by Lucy Score
“About what?”
“This. Us. Showin’ up here all fancy and then slow dancin’.”
Her lips were that rose petal pink that I found absolutely irresistible. I stopped myself from tracing my thumb over her full lower lip.
“Does that bother you?” I asked, sliding my palm over the small of her back.
She shook her head. “Don’t much care. Besides, we know the truth.”
“What truth?” I asked. Every inch of her was pressed against every inch of me. I could feel the heat rising off of her.
“That I’m nothin’ but your little sister’s best friend.”
“You’ve never been just my little sister’s best friend, trouble.”
My old nickname for her made us both smile a little.
The song was over. The band was kicking it up again with an East Coast swing. Cassidy was unwinding her arms from my neck, but I didn’t want to be done touching her yet. I squeezed her slim hips with both palms, keeping her against me for just a second longer.
She brushed her hands across my chest. “Thanks for the ride and the dance, Bow.”
13
Cassidy
Minnie’s Meow Meow House was indeed a house. The low wooden structure had started as a simple cabin but had been added on to in weird and wonderful ways, making it a rambling haven for homeless cats. It smelled like fresh cat litter and the special catnip potpourri Minnie Faye made especially for her charges.
Minnie Faye and her husband, Hubert, had a soft spot for strays. Together with their gigantic hearts, they’d built a rainbow of a family, first with foster and adopted children and now with fur babies.
Minnie Faye was currently in the Meow Meow House’s front office scrutinizing my nine-page adoption application, my three reference letters, and credit report.
“What about that one?” Scarlett pointed at an orange ball of fluff hanging upside down from his spacious cage’s ceiling. His meow was closer to a shriek.
We were in Cat Room Number Two. Each room had a different theme. This one was kitten posters. They’d plastered the green pine-paneled walls in a glossy, fluffy mural of cute.
I winced. That cat was exactly the kind of hellion Scarlett Bodine would be attracted to. She stood there entranced, peering through the cage door. The kitten, sensing an audience, launched himself at the front door of the cage, mewling plaintively.
“I’m more in the market for a fat lump that I have to pick up to vacuum under,” I told her. But Scarlett was still staring at the kitten with a mix of adulation and longing.
June sneezed and blew her nose. Though allergic to cats, my sister had insisted on helping me choose my first pet.
“Why don’t you adopt him?” I said to Scarlett, stepping around her to stare into the next cage.
Bonded pair, read the sign.
I couldn’t imagine a stranger pair. One cat was gray and black and looked to weigh about twenty pounds. He was too lazy to open both eyes to observe me. Instead, he settled for one. The other cat was a skinny, long-legged tabby that alternated between licking its own butthole and biting the tip of its tail.
“You could name the large, handsome one George,” June suggested, peering over my shoulder. She sounded like she was pinching her nose closed.
“George?” I asked. The larger of the cats not obsessed with his butthole lifted his head, made eye contact with me, and yawned.
“George Thompson, more commonly known as GT Thompson, the most consistent receiver in the league.” Some women crushed on shirtless models on Instagram. My sister preferred to admire a man’s football stats.
I chewed on my lip and wondered if I was committing to this cat lady lifestyle too early. Maybe I should go on one more date? Or maybe I should ask Bowie for one more slow dance…
No! I couldn’t spend the rest of my life thinking maybe someday.
“I’ll take them,” I decided. I’d given up on Bowie a long time ago and didn’t need to open that box or door or whatever the hell it was again. One dinner and a steamy slow dance did not mean a man was interested. And it sure as hell didn’t mean I had to be interested either.
George was gazing at me like he could see into my soul. He sneezed, making his younger, skinnier partner freak out and jump across the cage floor. The little one shot me an accusatory look and then immediately flopped over on its back to view me from upside down.
“I can’t bring a cat home,” Scarlett lamented. “We don’t have room for Devlin’s shoe collection, let alone a whole entire cat. Where would I put his food dish?”
