For You

Chapter One Angie

Until that day, I’d made an art out of avoiding Alexander Colton.

All my work would be for nothing, all because of Angie.

Poor, sweet, stupid, dead Angie.

Martin Fink and Christopher Renicki were the first two uniforms that responded to my call. I’d known Marty and Chris for ages. It was good they were partners. Chris was smart; Marty, not so much.

We were out in the alley, Chris doing crime scene stuff, Marty standing by me. A couple of squad cars with their lights silently flashing had pulled in on either side of the dumpster, other uniforms had been dispatched to hold back the growing crowd and the crime scene tape was secured by the time Alec showed up.

He’d parked elsewhere and didn’t come through the bar like I expected him to. He had keys to the bar for one. For another, he knew the bar nearly as well as I did and not only because he spent a good deal of time sitting at the end of it, my brother standing inside the bar in front of him, both of them drinking beer and talking about shit I couldn’t hear because I stayed well away.

Another surprise was he also didn’t have his partner Sully with him.

I watched him as he walked up to Marty and me.

The detectives in town, not that there were many of them, wore ill-fitting, inexpensive suits or nice trousers and shirts with ties.

Not Alec.

Jeans, boots, wide leather belt, sports jacket that looked tailored for him (probably a present from Susie Shepherd) and a nice shirt.

Alec was a big guy even when he was a kid, just kept growing and growing. Dad used to say if he didn’t stop his head would touch the clouds. Mom thought Alec and my brother Morrie were best friends because they were both the biggest kids in the class and it just grew from that. Morrie grew out as well as up, however. Alec just grew tall and broad but stayed lean. Alec was tight end to Morrie’s offensive lineman, during high school and in all things life. Morrie did the grunt work and never got the glory. Alec knew how to block and was really good at it but every once in awhile he got the chance to shine.

Alec’s dark hair was too long but he’d always worn it too long, even as a kid, but he’d done it then because his mother was such a shit mother, she never remembered to get it cut. My Mom finally ended up taking Alec to the barber when she took Morrie. Later he kept it long just because he was Alec. It curled around his ears and neck now and, as with everything Alec, it looked a little wild.

I stood there and watched silently as he made it to me and Marty, his eyes never leaving me. He didn’t even look at Angie.

“Feb,” he said on a short nod.

“Alec,” I replied.

His eyes were a weird color, light brown with a hint of gold. His Dad had the same eyes but his Dad’s eyes weren’t exactly like Alec’s. Alec’s Dad’s eyes were mean.

Those eyes got hard as did his mouth when I called him Alec. They always did. Everyone called him Colt. Everyone. Even my Mom and Dad started calling him Colt years ago after what happened.

Only his folks and me called him Alec anymore, not that he talked to his folks since his Dad was in prison for the second time and his Mom was never sober and he never spoke to her. Not that I talked much to him either.

He hated it when I called him Alec but I didn’t call him Alec to be a bitch or anything, just that he was Alec to me, he always had been.

“Colt,” Chris said, calling his attention and Alec looked his way.

That was when he caught sight of Angie.

I looked at her too and wished I hadn’t. I’d already seen enough, too much, so much I’d never forget.

I’d gone to high school with Angie. We’d been friends once upon a time, good friends. You could say we still were, but not good ones.

No, we weren’t anything anymore because now she was dead.

Alec’s midsection came into my vision and cut off sight of Angie. I lifted my eyes to Alec’s face, which was still hard but now he was directing his hard look at Marty.

“Why’s she out here?” he asked, sounding pissed off.

“What?” Marty asked back, sounding as usual, confused.

“Jesus, Marty,” Alec muttered, still sounding pissed and his eyes cut to me. “Go inside, Feb.”

I stared at him and didn’t move a muscle.

“Feb, inside,” he repeated.

I still stared at him.

He took a step toward me and said low, “February.”

My body jerked and I nodded. Inside would be good. Inside would be fucking awesome.

I went inside, headed directly to Morrie and my office, Mom and Dad’s old office, the office Morrie and Alec and I practically grew up in – and coffee. I could still taste the vomit in the back of my mouth. I hadn’t actually puked but it had threatened.

I was pouring a cup when Morrie came in.

Alec was big but my brother was enormous. He was also demonstrative.

He walked right up to me, took the coffee cup from my hand, plunked it down, yanked the coffeepot out of my other hand, slid it under the filter and then engulfed me in a hug.

I should have started crying then, I suppose. But I didn’t.

“You okay, Feb?” Morrie asked and I nodded, my cheek sliding against his big, barrel chest.

I wondered briefly why he was there. It wasn’t his turn to open, it was mine.

My guess? Alec had called him.

“Sis,” he whispered at my nod and I closed my eyes. He didn’t call me “Sis” very often anymore, hadn’t since we were kids. I missed it.

Still, no tears came.

“You want coffee?” I asked, Morrie pulled away and gave me a look.

He didn’t like what he saw, I knew it but he still said, “Yeah.”

I made him a cup and we were taking sips when Alec filled the doorframe.

In the light I caught sight of the scar under his left eye. It was a little, puckered, crescent moon, about the size of your thumbnail. I thought that was weird, it being that small, considering at the time it was made it bled a whole helluva lot.

As it did anytime I saw it, it made flashbacks flood my brain. Flashbacks of Alec, sixteen years old and sitting silent on the toilet seat in my Mom and Dad’s bathroom and me, fourteen, standing there wiping the blood off his face with one of Mom’s wet washcloths. Morrie coming in, giving me ice, me wrapping it up and holding it to the gaping cut under Alec’s swelling eye. My Dad walking in, taking in Alec, his bloodied face, his knuckles torn, bleeding and swollen, the way he held his body like if he moved it would be torture and saying, “Police are going to your place, Colt, you’re going with me, Jackie and the kids to the hospital.”

That was the first time my father called him Colt. He never addressed him as anything else since.

“Jesus, what the fuck, Colt?” Morrie said upon seeing him. “Mom and Dad’s bar? Seriously? Who the fuck would do that?”

Alec’s gaze flicked to Morrie and he shook his head.

This was a good question, I thought. A dead body behind their bar? Crazy. My Mom and Dad were beloved in this town. So were their parents. So was Morrie.

Me? I wasn’t sure. Maybe.

Or at least, I once had been.

“You called 911,” Alec said and I looked at him though I didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“You found her?” Alec asked.

“Yeah.”

“What were you doing in the alley?”

I stared at him not seeing then said, “Darryl.”

“Fuck. Fuckin’ Darryl,” Morrie muttered, now he sounded pissed.

“Darryl?” Alec asked.

