For You

Chapter Three Puck

“I’m Agent Warren, FBI.”

He was good-looking, Agent Warren, and he knew it.

He extended his hand to me and I took it. He probably had dozens of handshakes he’d practiced over the years. This one was firm but reassuring.

“This is Agent Rodman,” Agent Warren motioned to the man at his side, yin to Agent Warren’s yang.

Warren was mocha-skinned black, bald, his thick, long eyelashes declaring that he shaved his head rather than lost his hair, his tall frame was lean but not slight. Rodman was white, showing signs that he needed to lay off the donuts, was obviously balding and didn’t hide it and had the widest, most brilliantly gold wedding band I’d ever seen in my life.

Agent Rodman’s handshake was just as firm and just as reassuring.

They were not my enemy. They were here to help.

This was good to know.

I saw movement out the corner of my eye and Colt and Sully were walking up. It cost me but I caught the jaw tilt before it even began.

“Colt,” I said when he made it to me and Sully’s body jerked at my word.

Colt didn’t move, his expression revealed nothing. Even so, his eyes were locked on me in a weirdly intense way that made me fight back a squirm.

“Feb,” Colt said back.

“Sully,” I said to Sully, noting he looked a bit better and his voice, when it said my name, wasn’t near as nasally.

“Feb.”

Neither of them called me February which I was surprised about. I thought in front of the FBI they’d want to appear official.

Then I realized I was not February to them in front of the agents. I was Feb, they knew me. I was one of their own, a citizen of their town but more than just some unknown someone they’d sworn to protect.

That was good to know too.

“You should know, Ms. Owens, that Lieutenant Colton has bowed out of the investigation,” Agent Warren, clearly Speaker for the FBI, put in smoothly.

This surprised me too but I didn’t hide that surprise because underneath it was an irrational fear that was impossible to control.

Therefore I also didn’t catch my response.

“Why?” My tone held clear accusation. I meant it to and it was directed at the Speaker for the FBI.

I watched Warren’s dark brows draw together over his girlie eye-lashed eyes. “Lieutenant Colton explained you two have history.”

I doubted Colt had explained that history thoroughly but I also didn’t care.

“He’s a good cop.”

“That’s not in question,” Warren stated.

“In fact, him stepping aside on his own proves your statement true,” Rodman spoke for the first time.

I wasn’t comprehending nor did I want to.

“He’s a good cop,” I repeated.

“Feb,” Colt said but I didn’t look at him.

“He could prejudice the case,” Warren told me.

“He wouldn’t do that,” I informed Warren.

“Maybe not but we can’t take that chance and he doesn’t want us to,” Warren replied.

It was then I realized what I was saying, what I was doing and that I had no clue what I was talking about.

So finally, I shut up.

“Lieutenant Sullivan is local primary,” Warren said. “Colton will be kept informed and will remain on the case in a consultative capacity.”

He was giving me FBI-speak, in other words, I had no fucking clue what he was talking about with his “consultative capacity” bullshit and I couldn’t ask him, not now, not in front of Colt and not ever to anyone because if they told someone else how much I wanted to know and what that said about how much I wanted Colt on this case, they might jump to conclusions that weren’t right.

I didn’t like it much but I kept quiet.

“There are a few more people I want you to meet,” Warren said. “Then I’m afraid we’ll have to take a fair bit of your time this morning.”

The FBI had taken over the conference room which was a glass walled room to the side of the bottom floor.

The Police Station in town used to be the town library before they built a bigger library that was modern and situated closer to the schools. The Station was an old, handsome brick building. They’d made the front of it look like an old time police department including two black light poles sitting on the wide cement railings at the bottom of the front steps on top of which were big, round, white lights with the word “Police” written on their fronts.

I’d taken Palmer and Tuesday on a tour years ago when I was home as they’d opened it to the public. I was curious as to where Colt worked even though I told myself I was doing it for Palmer who wanted to be like his Uncle Colt when he grew up.

There were cells and lockdown in the basement. A vast open space on the first floor with files, a big counter facing the front door, some desks behind it, the conference room at the side, a few cubicles down the other side, offices at the back. In the back corner in a little, soundproof, windowed room was dispatch. Equipment down the middle of the room, two desks facing each other with an upright in between with knobs and dials. The dispatchers sat opposite each other with headphones on, like Connie McIntyre and Jo Frederick were doing now. The top floor was what I heard Colt refer to as the bullpen, but it was officially known as the Investigations Unit, where the few detectives had their desks and where the interrogation rooms were. They had lockers up there, a big bathroom with some showers and they had a supply room up there too where they kept guns and ammo, bulletproof vests, shit like that.

Sully came with the agents and me to the conference room but Colt didn’t glance my way as he headed toward the stairs.

I met the profilers and I spent some time repeating a lot of what I already told Colt. Their questions were more thorough and they went over stuff often, shit I’d already answered then I answered it again, and again. I tried to remain patient and managed it mainly because Doc had given me some sleeping pills and I’d slept from nine o’clock last night to just after eight this morning when Mom woke me in Jessie’s double bed (she’d spent the night on Jessie’s pull out couch) and told me that Colt had called and the FBI wanted me at the Station as soon as I could get there.

I hadn’t had that much sleep in years; so long it felt like I lost days, not hours. Still, I got up, shook off the sleep in the shower and had a mild argument with Jessie who thought I should dress up for the FBI and carted half of her burgeoning closet into the guest room in order to facilitate me doing this when I thought it was best, as always, to be just plain me.

I won.

