around in shock, but the sudden tension was there in every line of her body. She turned and walked back to Trout.
“Would you repeat that, please?” she said.
Trout licked his lips. “Does that mean that this
“What do you know about that, Billy?”
Not “sir.” Not “fuckhead.” She used his actual name.
“I know that he’s here,” said Trout, nodding toward the mortuary.
Dez said nothing.
“Did something happen?” Trout asked. “There were some threats during the trial and before the execution. Did someone break in to desecrate the body?”
Nothing. Dez’s eyes might as well have been made from cold blue stones.
“Did someone steal the body? There were threats about that, too.”
There was a flicker in Dez’s eyes that told Trout that he’d scored a point.
He kept the triumphant smile off his face. “Any theories on who stole it?” he asked.
“I never said a goddamn thing about—” Dez began and then stopped as JT Hammond crossed the road and stood next to her. Goat followed silently in his wake.
“Do you have information to share with us, Billy?” asked JT, his voice as cool as Dez’s.
“No, but I’d like to get some information from—”
“Then please get into your car, turn around, and go back to the road,” said JT.
“You can’t throw me out. This is news and—”
JT stepped close. Trout was tall at six feet, but JT was two inches taller and a great deal tougher. “This is a private road, Billy,” said JT. “It’s mortuary property all the way down to Doll Factory. You can wait down at the crossroads or up the road at the diner, but you cannot park here.”
“Since when did you join the gestapo, JT?” Billy asked in a disappointed tone.
The skin around JT’s eyes tightened. When he wanted to, JT’s face could transform from the genial nerd Samuel Jackson from
Billy Trout tried to outstare JT Hammond, but he knew that it was a lost game before it started. He had no cards to play.
So, without another word, he turned around, gestured curtly for Goat to get in the car, and within ten seconds he was driving down the road. Just to piss off the two cops he broke the speed limit all the way. It was a silly little victory and it made him feel about three inches tall.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“This is Magic Marti at the mike with news from the exact middle of nowhere. If you’re in a hurry this morning, steer clear of Doll Factory Road east of Mason Street. There’s some police activity in the area and we’re getting a rubbernecker slowdown.”
“Time for an update on that storm that’s grinding its way here from Pittsburgh. Heavy winds have picked up, and we’re seeing fifty-mile-per-hour sustained winds and gusts reported up to ninety miles per hour. The National Weather Service has classified it as a Category One hurricane, and there are reports of moderate damage to motor homes, billboards, and other light structures, as well as small to moderate stream flooding. It’s expected to hit our area in two hours, so expect a list of school and business closings.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“How the hell did he find out about this?” growled Dez as they watched Billy Trout’s car vanish.
JT shrugged. “Maybe he was monitoring the police radio and heard the call.”
“Doesn’t explain how he knows about Gibbon.”
JT shrugged. “He’s a good reporter, Dez. He probably has sources. Maybe in the department, maybe with the courts, or even the prison. Could have been anyone, and it’s moot. He knows and now this circus is going to turn into a state fair. This will draw down the big media. CNN, Fox, and everyone else.”
“Yeah.”
JT looked at Dez, who was rubbing her temples and wincing. “Why are you so hard on that young man,” he asked.
“Don’t start.”
“Dez—”
“Billy wants too much. He wants shit that I can’t give.”
“I know what he wants, Dez. I was there the last five or six hundred times you two broke up. What I can’t understand is why you’re always giving him such a hard time. I’ve seen you treat wife-beating meth addicts with more compassion. All the boy did was ask you—”
“What’s it to
JT pointed a finger at her. “Don’t take that tone with me, girl.”
Dez glared at him for a moment, then her eyes shifted away. “Sorry.”
In a softer tone, JT said, “It matters a lot what happens to you, Dez. You’ve been a raging bitch since the last breakup. You were drinking too much before, and now—”
Dez’s hands were clenched into fists. “Listen, Dr. Phil, I don’t need you to tell me how fucked up my life is. The real news flash is that I’m doing okay with it. Fucked up is my comfort zone, so stop trying to be my mother.”
“If I was your mother I’d send you to your room.”
Dez stabbed a finger toward the mortuary. “Is this about what happened in there? You trying to build a case for diminished capacity or something? Poor Dez, she’s so torn up with a broken heart that she’s been pickling her brain in Jack Daniels. Can’t trust a fucking word she says these days. Pink elephants and—”
“What’s with you today, Dez? You keep thinking that I didn’t back your play in there, but if you’d stop shouting at everyone for two minutes maybe you’ll remember that I sure as hell backed you up.”
“You sold me out in there. You didn’t believe me and you didn’t back me up.”
“The hell I did. I had your back then and I have it now. All the way, and you damn well know it. I told the chief the only version of the story that makes sense, so stop trying to alienate everyone. I am not your enemy. Neither, by the way, is Billy Trout or the rest of the human race.”
Her eyes blazed with icy blue challenge. “So, you’re saying that you believe that the Russian broad attacked me?”
“How many ways would you like me to say it?”
She poked him hard in the chest with a stiffened finger. “Then why didn’t you say so when we were inside?”
JT pushed her finger aside. “Because I was in shock, what the hell do you think? You were in shock, too. At that moment I didn’t know what to think about anything. Can you stand there and tell me that everything that’s