“He never takes out the trash at night. I tell him, every night. Guy’s got nothin’ between his ears,” Morrie explained, telling the God’s honest truth about Darryl and pulling a hand through his thick hank of blond hair. “Leaves it at the backdoor and forgets. First person in in the morning, usually me or Feb, take it out.”

This wasn’t exactly true. The first person in in the morning was usually me, not Morrie. Though, I had to admit, on occasion, namely my rare days off, it happened.

“You on last night?” Alec asked me and I shook my head.

“Night off,” I told him.

“I was on,” Morrie put in.

Alec turned to Morrie. “Angie here?”

Morrie nodded. “Dude, she’s always here.”

This was true. Angie was a regular. She also regularly wore slut clothes and regularly got shitfaced and regularly picked up anyone who would fuck away whatever demons tortured her, though obviously these efforts never lasted long because she was always back again, usually the next night. Angie wasn’t hard on the eyes if you didn’t look too close and see what her lifestyle was doing to her skin. There was no lack of choice for Angie.

“She go home with someone?” Alec asked Morrie.

Morrie moved his neck in that funny way he did when he was uncomfortable, like he was pulling at a too tight collar and tie, even though he was wearing a t-shirt with a zip-up hooded sweatshirt over it and his hand never moved.

Then he said, “Cory.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” Alec muttered and he could say that again.

Cory’s wife Bethany was pregnant with their third child. Bethany was also a screamer. And Bethany was going to have a shit fit. It wasn’t the first time Cory strayed. Hell, Cory came on to me practically any time he got hammered enough to pull up the courage. It wasn’t the first time he dipped his wick in Angie either. This also wasn’t going to be the first time Bethany found out about Angie. Though it would be the first time Angie showed up the next morning dead in an alley and Cory would be involved in a murder investigation.

“You see anyone last night? Unfamiliar? Give you a bad feeling?” Alec asked Morrie and I knew this was brother-speak.

Alec would lay his career down on Morrie telling him he had a bad feeling about someone. Both of them could read people like books, something they could do forever. I’d never been able to lie successfully to either of them, not once, and I’d tried. It wasn’t surprising Alec became a cop, it was natural-born even if on the face of it, considering his parents and, well, how he used to be, you wouldn’t know it. It also wasn’t surprising Morrie took over the bar. Even in our town, which wasn’t huge, but also wasn’t small, the clientele was regular. Still, trouble could happen, especially when the races were on and anyone could wander in. You had to be able to weed the good from the bad so you could lock down the bad before shit happened.

“Nope, no one. Normal night at Jack and Jackie’s,” Morrie answered.

Alec looked at me. “Where’s the trash?”

I again stared and repeated, “The trash?”

“You said you went out to the alley to take out the trash. Crime scene, far’s I can see, is unaltered. Where’s –”

Alec stopped talking because I started moving. I wasn’t thinking much of anything. I didn’t even know why I was moving.

I plunked my coffee cup down, walked passed Alec and went to the bar. The heavy panel was already up and over on its hinges where I guessed I’d put it when I went in to make the 911 call. I walked behind the bar and stared at the two huge bags of garbage that were sitting on the floor by the phone.

I hadn’t even noticed I’d carried them back in and dropped them to make the call.

I turned around and saw Alec was standing close, his eyes on the trash.

“I just went to the door,” I told his throat, seeing his neck twist, his chin dipping down to look at me but my eyes didn’t move. “I just went to the door,” I repeated then my head jerked, my ear going toward my shoulder and I felt a weird pain in the back of my neck at the sudden movement. “I just went to the door,” I said again, for some stupid reason now whispering, “opened the door and saw her.”

That’s when I cried.

I didn’t feel anything, didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, didn’t taste the coffee in my mouth, just cried hard while my brain filled.

I saw her, I saw Angie and all her blood and all her exposed parts. Parts I should never see, parts with skin, parts without, all of it, all of her, lying lifeless in the alley by the dumpster.

Then I heard Alec say, “I got her,” and I realized his arms were around me.

I pulled away and stepped away. Distance with Alec, hell with anyone but especially with Alec, was good.

I swiped at my eyes, controlling the tears, not looking at him. “I’m okay.”

There was silence for awhile but Morrie moved in close to me. I could feel his bulk filling the long space behind the bar.

“You gotta walk me through your morning,” Alec said and I didn’t want to but I lifted my eyes to his.

“What?”

“Walk me through your morning, Feb,” Alec repeated.

“I came in to get ready to open –” I started.

“Your full morning,” Alec interrupted.

I felt my mouth open, my lips parting. I could feel the sensation of skin separating from skin like it was the first time I’d ever done it when I knew I’d done it before. It just didn’t feel like it then. It felt like the first time and it felt like my lips parted in slow motion.

I wished I’d brought my coffee with me.

“I woke up –”

“What time?”

I shook my head. “Normal time, seven o’clock, seven thirty.”

“You get up at seven thirty?” Morrie asked, like I had a screw loose.

“Yeah.”

“Shit, Feb, we own a bar,” Morrie stated. “How do you get up at seven thirty?”

“I don’t know, I just do,” and I did. Even if I lay my head down at three thirty in the morning, I woke up between seven and seven thirty. It was a curse.

“You woke up, what next?” Alec cut in giving Morrie a shut up look. I’d seen him do that a lot over the years. Usually Morrie didn’t shut up. This time he did.

“I fed the cat –”

“Did you do it alone?” Alec asked.

I stared at him then said, “Feed the cat?”

He shook his head but it was a rough motion, jerky. “Wake up.”

I sucked in breath, not wanting to answer the question, not wanting Alec to have that information, either answer I could give. But knowing I had to, I nodded.

He nodded his head, that motion was rough and jerky too. “What’d you do after you fed your cat?”

“I did yoga –”

Alec’s brows snapped together and now he was looking at me like I had a screw loose. “You do yoga?”

“Well… yeah.”

He looked away muttering, “Christ.”

I didn’t know what was wrong with yoga but I didn’t ask. I wanted this to be done. In fact, I wanted the day to be done, the year, I wanted it to be a year from now when all this would be faded and a whole lot less real.

“Like I was saying, I did yoga, took a shower and then walked to Meems’s.”

“Anyone see you walk to Meems’s?” Alec asked.

“What’s this about?” Morrie sounded like he was getting pissed.

“Just let me ask the questions, it’ll be over and we can move on,” Alec answered.

“Jessie,” I cut in, still on a mission to get my story out so this could be over and we could move on. “I walked to her place and then Jessie walked with me to Meems’s.”

Jessie Rourke and Mimi VanderWal were my best friends, had been since high school.

“You and Jessie went to Meems’s, what next?” Alec asked.

“We hung out at Meems’s, had coffee, a muffin, shot the shit, the same as every day,” I answered.

