Page 97 of Reading Between the Lines
“Dad opened the kennel not too long after, from boredom, I think, but his good pal Jim Beam warmed his bed most nights and accompanied him into his home office every morning. He spiraled. Mom got fed up and left with a sidepiece she’d been fucking around with for years. Dad got worse, lost his job, and started dating Jim full-time. I quit school to run what he started.”
Nicholas motioned to the large penned-in yard. “The end. What money he wasn’t forced to pay my mother in alimony, he drank. Now he takes whatever shit jobs he can get, which isn’t much in this small town.”
Publishaven? A commissioning editor?
A group of teens working to perfect their writing in the mystery and thriller genre.
My mind spun. Was it connected? Did the kids have a private tutor in the form of a man who’d once been employed at a publishing house? Jesus.
I absorbed the details as Diem asked, “Does your father have any connection with Hugh Abercrombie at the high school? Has he helped with his English classes or writing clubs? Done any guest-speaking about publishing? Can you think of any reason for him roaming the wooded area of the Abercrombie property?”
A stitch in Nicholas’s brow told me no. “I have no idea. I… Honestly, I’m not sure Dad has it in him to share his literary skills with high school students anymore. My father might have been a smart man at one time, but those days are behind him. Why?”
I glanced at Diem, who stared down at Echo, deep contemplation etched on his face. Since I wasn’t sure what Diem wanted to share with Nicholas, I waited to see what direction he would take, observing rather than interfering.
He asked one more question. “Does your brother aspire to be an author or to follow your dad’s path into publishing?”
Nicholas shrugged noncommittally. “I don’t know. Chett’s sixteen. I’d be happy if he could learn to think for himself for a change and stop hanging with the wrong crowd.”
Diem ended the interview by crouching and saying goodbye to Echo.
The dog sniffed his injured shoulder and whimpered again before licking Diem’s face. Watching the two of them was remarkable. Diem could grump and growl all he wanted, but he didn’t hate dogs.
Nicholas noticed, too, and when Diem got to his feet, he said, “She could use a good home. She’s well-bred and highly trainable.”
Diem ignored the comment and grunted for me to get in the Jeep.
“Do you have a card?” I asked Nicholas.
“Tallus.” The low rumble of Diem’s tone didn’t affect me.
“In case we have more questions, Guns. Relax.” I winked at Nicholas, who must have understood what I wasn’t saying.
Nicholas found a card in his wallet and handed it over with a hint of a smile. I put the card in my pocket for later. “Thanks.”
24
Diem
“Stop fucking looking at me.” I squeezed the steering wheel, the heat of Tallus’s gaze burning the side of my face.
“I’m not looking at you.”
“Yes, you are. I can feel it. And I know what you were doing back there. I don’t want a dog.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I have a snake.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Tallus,” I growled, fiddling with the buttons and knobs on the console, trying to figure out how to turn the goddamn temperature down because I was cooking inside my coat.
“Nicholas’s father worked in publishing.”
The non sequitur might save him for now, but I wasn’t about to forget the sly, underhanded excuse he’d used to get Nicholas’s card. “I heard.”
“And his son is part of the secret murder club.”