The FBI asked about shit they didn’t need to know, in my opinion, but I told them anyway. I didn’t want them to think I had anything to hide and I didn’t want them to think Colt did either. So I told them Colt and I were high school sweethearts, that he’d always been and still was like a member of the family. I didn’t tell them why I ended it with Colt but I did tell them all about Pete, leaving it at the fact that Pete had done the right thing by skipping town but making it clear he came to this decision with a little help from family and friends.

On this point, I did not elaborate.

I also went through all my travels, where I worked, how long I stayed, as best as I could. Fifteen years was a lot to remember. There were parts of my life that were burned on my brain. The first half of it and the last two years. The fifteen years I was travelling, not so much.

I found it vaguely odd, in the spare moments I had to think about it during their questioning, that I’d lived those fifteen years in a kind of fog. I thought I’d been trying to rediscover me but it seemed I’d spent that time existing and not on a path of discovery at all.

We were going over (again) the possible psychopath who’d been in my life for a long time, keeping tabs on me and working himself up to a murdering frenzy when I saw Colt coming down the stairs, his manner urgent, his eyes on the front door and my eyes followed his.

Mom and Dad were walking in, Dad carrying something in a Ziploc bag, holding it between thumb and forefinger like it was putrid.

Automatically I got up as my voice trailed off in mid-explanation that I had no freaking clue who was hacking away at people who’d shared my life.

I didn’t notice all the agents and Sully’s heads turning to look out the windows mainly because I was walking to the closed conference room door.

“Ms. Owens,” Warren called but I ignored him and walked right out.

“What is it?” I asked across the room, Mom and Dad jumped and their heads swung to me.

Colt, who had his back to me, turned and he was now holding the bag.

The bag I saw would have been funny, say, in a TV show. The Ziploc bags I had at my house had big pink daises printed in a line across the front. But I knew the piece of paper wasn’t funny even if it was in a Ziploc bag with daisies on it. It was less funny because I knew it came in the mail at my house, that’s why it was in that bag. My parents had gone over to check my house; Mom told me they’d be doing it. And obviously they did.

I made it to them and Colt said, “Feb, go back in with the agents.”

“What is it?”

“Feb –” Colt started but I reached out fast and snatched the daisy bag out of his hand.

Then I retreated faster and turned my back to him.

I saw the words I’m sorry I upset you about the dog… before Colt reached around me and snatched the bag right back.

“I said, go back with the agents,” he demanded but I was looking at the note in his hand.

“Puck,” I whispered to the note.

I’d been around his dog. He’d had Puck for years and even though a lot of the time he made himself scarce when I came home for visits most of the times, since my family was the only family he had left and I came back for special occasions, he was around.

So was Puck.

When he wasn’t on duty Colt took that dog with him nearly everywhere.

The last two years, Morrie and Dee then just Morrie would look after Puck when Colt went skiing in Colorado with Sully and Lorraine.

I liked Puck so when Colt went on vacation, I went to visit Morrie so I could be around Puck.

Puck was a great dog.

And Morrie had told me about Puck dying last week, right in the bar. Obviously, Morrie didn’t know I liked Puck as much as I did because Morrie was shocked when I burst into tears right behind the bar, right for all to see before I realized what I was doing and walked back to the office to cry about Puck in belated private.

The psycho had seen me too.

“Does this have to do with the case?” I heard Warren ask.

“I’m guessin’, yeah,” I heard Colt answer.

“May I see?” Warren was being polite and I watched the note transfer hands.

But all I could think was that I killed Colt’s dog. Lost women drinking away their lives in bars; loser assholes probably tearing through women’s lives in St. Louis; and now German shepherds who didn’t do any living thing harm just gave unconditional love and cost a bit of money to keep in food and shots – all of them gone, because of me.

“I’m sorry, Colton, but we need to show this to Ms. Owens,” Warren said and I turned to him, my movement stilted, like my joints needed oiling. “This will be upsetting,” he informed me.

I gave him a look that screamed, No kidding? but I didn’t speak. I just lifted my hand and took the note.

Typed out, it said:

I’m sorry I upset you about the dog. I didn’t mean to. I thought you’d be happy that he hurt like he made you hurt. His has to be the worst.

It will be.

For you.

After I finished reading for a second I went blind, the words erased from the paper and I saw nothing.

Then I turned to Agent Warren. “I need to make a statement on TV or something, tell him to stop. Tell him he’s not helping me. Tell him this is not making me happy.”

One of the profilers, went by the name of Nowakowski, said, “If you’d be willing to do that, we’ll consider it, Ms. Owens, but right now we’re unsure we want to alert the media to this.”

“Then I need to send a message somehow.” My voice was rising. “He thinks he’s making me happy. I need to tell him to stop.”

“Ms. Owens –” Nowakowski started.

“He’s watching me. I started crying when my brother told me Puck died… in the bar I started crying. He’s watching me. I need to be visible. What he’s doing to Angie, Puck, I need to be visible. I need to show him he’s not helping me, he’s harming me.”

The agents looked at each other and I felt a presence come close and I knew from experience it was my Dad.

“I don’t need to be here.” My voice was rising as well as getting louder, sounding more hysterical. “I’m not helping here. I need to be out there.” I pointed to the doors, my arm slamming into something solid, that something was Colt’s chest, but I didn’t stop. “I need to be where he can see me! I need him to see –”

“Girl, calm,” Dad said, his hand coming up to curl on my shoulder.

I couldn’t be calm if someone injected me. I’d killed Colt’s dog.

I turned and tipped my head back. Day three, third crying jag I grabbed Colt by the lapels of his jacket and got up on my toes, feeling the tears dropping from my eyes, instant rivers of salt. So much water, I had my eyes open but I couldn’t make him out, he was a total blur.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry he hurt Puck. I’m so fucking –”

Colt’s hand wrapped around the back of my neck, its steadiness and warmth coming as so much of a shock, I stopped speaking.

