‘We need to get Alicia home,’ Willis said as we stared at the body.
‘No, she can’t go home,’ Luna said. She got on her cell phone and made a call. She told the person on the other end to send out a crime-scene tech and a squad car to take us back to the station. ‘Alicia needs to be debriefed. I’m sending y’all to BCR police station to talk with Chief Donaldson. He’s expecting you.’ She looked at Bert Smith sitting in the back seat of the car. ‘Mr Smith, do you need to go to the hospital first?’
None of us quite understood why Alicia and Bert both were shaking their heads. ‘Call me, Bert, ma’am. I don’t think I’m gonna let anybody call me Mr Smith again. And no, ma’am, I don’t need no doctor.’
Luna nodded her head. ‘OK, I’ll call you Bert if you don’t “ma’am” me again, deal?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, then grinned at her.
‘Everybody in the car,’ Luna said. ‘There are plenty of seatbelts back there. I’m going to drive you to the point where the dirt road meets the farm to market. We’ll wait for the squad car there. No need to sit here staring at the dead guy.’
Willis was on his cell phone before Luna got the car started. ‘Meet us at the BCR police station,’ he said to his son and hung up.
I had Alicia in my arms in the back seat, stroking her hair. ‘I was so worried,’ I said.
‘I know, Mom.’
Willis turned around in his seat. ‘We both were,’ he said.
Alicia reached out for his outstretched hand. ‘I know you were, Dad. I know that.’
He squeezed her hand and I could see a tear in his eye. ‘Never forget it,’ he said. ‘Ever.’
‘Never ever,’ Alicia said and squeezed back.
We waited for less than fifteen minutes and heard the squad car coming miles off, sirens blazing away.
Once the patrol person got there, Luna said, ‘No siren going back. Speed limit, got that, Rookie?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ the fresh-faced former boy scout said.
It took about twenty minutes to get back to BCR and to the police station. Like everything else in Black Cat Ridge, the police station had been part of The Plan. Although it took a couple of years to get it built and running, the urgent care area had been set out in the original town plans. Several acres earmarked for police, fire, and ambulance. It was all up and running now and close to the White Rock shopping center so, ta-da, it was all made of white rock, fitting the locale beautifully, with as few trees slaughtered as possible.
Inside, the waiting area had comfortable seating, good lighting, and piped-in music. There was reading material – Ladies Home Journal, Time, and Men’s Health. It was more like an upscale doctor’s office than a police station. There was even a little sliding glass window, behind which sat what in a doctor’s office would have been the receptionist, but instead of scrubs, this young woman was wearing the black and gold uniform of the Black Cat Ridge Police. (The high-school teams’ colors are also black and gold. Coincidence? In a place called Black Cat Ridge? Hardly. And yes, the football team is called the Alley Cats.)
There was a door to the left and a door to the right. The young cop led us through the door to the left. We went down a hall and ended up in what looked like a boardroom. Polished hardwood floors and table, twelve chairs, whiteboard, chalkboard, and a large flat-screen TV. He told us to take a seat and we did, then he said, ‘I’ll go get the chief.’
There was a large window that looked out onto the hall, and we watched as he started down the hall, then stopped. Turning, he pointed toward the room we were in. Then we saw them – our kids – Graham in the lead.
Seeing Graham, Alicia stood up and ran to the door, just as he ran to the door. The two stopped for half a minute, staring at each other, then they embraced. I was hoping they’d hold off a couple of years, but I still couldn’t help crying at the beauty of it.
Mr Brown slammed his fist down on the steering wheel, making Mr Jones jump in his seat. They were in a fairly old Toyota Celica, old enough anyway to be able to hot-wire. Mr Brown had insisted that Mr Jones steal the car out of the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Codderville, but since Mr Jones did not know the intricacies of hot-wiring, Mr Brown was forced to get out and do it himself. It was at this point that he first wished he hadn’t hit Mr Smith so hard as to cause his death. He was sure Mr Smith would have known how to hot-wire a car.
They were parked across the street from the house where the brown-haired girl lived, and where the flash drive presumably still resided – upstairs in her room next to her computer.