And it was the same as every day, although sometimes Jessie didn’t come with and it was just me and my journals or a book or the paper and my cup of coffee and muffin at Meems’s.

I preferred when Jessie was there. Meems owned the joint and by the time I got there it was a crush so she didn’t have time to gab. She had a plaque that said “reserved” that she put on my table, though everyone knew it was my table and no one ever sat there in the mornings but me. She didn’t need the plaque, one of her kids carved into the table, “Feb’s Spot, sit here and die”. Meems’s kids were a bit wild but they were funny.

“When’d you leave Meems’s?” Alec asked.

I shrugged. “Ten o’clock, probably around there. Came straight here.” Coming straight to J&J’s wasn’t far. It was two doors down from Mimi’s Coffee House. “I opened up, started the coffee going and went to the back hall to take out the trash I knew was probably there. It was there. I opened the door, grabbed the bags and –”

I stopped and looked down at the garbage bags beside me. The rest didn’t need to be said.

Alec’s voice came at me. “You see anything else, Feb?”

I took in a breath because I needed it and I thought it was a big one but it felt shallow. My chest felt empty like I could breathe and breathe but there was not enough breath to fill it, never would be again and I looked at him.

“Anything else?”

“Anyone in the alley when you went out?”

Morrie got closer to me, his arm sliding around my shoulders. “Jesus, Colt. What the fuck you sayin’?”

“She’s warm,” Alec answered, his words were clipped, short, bitten off like he didn’t want to say them but he had to and he wanted them out of his mouth as fast as he could do it.

“Warm?” I asked.

I watched his teeth sink into his bottom lip. I knew why he did this. I’d seen him do it a lot in my life. He did it when he was seriously, seriously hacked off.

“The body,” he said, “Angie.”

“What?” Morrie asked.

“She’s still warm,” Alec answered. “She’s not been dead long.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, that empty feeling in my chest started burning, the vomit rolled back up my throat and I had to swallow it down.

“Are you fucking shitting me?” Morrie exploded.

“You see anything, Feb? Hear anything? Any movement, anything,” Alec pushed, he wanted answers but he was going about it quiet, gentle.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Morrie cursed.

“Morrie, you aren’t helping,” Alec told him.

“Fuck that, Colt, my sister opened the door to a fresh murder scene!” Morrie bellowed. “You’re sayin’ the guy coulda been out there?”

I felt my muscles seize.

Alec either saw it or sensed it and his voice went scary when he said, “Morrie, for fuck’s sake, you aren’t fucking helping.”

Morrie and Alec may have been best friends since kindergarten but they fought, a lot. It was never pretty and it could get physical. It hadn’t happened in awhile but, then again, nothing this big had happened in awhile.

“I didn’t see anything,” I said quickly and I didn’t and, at that moment, I was glad I didn’t.

I didn’t want whoever did that to Angie to get away with it and, if I saw something, I wouldn’t lie even though it would scare the shit out of me. But I didn’t see anything and this was a relief.

I wasn’t a bad person. But I wasn’t a good person either. I didn’t do good things like Alec did. I was just a normal person, I kept myself to myself. I also had been a bartender my whole adult life and grew up in a bar, not to mention I now part-ran one. So I kept other things to myself too. It was a job hazard; everyone told you everything when they were hammered. Shit you did not want to know.

But I’d have done the right thing for Angie.

I just hoped Alec knew that.

He looked me direct in the eye and I let him. This went on awhile and was very uncomfortable. Not that I had anything to hide, just that these days anytime Alec stared me direct in the eye, it made me very uncomfortable. I’d been able to avoid it mostly, for years, but now there it was.

“You’re stayin’ with me until Colt finds this fucker,” Morrie told me and I broke eye contact with Alec to stare at my brother.

“I am not.”

“You stay with him or you stay with me.”

This came from Alec.

I transferred my stare to him, thrown for a moment because while I was perfecting the art of avoiding Alec, I pretty much figured he was returning the gesture.

“I’m not doing that either.”

“Two choices, Feb,” Morrie stated, his arm getting tight around my shoulders.

“I didn’t see anything!” My voice was getting higher.

“Not takin’ chances,” Morrie didn’t sound like he’d be easily swayed.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, getting pissed.

I was a normal person and kept myself to myself meaning I liked to keep myself to myself. Not have myself living with my brother and definitely not Alec.

“Ridiculous?” Alec said, his voice weirdly soft and compelling, drawing my attention to him and his face was hard again. He was angry, at me.

And I knew why.

I’d seen it, all the gruesome, bloody evidence of it in the alley.

“I’ll stay with Morrie.”

Morrie’s arm gave my shoulders a squeeze.

Alec bit his lip again, still hacked off about something, what at that point I didn’t know, but he kept staring at me, making me think it was me. Then he let go of his lip and clenched his teeth, making both of his jaws flex and I wondered if he was biting back words.

He succeeded if that was what he was doing since without saying anything, he nodded to me then to Morrie and he walked away.

Before Colt walked into his house, he knew Susie was there.

“Fuck,” he muttered while entering.

He should have never given her his key. They’d been seeing each other off and on (mostly off) for three years and he’d managed to steer clear of doing it. He’d only done it because he needed someone to look after his dog when he went fishing with Morrie two weeks ago and Susie had begged him to do it. She’d never given the key back and he’d not had the time to ask for it or the patience to deal with the tantrum when he asked.

He ignored the fact that Susie was there and went directly to the kitchen, pulled a beer out of the fridge and used the edge of the counter to snap off the top.

He was halfway through downing it when Susie came in.

His chin came down as did his beer and he looked at her.

She’d been the town beauty since practically birth, homecoming queen, prom queen. Her father owned a variety of local stores and a shitload of property until he’d sold them all to big chains and land developers, making a mint and making his daughter, upon his death, the only multi-millionaire in town.

Susie Shepherd had been engaged twice, never married. Both men begged off, Colt knew, even though the story was spread that Susie had been the one to get cold feet.

After three years, Colt knew why they’d fled.

She was a beauty, she could be sweet when she had a mind to do it or she wanted something and she was a great lay but she also could be a total bitch.

She was blonde, like February, but Susie’s blonde hair wasn’t thick and long and wild like February’s. Even when February did whatever she had to do to make her hair almost sleek, it still flipped out at the ends, defying her, laying testimony to the deeper personality trait that February couldn’t hide even though she tried.

Susie was also tall, like February, she just didn’t have February’s great tits and abundant hips and sweet ass. And, even though Susie’s legs were long, they didn’t seem to go on forever, like February’s, like they could wrap around you twice to lock you close while you were fucking her.