“Y’all want to meet any of the cats?” Maribel Schilling, a part-time volunteer at the Meow Meow House, asked, sticking her beehived head in the doorway.
“I’d like to meet these two,” I told her.
“What the hell? Gimme a shot at this guy,” Scarlett decided, pointing at little Lucifer, who was violently attacking his tail while sitting in his water dish.
“You want one, June Bug?” I asked.
She sneezed four times in a row. “Cats are too independent. The ideal pet is a potbellied pig.”
“A pig? You’re going to make a tolerant man very confused someday,” I predicted.
Maribel led us into the meet and greet cat room. This room had a big bay window and a half dozen armchairs.
“Have a seat, y’all. We’ll be back with your fur babies.”
“Do you have any pigs?” June asked.
“Sorry, pumpkin. Just kitties here.”
June blew her nose noisily and flopped down on a pink-checkered armchair. “She said ‘your’ to make you feel obligated to complete the adoption. She’s assigning ownership. It’s basic psychology.” She sneezed three times in rapid succession. The tissue pile on the arm of her chair was growing rapidly.
“Why the sudden need for cats anyway?” Scarlett asked, pacing back and forth like an expectant parent.
I sighed and perched on the rolled arm of a recliner. “I’m giving up, y’all.”
“Giving up on what? Not being covered in cat hair?” Scarlett asked.
“Dating. Looking for Mr. Right. Or even Mr. Semi-Okay and Tolerable,” I announced.
Scarlett stopped mid-pace. “You can’t give up. You’re only twenty-six years old.”
“Twenty-seven,” I corrected. Scarlett always forgot about the few months when we were a whole birth year apart. “Twenty-seven and no closer to finding a guy I could stand for the rest of my life than when I was ten years old. I don’t think it’s healthy to keep looking. My life isn’t that bad. Hell, it’s pretty great. I love my job. I have my own house. I live near my family. I can see your weird face anytime I want. And now I’ll have two furry kids that I can leave home alone for long hours and will still want to snuggle with me at night.”
Scarlett stared at me like I’d announced I was turning in my gun and badge and becoming a kindergarten teacher. “This displeases me,” she said finally.
June squinted her puffy red eyes at us. “I don’t understand why women waste so much time looking for relationships. You could be doing so many more important things with your time. Learning foreign languages, studying the tax code, building an investment strategy.”
June’s apathy toward love was legendary and baffling to Scarlett and me. While we’d watched Pretty in Pink forty-seven times the summer between our freshman and sophomore years in high school, June had created an underground football fantasy league for our classmates.
Now, I was jumping ship, too. To Scarlett, who’d discovered the love of her life right next door—just who in the hell did that happen to anyway—it was appalling. We’d been planning weddings and great loves since elementary school. My goal was to find what my parents had and replicate it. Her goal was to do better than her parents had.
Jonah and Constance had fallen hard for each other in high school and had never grown into their relationship. Petty jealousies, mistrust, and volatile fights followed by frigid days of silence were the hallmarks of Scarlett’s child
hood. One night in fourth grade, Scarlett had slept over at my house after her parents indulged in a particularly nasty fight. She’d confessed to me her mama claimed she would have divorced him years ago but couldn’t afford to. He’d thrown a scratch-off at her and told her to do them both a favor and get a lawyer.
That stuck with me. I’d snuck out of my room after she’d fallen asleep and tiptoed downstairs. Mom and Dad were sprawled out on the couch, Dad’s head in Mom’s lap. The TV on low while they both read their respective books. I’d hugged them both hard that night.
One night, a long time ago, Bowie had called my dad. He needed help breaking up an argument. It had started between Jonah and Constance. Then seventeen-year-old Gibson had gotten involved. My dad hadn’t even paused to put his uniform on. He ran out of the house in his sweatpants. He’d come back an hour later with all four of the Bodine kids. The adults had calmed down, but the kids needed some soothing. My mom treated it like a big party. She made us midnight pancakes, and we all camped in the living room watching The Sandlot. I’d loved them even more for that night.