“February, it’s okay,” Colt’s voice was quiet, just for me, only for me.

I shook my head, the movement unnatural and wrong, me alive and moving while all things around me were getting butchered. The tears still uncontrolled, my hands twisted in his jacket and I shook it. “It isn’t.”

And it wasn’t. None of it was.

“Feb –” he began but I lost it.

I lost it because it finally sunk in deep what my sick admirer considered his end game.

And the thought was intolerable.

Yanking Colt’s jacket with a vicious pull, I slammed my fists back into his chest and screeched, “He means to harm you!”

Then I did it again and again, my repeated shrieks of those five words broken with sobs, my fists pummeling his chest, abusing his jacket, until his arms came around me, pulling me close, trapping my arms between our bodies.

My head was still tilted back and Colt was still blurry and even imprisoned I was still hysterical. “He means to harm you!”

“Do you have someone here who’s qualified to sedate her?” Agent Warren asked and I tried to turn, tear out of Colt’s arms to confront my new nemesis but Colt held me fast so just my neck twisted.

“I can’t help if I’m sedated!” I shrieked.

“February, you need to calm down,” Colt said firmly.

My head twisted back and I looked at him still sightless and weeping. “I killed your dog.”

“You didn’t have a thing to do with Puck dying.”

“I killed your dog.”

“She’s hysterical,” someone muttered.

My neck twisted toward the direction of the sound and I screamed blindly, “You would be too if you killed someone’s dog!”

Colt’s arms got so tight, my breath was forced out of my lungs and I heard him whisper the words, “Baby, stop it. You didn’t kill my dog.”

Baby, stop it.

Baby, stop it.

Baby, stop it.

The soft words bounced in my head, round and round, taking all my concentration. So much, I didn’t have enough to remain standing and I gave Colt my weight, dropped my head and rested it on my hands which were trapped against his chest.

Baby, stop it, you don’t know what you’re saying.

He’d said that years ago when I broke up with him.

Baby, stop it, you know the way it is between you and me.

He’d said that years ago too, when I told him he should act like a free agent when he went to Purdue and if he came back to me then we’d know it was meant to be. He’d refused. He’d said he didn’t want to be a free agent. He didn’t want anyone, not anyone, but me.

Baby, stop it, Morrie gets it, your parents do too.

He’d said that years and years and years ago, after the first time he kissed me and I’d freaked out because I’d wanted that kiss so badly, and it was everything I’d wanted it to be, and it promised everything I needed it to promise, but I’d worried Morrie, Mom and Dad would get mad.

“I want him to be watching now,” I said to my hands, the tears still coming but they were no longer loud and neither was my voice. My words, like his, were meant only for Colt. “I want him to see what he’s doing to me.”

Colt’s arms got tight again. “He won’t care, Feb, after all these years something started him on this path and he can’t go back now. But you’ve got to be stronger than this, you’ve got to help Sully and the FBI and you’ve got to stand strong to the end.” One of his arms came from around me and his hand went to the back of my neck, giving me a squeeze there and I tilted my head back to look at him, was able to get focused on him but still only blinking through tears. “And there’ll be an end, I promise, February, and it won’t end with the end of me. It will end with the end of what he’s doing.”

I nodded, not because I believed, I was too scared to believe. I nodded because it was clear he believed.

“I’m sorry about Puck,” I whispered and I knew it sounded stupid and like I hadn’t gotten myself together but his hand at my neck gave me another squeeze.

“I know you are. I am too.”

Colt knew it wasn’t stupid, he knew I was just saying I was sorry as anyone would and as I hadn’t at the time Puck died because I was avoiding him.

“This is over, you should get another dog,” I advised.

His mouth moved, I didn’t understand how but it wasn’t anger. It was something else, something attractive, almost mesmerizing.

“I’ll consider it.”

I looked from his mouth direct into his eyes. “Good.”

“Ms. Owens, if we can continue,” Agent Warren said from behind me and Colt looked there before his gaze came back to me.

“You good?” Colt asked me.

No, I was not good. Any good left to me was stuck back in memories of the Glory Days or, sometimes, when Morrie would make me laugh or seeing how great his kids were turning out to be or biting into one of Meems’s muffins or seeing her look at Al, even after all these years and four kids, like she wanted to rip his clothes off or watching Jessie’s face get soft when Jimbo did something goofy like it was anything but goofy to Jessie.

For me, I’d lived my life for awhile off other people being good.

But for the first time in a long time I was sick of living in a fog most of the time and sick of feeling shit the rest of it and I wanted good back too, but I wanted it for me.

“I’m good,” I lied.

His hand and arm went away, I stood on my own two feet and I was concentrating so much on doing that, I didn’t move away directly. I just tested my steadiness for awhile before I tipped my head back, looked Colt in the eye, took a breath and then walked back to the conference room.

Someone got me a fresh coffee and everyone resumed their places.

“Now perhaps, Ms. Owens, in light of this new evidence,” Agent Nowakowski carefully placed the daisy bag on the table, his voice was gentle but probing, “we should go back over your relationship with Lieutenant Colton.”

His eyes were on me and he was examining me like Colt did yesterday and I figured, considering he did what he did for a living, there was a lot he could see.