And Susie just simply didn’t have that look about her, that look February started to get when she was fourteen, that look that matured as she did. That look that promised she’d suck your cock, and get off on it. That look that told you she’d sit on your face, and fucking love it. That look that told you she’d let you do her doggie style, or any style, and she’d want more of it, beg you to do it harder. That look that said you could leave her on her belly in bed after you’ve just fucked her, and she’d be totally okay with you going to meet the guys at the bar. Hell, she’d get up, clean up and come with you if she felt like it, but she’d have a mind to your space as long as you gave a mind to hers.

“You’re late,” Susie said, like she’d know what late was for him which she fucking didn’t.

“Angie Maroni was murdered this morning.”

He heard her suck in breath and he wondered what world she lived in. Everyone else in town knew about Angie by noon.

Then again, Susie had never stepped foot over the threshold of J&J’s Saloon as everyone in town over drinking age, and some of them under it, had. Susie shopped in the Indianapolis, had her hair done there, met her friends there. She just lived here so she could pretend to be queen even though no one really liked her.

“How’d that happen?” Susie asked and Colt saw Angie again in that alley but, even though he wanted to stop it, for the life of him he couldn’t and he saw her with Feb’s eyes.

It was a small town but it was close to a big city and two race tracks, shit spread and, as a cop for over twenty years, a detective for over sixteen, he’d seen his fill of crime and definitely his fill of death.

But Angie, Christ, he could pick hundreds of deaths, even murders he’d prefer Feb to see.

“Knife,” was all Colt would tell Susie.

He was close to ending it with her, he had been now for months; he’d just never got around to it. Still, he had no intention of telling her how Angie was murdered with a hatchet. She’d likely find out eventually if she started paying attention, but he wouldn’t be the one to tell her.

She started to come closer, saying, “I’m sorry, Colt.”

“Don’t be sorry for me, it’s Angie in the morgue.”

Her lip started to curl up before she caught it. She knew that’d piss him off.

But he saw it and it pissed him off.

“Angie was a good woman.”

She started to roll her eyes again before she caught it.

That pissed him off more.

Susie saw it.

“She sleeps with anything that moves,” Susie defended.

“I didn’t say she wasn’t a troubled woman, I said she was a good one.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about your work,” she suggested, “get your mind off it.”

Susie didn’t want his mind off it. Susie didn’t want to think about it or talk about it. She never did and she never gave a fuck if he did.

February would listen if he wanted to talk. She’d get him a beer or she’d pour him a Jack and coke and she’d keep them coming. When he was done, she’d slide the tips of her fingers around his ear then curl them at his neck, her touch warm and steady and real and his mind would blank.

“All right, let’s talk about Puck,” Colt told Susie and her head jerked.

He hadn’t wanted her to do it but she’d pushed it so he’d let her look after his dog Puck, a German shepherd. Puck, when Colt got home from fishing, surprisingly hadn’t seemed the worse for wear under Susie’s care. But the day after he got back, Puck’s body had been found blocks down. Colt suspected he’d gotten out like he usually did when Susie would leave after Colt in the morning and she wouldn’t fully close the door. This was something she’d done before like Colt’s house and what he kept in it didn’t matter much to her. Puck, being a smart dog and liking it when he could run, nearly always got out when Susie didn’t make certain the door was closed. Then again, it wasn’t hard. He just had to pull it open further with his paw and go. Puck had been hit by a car or, by the looks of him when Colt found him, a fair fucking few of them.

Normally he’d take Puck with him when he went fishing but he and Morrie went to a new place that Morrie wanted to try and, at the cabin they rented, it was no pets allowed. Thus Susie getting the key.

Colt had loved that dog. He hadn’t accused Susie, mainly because it served no purpose, especially considering the fact that she’d soon be out of his life. But he missed his damned dog and there was no denying it, he blamed her.

“Puck?”

“I’m not goin’ fishin’ again anytime soon and even if I did Puck’s no longer here. You don’t need my key.”

Her eyes closed slowly, the lids taking their time on their descent like she was drawing the movement out, sucking more of his time.

She knew what he was saying.

She’d be stupid if she didn’t. He hadn’t taken her out in months, didn’t spend the night at her place, didn’t ask her to his, didn’t call, barely touched her anymore, hadn’t fucked her in that long and only slept with her the night before Puck died because she’d already been asleep in his bed when he got home. That had pissed him off too. He’d considered dragging her ass out of bed and sending her home or sleeping on the couch but he’d been too damned tired to bother with either.

The desperate play of her newfound desire to watch after his dog meant she knew it was coming.

And now it was time.

When she opened her eyes he knew she was pissed and when Susie was pissed it was never pretty.

“February,” she said.

“What?”

“It was all good, you and me, until February came back to town.”

Jesus, not this again.

She was wrong. February had been back for two years, came back to help Morrie with the bar after Jack and Jackie finally retired and moved to Florida. He and Susie had been on a break then, one of many.

And everyone knew there was no fucking way Colt would get near February.

She’d made her choice but Colt had dealt with it. He’d told her but she didn’t listen. It could have ended his career, could have landed him in prison but he’d done it, for Morrie, for Jack and Jackie and especially for February.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t forgive her for what she did. It was that he couldn’t trust her judgment. Because after he’d done what he’d done, she never let him back in, and that…

Well, that he couldn’t forgive her for.

And obviously, since she’d tried to hack it for awhile then given up then taken off for fifteen years then steered clear of him the last two, he figured it was because she couldn’t forgive herself.

No, his problem with Susie had nothing to do with February.

“This has nothing to do with Feb.”

“Everything with you is wound up in February.”

Colt wasn’t going to have this discussion. It was late, he’d started the day with Angie’s murder; having Feb in his arms for the first time in twenty-two years only to have her pull right out of them; spent some not-so-much fun time with Cory and his loud, screeching wife Bethany, who looked eighteen months pregnant rather than the six she was supposed to be, however she’d also given her husband an alibi even though Colt knew Cory didn’t have it in him to hack up Angie; and running up against bizarre dead end after dead end on a fresh case he had to crack because this town had never seen a murder as brutal as Angie Maroni’s and the whole fucking place was going to go berserk if word spread what happened to her.

Nope, he didn’t have it in him to spar with Susie.

“Just give me my key, Sooz.”

“I don’t know why you’re playing this game, Colt. You asked, she’d drop straight to her knees in front of that whole fucking bar and suck your dick.”

All right, maybe he had it in him to spar with Susie.

“Watch your fucking mouth.”

She tilted her head with her challenge. “Not wound up with February?”

She wanted it? He’d give it to her straight.

“Yeah, not wound up with February. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t prefer her mouth around my cock. That I don’t think of her when I’m fuckin’ you. That I wouldn’t mind comin’ home to her and sharing my day, because she’d share it and you never gave a shit. But, like I’ve said a million times before, it’s not gonna happen, I knew that a long time ago, so did Feb. It’s done.”

