by Sandra Brown
“If you mess with Anna Corbett again, I’ll kill you. Do you remember what I said earlier about your gullet and your gonads? I meant it. I’ll hurt you bad. Do we have an understanding?”
Oh, yeah, they did. They for damn sure did. Emory was convinced as he’d never been convinced of anything else in his entire life that this man was capable of killing him.
Because he couldn’t nod for the risk of having his throat cut, he croaked, “Yeah.”
“Good, good.” Jack pulled back his knife and wiped a droplet of blood onto the leg of his blue jeans before sliding it into the leather scabbard. “Be seein’ ya.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“I’d give just about anything for a lemon Coke.”
Connie Skaggs was balanced in the open window, one bare foot propped near her hip on the sill, the other barely skimming the floor as she indolently swung her leg back and forth. Her toenails were painted the same obnoxious color as her fingernails.
The top two buttons of her blouse were undone. Occasionally she dabbed at her deep cleavage with a wet paper towel. Her skirt was bunched up around her plump thighs, high enough to be inflaming but not so high as to reveal the prize.
She had the attention of all three men. Carl figured she was lapping it up.
“You know the kind I’m talking about, Cecil,” she said wistfully. “Like they make at the drugstore soda fountain.”
“I drank one right before the robbery.”
“Lots of shaved ice. Two wedges of fresh lemon.” She took a deep breath, expanding her chest and mashing against the damp cloth of her blouse large nipples as dark as her toenails.
Oh yeah, she knew exactly what she was doing, thought Carl. Myron was masturbating. He hadn’t unzipped, but he was sitting on the floor in the corner, his legs splayed, his lips slack, his eyelids at half-mast as he stared at Connie while massaging himself.
Cecil must have noticed Myron’s self-absorbed activity, because he joined her at the window, stepped in front of her, and discreetly pulled her skirt to a more modest level. Placing his arms around her, he bent down and nuzzled her neck. “I’d fix you a lemon Coke if I could, honey. Once we get to Mexico, you can have all the lemon Cokes you can drink.”
She tried to wiggle free, saying crossly, “Stop that. It’s too hot for mugging.”
“It’s never too hot for mugging.” He chuckled, going for her neck again.
“I mean it. Get away.” She swatted at him and he released her, looking wounded.
“Okay, okay.”
Carl’s lip curled with contempt. Any bitch slapped at him, he’d knock the shit out of her. But his big brother was a pussy. Always had been. Apparently always would be. He had hoped that prison and parole had toughened Cecil up. But if it had, the toughness hadn’t weathered Connie Skaggs’ influence. The bitch had deballed Cecil. He was more of a wuss now than before, when he hadn’t been able to bring himself to blow away that guy in Arkadelphia who’d tried to stop the convenience-store robbery.
“I don’t mean to be so grumpy, Cecil.” Connie lowered her leg from the window ledge. She stood and leaned into the open window, bracing her hands on the sill, looking out at the dusty landscape and affording them a good view of her ass. “It’s just so damn hot, it’s making me cranky. There’s not a leaf moving outside.”
Carl agreed with her on that point. The heat had set him on edge, too. The air was so dense it felt like an extra garment. Each breath required a conscious effort. He was leaking sweat from every pore. It trickled over his ribs, down his spine, and into his butt crack. The hairs on his arms and chest clung wetly to his skin.
It was too damn hot to move. Even the flies had stopped buzzing. Earlier in the day they had driven him crazy, zooming around the cabin like miniature F-16s, crashing into the walls, biting viciously when they landed on exposed skin. Now, too enervated to fly, they lethargically crawled around wherever they had last lighted—on empty cans and food wrappers and sticky spots on the table where Myron had dribbled anything he lifted toward his mouth.
Connie turned back into the room and flounced over to the table, where she took a drink from a can of orange soda that had recently been visited by one of the very houseflies Carl had been watching. “My mama used to say that when it got this hot and still, it was bound to rain.”
“Did it?”