‘All the cars are still there!’ Mr Brown yelled.
‘Oh, no! That’s not all of ’em,’ Mr Jones said. ‘That minivan is the girls’ – the brown-haired girl and her two sisters – and that little sporty car, that’s the mom’s, and the dad has a really cool truck but it’s in the gar—’
‘Shut up,’ Mr Brown said quietly.
‘—age,’ Mr Jones finished.
Mr Brown was down with the fact that he was going to have to kill Mr Jones. Either now or, if he behaved, later. But Mr Brown was fearful that Mr Jones did not know how to behave.
‘And that boy, he had another car, like this one—’ Mr Jones started.
Mr Brown drew his arm back and was about to cold-cock Mr Jones when he wondered what the tinsel strength of the Toyota’s side windows might be. He didn’t want Mr Jones dead now, like Mr Smith. Instead of hitting Mr Jones and knocking his head into the side window, causing yet another death by window, Mr Brown got out of the car.
‘You got a gun?’ he asked Mr Jones, who got out on his side.
‘Yeah, sure do,’ he said, drawing it out of his pocket.
‘Put that goddam thing back, you idiot!’ Mr Brown hissed. ‘God only knows who’s watching! But keep your hand near it. We break down the back door and rush in and kill anybody standing in our way.’
‘But, Mr Brown, these are like, you know, innocent people,’ Mr Jones said.
‘If they’re so goddam innocent, why do they have the flash drive and we don’t?’ Mr Brown countered.
Mr Jones couldn’t answer that so he let it go. Instead, he went in another direction. ‘What about that police lady who lives next door?’
Mr Brown stopped in his tracks. ‘Do you see her car?’
‘No, but I didn’t see her car when she stopped me and Mr Smith that time either,’ Mr Jones said.
‘Which house?’ Mr Brown inquired.
‘That one,’ Mr Jones said, pointing at Elena Luna’s house, which shared its driveway with the Pugh house. Mr Jones had never worked with Mr Brown (or whatever his real name was) before, and he was coming to the conclusion that he wouldn’t work with him again. He seemed even more temperamental than Mr Smith, and that was saying a lot.
Mr Brown squared his shoulders. ‘She comes out, we kill her,’ he said, his voice much steadier than his insides. Mr Brown was not thrilled with the prospect of killing a cop. As a matter of fact, Mr Brown wasn’t thrilled about killing anybody at all, but he was even less thrilled about being killed himself. And that’s what was going to happen if he didn’t get back to Houston with that flash drive.
‘Come on,’ he said to Mr Jones as he headed across the street. They walked up the driveway, unaccosted by the cop who lived next door. They went up to the back door and found it unlocked. They walked in. There was no one in the kitchen or the big room with the large flat-screen TV. Mr Brown and Mr Jones looked at each other.
‘This place is empty,’ Mr Brown said. ‘I can feel it. You know how you feel if someone else is in a room with you?’
Mr Jones said, ‘No.’
‘It was a rhetorical question, dumbass. I’m just saying, this place is empty.’ They both stood in the same spot right inside the back door. Neither moved.
‘You sure about that?’ Mr Jones asked.
‘I’m positive,’ Mr Brown said, and finally took another step into the room. And another. ‘Where’s the staircase?’ he asked.
‘Toward the front of the house,’ Mr Jones answered.
‘Show me,’ Mr Brown said.
‘Uh uh,’ Mr Jones said, shaking his head. ‘I’m not going first! You go first!’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ Mr Brown muttered, and went to a doorway toward the front of the house. A hallway lead straight to the front door, with a formal dining room on the right, with an arch into a formal living room. On the left of the hallway was the wall that supported the staircase that came straight down toward the front door, but curved toward the living room for the last three steps.
‘See the way the staircase curves before the front door?’ Mr Jones asked.
‘Yeah, so what?’ Mr Brown replied, heading for said staircase.
‘That’s fung shia,’ Mr Jones said, oblivious to his mistake. ‘If the builder hadn’t turned the stairs like that, all the luck in the house would have gone right out the front door!’ Mr Jones smiled brightly at his companion.
