“How did you know about the pool?” I asked my mother.

“Colt told Morrie, Morrie told Jack, Jack told me,” Mom answered.

Next time I ran away from home, I was going to a big city. The biggest. In China. Where not only were there billions of people, I didn’t speak their language and they had good food.

“Colt wiped the floor with your ass?” Jessie was astounded. “You rock at pool.”

“Maybe she was havin’ trouble concentrating,” Meems suggested.

“Colt leaning over a pool table, I’d have trouble concentrating,” Dee remarked and they all dissolved into loud, girlie cackles.

I took this moment to pry my eyes off them and look around the bar.

Yep, just as I suspected, everyone was watching us.

Time to put things straight.

I leaned in and said low, “This is the deal. I got some whack job murdering people because he thinks he’s doin’ me a favor. He stole my journals, which means he knows everything about me, all my private thoughts.” They gasped through this new news, I ignored it and carried on. “Colt is being cool, way cool, cooler than he needs to be. I’m grateful. I don’t know what that means and I don’t know if I’m ready to explore it. I’m just takin’ this one second at a time because that’s all the strength I got left in me with this shit which is relentless. I try to do more, I’ll unravel.”

They were all staring at me but I kept right on going.

“I need you all to help me keep it together. That means if there comes a time I want to share, I reserve the right to share even though I’m tellin’ you right now, back, the f**k, off.”

They all looked properly chastised, except Mom who looked weirdly proud. But I wasn’t done so I kept talking.

“As for Melanie, she’s a good woman. She doesn’t deserve the shock she had this morning and she doesn’t deserve us chewin’ her up just about now. It’ll play out as it plays out. This isn’t ‘may the best woman win’ because neither of us deserves that and Colt doesn’t either. These are lives were talkin’ about, the lives of decent people and that means Melanie too. Yeah?”

They all looked at each other then they nodded to me.

I looked at Jessie. “And you can tell Ellie, Lisa, Bobbie and Lindy the same thing. Serious shit’s at stake here and Colt needs to stay on target. He doesn’t need more crap to deal with.”

“All right, girlie,” Jessie whispered.

“We were only tryin’ to help,” Meems said.

“I know you were,” I told them, “and I appreciate that. But now you know how it is.”

Before anyone could say anything else, Morrie came up to the girl posse.

“Hate to break this up, girls, but Delilah and me got a dinner reservation,” Morrie announced.

Dee’s face grew slack as she turned to him and asked, “We do?”

“Costa’s, table for four and we better get our asses in gear. We’re late, they won’t save the table.”

“Costa’s,” Dee whispered, her face no longer slack but brilliant and alive and I felt her look in my gut like a happy tickle.

Morrie slung his arm around her shoulders and scooted her off her stool. “My baby’s favorite,” he said. “Let’s get the kids.”

They wandered to the office and I smiled at Mom. Mom smiled back.

“Costa’s. Yowza. Morrie’s pullin’ out the big guns,” Meems commented.

“Sometimes, it’s rare, but sometimes… men learn,” Mom’s voice was heavy with wisdom and experience as she slid off her own stool and made her way round to the back of the bar.

“I think I’ll take a drink now,” Jessie said to me.

“Not me, kids to feed,” Meems told us, “later lovelies.” She blew kisses and then, ten seconds later, blew out the door.

I made Jessie’s drink and was sitting it in front of her when my cell rang. I yanked it out and the display said “Colt calling.” I flipped it open and put it to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Feb, honey, I’ll be late but be there as soon as I can,” Colt said.

“Colt –”

“Soon as I can. Later.”

Then he hung up.

“Colt?” Jessie asked once I’d flipped my phone closed and slid it back in my jeans.

I sighed then said, “Yeah, he caught a bad guy and he wanted to celebrate with Reggie’s, beer and pool at his house.”

Jessie’s lips compressed then slid to the side and stayed there. I watched her as seconds passed and her lips stayed put.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” I asked.

“What?”

“Keepin’ your mouth shut for once.”

Jessie grinned.

“Bitch,” she whispered and didn’t mean it.

“You’re the bitch,” I whispered back and didn’t mean it.

Then I scanned the bar and saw I had customers who needed drinks.

* * * * *

At five to six, Colt met Sully on the lawn of Denny Lowe’s house.

“Well, good news is, we know who’s hacking people up in three different states. Bad news is, we got another body,” Sully told Colt and Colt closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he said, “Talk to me.”

“Marie Lowe, Denny’s wife. Found by the cleaner this afternoon. Cleaner’s Mexican and speaks about four words of English. Doesn’t help matters that she’s freaked.”

“How bad is it?”

“Seein’ as we reckon this was the first one and it started all this shit, he hadn’t decided on his MO. Just hacked her to shit with an axe.”

“Christ.”

“Not much left to her. She didn’t have some hair left and the wedding rings on her finger that you can see her wearin’ in pictures around her house, wouldn’t know it was her. He went at it. Kept hacking long after she was gone. Looks rage-driven.”

“We know why?”

“Nope. We’ll start diggin’.”

“We find out she’s the first, whatever caused him to do her could be what sent him on this path.”

Sully nodded.

“How long’s she been dead?” Colt asked.

“Looks like awhile, smells like awhile, don’t know for certain.”

“How often does the cleaner come?”

“Don’t know that either seein’ as I don’t speak Spanish and neither does anyone else.”