Page 66 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

The front door opened, then slapped closed.

Sugar nearly jumped out of her skin.

Cricket, looking as if she’d gone to hell and back twice in the last twenty-four hours, wandered in, dropping her backpack near the dining-room table.

“Where the hell have you been?” Sugar demanded, still unnerved.

Caesarina, thumping her tail from her hiding spot under the kitchen table, climbed to her feet. She stretched and yawned, then ambled over for Cricket to scratch her ears.

“Jesus! What happened to her?” she asked, looking at the dog’s shaved neck and the stitched cuts. Yellow antiseptic and dried blood stained Caesarina’s skin. “Did she lose a fight with a grizzly?”

“Don’t know. It was weird. I let her out in the morning and she came back all cut up and sniffing and snorting and scared as hell, which you know, isn’t like Caesarina. I ran her to the emergency vet, who claimed she was lucky . . . I thought maybe she’d been in a fight with a possum or a raccoon, but the vet thought the cuts looked like they’d come from some kind of blade, glared at me like I enjoyed spending my early mornings slicing and dicing my dog. She thought she’d gotten into something toxic, that she was acting like she’d gotten a snort of something she was allergic to or something. Oh, hell, the vet didn’t know.”

“They’re all quacks down there,” Cricket said, patting the dog’s head.

“Anyway, she’s alive and, even though she looks like hell, in pretty good shape.” Still, it was weird. The phone call, the attack on her dog . . . Sugar was unnerved. “So,” she said, turning back to the subject Cricket was avoiding. “Where were you?”

“What’s it to you?” Cricket’s hair was in dire need of a brush, her makeup was all but worn off and her peasant blouse had a couple of stains on it. The edge of a tattoo peeked from above the waistband of hip-hugging jeans that needed to come face-to-face with a scoop or two of Tide. When she stretched, a belly-button ring glittered against her flat abdomen.

“Don’t start with me, okay? As long as you live here, you answer to me and I’ve been out of my mind with worry.”

“I’m not nine anymore.”

“Oh, yeah, all grown up.”

“Jesus. What’s got into you?”

Sugar decided to wait a few minutes, until she’d calmed down, to tell Cricket about the phone call. It was probably just some loser from the club, someone getting his jollies by scaring her. No reason to spread the panic around. Not yet. Not until she’d calmed down. “I’m just jumpy today.”

“So that’s my problem? I don’t think so. Just chill out.”

“You could have called.”

“And you could quit nagging,” Cricket shot back. “Leave me alone, okay?”

Sugar took a deep breath. Shook off the terror that had, for a second, spread over her. “I didn’t mean to jump all over you.”

“Good. Then just stop, would ya? Enough with the surrogate mom routine.” Cricket yawned. “We got any coffee?” She ran a hand through her short hair. Dyed red with magenta streaks, it was weird, but didn’t look bad. When it was styled. Which it wasn’t this morning.

“It’s cold.”

“Doesn’t matter as long as it’s got caffeine.” She half sleepwalked into the kitchen, found a cup and poured in some of the sludge that had been coagulating in the glass pot. Yawning again, she put her mug into the microwave and hit the start button.

“You could make fresh.”

“This’ll do.”

“Where were you?”

“Out.” Her gaze hardened, but she didn’t elaborate.

“That much I know. Who were you with?”

Cricket just stared at her. She looked so small and tired, almost world-weary, and Sugar felt a needle prick of guilt. She hadn’t done her job right; had failed. When their mother was killed, Sugar had sworn to take care of her younger siblings, but she’d made a mess of it. Dickie Ray was basically a small-time crook and con man, while Cricket, a hairdresser who had trouble keeping her appointments, had never blossomed to her full potential. But . . . if they could get their hands on their fair share of the Montgomery fortune, all that would change.

Or would it? There was a chance that it was already too late. Damned Flynn Donahue. It was time to give that lazy lawyer a kick in the butt. She’d call him later today, but at the thought of picking up the phone she remembered the harsh, ugly voice so recently on the line.

You drop dead.

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