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 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 a while then given up, taken off for fifteen years and 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 that 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 the 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 other 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, 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—”
The Girl in the Mist: A Misted Pines Novel Page 39