Her eyes went to slits while he spoke and she leaned in. “Don’t give me that shit. It’s never been done between you two.”

“We’ve had this discussion before.”

And they had even before Feb came back to town. Susie never let it go, just like he suspected his ex-wife Melanie never let it go.

Unlike Melanie, it was likely Susie never let it go because he’d said February’s name while he was fucking her the first time. But hell, he’d been drunk off his ass which was the only way he’d have gotten involved with Susie in the first place.

Still, she was good in bed and she kept coming back for more so in the beginning, who was he to argue?

The next thirty months he had no excuses, except for most of them they’d been on a break.

“You’re a fool,” she spat.

“Just give me my goddamned key.”

She walked to her purse which was on the kitchen counter. “You don’t get it from her you’ll come back to me.”

This, Colt thought, was doubtful. There wasn’t a lot of choice in their small town, not any which wasn’t already taken. Not that some of them didn’t get in his space more often than not; just that he wouldn’t fuck another man’s woman. Still, even the rare times Susie could be sweet, which was whenever he ended it and she came crawling back, it wasn’t worth this.

And it always ended like this even though she swore that it wouldn’t. It wasn’t always about Feb, but it was always ugly.

“You’re right,” he told her, wrapping his fist around his key which was dangling from her fingers, “I’ve been fool enough with you.” He looked her in the eyes. “That’s over.”

He saw her face bleach of color and she flinched. Whatever he sounded like she must have took his meaning because he could even see the blow he’d struck to Daddy’s Little Girl, who always got everything she wanted and who’d been working hard on getting him for three years and not succeeding. Instead, he’d been taking what he wanted from her and handing the rest back.

“She’s welcome to you,” Susie hissed, her eyes again slits, her pretty face gone bad.

She was full of shit. She’d call him the next day and apologize. She always did.

Colt wondered if he had time the next day to buy a new phone.

On that thought his phone rang and he turned away from Susie, put his beer on the counter, shoved his key into his front pocket and pulled his phone out of the back.

Susie was gone by the time he looked at the display, flipped it open and put it to his ear.

“Morrie.”

“Dude, get over here, right now.”

Colt’s blood turned to ice. Morrie sounded freaked.

“What?”

“I just opened the mail. Dude, just,” Morrie blew out a breath, “Colt, man, just get over here.”

“You at the bar?”

“Yep.”

“Feb there?”

“Yep.”

“She okay?”

“Far’s I know.”

“She see whatever you’re talkin’ about?”

“Nope.”

“I’ll be there in five.”

Colt walked into J&J’s.

It was late, it was a weeknight, but the place was packed.

Murder had a way of drawing people, Colt knew. Most everyone had that sick place in their head that was fascinated by violence. But he also knew this was more a show of support for Morrie and Feb and, in small part, Angie.

A town could get ripped apart by tragedy, people turning on each other.

But not his town.

Or, at least, he’d do what he could to stop it.

When he came in, Feb, behind the bar, slid her eyes to him and tilted her head in that delicate way she had before she looked away. The movement was tiny, just her jaw jutting out to the side, but the way she did it made a huge impact.

That’s what she’d do for last two years every time he’d come into the bar. It was the only thing she did anymore that reminded him of the way it used to be. When they were at high school and he’d walk by her class or she’d walk by his locker, her eyes would meet his, she always sought his gaze, and she’d tilt her head, lifting her jaw to the side, the movement spare, fluid, graceful.

There was nothing to it and everything to it. The other guys at school saw it and wanted it, but she only gave it to Colt.

Outside of Morrie, Jack and Jackie, back then February was the only good thing in his life.

And those jaw tilts, back then, were the best thing in it.

He used to smile at her and he’d barely catch it when she’d smile back because she always looked away while she smiled.

She was the best flirt he’d ever met, just with that fucking jaw tilt, and he’d never met better.

Now she didn’t wait for his smile. Before he could do it, not that he would, she’d long since looked away.

Like she was doing now, nodding her head at a customer, again the movement was slight and appealing and he felt his jaw grow hard at the sight.

He looked away but he couldn’t stop himself from wishing she wouldn’t dress like that. She didn’t dress like Angie, not by a long shot, but Feb always had a way with clothes. Tonight she was in a light pink, Harley Davidson tee; a three-tiered Indian, choker wrapped around her throat made of long, oblong, black beads with a silver medallion at the front, a signature piece she wore and she had several in different colors; more silver necklaces tangling under the choker; long, silver hoops at her ears; her smoothed out hair had enough time that night to grow a bit wild; and even though he couldn’t see them he knew she wore faded jeans that weren’t tight but they fit her too well and, probably, black motorcycle boots.

Since she’d been home, to his knowledge, she hadn’t had a man. Not for lack of offers. J&J’s was the only bar within the city limits, right on Main Street. There were a few bars outside the limits, mostly hunters’, fishers’ or golfers’ havens. There were restaurants that had bars. And there were several bars closer to the raceway, their clientele transient, mostly rough folk, drag, NASCAR and midget race groupies, going to those places because they were close and convenient to the campgrounds. Over the years others bars had opened in the city limits and failed because everyone went to J&J’s. The men went there more now that Feb was back. He knew the boys at work jacked off regularly thinking about her even (and especially) the married ones. He’d unfortunately heard all about it.

The chokers were the problem and the silver dangling around her neck. You could almost hear those necklaces jingling while you imagined fucking her or as she rolled in her sleep in your bed.

But mostly, it was the chokers. Something about them said something he suspected Feb didn’t want them to say, maybe didn’t even know they were saying, but they spoke to men all the same.

It was good she was home. No one would mess with Morrie and, if they were stupid enough, most had heard what Colt had done for her and absolutely no one would go there. Colt couldn’t imagine, since he knew while she was away she’d lived the nomad’s life tending bars in small towns all over the place, how she lived her life those fifteen years, beat the men back without Morrie and Colt having her back. Maybe she didn’t and she just wasn’t going to shit where she lived. Then again, maybe she’d learned her lesson.

It was no longer his business or his problem, never would be again.

That was, unless someone made it his problem. He was still Colt and no matter what had happened, she was still February.

He saw Darryl tending the other end of the bar and he wanted a drink but he went directly to the small office in the back.

Morrie was sitting at the cluttered desk, his body hunched, his elbow on the desk, forehead in his hand.

This pose did not give Colt a good feeling.

Colt closed the door behind him and Morrie jumped.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuckin’ hell, I’m glad you’re here,” Morrie said, getting up and moving swiftly.

