Homefront

the water beaded up glistening on her back, jiggling where her smooth ass…

Oh, yeah.

Shower running, little chain hanging down from the lightbulb got to dancing as she grabbed the sides of the sink with both hands to brace against the thrust of his hips.

“Ain’t you slippery.” He groaned.

He watched the muscles in her arms and back tense, corded, popping sweat; her voice a throaty chant: “One a…these days…gonna…tear…this sink clear outa THE WALL!!!”

When her cherries lined up, she just paid and paid-ca-ching-ca-ching-the coin coming in a hard hot rush handled endlessly, loaded by the sackful…

Gator just holding on now; ears plugged with blood, other parts of him getting away, runny with his sweat, her sweat. Panting, staggering back, he watched the cannibal gene seep down the inner curve of her thigh. Only way it worked for him. Worked really good. Here in this damn moldy room with the floor joists rotting out under the crummy linoleum. Sheryl, thinking he had potential, patiently went along. All year they’d been starting like this, here in the bathroom.

Breathing not quite returned to normal, Sheryl rolled to the side and sat heavily on the toilet seat; hair tangled, arms down straight between her knees like a spent runner.

“So much for foreplay,” she said, getting her breath.

Gator grinned, wiping off, doing up his jeans.

The real sex happened out in the shop, where everything was clean and in its place.

Where they talked about the plan. And where he would reveal his find.

Chapter Eighteen

Broker drove back home, parked the truck, climbed up into the bed, and kicked the garbage bin off his tailgate. Standing there in the sour wind, he gauged the anger pulsing in his throat, hot in his chest.

Usually his anger was fast surface burn, like spit hissing on a griddle. This was inside, and he couldn’t get it out. It just kept circuiting on this loop. His eyes traveled back into the woods, where he’d left Kit’s toy stuck on the pole. Sagging, he got down, closed the tailgate, and straightened up the bin, positioning it where it belonged.

Should call Griffin. He knows these people.

But Griffin had a tendency to go from insult to breaking bones in seconds flat; once he got involved, it might be impossible to hold him in check. Have to think about that.

He went inside, and after confirming that Nina was sleeping upstairs, he resolved to work it off. Clean the house. Stow the clutter. Wipe down the surfaces. If not a solution, at least a distraction. First he moved all the unpacked boxes into the garage and arranged them neatly along one wall. Then he attacked the downstairs bathroom, where he got stuck for a moment staring at the cat litter box as Kit’s words from this morning washed back in a wave.

When I die, will I get to see Ditech again?

Like dying was a reasonable price to pay to be reunited with a cat? Did he think like that when he was eight? He stood, holding a scrub pad and Comet cleanser, peering at the lathered washbasin, trying to remember. The main thing he recalled was his mother yelling at him about wearing a hat and unthawing his fingers and toes after playing hockey until after dark in subfreezing weather.

He shook it off, removed the cat box, and put it in the garage. When he finished in the bathroom, he went into the living room and stacked Nina’s weights in a tidy row. Then he brought a basket of laundry from upstairs and loaded the washer.

As he stuffed in towels and washcloths, he speculated how Mrs. Helseth’s admonition to contact the sheriff would now be complicated by his ad hoc garbage dump at Klumpe’s office. Then he considered how he had not advised Nina about his engagement in low-intensity yokel warfare. How he had enlisted Kit as an accomplice in keeping mom out of the loop.

He revisited his talk with Susan Hatch, who had weighed in with more advice. Both Helseth and Hatch were suggesting he needed filling in on Cassie and Jimmy’s “local soap opera.”

That he was getting his foot into…

Twenty minutes later he left the bathroom in perfect sparkling order.

As he opened the hall closet and took out the Kenmore canister, he caught himself again and looked upstairs. Vacuuming would wake her. Take a break.

There was still coffee in the thermos on the kitchen island, so he poured some into a travel cup, put on his coat and boots, and went out on the back deck, where he sat down on the steps and lit a cigar.

Didn’t work. He found himself staring at his footprints in the snow, leading into the trees. Where he’d been out walking around last night with a loaded shotgun.

Okay. Klumpe was here. But he could have found the bunny in the truck when he knifed the tire.

If he knifed the tire.

There was even a chance Broker had not entirely closed the garage door and the cat had escaped on her own. But someone-Klumpe-had definitely removed the cat’s collar and strapped it on the toy and rammed it on the pole at the trail intersection.

Kit was still missing her cat.

With considerable effort, Broker tried to step back from the spiral of anger and evaluate motive. You humiliated Klumpe in front of his wife and kid. No need to slap the choke hold on him like that. The sheriff was getting out of his car. All you had to do was back up.

He’d always taken his ability to function under pressure for granted…

Broker sipped his coffee, puffed on the cigar, and watched the smoke dissipate in the wind. Kinda like Nina, always taking her iron will for granted.

Okay. So maybe it was time to back off. Reach out.

Broker actually grimaced at the idea of calling Griffin and asking for personal help. Help with Nina was one thing. But help for him personally…Jesus…

Up till now Griffin had provided a place to stay and the bare bones of a cover story. That done, he stayed at a respectful distance. How much did he know? Broker assumed Griffin gossiped with J. T. Merryweather and Harry Cantrell. They all used to come up here to hunt. He was one of the few “civilians” those two allowed into their confidence.

Face it. The problem with reaching out to Griffin-besides his tendency to overreact-was that he was a Vesuvius of advice waiting to erupt. He had almost thirty years saved up, twenty-five years of it stone cold sober. And Griffin tended to be blunt.

And even being longtime friends, they had some issues.

Broker finished his cigar and came back into the kitchen. He was still pondering making the call when Nina wandered in, doing her bathrobe shuffle but, Broker observed, with a little more swing than usual. She stopped, cocked her head to the side, and said, “Broker, you feeling all right? You don’t look so hot.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, backing up a step. Not used to her making and maintaining direct eye contact. Not used to seeing the hint of color in her cheeks. “Just cleaning the place up.”

She nodded, “Uh-huh. How’d it go with the principal this morning?”

“Ah, they’re moving her to a different home base, away from the kid she hit. No recess for a week. They’ll keep an eye out,” he said, thinking, first eye contact, now she’s tracking and making conversation. Christ, she is coming back. Not used to being scrutinized by her green eyes, he had to remind himself that Nina coming back was a good thing.

Then she poured a cup of coffee and took up her position at the stove, flipped on the overhead fan, and lit a cigarette. Broker was actually relieved when she pointed the TV remote like an escapist wand. The set popped on, dropping an electronic curtain over the room and hopefully cloaking his agitation.

For once he didn’t mind.

Usually the cable shows reminded him of undercover work that had taken him into endless barrooms where it was always 11:00 P.M. The time when the smart people had long departed and only the drunks remained, yelling