Therefore, because this was important, not looking at Sully and hoping to God he’d keep his partner mouth shut even though I knew there was no way in hell he would, I said, “Alec Colton had been in my life since I was three to the time I was twenty. Not like my brother, something more. Everyone knew it, my family, our friends, everyone in town. Our breakup came as a surprise and still does to some, that’s how big it was. I broke up with him and it doesn’t matter why, I just did. He didn’t break up with me. This guy, whoever he is, is not going to care about that. I went off the rails after that and this guy, whoever he is, will know that like he knows everything else. And he’ll blame Ale… Colt.” I took a sip of coffee, swallowed then took a deep breath and went on. “It wasn’t about high school sweethearts. Even when we were high school sweethearts, it was more. It was much more, more than many people have in their lives. Everyone knew that too. They also know, once I went off the rails, I never found my way back. Even after coming home. I suspect he wants to make Colt pay for that, even pay for taking me away when that wasn’t Colt’s fault either. So that’s it, that’s the story. There’s no words to explain how big it was, what Colt and I had, or how much it hurts when something that big in your life is swept away, or how empty that place is that he once filled, or how impossible it is to find something to fill it, but since everyone knew I drained myself empty, I suspect this guy knew too.” I sat back and finished, “That’s it.”

Everyone was silent. I chanced a glance at Sully and he was looking at his knees.

“Lieutenant Colton was a lucky man,” Agent Nowakowski said gently and my eyes moved to him. He was still studying me but now his eyes were as gentle as his voice.

“Make no mistake, sir,” I replied, “Alec Colton was never lucky. He came into this world one of the most unlucky sons of bitches you’ve ever met and he’s worked his ass off for everything he’s ever had.”

I had no clue how proud I sounded, nor how fierce, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Sully’s head jerk up but it was what Agent Nowakowski said next that kept my attention on him.

“February, the mistake is yours if you think that’s true.”

I heard a loud reverberating sound, like a tiny drop of moisture splashing against the bottom of a dry, cavernous pit.

I almost looked around to find the source of the noise until I realized I was the only one who heard it because it was coming from inside of me.

Colt walked into J&J’s, it was early but he was off duty. The Feds and Sully were still working but after the scene in the Station his already minor “consultative capacity” became miniscule.

There was another reason he escaped the Station and that was because Sully had told him probably a dozen times that day they needed to talk about “what Feb said in that room”.

Seemed everyone wanted to discuss him and February, Susie, Jack, Morrie, Sully.

As for Sully, to be fair to Feb, Colt thought it was her choice if she wanted to share. He’d fucking well like to know what she said, make no mistake, but she should be the one to choose to tell him.

Walking into J&J’s, he knew he was likely jumping straight out of the frying pan into the fire. But Feb had said she’d cried in the bar when she’d heard about Puck and that meant the killer was in the bar to see her crying and therefore Colt was going to be in J&J’s scrutinizing the crowd.

It was Friday night and J&J’s like always on Fridays was packed. Darryl and Jack were working the bar, Feb and Ruthie, Morrie and Feb’s only other employee outside Fritzi who came in every morning to mop and clean, were both out amongst the tables, dropping drinks.

Morrie was nowhere to be seen.

Feb glanced up, saw him and dipped her chin like he’d seen her do to hundreds of customers, saying hello, asking, nonverbally, “What can I get you?” or “You want another?”

Colt felt exactly as he felt that morning when she’d denied him the jaw tilt for the first time since he could remember. He felt like he felt when she called him Colt for the first time something he’d repeatedly told her to do but something he found he fucking hated when she finally did it.

He felt like throwing something.

But instead he dipped his own chin and hid his response just as he kicked himself for being such an enormous jackass in the bathroom the day before finally losing it about her calling him Alec and taking away the only good thing they shared anymore.

Or so he thought.

After she denied him the jaw tilt that morning she threw a minor hissy fit about him being off the case. Colt had no idea if she was doing this because she thought The Feds were insulting him or if she wanted him working the case or both. He kept hearing her saying, “He’s a good cop,” over and over in his head and he liked the sound, too fucking much, but there was no denying he did.

And there was also no denying that her reaction to the possibility that he would get hurt, not to mention the death of his dog, had been spectacularly more mammoth than the tears she’d shed over her asshole ex-husband. They’d thought they’d need to sedate her, hell, he’d thought it too. She was completely out of control.

But she’d let him calm her. Not her Dad, or her Mom, nor had she pulled herself together on her own. Colt had done it.

Feb could lose it. She had her mother’s temper which was volatile, though quiet, but making matters worse she was also emotional, again just like her Mom. Both Feb and Jackie could descend into righteous indignation or inconsolable tears at the slightest provocation. Like Jack with Jackie, Colt had been the only one back in the day who could calm February.

And that day, he’d done it again.

And last, she wasn’t avoiding his eyes anymore or his touch. That morning, after her drama and him helping her to pull herself together, she’d stood in his arms and started a conversation about how he should get a new dog. When Warren interrupted the moment, Colt’s hands itched to wring the man’s neck. But when Colt finally let Feb go, she didn’t step away, gain distance. She stood close then met his eyes before walking away.

He had no idea what any of this meant or if it meant anything at all and it was only her way of coping during a seriously shitty situation. He’d give her her lead and he’d wait.

What he wouldn’t do was let Sully, Jack or Morrie piss all over it. If something good came of this mess, a détente between the two of them, he was going to take it and he wasn’t going to let anyone piss on it.

No fucking way.

He slid onto his stool at the end of the bar and scanned the room.

“Off duty?” Jack asked and Colt nodded.

He heard the hiss of the cap coming off the beer and the thud of the bottle landing in front of him and he forgot until then how much he missed hearing Jack ask, “Off duty?” then the subsequent hiss and thud.

It sucked why the family was back together but he couldn’t deny he was glad they were.

“Where’s Morrie?” Colt asked, watching Feb talk to a table full of kids who looked too young to be sitting in a bar.

“Shoulda come in three hours ago, you missed World War Three,” Jack’s amused answer brought Colt’s eyes to him.