For a big man he was surprisingly fast and agile. This probably had something to do with the fact that they played one-on-one basketball together every Saturday or, when the weather was shit, they’d play racquetball. They’d both been athletes all their lives even though, when they were young, they’d intermittently get drunk, high and smoke, still they’d both always stayed obsessively fit.

For Colt, this was because he spent most of his youth watching his mother popping pills, chain-smoking cigarettes and sucking on a bottle of vodka. She didn’t even bother pouring it, drank it straight out of the bottle, uncut. He never remembered a time when she wasn’t zoned out or hammered, mostly both. She was thin as a rail, rarely ate and, even when she was young, her skin hung on her like old-lady flesh.

His father wasn’t much better. He didn’t pop pills but he smoked weed and snorted coke when he had the money to buy it. He remained sober during the day when he had a job but at night he’d get hammered right along with Colt’s Mom. Most of the time he didn’t have a job so Colt’s memories of his Dad were pretty much filled with him less than sober.

For Morrie, he stayed fit because he’d been around Colt’s Mom and Dad not to mention grew up in a bar.

Morrie picked up a Ziploc bag with a piece of lined paper in it and handed it to Colt.

“This came in the mail today, addressed to Feb,” Morrie waved his hand at the paper. “I put it in that thing, the bag. I didn’t want it to get tainted. Once I figured out what it was, I barely touched it,” he jerked his head to the desk, another bag containing an envelope was lying there. “Did the same with the envelope, it’s here too.”

It was good Morrie watched cop shows.

Colt looked at the paper. He hadn’t seen paper like that in a long time. It was something you’d have at school. It seemed old, the writing faded. On the top in pencil, Feb’s name was written.

He read the note, not understanding it. It sounded like teenage girl bullshit, a handwritten pissy fit. It even mentioned Kevin Kercher who’d gone to IU after high school and never came back, not even for reunions. Colt got to the bottom where the sender signed her name.

Angie.

“What the fuck?”

“What the fuck is right!” Morrie exploded. “Look at the back!”

Colt flipped the paper over and saw, again in pencil, this darker, newer, in different handwriting, the words, For you.

Something heavy and disturbing settled in his gut. Something he didn’t want there. It felt like it felt when he was a kid in his room, listening to his Mom and Dad fight, knowing exactly when it would escalate by the change in their voices, being able to count it off to within seconds before he heard her head hit the wall or her cry of pain before her body hit the floor. He hadn’t had that feeling in years, not in years. Not since he sat on that toilet seat with Feb wiping away the blood his father caused to flow from his face while Morrie got the ice and Jack and Jackie left their kids to take care of him, knowing they’d raised good kids who’d know what to do while they went about the business of rocking his world.

He wanted to open his own flesh and tear the heavy thing out. It didn’t belong there. He’d worked for years making himself into a man who didn’t carry that kind of weight around. Jack and Jackie had helped him get rid of it, and Morrie and Feb. He didn’t want it back, not ever, but particularly not when it being there had to do with Feb.

He looked at Morrie. “Bring Feb in here.”

“I don’t want her seein’ that.”

“Bring her in here.”

“Colt –”

“Morrie, this has to do with a homicide, bring her, the fuck, in here.”

Morrie held his eyes for too long. So long, Colt thought the situation would deteriorate. He’d fought with Morrie, too many times, but the bad blood never lasted long.

But this was about February.

Finally, Morrie muttered, “Shit,” and he walked out the door.

In his head Colt went over the crime scene.

Angie’d been done by the dumpster, murdered, not dumped, right behind Jack and Jackie’s bar.

Lab results weren’t back, autopsy not finalized, but there’d been no apparent struggle. Her eyes were closed naturally which meant she was probably out but not bludgeoned. There were no head wounds, she had maybe been drugged when she’d been slaughtered which was good, at least it was for Angie.

Bloody footprints leading away from the body, that much blood, what he did to her, the killer had to get messy. Footprints ended abruptly five feet away. He’d gotten into a car, his clothes and hands likely covered in Angie’s blood, and drove away.

The hatchet was found not far from where the footprints ended, he’d tossed it aside. No prints on the hatchet, no DNA left at the scene that they could find, though, considering it was an often used alley, they were still sifting through all the shit they found.

But it appeared it was just the footprints and the hatchet and Angie’s body. That’s all he left.

And it had to be a “he”. No woman had the strength to hack those wounds, clean, precise, like he chopped wood for a living and knew what he was doing.

Unless she was a German shot-putter, it had to be a “he”.

Colt’s thoughts shifted to Feb and Angie.

It hadn’t escaped him as he went through his day they’d once been good friends.

Hell, even as recently as a few nights ago he’d watched Feb wander over to Angie’s table and stand beside it, looking down at Angie, saying shit he couldn’t hear but it made Angie laugh.

Angie didn’t laugh much, never did unless she was flirting or unless Feb wandered over to her to shoot the shit with her to draw Angie out, to make her melancholy face alive again, even if for a few minutes.

But a long time ago, it used to be more.

When Angie and Feb were in junior high, Angie was at Jack and Jackie’s nearly as much as Colt was. Jack and Jackie, and Morrie and Feb for that matter, collected strays. Jack and Jackie’s house was always filled with kids and people for as long as Colt could remember. Angie’s home wasn’t much better than Colt’s so, like Colt, but unfortunately for Angie only for awhile, she’d been adopted.

Something had happened though, in their freshman year. Something that made Angie quit coming over.

Colt looked at the note.

Kevin Kercher happened.

Feb appeared in the doorframe and leaned a shoulder against it. She took him in but her eyes didn’t meet his.

He had a sudden impulse to wrap his fist in her hair and make her look at him like she had that morning, like she used to do when they were partners in euchre or sitting across the dining room table one of the thousand times he’d been over at her house having dinner or when she was underneath him in the backseat of his car, her deep, brown eyes looking direct into his, nothing to hide, nothing to escape, nothing to fear.

Before this impulse could take hold, she lifted a hand and swiped back the hair from her face, pulling it away, holding it at the back of her head, exposing her ear and that silver hoop dangling from it.

There was something about that earring in her ear, the same something that said what the choker said. And Colt understood it then.

It highlighted the vulnerability of her body, enticed you to curl your hand around it, get your teeth near it, at a place where you could do your worst or you could do something altogether different.

Her voice came at him. “Morrie said you wanted to talk to me?”

Colt looked from her ear to her.

She’d changed clothes since that morning. Colt knew Morrie took her to her place to pack and move to Morrie’s, Colt had checked in. She was now in her bartender clothes. Tips were probably better in those clothes rather than the light, shapeless cardigan she had on that morning. Though Feb could likely wring a good tip out of you with a glance if she had a mind to do it, no matter what she was wearing.