Scarlett had outdone her parents’ relationship by finding Devlin.
And I had given up.
But when Maribel dumped twenty pounds of Handsome George into my lap, I felt a little something like love. And that was good enough for me.
I’d given up on Bowie a long time ago. Closed my heart to the man. One slow dance wasn’t going to open those creaky doors again. I didn’t need him to have a full, fun, interesting life.
Handsome George reached up with one paw and placed it over my heart as if to tell me that everything was going to be just fine. I believed him. Cats didn’t lie.
“Oh. My. Goodness,” Scarlett crooned, snuggling the devil in fur to her face. “I love you to tiny little bits.”
Potential George looked up at me, and I swear that dang cat smiled. His partner in crime clawed his way up the back of the chair and perched neat as you please on my shoulder, his tail twitching against my neck. He blinked his yellow-green eyes at me slowly.
“I’m textin’ Devlin,” Scarlett announced. “We’re gettin’ a cat, y’all!”
“Wait,” June said, holding out one hand while blowing her nose with the other. “I’ll take your picture. It will be harder for him to say no.”
Scarlett juggled cat and phone and assumed the appropriate position.
“Make your eyes wider and sadder,” June ordered.
14
Bowie
“At this time, Jonah Bodine remains a person of interest in the disappearance of Callie Kendall,” Detective Connelly said, his lined face sober as photographers snapped pictures like he was a Hollywood starlet confessing to butt implants and a drug problem.
He stared into the local news station’s camera with hooded eyes as a light drizzle of freezing rain fell from gray skies. Sheriff Tucker stood behind him, mouth set in a firm line under his mustache. “We are asking that anyone with any information about Callie Kendall or Jonah Bodine come forward.”
“He’s gonna have half of Bootleg Springs lined up to tell him their reminiscences of that summer,” I muttered at the TV screen. It was six in the morning on a Monday, and I had a feeling it was going to be a shitty-ass day.
Jonah grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. It was a replay of what we’d seen breaking live yesterday in time for the five o’clock news. “I need Jayme to scare them into at least using middle initials,” he said.
On cue, Jonah’s cell phone rang again. We both swore.
Sharing a name with our father was not only insulting to the guy who grew up without the man but now it was a direct link for the press to exploit.
They’d descended like locusts. Journalists, bloggers, conspiracy theorists arrived in Bootleg Springs in time for last night’s press conference with their noses for news and their shiny camera equipment. Ready to violate the privacy of each and every resident until they could serve up some twisted version of the truth that would sell the most advertising space.
Our landline rang so many times after the press conference that I’d unplugged the damn thing and tossed it in a closet. I decided to focus on getting to work early.
I, unlike the rest of my siblings, didn’t have the luxury of working for myself. I was the high school vice principal. A job that I loved. A job I’d hate to lose over a family scandal that I hadn’t at least earned.
If my father did play a role in Callie Kendall’s death, would I be found guilty by association in the court of public opinion?
I honestly didn’t believe my father was a murderer, but accidents could and did happen. The result was the same. Callie Kendall was gone. And the rest of the Bodines were still here.
Jonah, my roommate and half-brother, could leave. He could go back to his old life and pick up where he left off in Jetty Beach, chalking up Bootleg to an extended visit. But my entire life was here.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Dad was reaching out from beyond the grave to ruin my life.
“Holy shit,” Jonah muttered, peering through the front window.
“What?”
“There’s a low-budget news crew setting up in front of the house.”
I joined him at the window and stared in horror at the two guys setting up a tripod and running wires on the sidewalk. A third guy, in a rumpled trench coat, paced back and forth taking selfies.
Jonah made a move for the front door, and I stopped him. “What are you gonna do? Tell them to get off the public sidewalk while providing them with footage of an angry Bodine?”