Mr Brown stopped on the third step and stared down at Mr Jones. ‘You know, you’re a real piece of work, Mr Jones,’ he said.
Still smiling brightly, Mr Jones said, ‘Thank you, Mr Brown.’
Heading back up the stairs, Mr Brown said, ‘It ain’t a compliment, dumbass.’
As Mr Brown resumed his upward trajectory, the house phone began to ring, stopping him in his tracks, as it did Mr Jones. Both stood on the stairs and listened to see if anyone would answer it. There was an audible click after the third ring. Then a voice said, ‘You’ve reached the Pugh family. We’re not answering the phone at the moment because we’re having more fun playing without you. So leave a message if you want to join in.’
Then another voice said, ‘I still say that’s a rude message! Look, something funny is going on here and I need to talk to you about it. I found something I shouldn’t have found.’ Then there was a click, as if the old lady, because the voice was definitely that of an old lady, had hung up.
Mr Brown flung himself around to stare at Mr Jones, almost losing his balance. ‘Who the fuck was that? And what does she know?’
Mr Jones’s eyes were huge. ‘I don’t know! You think she found the flash drive?’
‘Fuck!’ Mr Brown swore, flung himself back around, and raced up the stairs.
There was a lot of hugging going on, then Chief Donaldson came in and my kids settled down, Graham and Alicia sitting side by side, holding hands, I presumed. We were definitely going to have to have a talk.
‘Glad to see you back, Ms Brooks,’ he said to Alicia.
‘Glad to be back, Chief,’ Alicia said, smiling at him. For a girl who’d been held hostage overnight, she looked pretty good. Her color was bright and her eyes sparkled and, even with uncombed hair and still wearing her shorty nightgown from the night before (although covered now by a BCR police sweatshirt), she looked as fresh as a daisy. I think all that might have more to do with my son than her return to the arms of her family. If you know what I mean.
‘We’re gonna need to go over everything that happened from last night on,’ the chief said. ‘It might get pretty dull for the rest of you,’ he said, looking at Willis and me. ‘I’d advise y’all to go on home and I’ll call you when she’s ready to be picked up. Y’all can get her some clothes and bring ’em back then.’
‘We’re not leaving,’ Willis told him and I nodded my head in agreement.
Graham reached in his pocket and got his car keys, which he tossed to Megan. ‘Y’all go back to the house and get her stuff. We’ll wait here,’ he said, and the authority in my son’s voice gave me a chill. God, he was so grown up!
Without a word, my girls got up, went to their sister and hugged her, then were out the door on their brother’s errand.
‘So,’ the chief said. ‘Tell me what happened.’
‘I woke up and saw two men in my bedroom. I started to scream, but one of them, I think it was Mr Jones, put his hand over my mouth …’
‘Which one’s her room?’ Mr Brown asked Mr Jones.
‘That one,’ Mr Jones said, pointing at the end of the hall to the left. ‘Should we check the other rooms?’
‘Nobody’s here,’ Mr Brown said. ‘Trust me.’
Mr Jones shrugged, wondering if he should trust the man who killed Mr Smith. Mr Smith could be quite irksome, Mr Jones thought, but certainly not enough to kill him. Unless he tried shooting Mr Brown in the foot like he’d done to Mr Jones. Mr Jones looked down at Mr Brown’s feet. He could see no damage. Looking at his own, his white sock was still quite visible in the toe of his black motorcycle boot. He was still miffed about that. Those boots were leather and had cost over fifty dollars. And it wasn’t like Mr Jones was made of money. Hell, if he was made of money he wouldn’t be here in this house trying to steal something from a sweet teenaged girl’s room. He wouldn’t have been involved in this at all! If he was made out of money. And this, of course, made Mr Jones wonder how a person could be made out of money in the first place.
‘Are you coming?’ Mr Brown said, breaking into Mr Jones’s reverie.
‘Huh?’ Mr Jones said.
‘Shit,’ Mr Brown said under his breath, and opened the door to the brown-haired girl’s room.