“World War Three?” Colt asked the smiling Jack, not sure whether he was more surprised to see Jack smiling indulgently or to see that indulgent smile aimed at his daughter.

Jack had kept his mouth shut throughout the last two decades but Colt knew Feb felt his condemnation. He knew it because she couldn’t miss it, everyone saw it. Jack loved his daughter, always had, always would. They’d been close once, as fathers and daughters should be. Feb was Jack’s little girl, not like Susie was a Daddy’s Little Girl, what Jack and Feb had was special and it was beautiful.

But Jack took her breakup with Colt and her subsequent behavior, marriage and defection as a personal affront to the family he built. He’d accepted her and her decisions as that was Jack’s way, but he didn’t like them and he didn’t pretend to. Colt had seen him smile at his daughter, laugh with her, but he hadn’t seen that indulgent smile in twenty years.

Colt’s gaze moved back to February who now had her tray tucked under her arm and she was scrutinizing one of the boy’s driver’s licenses. He watched as she said something then tipped her head his way. The boys all went pale in the dim lights of the bar and looked uncomfortably at him, some of them twisting in their chair to do it. Feb said something else and they quickly grabbed their jackets, the legs of their chairs scraping so desperately on the floor the noise could be heard over the music. Through their hurried departure Feb tapped the now-confiscated license against her palm, her eyes went to her father and she rolled them.

Colt stopped breathing.

Jack burst out laughing.

Feb used to roll her eyes all the time. The world was full of idiots doing idiot things that Feb thought worthy of an eye roll, mostly the idiot things she did herself.

He’d always loved it that she could laugh at herself and all the trouble she got herself into because she was so fired up to suck all the life out of the world that she could get in her. She never blushed when she did something stupid or crazy or embarrassing, she’d just roll her eyes, throw her head back and laugh.

“I’m guessin’ you won’t shut us down, officer, since Feb didn’t serve those young ‘uns,” Jack said, his voice vibrating with his chuckle. “Good you kids got so much practice flashin’ your fake IDs and getting yourself into liquor stores, bars and trouble. Means Morrie and Feb can sniff ‘em out from a mile away.”

Colt was listening but he was watching Feb move to another table, her chin lifting, giving them a hello-what-can-I-get-cha.

“World War Three…” Jack said, capturing Colt’s attention again and he turned to look at the man, “happened when Feb found out Morrie moved home. She doesn’t know why, she thinks it’s a trial reconciliation. Three hours ago she told Morrie to go home, help his now full-time workin’ wife with dinner, help her with the dishes, help their kids with their homework and then to bed then he could come back here.” Colt thought this was good advice and Jack kept talking. “Morrie told her his kids are ten and twelve years old and they don’t need no help gettin’ to bed and Dee’s been doin’ the dishes since she was a kid.” Colt thought this was a very stupid response and Jack kept right on going. “Feb lost her mind, told him to stop bein’ a jackass and get home to his family.” Colt wished he’d seen that. “Morrie told her it was Friday and ain’t no way he was leavin’ this bar on a busy Friday night.” Colt wished he’d been here to kick his friend up the ass. “Feb told him he had a choice, he could take care of his customers or he could keep his family.”

When Jack stopped talking, Colt remarked, “No choice really.”

“Yep,” Jack grinned at him. “That’s why Morrie ain’t here.” Jack’s gaze sought his daughter and his voice was softer when he spoke again. “Ain’t seen Feb act that way in too long.” He didn’t look at Colt when he finished. “Seems this situation has scared some life back in her. Ain’t gonna thank the fucker for doin’ it but I’m glad all the same.”

Colt remained silent but hid it behind a pull off his beer.

Jack took that time to turn his attention to Colt. “Seems to me there’s advantage to be taken, son, and ain’t no one in a hundred mile radius would blame you for takin’ it.”

Colt dropped the beer and opened his mouth but Jack threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“That’s all I’m sayin’. You’re a man now, you play it as you see fit.”

Before Colt could speak, Jack’s eyes went over Colt’s shoulder and he followed something around Colt’s back.

Colt twisted and saw Feb heft up the hinged portion of bar and slide through, dropping it behind her.

Her eyes caught Colt’s and before she turned away she said, “Hey.”

Another new one.

She never said anything in greeting, not even “hey”.

Then she turned away and walked down the bar. Colt’s eyes followed her ass as she did it. Then they sliced to Jack who he caught grinning at him.

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Not smart, old man, gettin’ your hopes up,” Colt told him quietly.

“My age? Hope’s about all I got left,” Jack returned and headed down the bar.

Jack was so full of shit. The man had everything.

Colt nursed his beer and scanned the bar, cataloguing the customers, going through what he knew about them in his mind and understanding Feb’s hesitation at pointing the finger at anyone. Most everyone there he knew. Most of those he knew his whole life.

There were a few drifters. Jack was a biker, he’d owned a hawg all the time Colt knew him. He had a “biker friendly” sign in the front window. He liked his Harley brethren to come in, take a load off, shoot a game of pool and drink a few rounds in his place.

Morrie and Feb continued the tradition.

Morrie owned a Fat Boy and Feb had more Harley Davidson t-shirts than were probably carried in a single store. At the back, under the collar, if she lifted her hair up or, in the summer or when the nights got too busy and she pulled it into a knot or ponytail on the top of her head, you’d see the story of her last fifteen years laid bare there. In a small decal under the collar, Harley tees announced what store in what city and what state the tee came from. She’d been to Harley stores all over the country. Hell, she had several from the Harley golden triangle, Deadwood, Rapid City, and the granddaddy of them all, Sturgis. She’d worn one the other night and tonight she had on a Sturgis Motorcycle Rally t-shirt, its army green fabric featuring a display of grinning skulls interlinked with flowers at the chest.