Still, she looked beat, drawn, her shoulders drooped, her eyes listless.

“Sit down, Feb.”

She didn’t argue, just dropped her hand, pushed away from the door and headed to the chair.

Colt walked to the door, closed it and moved back to her.

She tipped her head back to look at him, shoulders still sagging, her arms straight, her hands loosely clasped together resting between her slightly parted thighs. Angie’s death had cut her deep, as it would anyone, particularly if you found her hacked up, bloody body, but it would especially cut up someone like Feb.

“I gotta show you something.”

She nodded.

He handed her the Ziploc bag and she unclasped her hands and took it. He watched vertical lines form on the insides of each of her eyebrows as she scanned it. Her eyes moved down the paper then back up then down again.

“I don’t get…” the lines by her brows disappeared and her lips parted right before her head jerked back. “What –?”

“Do you know what that is?” Colt asked.

“Yes,” she whispered then suddenly surged to her feet.

Her hand came out and grasped his shirt, her fist curling into it so tight he saw her knuckles were white, the skin mottled red all around. Her head was tipped down, looking at the note and her hand at his shirt was moving back and forth with force, taking his shirt with it as she beat his chest, not knowing she was doing it.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” she chanted, the hand holding the note was now shaking.

“Give me the note, Feb.”

“Oh God.”

“Hand me the note.”

“Oh my God.”

He took the note from her at the same time his hand covered hers at his chest, stopping the movement, holding it tight against his body.

Her eyes were glued to the note in his other hand.

“Look at me, February,” she did as she was told, he saw her face was pale and he ordered carefully, “tell me about the note.”

“That note doesn’t exist.”

He lifted it and gave it a shake and didn’t want to say what he had to say but he had to say it. “It’s right here, Feb.”

“I mean, I threw it away, like, twenty-five years ago.”

Fucking shit, goddamn it all to hell.

That was what he was afraid she’d say.

“Tell me about the note,” Colt repeated.

She shook her head sharply side to side – in denial, trying to focus – he didn’t know. Her hand tightened further into his shirt, he felt it under his own hand and she leaned some of her weight against it, pressing her fist deeper into his flesh.

He waited, giving her time. She took it.

Then she told him, “We used to be good friends, you know that.”

“I do.”

“Angie used to come over, all the time.”

“I know.”

“She liked Kevin.”

He didn’t know that but he wasn’t surprised. Kevin was a good-looking guy; a lot of girls liked him. He was a year ahead of Colt, a senior when Feb and Angie were freshman, in their school, at that time, an impossible catch for Angie.

“He asked me out.”

Colt felt that weight shift heavily in his gut.

“She was furious, she liked him, as in really liked him,” Feb continued.

“You didn’t go out with him,” Colt stated this as fact, because he knew it was.

“Of course I didn’t,” Feb replied quickly.

And there it was. The web shot out and snared them both.

Of course she didn’t because, at that time, Feb was his. Colt knew it. Feb knew it. Fucking Kevin fucking Kercher knew it, the fuck. Everyone knew it.

Her words kept strumming in his skull.

Of course I didn’t. Of course I didn’t.

Quick. Fierce. A statement of fact, just like his. If they were anything else but what they were now, if they were what they should have been, it would have been terse, dismissive, and that was what it sounded like. The faithful partner stating her commitment when she shouldn’t have to. It was a given, fundamental, their relationship formed on bedrock which would never budge, no matter what the temptation. It wasn’t worth it if it threatened what they had, which was the world.

Colt fought against the web, he had to; it was his job and with Feb gone and after Melanie left him that was now his world.

“Do you remember this note?” he asked.

“Yes, but barely.”

“You threw it away?”

“I guess so,” she shook her head. “I don’t know. Probably. It was twenty-five years ago.”

“Think, Feb.”

“I am Alec!” she snapped. “But it was twenty-five years ago!”

Good Christ, he hated it when she called him Alec. He had no idea why she did it, she knew he hated it, but she did. She’d never called him Colt, even after that night when he’d told her that Alec was gone, that the name his parents gave him and called him was something he didn’t want any claim to anymore. He wanted to be known as Colt, the name he and Morrie made up for him when they were six. The name he’d given himself. He’d begged her to stop calling him Alec but she never did.

“Just take a minute and think,” he urged, setting his anger aside.

She closed her eyes, tilting her chin away, pressing more of her weight into her hand at his chest, still not cognizant she was touching him there and he was touching her back or he knew she’d move away. Distance for Feb, since it all went down, was important. Not just with him, with everyone, but he’d noted, and it never failed to piss him off, especially with him.

She opened her eyes. “Mrs. Hobbs’s class. Geometry. Second period.” She shook her head but said, “We had that class together. She passed the note to me then. I think I threw it away.”

It hit him and Colt remembered.

“You fought in the hall,” he said.

Her eyes widened and she nodded. “Pushing match. Angie started it. Mrs. Hobbs broke it up. Shit,” her head jerked to the side, “I totally forgot.” She looked back at him. “Angie was crying and screaming but more crying. She was out of her mind. They sent her home.”

“You were crying.”

That’s what he remembered. He’d seen her eyes red from the tears when she was at her locker. He’d walked her to class. He’d been late to his own. At lunch he’d told Morrie but Morrie had already heard about the fight from someone else. After school they’d made her sit through football practice so they could drive her home. Colt even remembered putting her in his car. She’d been silent. She’d never said why they fought. Feb could be like that, hold things to herself forever, a personality trait she had that was a nightmare he’d lived for way too long. It was just Angie was there one day and the next she wasn’t. Feb had been devastated. Then Jessie’s folks moved to town and Feb and Jessie hooked up, hooking Mimi with them, and Angie was a memory as it was with teenage girls.

“I still don’t understand. Why’s that note back now?” she asked.

He was now going to have to ask her the impossible and tear her up doing it.

“Do you remember anyone from school, anyone from that time, anyone… a teacher, a kid, a janitor, a regular at the bar, anyone, who seemed partial to you?”

The lines came back at her brows. “Partial to me?”

“Interested.”

There it was. The impossible.

Everyone was interested in Feb, then and now. Everyone was interested in the family, Jack, Jackie, Morrie, Feb, their grandparents before they all passed. Susie Shepherd and her wealthy Daddy may have been King and Princess of Diamonds in that town but Jack and Jackie Owens, their son Morrison and daughter February were King, Queen, Prince and Princess of Hearts.

Who knew? Feb may have dozens of sick fucks following her, taking pictures of her, stealing her notes, going through her trash, building shrines to her. Hell, Colt knew dozens who jacked off to her regularly.

His hand tightened on hers.

“Interested?” she asked.

“Unnaturally.”

“Alec, what are you saying?”