The first thing he noticed was that it was a mess. Bed clothes scattered hither and yon, desk chair turned over, bedside lamp on the floor. ‘You and Smith do this when you abducted her?’
‘Couldn’t be helped,’ Mr Jones said.
Mr Brown went to the desk and saw the flash drive sitting at the base of the computer stand. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
The girls got in Graham’s car, Megan in the driver’s side. ‘Oh, shit,’ she said. ‘I forgot! It’s a stick!’
‘Uh oh,’ Bess said, staring at the gear shift. ‘Do you know how to do this?’
‘No! Do you?’
‘No,’ Bess answered.
The two girls looked at each other. Finally, Megan said, ‘We can’t go back in there without Alicia’s clothes. So what do we do?’
‘I’ve watched Mom with her Audi,’ Bess said. ‘Let me try.’
The girls got out and switched places. Bess got in and pulled the car seat up as close as she could get it. ‘OK,’ she said, and turned the key in the ignition. It sputtered and failed. ‘Oh, wait!’ she said. ‘Maybe it has to be in neutral.’ She pushed in the clutch and wiggled the gearshift to the neutral position, then turned the key. The engine sprang to life. ‘What’s first gear?’ she asked her sister.
Megan shrugged. ‘I dunno.’
Bess found a gear and then let the clutch slowly rise as she gave the car gas. The car died. ‘I don’t think that was first.’ Bess put the gearshift back in neutral, started the car again, then once again attempted the clutch/gas routine. Again the engine died. Twice more and the car began to move. Both girls were so surprised and so thrilled that Bess removed her foot too quickly from the clutch, the car shot forward, and the engine died.
They finally made it to the house, turned off Graham’s engine, and sat in their seats, Bess breathing hard, as if she’d pushed the car the entire way there and, truthfully, she felt she had.
‘So what do you think?’ Megan said.
‘About driving stick? I hate it!’ Bess said.
‘No! About Graham and Alicia!’
Bess laughed. ‘I think those two were the only ones who didn’t know it was mutual.’
‘You think Mom and Dad knew?’ Megan asked.
‘Yes. Don’t you?’
Megan shrugged. ‘I dunno. You think it will last? I mean, is she going to become our sister-in-law? Maybe it’s a good thing Mom and Dad never legally adopted her.’
Bess shrugged. ‘With Graham off at college, I just don’t know.’
Megan let out a snort. ‘Ha! He’s not going back.’
‘Says who?’ Bess demanded.
‘Says me, that’s who!’
‘You’re wrong. There’s no way he’d stiff Mom and Dad like that!’
‘Betja,’ Megan said.
‘Bet me what? And it can’t be money. That’s gambling,’ Bess said.
‘You know, your goody-two-shoeness is tiresome,’ Megan said. ‘How about dishes for a month?’
‘Make it two months!’ Bess said and the two shook on it, then headed out of the car and upstairs to get Alicia some clothes. Alicia’s room was a mess and Bess set about straightening it. ‘Are you gonna help?’ she asked her sister indignantly.
‘Alicia should clean up her own room! I have to clean mine myself.’
‘Ha! You’ve never cleaned your room in your whole life! That’s why no one goes in there except you! We’re afraid we’d get lost!’ Bess said. ‘Besides, Alicia’s room is never a mess. This happened when those men took her.’
Both girls stopped for a minute and looked around. ‘Jeez,’ Megan finally said. ‘How sick would that be? Wake up to someone in your room and then they drag you out?’ She shuddered and crossed her arms over her chest.
Not noticing what Megan was doing, Bess ended up in the same position, arms across her chest, just thinking about the scene. Finally, she shook herself. ‘Let’s clean it up. There’s no way she should come home to this.’
‘Right,’ Megan said, and actually began to make things right.
All in all, it took them forty-five minutes to go the two miles to their house, go in and get Alicia’s clothes, straighten her room, and go the two miles back to the station. Most of that time was spent on the road.
‘But I do know what this is about, sorta,’ Alicia said to her audience.
