For You

Chapter Seven Amy

I woke up in the same position I fell asleep, Colt’s hand though, was no longer on my ass but resting heavy on my hip. Wilson was at our feet.

I knew that day it would be time to share. Not with Colt, with Jessie, Meems or Delilah.

Because I fucked up royally last night.

Last night, lying in Colt’s bed, the night we shared replaying in my head, the night before, the phone calls that day, the kisses, the fact that this was all coming from Colt – just thinking about all of it turned me on. So much, I considered taking care of myself.

Before I could, his phone rang and I heard the murmur of his voice and I knew, I just knew, it was about me. It was about Colt taking care of me, Colt keeping me safe, Colt sleeping three hours and taking phone calls late in an all out effort to end my nightmare.

So I waited for the call to end and I knew what I was going to do. I didn’t come to the decision. I just knew I was going to do it. I didn’t think about it because thinking about it would stop me from doing it and I didn’t want anything to stop me.

It wasn’t smart. It was stupid but I wanted it and I had the feeling Colt wanted it, I was going to give it to him and I’d worry about it later.

The same old stupid February.

So I did it.

Now there I was and it was all on the line, with family, with friends, with Colt.

I should have waited to see how it played out, what would happen after all of this shit was over.

But I didn’t.

Same old stupid February.

I moved carefully, rolling away from him, deciding I needed yoga or tequila. Seeing as it was morning, I’d have to pick yoga though I would have preferred tequila.

My roll placed my back to him. I was nowhere near the other side of the bed when he caught me with an arm around my waist.

“Where you goin’?” His voice was gruff with sleep and it was at my ear because he’d pulled me back into his body.

“Feed Wilson,” I told him.

His other arm slid under me. “Wilson can wait.”

“Wilson doesn’t like –”

I stopped speaking because his hands moved, one down my belly to between my legs, one up to cup my breast. Then his finger and thumb closed on my nipple and at the feel of it, so magnificent, I automatically pressed my ass into his groin and arched my back to push my breast into his hand.

“That’s my girl,” he whispered in my ear and kissed my neck and his words accompanied by his fingers worked sheer magic.

It didn’t take long before I was riding his hand, my neck twisted, my face pressed in the pillows to stifle my moans.

“Give me your mouth, Feb,” Colt demanded and I didn’t make him wait. Immediately, my neck twisted the other way.

He pushed up and kissed me and it was better than any kiss before which was saying something. Better than any kiss from him, better than any kiss I’d ever had. It was the best.

His mouth broke from mine as my hips started jerking.

“That’s it, take yourself there,” he encouraged against my mouth.

“Alec.”

“That’s it baby.”

My hips reared, I was close and getting desperate.

“Alec.” His name sounded like a plea.

“You want my cock?”

“Yes,” I whispered. I could feel it, hard, pressing against my ass and I knew what it felt like driving in deep and I wanted it more than breath.

“Tilt your ass, honey.”

I did as I was told, he gave me what I wanted and slid inside, his hand between my legs still working me, his other hand slid up, to my jaw, keeping my neck twisted. He was thrusting, I was gasping, closer, reaching for it.

Colt’s gravelly words gave it to me. “Come around my cock, Feb.”

Again, I did as I was told.

It had never been better. He was the best I ever had.

And last night was even better, coming twice, long, hard, in quick succession, unheard of, unbelievable, brilliant.

This time, more of the same, nothing like it. Soul shattering.

And I knew it wasn’t just because it was great, I knew it was because it was Colt.

I came down and kept my ass offered to him as he continued thrusting, my hand moving down his arm, going between my legs, covering his, holding our hands together, feeling him driving in and out of me.

“You feel beautiful,” I whispered and it was the truth.

“Baby,” he growled.

My hand tightened on his. “Nothing like it, Alec, nothing better than you.”

He buried himself deep and groaned into my hair and I squeezed his hand even tighter.

He settled into my back, his hips moving gently like last night, gliding out an inch then coming back in, keeping the connection while giving me a sweet, intimate caress.

I liked it, too much. I was right, he felt beautiful.

I was so stupid.

“Next time,” Colt said into the back of my hair, sounding sated yet weirdly disgruntled, “I’m gonna fuck you so I can see you when you come.”

I wanted to be the smart February who declared there’d be no next time but instead I was the stupid February who knew there would definitely be a next time, no matter what was at stake even if what was at stake was everything.

“Babe, I need to feed Wilson,” I whispered though Wilson was now gone and I couldn’t hear him meowing which was strange.

Colt’s arms grew tight before they grew lax.

“I’m gonna sleep in,” he moved and I knew it was to bend when he kissed my shoulder blade, “wake me in an hour?”

It was a request so I said, “Sure.”

He slid out of me, his arms giving me another squeeze as he did and when he let go I scooted off the bed.

