Page 20 of Lone Star

Jenny reached up to rub at the place between her brows, the skin already pink like she’d done that on the ride over. Her gaze was on her tea. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve seen worse.” They both had. “But Jack…” She lifted her head, and glanced toward the sofa where Jack had curled up with his favorite blanket and fallen asleep almost immediately. “He saw it. One of them,” she said, quietly, her voice laced with a shiver. “I told him the man was just sleeping. Playing a game. He’s four, so I don’t know that it’s gonna stick in his head, you know? And, hell.” She sighed. “He’ll end up patching in one day. These won’t be his last dead bodies. But.” She turned toward Michelle, her eyes – the same faded denim blue as her brother’s – white-rimmed with repressed panic. “They were right outside his room. Somebody killed two menright outside his room.”

“I know.” That was the thing that put Michelle’s mama bear instincts in sympathetic overdrive.

It would have been so easy – would have taken only a moment – for one of the killers to take the three steps to the window and slip a blade in the crack at its bottom. Lever it up. Reach through…

She dashed the thought away before it could manifest too strongly. Jack was fine, and he was going to stay that way. Just like TJ. The last was half-determined statement…half-prayer.

“Candy say who he thinks it is?” Jenny asked, startling her.

“No. If I knew, you’d know.”

Jenny lifted a single brow and took a sip of tea. “Doubt it. I don’t know jack shit since we moved out.”

“No, but…” Michelle’s argument faded on her tongue as she thought about it. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she and Jenny had sat at this table together, having coffee, or wine, or a shared dinner with the whole family.

“Yeah,” Jenny said. “I’m out of the loop.”

“No.” A weak protest. If she pulled out her phone, she’d find that her last contact with Jenny had been three days ago, a quick text about an upcoming potluck at a rec center charity the club was sponsoring this Christmas. “I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. “I didn’t realize I wasn’t keeping you up to date.”

“Shit, no, that’s not yourjob. Phones work both ways. Most of this is on me.” She sighed, and toyed with the string of her teabag. “With my new job, and Jack being in school now. And not living here…I guess I never realized how deep you get in club business when you live under its roof.” She sounded wistful.

“Do you miss it?”

Jenny looked up, surprised by the question. “No,” she said, right away, but then took a long sip of tea and seemed to think it over. “I love my house,” she said, firmly, like she didn’t want Michelle to think she didn’t. Maybe to convince herself, too, a little. “We just put the fence in across the backyard, and I’m going to have tomatoes next summer. We’ve got so much room. Andprivacy. God. It’s a miracle to have sex without worrying your brother’s just down the hall and might hear.”

“Colin gets loud, does he?” Michelle teased, and they both chuckled.

Jenny’s smile faded fast, though. She shrugged. “I got used to it, though: being here all the time. Knowing everything that was going on. A lot of it was dumb – nobody needs to know what sort of terrible lunch creation Cletus let go moldy in the fridge.”

“Olive loaf on rye this week,” Michelle said, making a face.

Jenny wrinkled her nose in sympathy. “See? Nobody. But I was–” Her next breath came unsteadily. “I wasn’t an old lady, but I was the woman they all turned to. I was the HBIC, you know? It was like I had a place. Like I mattered. And now I’m just…an old lady, living away from all the action.”

Michelle frowned. “Jen, are things alright with you and Colin?”

“What? Yes.Yes, they’re great. This isn’t about us.” She shook her head, and looked frustrated. “He’s a big doofus, but I love him.” She said it like it was an affliction, but a deep, private smile tweaked the corners of her mouth, the kind Michelle could immediately relate to.

Jenny sighed. “You’d be feeling the same way, if it was you living apart from here.”

Michelle smiled. “Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.”

“Ignore me,” Jenny said with a little wave, and sipped more tea. “I’m all high-strung because of what happened. And,” she added, voice firming, gaze going steely in a reassuring way; that was the HBIC peeking through, still very much intact, living apart or no. “I can’t believe Candy isn’t already elbows-deep in ass-kicking yet. How does he not have a clue who’s doing this?”

“I don’t know,” Michelle said, letting worry bleed into her voice at last. She stared down at her own undrunk tea. The mug had gone cold between her hands. “Has he evernotknown what was going on in this city?”

“No,” Jenny said, “and that’s what scares me.”

Eleven

Cantrell climbed out of his car wearing a wool trench over a threadbare Quantico shirt, his plaid lounge pants tucked into cowboy boots that, at least, carried admirable signs of wear.Never trust a man with too-clean boots, Dad had always said. He cursed, and fumbled with his coat buttons as he walked up the frost-crunchy sod to where Candy, Blue, and Colin stood beside the tarp.

“You touched the bodies?” he asked, glancing down at the tarp.

“The tarp touched the bodies,” Colin said, and Candy nudged him.

“It seemed important the neighbors not see two dead guys laid out like lawn ornaments,” he said. “And I figure your lab guys are talented enough to know the tarp’s not what killed them.” He grinned.

Cantrell regarded him a moment – there was enough light creeping up over the horizon to see the unimpressed flatness of his expression. “Yeah. Sure.”

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