Her choker tonight had oblong brown beads.

She was four people down when she felt his eyes on her.

She lifted her head then pointed her chin at his beer. “You want another?”

This wasn’t unusual. She may not have been exactly friendly for the last two years but she owned a bar, she’d brought him a beer.

“Yeah.”

She came closer, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, stuck it in the bottle opener under the bar and yanked off the cap. She placed it in front of him and surprised him by lifting his old bottle and eyeing the swirling dregs in the bottom. Then with practiced ease she tossed it with a crash into the tall, thin, gray plastic glass recycling bin.

Her eyes came to his. “Jack chaser?”

This was unusual. She may have brought him a beer but she hadn’t cleared the old one away and she never furthered the discourse in any way.

“Feelin’ like keepin’ my faculties tonight,” he told her.

She nodded, her gaze sliding away. “Good call. Feds in town. Psycho on the loose. Faculties would be good.”

Jesus. Who was this woman?

Before he could figure it out, she said, “Yell if you change your mind. Stayin’ in Mom and Dad’s RV with them tonight. You feel like gettin’ a buzz on, Dad’ll pour you in the back of my car.”

She started to move away but he caught her by calling her name.

She turned back to him and he asked, “Why’re you stayin’ in the RV?”

She’d looked at him but again her eyes slid away though not before he saw them light in the dark.

“Jimbo’s a bit allergic to cats. Woke up with his eyes matted shut, sneezin’ like crazy.” She looked back at him after she’d hid her humor at this piece of news and said, “Jessie wanted to kick Jimbo out but I explained that a psycho would probably not be afraid of two women wielding one of her many cans of hair spray and a lighter. Wilson and me are homeless for awhile. Slummin’ it in the RV.”

Colt didn’t find this funny.

“Jesus, Feb, just move in with me.”

Feb’s expression told him she did not find him funny either though his intention wasn’t to be funny.

“Colt –”

He cut her off. “There’s no reason to fuckin’ argue.”

She took a step toward him and lowered her voice. “You’re off the hook. Mom and Dad and me are movin’ into Morrie’s if things go okay with Dee and this reconciliation lasts longer than a night.”

“You know how I feel about Jack but he’s not a young man anymore.”

“Maybe not but he’s not stupid either. Something happens he’ll know what to do.”

“Not like a cop would know what to do.”

Her head tilted with her question and her burgeoning impatience. “How much do you reckon I have to be worried?”

“None, you stay with me.”

“Colt, you don’t even like me. Why the fuck would I move in with you?”

“Who says I don’t like you?”

She stepped back on a foot like he’d shoved her shoulders and her face carried an expression like he’d perpetrated a surprise attack.

“Feb –” Colt started.

“February! Woman, what’s it take to get a drink around here?” Sheila Eisenhower shouted from the other end of the bar, standing by Joe-Bob who was staring at her with mild affront and it was highly likely she’d interrupted Joe-Bob’s evening nap.

“I got her,” Jack called, hustling down to the other end of the bar, leaving a stunned Tony Mancetti staring at the half-pulled mug of beer that Jack left sitting on the bar in order to rush to shut Sheila up and give Feb and Colt time to have their conversation.

“Brilliant, just brilliant,” Feb muttered as she started toward Tony.

“Feb, we’re not done talkin’,” Colt stated, his tone short and clipped.

“We so are,” Feb threw over her shoulder and hightailed it to Tony’s beer.

Colt took an angry pull off his own beer mainly because the cool of the bottle soothed the itch he now had to wring Sheila Eisenhower’s neck.

Feb didn’t get near him for the next twenty minutes and Colt played the only card he had in his hand.

“Jack!” he called and Jack jerked his head at Colt to tell him he’d heard him, finished the order he was filling for Ruthie and then walked to Colt.

“She can stay in the RV with you tonight but I want Feb and you and Jackie with me by tomorrow night.”

“Son, your second bedroom is full of junk and Jackie and me slept on your pull out last Christmas. Hate to tell you this, boy, but it’s lumpy.”

“Pull the RV up outside but Feb’s inside.”

Jack pressed his lips together before he said, “Found out yesterday my girl’s got a problem with insomnia and, I’ll repeat, your pull out is lumpy.”

“I won’t pull it out when I’m sleepin’ on it.”

Jack’s eyes grew wide. “You’re givin’ Feb your bed?”

“A man with a hatchet comes into the house I don’t want Feb on the couch.”

Jack threw him a look that Colt just caught before Jack turned away.

Colt had seen that look from Jack many times in his life. After football games. The four proms he took Jack’s daughter to. After Colt graduated from Purdue. The first time Jack had seen him in a police uniform. The day they made him detective.

The weight he’d been carrying in his gut grew lighter.

Jack looked back at him. “She ain’t gonna like it.”

“She doesn’t have much choice.”

Jack grinned. “She comes with a cat.”

This was not a pleasant prospect. Colt was not only a dog person, he didn’t much like cats.

“It stays out of my way, I won’t skin it.”

Jack threw his head back and laughed so loud, February, bending to pick up a fallen towel from the ground all the way down the bar, twisted her head to look at them. She was too far away, the light too dim, Colt couldn’t tell if her expression was anxious or angry.

Probably both.

“I’ll have a word,” Jack said, still chuckling.

“Have as many as you need but get her ass in my house.”

Jack threw him another grin and Colt hated what he had to say next but part of his job was saying shit like this. He didn’t like doing it at all but he really didn’t like doing it with people he cared about.