Luna, who had joined us late, said, ‘What’s that?’
‘That satchel, Mom, that you gave me? There was something in the lining. I cut it out and it was a flash drive—’ She looked around at nothing but blank stares, mine included. I’d heard the phrase, but I didn’t know what it meant. I know very few things about computers: how to turn them on, how to turn them off, how to get a Windows screen, and how to retrieve email. I don’t peruse Facebook. I don’t Twitter. I don’t Snipe or Snope or whatever. I don’t have a website, and I’m not even sure what one is. I write romance novels. My editor emails me changes. I email them back. That is my entire source of knowledge about a computer.
Graham said, ‘It’s a doohickey you stick in a port – a hole in the computer – that has information on it. Usually a download from another computer. That means—’
‘I think we all understand download, son,’ said the chief, ‘but thanks for the mini-lesson. So, Ms Brooks, what was on that flash thing?’
‘Flash drive. And I don’t know. The sketch artist showed up and I just left it on my desk, and then forgot about it, what with all that was going on.’
‘So it’s still there?’ the chief asked. ‘In your room?’
‘I don’t know. That Mr Brown person kinda worked it out. That it was on my desk. They may be going to the house—’
Willis and I both jumped up. ‘The girls!’ we said in unison.
We were answered by voices from the doorway. ‘What about us?’ Bess said, and, ‘You talking about us?’ Megan said.
Willis and I sank back in our seats. ‘Took you long enough,’ Graham said.
‘You know we don’t drive stick!’ Megan said.
Graham stood up. ‘What did you do to my car?’ he demanded.
‘I drove it!’ Bess said. ‘It just took a while.’
The girls had only been driving for a few months – Alicia, the oldest, for six months, Megan for four, and Bess, who’s sixteenth birthday we celebrated less than a month ago, not even a month. One thing I was adamant about was that the girls learn to drive a stick shift. I don’t think any driver – especially a female – should be out in the world and not know how to drive just about any vehicle she might encounter. I might have a little difficulty with an eighteen wheeler, but I think I could probably get it from point A to point B. To me, it’s a safety precaution. But as so often happens, I just hadn’t gotten around to teaching my girls – yet. Looked like there would be lessons while Graham and his car were here. Because, God forbid, I wasn’t about to let them near my Audi.
‘I swear if you stripped the gears or messed up anything—’
‘Sit down, young man,’ the chief said. ‘Don’t threaten your sisters, at least not in my presence. I don’t want to have to arrest you.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Graham said, sitting back down. Alicia’s hand was on his arm, stroking it. Oh, boy, did we need to talk.
‘Lieutenant Luna, you wanna go to their house and see if the flash thing is still there?’ the chief asked.
Four voices said, ‘Drive,’ in what would have been a round if we’d sung it.
‘Yes, sir,’ Luna said.
‘Oh, and Luna, I got a call from the chief of D’s in Austin. He’s sending a couple of detectives over this way. Should be here shortly.’
‘What are we supposed to do with them?’ Luna asked, frowning.
‘Keep ’em fed and watered, I suppose,’ the chief said.
As Luna headed for the door to the room, the chief said, ‘Don’t you need to get a key?’
‘I have one,’ she said. ‘We’re neighbors.’
‘The door’s unlocked anyway,’ Megan said.
I looked at Willis. ‘Maybe we should stop doing that,’ I said. ‘Leaving the doors unlocked.’
There have been times since we’ve lived in Black Cat Ridge when we’ve locked our doors, like right after our friends and neighbors the Lesters, Bess’s birth parents, were murdered, or when we were being stalked that time. Oh, and when Willis disappeared once, and that time Bess was kidnapped, but we always end up forgetting to lock up within a month or two of such incidents. Basically, all in all, Black Cat Ridge is a safe community. But then again, we do seem to attract the unsavory element to our door. Best it was locked when they came a’calling.
‘We got it!’ Mr Brown was saying into the phone.
‘Then get back here immediately!’ the heavily accented voice on the other end of the line said, and hung up.