That was the first time in an hour Carl had uttered a word. The sound of his voice seemed to surprise them. They looked across at him where he was sprawled in a chair tilted against the wall. Cecil had returned from the window and was once again sitting backward in a wooden chair at the table, his chin propped on the top slat. Myron still sat spraddle-legged in the corner, a faint smile on his lips, his eyes more vacant than usual, a wet spot staining the front of his pants.
Connie turned to Carl. “Did it what?”
“Rain.”
“Sometimes,” she retorted. “Sometimes not. My mama wasn’t always right.” Going up on tiptoes, she worked her rump onto the table. Carl wondered if the broad knew what chairs were for. She seemed to prefer sitting on the surface of just about anything other than a chair seat.
“Take me, for instance.” She dug into a bag of fried pork skins, put one into her mouth, and talked around it as she crunched. “Mama punished me hard for not minding her. I got whippings you wouldn’t believe with my daddy’s leather belt. She forced me to wear dumb, ugly clothes that I hated. While I was in school, anytime I did something wrong, I had to kiss up to the teacher and say I was sorry.
“She marched me to that holy roller church of hers twice every Sunday, Wednesday nights, too, and made me wave my hands in the air and yell ‘Praise Jesus!’ like the other ignorant fools. She thought if she did all that, I’d turn out to be a good girl.” Leaning forward from the waist, she shimmied her breasts and gave the room at large a wink. “Mama was wrong.”
Cecil laughed, but his eyes were uneasily monitoring her chest and the flimsy modesty her blouse provided.
Carl grinned at her and motioned toward a six-pack of beer. “Bring me one of those.”
“They’re hot.”
“So’m I.”
He figured that a savvy bad girl like Connie would catch his double meaning, and she didn’t disappoint. Without breaking eye contact, she tore one of the beer cans from the plastic webbing, hopped down off the table, and sauntered toward him wagging her rear end and swishing her skirt against her legs.
When she reached his chair, he didn’t retract his legs and feet, which were stretched straight out in front of him. Peering up at her from beneath his eyebrows, he challenged her to do what he knew she was just itching to do.
Her predictability almost took the fun out of it.
She straddled his outstretched legs, planting her bare feet wide on either side of his thighs. “Want me to open it for you?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you do that?”
“I think I’ll have one, too,” Cecil said from across the room.
Connie ignored him. So did Carl. She shook the can of warm beer before popping the top. As expected, it spewed. Suds showered her chest, ran over her hands, dripped onto Carl’s lap. Squealing and laughing, she slurped up the foam oozing from the open can.
Carl grabbed her wrist. “That’s supposed to be my beer.”
She extended the can toward him, placing it close to his mouth. He sipped beer from the top of it, then she tilted it forward and poured it directly into his mouth. He swallowed, but she didn’t stop pouring.
“Come on, take it all,” she cajoled in a singsong voice. “How much can you take? Need help?”
She placed her mouth next to his and alternated the spout between them, pouring first into his, then hers, playfully vying over who got the most beer. She spilled more than they drank, but the sloppiness made it even funnier.
“You two are wasting a perfectly good beer,” Cecil remarked.
About the time the beer ran out, Carl dug his hand into the waistband of Connie’s skirt a
nd gave it a swift tug, causing her to land hard on his lap. She dropped the empty beer can and pushed her fingers through his hair, gripping his head. Her mouth was open and wet and slick when it covered his.
“What the—”
Cecil shot from his chair and came across the floor in angry strides.
Connie’s mouth had gone after Carl’s tongue with the strength of a Hoover, but Carl managed to pull away long enough to shout, “Myron!”
He came to his feet with the alacrity of a crane, but after two giant steps, he intercepted Cecil while he was still a few yards from where his girlfriend was sucking the lungs out of his brother. Myron clotheslined him. Carl heard his brother’s teeth breaking like old crockery, and felt the thud when he hit the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cecil shrieked. “What is this? Carl? Connie?”