I made the mistake of turning to look at him. Colt was up on a forearm, just a few inches, and his eyes were drifting over my body. I didn’t know what he saw. I’d never been particularly modest, I didn’t go around flaunting it but with a lover I also didn’t hide it.

With Colt, it was different. I wanted him to see what he wanted to see. I wasn’t sixteen anymore, not even twenty, hell, not even thirty. He wasn’t either but his body was fantastic, better than back then, bulkier, stronger. I wanted him to think the same thing and I couldn’t be certain he did.

I rushed to my shirt and yanked it on. Then I did the same with my panties and I started to the door.

“Baby, come here,” Colt called and I made another mistake and turned again.

He was fully up on a forearm, his hair messy, his face gentle.

I’d touched his hair last night and I’d forgotten how it felt, thick and soft, long enough for me to trail my fingers through it. I loved Colt’s hair, always did.

Looking in his gentle eyes, feeling the specter of his hair sliding along my fingers, still feeling him inside me, feeling sweetly bruised between my legs and liking it, all of it, made my feet take me to him.

I planted a knee in the bed, leaning forward. I did this all without thinking about it. His soft call, his look, the memory of what we’d shared, it was like an invisible lasso, roping me in.

He reached out, his hand wrapped around the back of my head and he brought me down to kiss me, a sweet touch of tongues before his mouth disengaged and he moved back an inch.

“I’ll be in the mood for more than toast when I get up,” he told me.

“Gotcha,” I replied, deciding that, if he wanted more than toast, he would get it. I’d make him a breakfast smorgasbord. I’d comb the woods for truffles on my hands and knees, nose to the forest floor if that’s what he wanted.

He grinned and let me go.

And I fled the room but tried to do it looking like I wasn’t.

An hour later I was back in the room.

It wasn’t the first time I came back.

After feeding a surprisingly quiet Wilson (who seemed to be giving a mind to my parents, who were to my horror for some reason sleeping on the pull out couch in the living room, Dad snoring softly), I’d gone back to the room.

Colt had been asleep on his stomach, one knee lifted, one arm thrown out. He looked good in his sleep but he looked good all the time so I shouldn’t have been surprised. But there was something about him sleeping, not like it was when we were younger and I used to wake sometimes and watch him sleep for awhile and remind myself of all the reasons I loved him before I went back into a doze. Now it seemed strange to see his energy shut down like it’d been switched off, because it was so much a part of him. Colt, who I’d known since he was five, was suddenly all new to me.

I’d taken my yoga clothes into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face and changed then quietly left to make coffee, scan the contents of the fridge for ideas for Colt’s breakfast smorgasbord and try to be quiet while doing breakfast prep work so as not to awaken my loved ones in the house, all of whom were there to keep me together, keep me safe, keep me strong.

But now it was time to wake Colt and I had no idea how to do it.

I sat on the bed and leaned deep, he was far away but I wanted to be at his front not his back so I could see him as he woke. I reached out a hand and slid my fingertips around his ear, something I’d do when he was agitated years ago. Pissed at something he heard his Mom did. Anxious and trying not to show it when his Dad killed those kids while drunk driving and got arrested, put on trial and thrown in prison. It always worked, my touch and back then when I did it, it made me feel like I had magical powers.

His eyes opened at my touch and he half rolled.

“Sorry, babe, it’s been an hour,” I whispered and gave him a smile. “I’ll make breakfast.”

I pulled away and started to exit the bed when his arm came around my waist and I was flying back, surprised my body was out of control. My legs went flying in the air, my back hit his chest, my ass collided with his hip and then I slid as he twisted me around. My back landed on the bed and Colt’s torso leaned into mine, my thighs over his hips, his mouth went to my neck and he kissed me there.

“Colt –”

His hand slid down my side and he lifted his head so his eyes could watch it move. “What’s this?”

I looked down wondering if I spilled coffee on my top, it wouldn’t have been the first time.

“What?”

“What you’re wearing.”

I looked back at his face. “Yoga outfit.”

His eyes moved to mine. “I like it.”

“Colt –”

“It’s tight,” he noted, his hand moving along the material at my ribs.

“Colt –”

His hand moved up and I drew in breath when he palmed my breast and his fingertips slid across the top edge of my yoga camisole. “Cleavage.”

I couldn’t help it, I smiled. “You act like you’ve never seen cleavage before.”

“Seen it, even seen a hint of yours, baby. But never had you in my bed so I could see it close up.”

He had but just not recently.

“Colt –”

“And touch it.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Nice,” he finished.

His word gave me a curl between my legs.

Still, I said, “You have bad guys to pursue and I have to make you breakfast so you don’t faint from malnutrition while doing it so let me up.”

