For You

  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.

  Chapter Four

  Butch

  I was sitting on my bed from last night, which had necessarily been converted to a table where Mom and Dad and I just had bacon, eggs and toast that Mom made on the RV’s stove when my cell rang.

  It was sitting by my plate and I stared at it.

  The front screen said “Colt Calling”.

  Colt had never called me before and I’d never called him. I’d successfully avoided programming Colt’s number into my phone for two years as well as, I suspected, Colt doing the same with mine.

  But there it was, his name on my phone. Not “unknown caller” but his name.

  Somewhere along the line fucking Morrie had programmed fucking Colt into my fucking phone, the asshole.

  And someone, probably fucking Morrie, had given Colt my number.

  I snatched it up, flipped it open, put it to my ear and said, “Hello?”

  “Your Dad have a word with you?”

  I looked at my Dad sitting across from me then I looked at my plate then I looked out the window.

  Then I blew out a sigh before I said, “Yeah.”

  “When’re you gonna be over?”

  I looked back to Dad. “It’s Colt. He wants to know when we’re gonna be at his place.”

  Dad looked at the narrow door behind him and turned back to me. “After my mornin’ constitutional. I’m thinkin’ thirty minutes,” he lifted his hand, pounded his chest and let out a loud belch before he finished, “maybe forty-five.”

  I closed my eyes. Dad’s “mornin’ constitutional” would occur in the room that also functioned as the RV’s shower. Not to mention it would happen in an RV which was about as big as my bed at home, save about five square feet.

  At least that knowledge made the pill that I had to move into Colt’s house, and Colt’s bed, a little easier to swallow.

  “You hear that?” I said into the phone.

  “Christ,” he heard it, “tell Jack to back into the drive at the side,” Colt said to me.

  “Gotcha.”

  “I’ll be there when you get there.”

  “Can’t wait,” I lied and I knew it sounded bitchy but what did I care?

  “Feb.”

  I waited but he said no more. “What?” I prompted, eventually losing patience.

  “Nothin’. Later.”

  “Later,” I replied then flipped my phone shut.

  It was nine o’clock and the morning had started bad. This was mainly due to the fact that I was still in a shitty mood after seeing Colt give Amy Harris one of his killer grins. And also because I was in a shitty mood because I reacted to it the way I did, giving too much away.

  Then the morning got worse when Dad told me I was moving in with Colt. He told me this using the voice he used when he’d tell me things like I had to clean my room, or I had to get my shit together and stop flunking chemistry, or when I had to go over to Old Lady Baumgartner’s house and vacuum and dust and clean out her cat’s litter box because she was so old she couldn’t do it a
nymore.

  Of course being the age I was now I figured I could ignore this voice.

  Then Dad told me about the killer’s profile. Then he and Mom gave me looks that showed precisely how worried they were.

  Then I gave into moving into Colt’s.

  I didn’t like it, but I gave into it. And even though I didn’t like it, hearing the profile, there was no denying Colt’s place, with him on his couch, his gun close and him knowing how to use it, was the safest place for me.

  I used Dad’s morning constitutional time to get my head together.

  So shy, sweet, pretty Amy Harris, who was no less pretty after two decades, comes into J&J’s for the first time in her life, doesn’t order a drink (by the way), has a gab with Colt which makes him smile at her and then scurries off.

  So what?

  It was a long time ago. A long, long time ago.

  I needed to get over it.

  Exhibit A was the fact that I’d lost half of my life to this shit. Drifting from town to town to try to escape it but in the end, never letting it go and landing right back where I started. There were some good times in that drifting and there were some bad but there weren’t many great times. None, in fact, that I could remember. And if I wasn’t careful, the next half of my life wouldn’t be much better.

  Exhibit B was some guy was running over dogs and hacking up people because he was hanging onto some wacko delusion that he was connected to and doing this stuff for me. He probably had a crush or something which he never let go and now, decades later, it came to this, dead people and dogs in two states.

  Therefore, evidence was pointing to the fact that I needed to get over it.

  It was a long time ago, people had moved on but I was stuck in the past.

  I needed to pull myself into the present, get passed this latest nightmare and get a life.

  So that’s what I was going to do.

  * * * * *

  Dad rolled up to Colt’s house and I examined it out my window as he executed the four attempts he needed before he successfully backed the RV into Colt’s side drive.

  He did this into a drive that at the back end had a one car garage with a long, sturdy, sided overhang under which was a speedboat under a tarp.

  I knew Colt had a speedboat, Morrie and the kids talked about it, I’d just never seen it. Sometimes Colt took Morrie and the kids (and, used to be, Dee) to the lake in the summers. Both kids loved when their Uncle Colt would take them to the lake, they never shut up about it when they got back. They both knew how to water ski and they told me Colt went fast.