“Don’t get too comfortable with all this, Jack. The profilers profiled the guy. I want her at my house because she’s not safe. You hear what I’m sayin’ to you?”

Jack sobered instantly and leaned in.

“I hear you, you got more to say?”

He did so he said it. “He’s her age, probably went to school with us. Highly intelligent, organized and fixated. A sexual deviant. Likely he has a good job and is good at doin’ it. It’s probable she knows him. It’s likely, with his level of intelligence, he doesn’t think anyone’s smart enough to catch him and he’s good at hiding his perversion. He wants her attention. She goes off target, does anything he doesn’t like, say, movin’ in with me, his focus can shift from those who did her wrong to what he perceives as her doin’ him wrong. This is a profile, not set in stone, but those guys are good at what they do and we’d be fools not to listen to what they say.”

“Maybe she shouldn’t move in with you.”

“Maybe not, but you happy with any other place she could be?”

Jack read his meaning Colt saw it written in turn on Jack’s face.

“He’s been fixated on her for over twenty years,” Colt reminded him. “Something happened to set him off and it wasn’t her comin’ home. You hear anything, someone around her age, good job, good income, smart guy, who had something happen, say he got laid off, his wife left him, anything, you let me know and I’ll let Sully know.”

“His wife?”

“He’s good at hiding his perversion, Jack. He’s married, she wouldn’t have a clue.”

“Jesus.”

“Get her ass in my house tomorrow night and sleep with one fuckin’ eye open tonight.”

“Don’t think I’ll be sleepin’ at all, son.”

“I wouldn’t either.”

“They gonna catch this fucker?”

“They’ll catch him but only because they think he won’t stop until he gets caught.”

“She don’t have that many enemies, Colt. Hell, she’s only really got one and he’s already dead.”

“He’ll make them up.”

“Jesus.”

Colt decided to finish it. “I know what you think this is, Jack, and it’s not that. It’s just me keepin’ my family safe.”

Jack turned fully to him and looked him straight in the eye. “Listen to what you say, son. What you just said tells me this is exactly what I think it is.”

He gave Colt no chance to reply before he walked away and Colt found himself at the end of a bar that now both Jack and Feb were avoiding and he needed another beer.

Five minutes later, Darryl hefted up the hinged portion of bar and slid through.

“Get me a beer, will you, Darryl?”

“You got it, boss,” Darryl replied, pulling out a beer, setting it in front of Colt and moving off without snapping off the non-twist cap.

Colt watched Darryl move away thinking they really should get rid of that guy. Two and two did not make anywhere near four for Darryl.

He reached over the bar, twisted to use the bottle opener underneath it and when he sat back down he saw Amy Harris making her way to him.

This sent a chill up his spine.

He’d known Amy for thirty years; she was between him and Feb in school.

She was very pretty and petite but had always been painfully shy. She got out of high school and got a job as a teller in the bank across the street from J&J’s. She’d been in that job ever since, never moving up, never moving on. Even as pretty as she was, she’d never had a boyfriend that Colt knew of, not that he paid much attention to Amy. In fact, he rarely saw her, even though he’d lived in the same town as her for three decades. He’d see her at the grocery store, the post office, driving down the street but not often.

He’d never seen her in J&J’s.

She swung her head around and looked down the bar and Colt followed her eyes.

She was looking at February who was talking to a biker while she poured him a draft.

That chill slid round to cover his entire torso and locked in.

When he looked back at Amy, she was close.

“Anyone, um… sitting here, Colt?” she waved at the stool beside him which was good because she was speaking so quietly he could barely hear her.

“Take a seat,” he invited and she hesitated before she did so.

Her eyes skittered back to February before she put her purse on the bar and folded her hands on it like if she didn’t position them properly she was scared of what they’d do.

“How’s things, Amy?”

He watched her body tense at his question and she turned her neck slowly to look at him.

“Not good,” she said, again talking so quietly Colt barely heard her.

“Why’s that?”

Her head jerked slightly and she closed her eyes before she opened them and whispered something he didn’t catch.

“Come again?”

She cleared her throat and said louder, “Angie.”

“Angie. Yeah,” Colt replied, keeping his eyes on her, hers had moved to stare at her purse.

“I figured people would stay away,” she said then lifted her hand and it fluttered weirdly in the air like a wounded bird before she dropped it to her purse again, wounded bird down, “from here.” She glanced around the bar and her eyes moved to his again before she dropped them back to her bag and finished. “Guess I was wrong.”

“Why’d you think they’d stay away?”

“Dunno. Just did. Angie.”

“You know Angie?”

She shrugged and then her gaze moved to his chest. “She had an account at our bank. She always came to my station, every Friday after work.” She shrugged again and looked back at her purse. “I was nice to her, others could be…”

Her voice trailed away, the words left unspoken didn’t need to be said.

Her body jumped suddenly and she said slightly more loudly, “Anyway, I thought I’d show Morrie and Feb my support, come to their bar, have a drink. But I guess everyone thought the same thing.”

“This is what it’s like every Friday.”

Her eyes came to his and she didn’t try to hide her surprise or inexperience. “Really?”

Colt couldn’t help it. She was a harmless, shy hermit who wanted to do the right thing and it probably took everything she had to leave her cocoon of a world and come out to do it.

So he grinned at her and said, “Really.”

Her eyes shot away from his face, they caught on something else and he watched her grow pale.

He followed her gaze and saw Feb halfway down the bar staring at the both of them looking like her body had been encased in ice.

But the expression on her face was raw, so raw it was difficult to witness.

“I shouldn’t have come,” Amy whispered, sounding urgent and hurried now, even scared, and Colt’s head jerked to her.

“What?”