But she seemed to have forgotten that Cecil existed. Carl also dismissed him. As long as Myron was standing over him, he was out of commission. Poor Cecil didn’t know it yet, but he was as helpless as a newborn mouse trapped by a veteran alley cat. Myron could entertain himself for days with a weakened victim.
Connie was grinding her crotch against his. Roughly he opened her blouse. Her heavy breasts tumbled out, nearly smothering him. She crammed a nipple into his mouth. “Hard. He never sucks them hard enough.”
Carl not only did as she asked, he bit her. “Hey!” She slapped him.
He slapped her back, busting her lip. She gaped at him, stunned. She touched the wounded spot with the tip of her tongue and dabbed up blood. “You son of a bitch.”
Then she attacked his zipper with the greed of a miner who had just spotted gold in a rock pile. He grunted half in gratification, half in pain when she freed his stiff cock and squeezed it tightly with her sweaty hands.
Reaching beneath her skirt, he yanked on the narrow thong until her panties gave way. She went up on tiptoes, balanced for a second, then came down on him.
Carl, leaving her to do all the work, peered around her at his brother, who was groveling on the floor like a blind man who’d lost his cane. A froth of blood, mucus, and saliva dripped from his mouth. His cheeks were wet with tears and he was making the most godawful mewling sounds. The sight of him sickened Carl, and made him ashamed they shared a last name.
Cecil looked up and caught Carl watching him. “How can you do this to me?”
“Don’t blame me that she’s a fucking whore. You’re the one who brought her along, big brother.” He gathered up Connie’s skirt and held it above her hips so his brother could see her ass in action.
With a feral cry, Cecil made a foolhardy lunge toward them that cost him a blow to the head by Myron’s fist. He staggered backward, then went down on his knees. Hanging his head and drooling bloody gunk onto his chest, he sobbed.
“Say, who’re you calling a fucking whore?” Connie panted.
“You like me better than him?”
“You’re better at this, that’s for sure.”
“Aw, come on now,” he said with feigned bashfulness.
Throwing her head back, she closed her eyes and rode him harder. “Oh, Jesus, don’t stop, don’t stop.”
“I wasn’t thinking of stopping. I was thinking of giving Cecil there a real show.”
She was so lost in the act, it came as a cruel shock when he lifted her off him, turned her around, and shoved her down to the floor, where she landed on all fours. “What are you doing?”
“Shut up.” Just as he entered her, he placed his hand on the back of her head and gave it a hard push. Her face smacked the wooden floor, painfully rearranging bones and cartilage. She screamed.
Cecil crawled toward her in a futile rescue attempt. Myron kicked him in the ribs. They splintered and he yowled.
Carl grinned up at Myron. “When I’m done with her, you can have a turn, Myron.”
Myron, grinning and guffawing, ground his heel into Cecil’s kidney.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Keeping one eye on his rearview mirror, Jack pulled out of the bank parking lot into traffic. He doubted Emory Lomax would have him arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. With the dual threats of Garcia’s betrayal and EastPark’s disfranchisement, the last thing Lomax wanted was interaction with any branch of law enforcement. Much as he would like to see Jack Sawyer neutralized, Lomax couldn’t risk baiting another legal snare in which he himself might become trapped.
Even so, Jack didn’t trust him.
Who could tell what a conniving weasel like Lomax might do? Men like him were inordinately buoyant and had a way of resurfacing even after sinking for the third time. Having no scruples, loyalty, or love for anyone, they did what they wanted, when they wanted, with no regard for anything except their own desires. They paid allegiance only to their own greed. Nothing served as a conscience.
With the possible exception of self-preservation. That’s what Jack was betting on. Lomax wasn’t to be underestimated, and that included his survival instinct. He was gambling that Lomax valued his own skin more than he did vengeance. He was reasonably confident that his threats had derailed Lomax’s scheme to secure the Corbett property. At the very least he had put a crimp in Lomax’s schedule.
He pulled into a full-service gas station. “The oil might be a quart low,” he told the attendant after asking him to fill up the tank.
“Sweet truck, mister.”
“Thanks.”