Colt skirted around the issue. “Someone who would take a note you threw away. Someone who would keep it for twenty-five years. Someone who’d mail it to your family’s bar. Feb, someone who was unnaturally interested in you.”

Her whole body jerked, even her hand then it twisted on his shirt.

“No,” she answered, sliding straight into the pit of denial.

“Think.”

“What’s this about?”

“Take time, Feb, think.”

“What’s this about, Alec?”

He pried her hand from his shirt but gave it alternate purchase, forcing his thumb into her palm and curling his fingers around her hand at the same time he flipped the note and showed her the back.

Her hand went to her mouth cupping it, what was left of the color in her face draining clean away. He watched her sway and he used his hand in hers to push her back and down, forcing her into the chair. He let her hand go and put his to her neck, shoving her head between her knees.

“Breathe deep.”

He listened to her suck in breath.

Colt crouched in front of her, keeping his hand at her neck.

After awhile, he asked, “You with me?”

She nodded and put pressure against his hand, lifting up just a little, her neck arching so she could look at him, her elbows going to her knees.

He kept his hand where it was.

“He killed her for me,” she said, her voice hollow.

Colt shook his head. “You didn’t ask him to kill her. He did it because he’s not right in the head.”

“We made up,” she whispered, “Angie and me. It wasn’t the same but we made up. We danced to Buster Poindexter’s, ‘Hot, Hot, Hot’ at prom. You were there. Angie and me started the conga line.”

He was there. He remembered that conga line. He remembered sitting in the back with Jason Templeton who was then a freshman at Notre Dame, both of them watching it and laughing their asses off. He remembered thinking he’d feel stupid, a sophomore at Purdue, coming home, taking his senior girlfriend to her prom. But he didn’t feel stupid. She’d had a blast; Feb always knew how to have a good time and Colt loved it when she did. He remembered the conga line flowing by their table and Feb had grinned at him at the same time she sang the words to the song at the top of her lungs. Then she twisted her neck and looked back at Angie who had her hands on Feb’s waist. They’d laughed in each other’s faces and then Feb, in the lead, always the one who started the party, wound the conga line away.

“I didn’t want her dead, even back then, when we were fighting –”

“I know that.”

She stared him in the eye for a brief moment before dropping her head. “I can’t believe this.”

“Feb, think,” Colt brought the matter back to hand, “anyone back then who took an interest in you, made you feel funny, anyone that’s still around now.”

She kept her head lowered and shook it, her long hair sliding across his hand, more of it falling forward around her face.

Christ, there was so much of it, he’d never seen so much hair, he’d never felt anything as soft.

He took his hand from her neck and she lifted her head. She looked at his fallen hand before her eyes found his. They were soft and lost for a moment, telling him only he could make her feel found and he almost touched her again, put his hand back where she needed it, before she straightened, ripping that look away from him.

He wanted it back, so much he felt that weight shift in his gut and the flash of anger at her for taking it away, keeping him out. Fuck, even now she wouldn’t let him in.

He bit his lip, something he knew he did to control his anger. He had his father and mother in him, straight to his bones and he held close to that control, had to. Both of them could be ugly and violent, with words, with fists. Colt had it too, it came out twice without control, twice he’d nearly killed someone with his fists – one was his own father, the other Feb’s husband.

“No,” she answered, “no one.”

“February –”

“I’ll think, Alec. I’ll think about it. I need some time. But I promise, I’ll think and I’ll let you know.”

She was looking at him again, straight in the eye. She wasn’t lying. She’d think. But right now this was too much, for anyone. Most people would lose it just from finding Angie’s body. Feb was holding on.

His anger dissolved. It was no longer his place but he was proud of her.

“You’ve got my number?”

Those dents came back at her eyebrows and that lost look came back into her eyes before she masked it.

“Morrie’s got it.”

Colt straightened and dug in the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet. He pulled out a business card and handed it to her, flipping the wallet closed and shoving it back.

She stood, his card held in both hands by thumb and forefinger at both bottom edges, her head bent studying the print.

“I want you to have a care. Keep your cell on you all the time, keep it charged. Let people know where you’re going and when you get there. Don’t ever be alone. You feel something you don’t like, see someone who makes you feel wrong, it doesn’t matter they’re innocent, you tell me, Feb.” Her head came up and she looked at him. “Doesn’t hurt them for me to ask a few questions, dig around.” He watched her suck in her cheeks and he knew she was hesitating, Jack and Jackie’s daughter, through and through. “This is serious, this is murder, Feb. This is about Angie.”

She closed her eyes tight and looked away but not before he saw them get bright. Then she took in a breath and opened her eyes, the brightness gone, she’d locked onto her control. Looking back at him, she nodded.

Colt had one more piece of unpleasant business to deliver and he hated it, but he did it.

“Tomorrow, first thing, you need to write a list.”

“A list?”

“Anyone who wronged you, anyone you felt slighted by –”

“Alec –”

“Anyone someone not in the know might think did you harm or upset you.”

Her eyes went bright again and her bottom lip quivered. “Alec –”

He hated to see her lip move like that, knowing her throat burned with the effort at fighting back the tears but he had to be relentless, lives were at stake. “If this is about you, we need to lock it down.”

“People are gonna –”

“Freak,” Colt nodded, “but better they freak and stay breathin’ than –”

“They’ll hate me,” she whispered.

“They won’t. But if they do, they’re stupid. This isn’t about you. This is about a sick fuck who’s out of his mind. They blame you, you’re better off without them.”

“Easy for you to say, people like you.”

“People like you.”

Something in her face shifted, he couldn’t read it, it was there and gone. But whatever it was, it made that weight in his gut feel even heavier.

“Feb, I’ve no idea what this fuckin’ guy is thinking, but I’ve gotta –”

She lifted her hand and waved it between them, the movement desperate. “I’ll write a list.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say, that’s my girl.

He didn’t say it.

It was then the full realization dawned that this business was going to take its toll. On Feb, on him, likely on Morrie and undoubtedly on Jack and Jackie who, as soon as they heard what was going on, would be back. They were probably already on their way.

And the toll to be paid was not just because of Angie’s murder and Feb’s admirer but because Colt and Feb had no choice but to be wound together again after years of being unraveled.

“Can I go back to the bar now?” she asked.

Colt nodded.

“You wanna talk to Morrie?”

Her question struck him like a blow, she knew him so well. And a thought he hadn’t contemplated, hadn’t allowed himself to contemplate for two years came into his head.

How in the fuck could this woman who was laced into the fibers of his life be so fucking removed?

Colt nodded again.

Feb lifted her chin and without another word walked out the door.

When he lost sight of her, Colt’s neck twisted and he bit his lip.

It was either that or tear the fucking office apart.