Mr Brown started up the Toyota and put it in gear. ‘We’re off to Houston,’ he said to Mr Jones.
‘OK,’ Mr Jones said. ‘Can we get something to eat first?’
Mr Brown rolled his eyes. ‘We are in a stolen car, Mr Jones,’ he said, pronouncing each word succinctly. ‘It would not be a good idea to stop by a restaurant or even a drive-thru in a stolen car. Do you see my point?’
‘Oh, yeah, you’re right,’ Mr Jones said. ‘Maybe once we’re on the road?’
‘We’ll see,’ Mr Brown said, and got on the highway to Codderville that would eventually lead to Interstate 10, that would take them all the way to Houston.
Clarissa Mayfair hated her partner. Absolutely hated him. Davis DeWitt felt the same way about her. Theirs was a match made in hell, or, to be more exact, in the homicide division of the Austin Police Department. The two had been assigned the homicide case of James Unger, the man who was pushed off the roof of the Driscoll Hotel parking garage. After several days of absolutely nothing, they got a lead that, unfortunately, led them out of town to a jerkwater place called Black Cat Ridge, located somewhere along the twisting, winding rope of a river called the Colorado.
They knew the river well – it flowed through Austin, in the guise of Lake Austin on the west end, and Lady Bird Lake in the center of town, bisecting the city, resulting in the common destination of south of the river and/or north of the river. A lot of the festivities in the city were located on, by, or near the river, or the Lady Bird Lake part of the river. The fourth of July fireworks were fired from a barge in the middle of the lake/river, the Austin City Limits TV show’s annual ACL Fest was held on the banks of the river, the annual trail of lights was near the river, and the largest Christmas tree on earth has a view of the river, making the Colorado River an important part of the Austin lifestyle.
But driving for two hours to this Podunk town somewhere near the river they both loved, in each other’s company, was not going to be fun. Actually, neither of them could think of something they’d rather not do more than spend two to three hours in a car with each other. Their mutual dislike had nothing to do with looks. They were both pleasant-looking people – Mayfair a petite blonde with green eyes and large breasts; DeWitt a large, dark-haired man with washboard abs and dark blue eyes. No, it had to do with personalities. And theirs didn’t mesh. Within the first hour of meeting him, Mayfair was blessed with a peek at DeWitt’s washboard abs when he pulled up his shirt and said, ‘Look!’ From that moment onward she thought he was vain and slightly stupid. When she replied to his offer of a peek at his abs with the response, ‘Cover yourself up, you dumb fuck,’ he considered her rude, aggressive, and not very nice.
Nothing had happened in the eighteen months since to change the opinions of either.
The first hour of the drive went something like this:
Clarissa Mayfair: ‘You wanna drive, or should I?’
Davis DeWitt: ‘I’ll drive.’
Clarissa Mayfair: ‘OK.’
The second hour went more like this:
Davis DeWitt: ‘Is that it?’
Clarissa Mayfair: ‘Yeah. Turn left.’
Davis DeWitt: ‘Fuck! I am turning left!’
Clarissa Mayfair: ‘Don’t start with me!’
Which brought them to the parking lot of the Black Cat Ridge police department.
Inside, the Pugh family had just finished up and were heading for the front door of the station. They met the detectives from Austin on their way out.
‘You the chief ?’ DeWitt asked Donaldson.
‘Yeah. You the guys from Austin?’
‘Yeah,’ DeWitt answered. ‘This the family?’
‘Yeah,’ Donaldson said.
‘We’re leaving,’ Willis said.
‘We need to talk to y’all,’ Mayfair said.
‘Not now! My daughter has been through hell and back and we’re taking her home to get some rest. We’ll call you when she’s up to being questioned. Again,’ Willis said, and walked his family past the Austin detectives.
‘Hey, now!’ DeWitt started, but Chief Donaldson put a restraining hand on his arm.
‘Let ’em go,’ he said. ‘The girl’s exhausted. She needs to rest. Come on into my office and I’ll tell you what we know so far. Then, if you still need to, you can go talk to Alicia when she’s rested.’