The young man looked to be in his late teens. He continued to admire the pickup as he washed the front windshield. After pumping the gas, he opened the hood, checked the dipstick, and told Jack he was right about being low on oil, and disappeared into the garage to get a can. That’s when Jack spotted a police cruiser in his side mirror. His gut clenched. Had he been wrong about Lomax?
But the squad car drove past without the lone officer giving him a glance.
His showdown with Lomax had accomplished what he had hoped it would, but, in hindsight, it had been a rash and foolhardy thing to do, motivated in part by his own ego. Now it seemed like a silly adolescent game of one-upmanship.
He certainly could have staged a less dramatic confrontation. His theatrics had daunted Lomax, but for how long? The effect might be short term. When Lomax had time to recover and think about it, his pride might prompt him to double his efforts. Jack’s grandstanding might have made matters worse for Anna, not better.
It was presumptuous to think she wanted his help anyway. Delray had suspected him of sabotaging the herd. Her father-in-law’s suspicions, coupled with those of the deputies who had escorted him away this morning, might have convinced Anna that he was guilty. The hours of questioning he had undergone hadn’t bothered him nearly as much as the reproach he’d seen in her eyes as he’d tried to explain to David why he was in custody of the deputies.
All the way around, for a variety of reasons, she and her son would be much better off if Jack Sawyer were out of the picture. With this full tank of gas, he ought to drive away from Blewer and everyone in it. He could leave with a clear conscience, knowing he had benched Lomax long enough for Anna to consult another financial adviser.
Arrogant and smug is how he had felt when he left the bank. Now he cursed himself for being so reckless. He’d walked out of the sheriff’s office today, but the next time law officers came after him it might not be so benign an experience. He’d been a damn fool to threaten Lomax. With his knife, no less. That was as good as waving a red flag. Yeah, the sooner he was away from Blewer, the better.
The service-station attendant returned with a can of oil. “This brand okay?”
“Sure. Fine.”
While the oil was draining into the engine, the boy strolled back to the driver’s side, propped one foot on the gas pump, and leaned against it. “Gum?” He offered Jack a stick of Big Red.
“Thanks.”
When they were both chomping, he remarked, “I’d’ve remembered this truck. You ain’t a regular.”
“No.”
“Headed in or out of town?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
The young man glanced up and down the street. “I’s you, I’d head out.”
“Why?”
“Nothin’ excitin’s gonna happen ’round here. That’s for damn sure.”
“It’s a pretty quiet town, all right.”
“Unless them Herbolds show up. Then there might be some fireworks.” He smacked his gum as though he welcomed the possibility. “My old man knowed ’em when they lived here.”
“No kidding?”
“Says they’s bad news. Says they might be headed back here, but I say who’n hell would want to come to Blewer, especially straight from prison? If it was me just broke out, I’d hit the big cities and find me some recreation.” He winked and popped the gum between his molars. “Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Jack raised his hips off the seat and dug into his front pants pocket. “How much do I owe you?”
Taking the hint, the young man moved around to the front of the truck, tossed the empty oil can into a trash barrel, and lowered the hood. “Cash or credit card? If you pay by cash, you get a five percent discount and a free beer Koozie.”
Jack handed him two twenty-dollar bills through the open window. “I’ll take the discount. Skip the Koozie.”
“You sure? My girlfriend and me collect ’em.”
“Be my guest.”
“Cool. Be right back with your change.”
During their conversation, Jack had reached a decision: He wasn’t going anywhere. Not until the Herbolds were either recaptured or killed in the attempt. Anna might order him out of the trailer and off her land, and he couldn’t blame her if she weren’t entirely certain of his trustworthiness. But he couldn’t leave Blewer as long as Carl and Cecil were still at large and posing even a hint of threat to her and David.
“Here you go.”
The young man gave him his change. “Thanks for the good service,” Jack told him.
“You bet. Thanks for the Koozie.” Nodding past Jack’s shoulder, he added, “Wherever you’re headed, Mister, if I’s you, I’d try and outrun that.”