A light tapping at my door barely made me stir and I tried to put a look on my face that seemed a lot more neutral than the pained one I’d been sporting ever since I got home.
“Come in,” I mumbled. I didn’t have to talk too loud to get through these thin walls.
My mother’s signature shuffle crept up behind me. She rarely walked and never strode—she had this way of moving around that reminded me of a mouse, hands tucked close to her body, spine gently curved in a protective posture. I vaguely remembered a time when she was full of life and color, long ago. She used to sing and dance and wear bright red lipstick. I never saw her like that anymore. The more she morphed into this shadow of her former self, the more I started to wonder if I had imagined it all.
“Daisy.” Her voice was a gentle question.
“I saw Kash,” I said bitterly. “He offered to help me with the beer.”
“Oh, that was nice of him. How is he?”
I shot her a sideways look. “I didn’t bother to ask.”
“Oh?”
Her bafflement was enough to stir up the emotions that had gone cold, and I sat up on the bed and stared at her.
“Why would I ask him that, mom? Why should I care? Why do you care?”
Her lips tilted into the weak ghost of a smile. “He was Hunter’s favorite person, next to you. He was like a son to me, once. I think it’s natural to wonder how he’s been, don’t you?”
I gaped. “No! No, I don’t think it’s natural at all! What’s natural is the desire to squeeze his head until it pops between your hands, to want to hog-tie him to the back of a truck and drag him until his skin falls off, to—”
“Daisy, please.” She shook her head, her cheeks pale. “I understand you’re angry. And you have all right to be. But…” she paused, her voice growing smaller. “That graphic language upsets me.”
Graphic language? Shouldn’t the graphic violence of her life upset her more than a little colorful language? I never could understand her. But I moved closer to her on the bed and she patted my knee.
“It’s hard for all of us,” she said quietly. “Hardest on you, I think.”
“He was your son.”
“Yes.” She inhaled as though she was going to elaborate further, but she didn’t. She breathed it out and offered a small smile. “I’ll get you some dinner. You’ll feel better after you eat.”
She kissed my forehead and left me feeling more confused than ever. Kash was locked up for the murder of her son. Just like everyone in this town, I was sure that she believed they’d caught the right guy and now, here he was, roaming our streets once again. Why wasn’t my mother more pissed off about this? Why wasn’t she calling for a march to overthrow the injustice of Kash being let out early on a stupid technicality. At least that’s what the papers were all saying. But the papers also said the world was going to end last year.
Fury was so comfortable, an emotion so sure of itself that it left no room for doubt. It was clarity, pure and simple. I’d expected it to be answered by my mother’s own subdued version of anger, validated by her pain. Uncertainty crept in around the edges. Did she know something I didn’t, or could she just not bring herself to be angry at a man she’d doted on as a second son? Or was she just like me, unbelieving that Kash could ever do such a thing. But at least I had the sense to still be mad at him.
“Hell, even if he was innocent, he still ghosted me for six years,” I said weakly.
I eyed my laptop. Newspapers weren’t the only source of information. I could do the research myself and find out how he actually got out of prison. I scowled and tossed a blanket over the machine.
“I’m not going to give him the satisfaction,” I said out loud. “He did it, everybody knows it, that’s the end of it.” That’s what I needed to believe. Because…well, if not him, then who?
It wasn’t the end of it. Not even close.
Chapter 3
It’s real easy to decide where to go when you’ve only got one option. Didn’t mean I had to like it, though. Problem is, the only place I wanted to be was wherever Daisy was, and she didn’t want me anywhere near her.
I rolled my right wrist, loosening it up—the memory of all the unanswered letters I’d written aggravated the carpal tunnel I’d gotten in the process.
“Guess words don’t fix shit,” I muttered. “Get it over with, man.”
The only motel in town was a three-story cube near the center of town. It was the oldest building we had, complete with hitching post and water trough. Every year Danton would clean it up and petition the historical society to make it a landmark. Every year, the historical society would call the fire marshal, who would write citations for the ancient wiring and windows. It was a whole thing around here.
The door screamed as I pushed it open, calling old memories back to life.
“Welcome to the Danton Daily, Weekly, Monthly,” a pile of paperwork on the front desk said in a rushed monotone. “What’cha need?”
I winced. Of course he still owned this place. Who else would want it? My fantastic day was just getting better and better.
“Monthly,” I said.
He popped up from behind the paperwork like a ferret. His janky teeth stuck out over his bottom lip, his lazy eye rolling wildly while the other one stared hard. His hair, always prematurely gray, stuck out all over the place except for a saucer-sized patch on the very top of his head that shone under the dimmed lighting.
“Kash? ‘Zat you?”
“Hey, Leroy.”
“What’chu doin’ here? I thought they got you for life! I’ve
