Page 98 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

Holt said, “Then it’s time.”

“ ’Kay. Got it. You?” the waitress, a frizzy-haired girl with dangling earrings and an oh-so-bored attitude asked.

“I’m good.”

As the waitress disappeared, Holt leaned against the tall wooden back of the booth. “You said you wanted to talk about Amity O’Henry.”

“That’s right.”

“I already told you: there’s not much to tell.”

“Humor me.”

“Fine.” He expelled a rush of air. “I dated her. Yeah. Three, maybe four times before my old man found out and totally freaked out, and I mean freaked with a capital F.” He picked up his glass and took a swallow. “Nothing had happened between me and Amity. Really. Nothing. We went to a dance and then out for burgers and to a party once. Lots of underage drinking, and somehow the word got out, and Flint came unglued. When I got home, he was waiting for me, and he blew his stack. Came at me, hauled me off my feet, and slammed me up against the outside wall of the house. I’d never seen him like that. He told me in no uncertain terms that Amity O’Henry was off-limits.”

Nikki thought she understood the older Beauregard’s reaction, and she’d always heard Flint had a temper, even though the man she’d seen in the video clip of Blondell O’Henry’s trial was calm, even reserved. “Did he say why?”

“Nothing except that her mother was trash and bad news, and that I was to stay as far away as possible.”

The waitress returned with her drink and set it on the table. “Anything else? A menu?”

“We’re good,” Holt said and she moved off.

As Nikki picked up her cosmo, she asked, “So did you? Let it go with Amity.”

A slow grin crawled across his scruffy jaw as she took her first sip. “What do you think?”

“That you ignored your father’s edict,” she said. Holt had always been the rebellious one, the son of a cop, who pushed the boundaries, a cocky athlete in high school who never lived up to his potential and had bombed out of the police academy. She might never have known that detail except her older brother, Andrew, had known both Deacon and Holt and she’d heard the gossip.

“Yeah, we snuck out together, but it wasn’t a big deal. No spark, I guess you’d say. It was like she got the same advice and took it.”

“Did she say so?”

“Didn’t have to.” Lost in thought, he rotated his drink on the table.

“Was she interested in someone else?”

“Probably.” He nodded, as if to himself.

“Any idea who?” she asked, sipping the cosmo but barely tasting it.

He looked up at her. “No.”

“Steve Manning? Brad Holbrook?”

“They were before me, I think. But I really didn’t keep track.”

“Maybe an older guy?”

He zeroed in on her as he tossed back his drink. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re pushy?”

“I may have heard it a time or two,” she admitted.

“I bet. Well, as I said, don’t know. Could’ve been someone older, I s’pose.”

“Maybe Elton McBaine?”

He shook his head. “I think she kinda liked him, but he wasn’t the one. Didn’t he go with, oh, what’s her name?” He thought for a second. “Mary-Beth Emmerson. That was it. I remember she was really broken up after the accident, but as ‘in love’ with Elton as she was, she found a new boyfriend pretty quick. Ended up marrying him, didn’t she?”

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