“Feb doesn’t… they don’t need me here. I’ll just get home.”

Before he could utter a syllable she slid off her stool and wended her way through the crowd.

Colt forgot about her instantly and looked back at February.

She’d turned and was now standing, facing the shelves behind the bar, both of her hands were up, elbows cocked. She’d lifted up her hair, holding it high at the back of her head, the heavy fall of it was hiding her hands.

She wasn’t moving.

Colt waited and she didn’t reach for a bottle or a glass. She just stared at the shelves, inert.

“Feb, darlin’, tequila,” Jack called, not looking at his daughter.

Feb still didn’t move.

“What the fuck?” Colt muttered as he watched her remain still.

Then he felt that chill that had evaporated at his torso come back and start clawing at his chest. He got up, pulled back the bar on its hinges, slid around, dropped it down and moved to Feb.

He had a hand on her elbow before her entire frame jerked, she dropped her arms and she turned to him.

“You okay?” he asked.

She stared unblinking at his face.

“Feb, I’m talkin’ to you.” His fingers were still wrapped around her elbow and he tightened them there.

“What?” she asked.

“You okay?”

She came out of her trance, dropped her chin and looked away at the same time she lifted her arm bent at the elbow and tried to twist out of his hold.

He tightened his fingers further.

She looked at his hand before her head came back up. “I’m fine.”

“Somethin’ spook you?”

“Cat walked over my grave.”

“Cat walks over your grave, you shiver and get on with it, you don’t freeze then lapse into a trance.”

“I didn’t lapse into a trance,” she lied.

“Somethin’ goin’ on here?” Jack asked from close at Colt’s back.

“Somethin’ spooked Feb,” Colt answered.

“Nothing spooked me,” Feb lied again.

“Somethin’ spooked her?” Jack knew Feb enough to know she was lying.

“Nothing spooked me!” Feb’s voice was getting louder. “I just forgot what I was doin’ for a minute.”

“I thought a cat walked over your grave,” Colt called her on her lie.

“That too,” she returned.

“Which one is it, girl?” Jack asked.

Feb jerked her arm out of Colt’s hold, took a step back but leaned forward now totally loud and shouted, “Both of you, back off!”

Then she pushed through them, rushed to the end of the bar, threw the entry open on its hinges, it collapsed back onto the bar making a loud sound shaking the bar and taking Colt’s beer down with it.

She ignored all this, threw open the door to the office and slammed it shut behind her.

Out of the side of his eye Colt saw Jack turn to him but he didn’t take his gaze from the office door.

“You reckon she’s spooked or bein’ a woman?”

“Both,” Colt answered and walked down the bar to the office.

He went in and closed the door behind him. Feb was standing at the desk, her profile to him. She’d again pulled the hair away from her face and had it held in a fist at the back of her head, exposing the line of her neck, more of her choker and her silver hoop earring.

“I said, back off,” she told the desk.

“What spooked you?”

She didn’t turn, didn’t drop her arm, she just repeated, “Seriously, this is uncool and you know it. Back off.”

He walked up to her and grabbed her arm, pulling it down and she turned to him, her eyes finding his.

“Was it Amy?” he asked.

There it was again. That raw look. Except in the office with the lighting better and her close it was considerably more difficult to witness. In fact, he knew he’d never fucking forget that look on her face.

“It was Amy,” he said quietly and she twisted her arm away from his hand, taking a step from him so desperate to get away but trapped between his body and the desk she bumped into it hard. It tilted and some papers slid off the cluttered top onto the floor.

They both ignored the papers.

“Talk to me, Feb.”

“Did you talk to her?” she asked.

“What?”

“Did you explain the way it is?”

“Explain the way what is?”

“I didn’t put her on my list, but I figured you’d talk to her.”

That cold that was clawing at Colt’s chest found purchase, tearing in, freezing his insides.

“Why would I talk to Amy Harris?”

Her brows came together, those lines forming at their edges this time deeper.

Accusation.

“I don’t believe you,” she whispered, and there it was, plain in her tone.

Accusation.

“Maybe you wanna explain this,” he suggested, treading carefully.

Something was happening here, something he did not get, something that more than spooked her, something that pained her and, whatever the fuck it was, it had to do with him and fucking Amy Harris.

She tore her eyes from his and shook her head.

“I don’t need to explain it,” she said to the desk.

“I’m thinkin’ you do.”

Her eyes came back. “Fuck you.”

He wasn’t concerned anymore, now he was getting pissed.

“What?”

“I said, fuck you.” She leaned in on the last two words. “Talk to her, Colt. When you do, she’ll know.”

“Now I’m thinkin’ I need to know.”

She shook her head again, muttering, “Full of shit. So full of shit.”

“February.”

“Been the bad guy a long time, Colt, I’m used to it,” she told him, making no fucking sense whatsoever. “You don’t do the right thing and talk to her you’ll be the bad guy. Yeah?”

With that, she pushed passed him and, still in a huff, she snatched the door open and threw herself through it.

He wanted to go after her and he didn’t care if there was a scene. J&J’s was a bar, ripe for scenes. It’d seen its fair share.

But he was angry so he took a moment to find his control and this took awhile.

Once he locked it down, a couple of things struck him.

Instinct told him whatever just happened didn’t have to do with a hatchet murderer bent on inflicting bloody justice for the wrongs done to Feb.

Instinct told him whatever just happened had to do with the February Owens he loved becoming an altogether different February Owens.

He took in a deep, calming breath and sorted through his thoughts.

One thing he knew, if Feb wanted to hold something deep and not let it go, she was going to do it.

And whatever this was she had so buried deep, no one could dig it out.

So he’d have to find another way to dig it out.

Starting with Amy.