‘This is highly unorthodox,’ Mayfair said.
To which her partner replied, ‘Shut up.’
Which elicited a ‘Don’t you talk to me like that!’ from Mayfair.
The exchange continued, letting Chief Donaldson know the flavor of their relationship.
We got home, all stuffed in Graham’s Celica, sans seatbelts. All the other cars were still in the driveway as they were when we’d left the house with Luna. Once we got everyone out and into the house, Alicia said, ‘I want a shower.’
Bess and Megan took an arm each and Megan said, ‘We’ll go up with you.’ Alicia let them lead her upstairs.
Willis and I looked at each other, then at our son. What the hell were we supposed to do now?
Willis said, ‘Son, sit down.’
‘Dad, now’s not the time.’
‘I can’t think of a better time,’ Willis said. ‘Please sit down.’
Graham reluctantly sat on the sofa. I sat down next to him, while Willis took to his big comfy chair, like the king of the house on his throne.
‘Son, we’ve known for some time how you and Alicia felt about each other—’
‘How could you?’ Graham said jumping up. ‘I didn’t know—’
I pulled him back down to the sofa. ‘It’s OK, honey,’ I said. ‘She didn’t know either. But the rest of us could see it.’
Graham turned pink around the ears. Willis went on, ‘That’s all well and good, boy. I’m glad you two care about each other, but there’s a problem here. You two can’t get physical—’
‘Jeez, Dad!’
‘I’m just saying, Graham. She’s sixteen, you’re eighteen. There’s a law.’
More than Graham’s ears were pink this time. ‘I’m not gonna do anything,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper.
‘You’re right,’ Willis said, ‘you’re not. And to make absolutely sure, Alicia will sleep with your mom in our bedroom, and you and I will be upstairs. You in your room, me in Alicia’s.’
‘Oh my God! You don’t trust me?’ Graham said, on his feet yet again. I pulled him back down.
‘It’s not that I distrust you, per se,’ Willis said, ‘it’s that I don’t trust your hormones. And I don’t trust hers. This will just be until you go back to college.’
‘I’m not going back,’ Graham said.
‘Now wait just a goddamn minute!’ Willis said, jumping to his feet.
It was going to be a long night.
Mr Brown exited the freeway at a town called Columbus. It was eight o’clock in the evening and for the last forty miles Mr Jones’s belly had been rumbling loud enough for Mr Brown to hear it over the engine noise of the stolen Toyota. Only a short way from the freeway they found a restaurant, Jane’s, that was still open. The restaurant had a dinner buffet that was closed, but they were told they could order off the menu.
‘I’m really hungry,’ Mr Jones said.
‘I know,’ Mr Brown said.
‘I think I’m gonna get the chicken fried steak. You think the chicken fried steak would be good here?’ Mr Jones asked.
‘I really wouldn’t know. Ask the waitress.’
Mr Jones waited until the waitress came for their drink order. After ordering a Diet Coke, Mr Jones asked her, ‘How’s the chicken fried steak here?’
‘Best in Texas,’ she said in a deadpan voice.
That was when Mr Jones noticed that in the description on the menu of the chicken fried steak, it said, ‘Best in Texas.’ Duh! If he’d only seen that he wouldn’t have had to ask! ‘OK, then, I’ll have the chicken fried steak, cream gravy on the side, mashed potatoes with some brown gravy, and the house salad with ranch dressing. Oh, and the sweet potato pie here?’ he said, pointing at the dessert section of the menu. ‘How’s that?’
‘Gone,’ she said. ‘Big lunch crowd today.’
‘Oh. Whatja got left?’
‘Chess pie, seven-layer chocolate cake, and banana pudding,’ she said.
‘You wanna split something?’ Mr Jones asked Mr Brown.
Mr Brown, clenching his fists under the table, said, ‘No.’
‘I guess I’ll have the chess pie. It any good?’ he asked the waitress.
‘Best in Texas,’ she said. Turning to Mr Brown she said, ‘You?’
‘BLT and a Coke,’ he said.
The waitress gave him a disgusted look and headed toward the kitchen.