“This is ridiculous,” he argued, arms crossed over his chest. I think Scarlett’s temper was rubbing off on him.
There was a tap on the back door, and we glanced at each other. Nothing we could do about reporters on a public street. But one climbing fences in our backyard? We could at least punch that guy in the face once or twice.
In silent agreement, we tiptoed into the kitchen. Jonah put his hand on the doorknob while I positioned myself on his right. I nodded and just as another tap sounded, Jonah hurled the door open.
“Oh my God! Y’all scared me out of my boots!” Leah Mae, my brother Jameson’s girlfriend, clutched her hands to her heart.
Her long blonde hair was tucked up under a red knit cap. She wore a heavy down coat and she was indeed wearing boots. They had frogs all over them.
“We thought you were some dumbass reporter tresspassin’,” I told her, pulling her into the house and shutting the door.
She slid out of her coat and hung it on the hook inside the back door. “That’s why I’m here. I’m giving all you Bodines a crash course in media training.”
Jonah and I looked at her like she’d started clucking like a chicken.
“We’re not allowed to talk to them,” Jonah reminded her.
“You’re not allowed to talk to them about the investigation,” Leah Mae corrected him. “I’ve been here before. A couple of times. I can make this easier on you by sharing my bountiful wisdom with y’all.” Leah Mae had been a successful model looking to break into acting when her ex-fiancé set her up for a series of humiliating scandals to raise her profile. She was familiar with negative media attention.
“What do we do?” I asked.
She gestured at the table in the dining room and we all sat. “Let’s start with the basics. You both are going to change your outgoing voicemail messages to the robotic, no-name version. You’re not to answer any phone call unless you recognize the number. Do you have a landline?”
“Closet.” I jerked a thumb toward the living room.
She gave me an approving nod. “Good. Keep it there. Don’t answer your front door. If anyone wants to see you, they get a key to your back gate and come in that way. Or better yet, you meet them off-site. Social media, make it as private as you can or better yet, deactivate it all for now.”
Jonah swore again.
“I know you have a presence for your training clients. Maybe create a private group to stay in
touch with them and turn off commenting on your public accounts.”
He slumped in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “This sucks.”
“You say ‘no comment’ politely to any questions about anything remotely related to the investigation. If anyone gets pushy with you or crosses any lines, breaks any rules, you contact the police immediately. Do not retaliate.” Her green eyes narrowed at us. Leah Mae was new to the family, but she was well aware of what we Bodines were capable of in a Friday night fight at The Lookout or a run of the mill rumble on the streets.
“Jayme told us not to talk to the press at all,” I reminded her. No lie, Jayme scared me a little bit.
“You have to walk a fine line of being politely silent. Don’t do anything to provoke them. Don’t react with anything more than one of your nice-as-pie smiles. Say ‘excuse me’ if they’re in your way. Don’t go all Scarlett on them and threaten to run them over if she sees them in a crosswalk.”
I hoped that was a metaphor and not an actual retelling. Though, knowing my little sister, anything was possible.
“You’re playing a public relations game here,” she explained. “The angrier you get, the more negative footage they blast all over the place, the guiltier your daddy looks.”
She was right. I brought the heels of my hands to my eyes. “Jonah’s right. This whole thing sucks.”
Leah Mae nodded sympathetically. “Yes, it does. You two are going to take the brunt of the attention. Your house is accessible, your jobs are more public.”
Jonah and I shared another look. He was a personal trainer with public classes all over town. And he shared a name with a potential murderer.
This really fucking sucked.
Leah Mae reached out to both of us, covering our hands with hers. “Y’all are gonna be just fine. Sooner or later a more salacious story will be pullin’ on their attention,” she promised. “Hang in until then.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to take the attention off of us by going back on TV for us, would you, Leah Mae?” I teased. “Maybe you and Jameson could get engaged, and you could go on one of those bridezilla shows?”