Page 28 of The Hard Way

“We’ll make him sing,” Odin said.

“Dude.” I gave him a dark look.

“Vanessa seemed baffled, too,” Thor said, deciding to take the less caveman road. “She didn’t think he’d do it, either. And Andy isn’t talking to them.”

The waitress finally came by, and he ordered a beer.

“It’s important for a farm like the Millers to expand,” I said. “But to ruin my sisters…it’s not the culture of Baylortown. It’s not what’s done.”

“Maybe not two years ago,” Thor said.

“The whole culture here didn’t change in two years. And with the bad weather this summer, alfalfa hay prices would be high, but dairy prices are low. They shouldn’t have that kind of cash. Unless they’d been saving it all these years, somehow…”

“God, Isis…” Zeus lowered his voice. “It’s hot when you talk like a farm girl. Like a dairy maid…”

“Oh my god, are you thinking about dairy maid porn right now?”

“Kind of,” Zeus admitted.

“Well you better not be thinking hu-cow.”

Thor frowned. “What’s hu-cow?”

“Lactation stuff. Human cow. And no—not happening.”

Thor exchanged glances with Zeus, and then Odin. “It’s even hotter that you know kinds of porn we don’t.”

“Sounds like we need to have a talk with Andy,” Odin said.

“Atalk,” I stressed.

I slid through more of the pictures, hating that I couldn’t go tell my sisters that I was here, that we’d be fighting for them, that it would all be okay.Wouldit be okay?

It had to be okay. I focused on the pictures. “It’s so weird. Our crappy farmhouse. I never thought about taking pictures in there. I never thought I would value a picture of the back of Kaitlin’s head and that old beige refrigerator. Those plants in the window above the sink. Now it’s magical. They’ve been through too much. What with everyone dying and/or abandoning them.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Zeus scolded. “You were forced to do that to protect them.” Fake my own death, he meant.

He was right, of course. Still it felt shitty.

“And you send them money,” Odin growled. “They have that farm because of you. You do the best you can.”

“They deserve better.”

Zeus pulled me onto his lap. “Then how about we kick the ass of whoever is behind this?”

Chapter 5

Maybe it wasthe giant steak-and-potatoes meal at the Cobblestone under the eerily watchful eyes of dead woodland animals, or the chubby little cherubs staring at us from all corners of Margie Mason’s Bed & Breakfast, but none of us were up for sex that night.

I pulled off my fake nose and scrubbed my face extra hard, making up for all the itching that I’d so badly wanted to do all day, and then I crashed next to Zeus.

The four of us met around the breakfast table the next morning.

Odin looked tired; I guessed he hadn’t slept. It was bad for him to be in a room alone; it was so much better in giant hotel suites, because even though he refused to let me sleep with him, he wasn’t shut up alone with cupids. I thought about what he’d said about that prison. The abuse. People always watching afterward. It tore me up to think about.

There was a couple from Galveston, Texas, also staying at the B&B, in town for a wedding in Dieter’s Corners. Margie introduced us as insurance investigators. They were both teachers, which was good. When you’re faking a profession, you never want to meet somebody who is actually in that profession.

We all drank coffee from super-fragile-looking china cups and made small talk while I battled not to tear off my giant glasses and fake nose and do an itch-fest all over my cheeks.

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