like she was browsing. She snagged careful looks at both clerks, though. She didn’t need the name tags to know that these were Jesse and Eric.

She slapped a candy bar down on the counter with more force than necessary. Both boys jumped, a little, and finally glanced her way. She’d always thought Jesse – the one with the magazine – the cleverer of the two, and he proved it now; his eyes widened a fraction after he recognized her. Eric took a moment longer, but then he mouthed,Shit.

Gooseflesh broke out under her clothes. They knew something, and the idea of teasing it out of them hit her with the old thrill she hadn’t felt since she lived in London.

“Hey, guys,” she said, and it was so easy, sounding calm, a bit bored, tired and disinterested. “How’s it going?”

They stared at her a moment.

“Good,” Jesse finally said. He slid the magazine aside and reached for her Butterfinger like it might bite.

“Lots of crazy stuff happening around here lately, huh?” she asked, still casual.

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