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.
Chapter Two
Pete
I’d been up for two and a half hours by the time Morrie stumbled into the kitchen.
It had not been the most joyful two and a half hours I’d ever spent, drinking coffee and filtering through the silt of my life trying to think of anyone that some unhinged psychopath might have decided done me wrong. Even if I did it after I’d done my yoga which usually left me feeling mellow.
In that time, I’d also come to the conclusion that this new living situation was not going to work.
Delilah, Morrie’s wife, had left him just over a year ago, taking the kids with her. It hadn’t been long in coming but still Morrie, like any man, hadn’t been paying attention. Her defection surprised him. He’d suffered her leaving like a blow. But after we’d taken over the bar, Delilah had changed.
Dee could tell it like it was but still, she used to be sweet as syrup, patient as a saint, a great Mom, a good wife to Morrie but she liked Morrie working construction. Out early, home early, at the dinner table with the family. Not out at noon, home after three in the morning, rarely seeing her or his kids.
She didn’t get it about J&J’s. Delilah didn’t understand the importance of J&J’s. Not even when Mom and Dad retired and I came back just because Morrie wanted me to help him run the bar so the family wouldn’t lose J&J’s and also so the town wouldn’t lose it.
Dee knew me; we were close even with the distance. She knew nothing would bring me home, except J&J’s.
So Dee had their old house and Morrie had a new pad – an apartment, a new complex in town. So new, it was void of personality and I hated it. So did Morrie. There were lots of things to hate about it but mostly I hated the trees. The trees that landscaped the outside were thin, the fluorescent tags from the garden store still on them, held up with sticks and wire to help them bear the brunt of winter and wind; the leaves in summer not throwing enough to make but a hint of shade. They’d probably be beautiful in about ten years, but now their existence screamed “New!” and something about it I did not like. It seemed weird in my town because the rest of the town felt old, established, settled and safe. It wasn’t that I didn’t like change, I was used to change, a lot of it. It was just that I didn’t like change in my town.
But there were three bedrooms and the all important two baths. One bedroom for Morrie, one for his son, Palmer, the other for his daughter, Tuesday.
That was how much Dee had changed. Morrie had been named after Jim Morrison who our father idolized. I had been named after the month Valentine’s Day fell in, Mom’s favorite holiday and my middle name was Valentine, not to mention Mom said I was conceived on that day. Morrie had talked Dee (and she loved him so much it didn’t take much effort) into keeping the family tradition, naming his son after Robert Palmer, since Morrie was a Led Zeppelin freak. He’d also talked Dee into naming their daughter Tuesday, which both of them swore was the day of the week she was conceived, which also happened to be Valentine’s Day that year. Dee had barely made a peep naming her kids these crazy names.
Then again, Morrie and I never suffered from our names and Dee had loved my brother back then. Loved him enough to let him name their kids. Loved him so much she couldn’t hack doing without him, seeing her family losing out to a bar.
All this meant I didn’t sleep on their pull out couch in their TV room, which was what I did all those years when I came home, sometimes, the times I didn’t stay with Mom and Dad, doing the rotation, sharing my time between family members. I’d come home for Christmas or Thanksgiving or some other family event, like the kids’ birthdays or Mom and Dad’s 40th anniversary. Instead, all this meant I slept in Tuesday’s single bed last night.
My bed at home was a queen. Some nights I slept like the dead. Other nights I moved.
Last night I moved and almost fell out of Tuesday’s bed twice.
And my cat Wilson, unused to his new surroundings, steered clear.
I couldn’t sleep without Wilson on my feet or, when I was moving, he slept somewhere close. Wilson was a cuddler. He liked my warmth and even when I shifted he didn’t mind, he just shifted with me.
So I didn’t sleep.
I hadn’t slept well, not for years. But at least I slept some.
I needed to go home.
Morrie went straight to the coffeepot and poured himself a cup.
He didn’t speak or look at me until he was well into his third sip.
Then he did. “See this arrangement is gonna work out great.”
I loved my brother but he was such a fucking man.
He slept in his own bed, a big bed, in his own home. I slept in a foreign bed, a little bed, away from my home. But he got up and there was coffee brewed, coffee he didn’t have to make, so it was all going to work out great.
“Morrie, this isn’t going to work. Tuesday’s bed…” he looked at me, “I don’t sleep enough as it is.”
“Colt’s couch pulls out.”
Oh fuck. No way. No way in hell.