He grinned at me. “Never fainted in my life, Feb.”

“Well, let’s not start today.”

He didn’t stop grinning when his head bent and he kissed me. It wasn’t brief, a touch of the tongues but deep and thorough and I liked it so much, I lifted my hand and slid it into his hair to lock his mouth to mine.

When he was done with my mouth, he pulled away, his eyes scanned my face and his expression got serious.

“We need to talk, Feb.”

Shit. He was right. Still, I didn’t want to talk, not then, not ever. I was willing to ride this out, see where it went, bear the consequences if it went bad. But I didn’t want to talk about it.

“I’ll make reservations at Costa’s tonight,” he went on.

“Costa’s?” I whispered, forgetting I didn’t want to talk.

As I mentioned, I loved Costa’s and hadn’t been there for years, not since Mom and Dad’s 40^th Wedding Anniversary.

His grin came back and he said, “Yeah.”

“Morrie took Dee and the kids there last night.”

“I know. Morrie isn’t fucking around in his quest to take the ‘trial’ out of their trial reconciliation.”

“I noticed,” I replied but I was thinking about Colt and me at Costa’s.

You didn’t mess around when you went to Costa’s. Anyone seeing us there would know it was a date or possibly think we were back together. And the last couple of days it seemed even though it was weird that Colt and I were dating. And last night it couldn’t be denied, Colt and I had gotten back together.

And I liked that idea so much I didn’t give a thought to the talk that would happen at Costa’s.

Instead, I thought of something else.

I’d have to wear something other than jeans and a t-shirt or sweater or cardigan and I hadn’t worn something other than that in so long I didn’t even know what I owned that I could wear. And I didn’t want to go to my place to find out.

Then it hit me.

Jessie.

Jessie would see me through this latest trauma. Jessie was a master shopper. Mimi could kick the shit out of a catalogue but Jessie knew every mall from here to Chicago like the back of her hand.

“Hello? February? Are you in the room?” Colt called and his face wasn’t serious anymore when I focused on him.

“I need to call Jessie.”

His eyebrows drew together. “Honey, how did Costa’s and us talking bring you to Jessie?”

“I need something to wear.”

His head jerked with surprise then his face grew soft then he kissed me again, rolling into me, his hands moving on me, he was taking this somewhere.

Before it got there, I broke my mouth from his and whispered, “Colt, the door’s open and my parents are on the pull out.”

His neck twisted and he looked at the door before his eyes returned to me. “Got a rule, baby. Jack and Jackie are in the house, you’re in my room, you close the door. Yeah?”

He was being very bossy. Furthermore, you could hear everything in that house. The door could be closed and we could prop a mattress against it and Mom and Dad would be able to hear every word, every sound.

Still, without hesitation I said, “Yeah.”

He rolled again, over me and off the side, his hands firm on me and taking me with him to put me on my feet. Then he turned me around and slapped my ass.

“Make me breakfast,” he ordered and I threw him a look over my shoulder and wished I hadn’t. I’d seen a lot of his body when he wandered around in his shorts but I hadn’t seen it all. I wasn’t wrong that it was great, even better than when he was a young athlete in his prime. Unbelievable.

“Honey, you gonna stare at my cock or you gonna make me breakfast?” Colt asked, I jumped and I could swear I felt my cheeks get warm. I was a forty-two year old woman. What was wrong with me?

“Right,” I mumbled and got the hell out of there.

Dad was standing by the pull out, stretching and wearing his boxers and a wife beater. Mom was up on her ass, her back to the back of the couch, pulling her hair out of her face.

I pressed my lips together when both of their eyes came to me.

“Forgot this feelin’,” Dad noted, “draggin’ your ass in the house after working ‘til the mornin’ hours.”

“Me too,” Mom replied throwing the covers back, “bone tired.”

“You owe us darlin’,” Dad told me.

I was happy to owe Dad. Reggie’s, beer and all that had happened with Colt last night and that morning would be worth whatever he wanted me to pay.

“Well take that times two because you’ll probably need to do it again tonight,” I said back and hit the kitchen.

I could have this conversation but I was on a mission. The shower was on in Colt’s master bath and I didn’t know how much time I had. Yesterday, Colt took no time at all getting ready. Today, he didn’t have anything pressing but Colt didn’t strike me as a man who primped. I could have only ten minutes.

“How’s that?” Dad asked.

“Colt and I are going to Costa’s,” I answered.

Again the same, old, stupid February. I should have kept my mouth shut.

“What?” Mom whispered and seeing as I was turning on the broiler of the oven, my head snapped up and around.

Mom was staring at me. Dad was staring down the hall.

I didn’t know what they thought when they came in last night and saw the couch empty but whatever they thought didn’t trouble them. Or maybe they were too tired to worry about it. Most likely they trusted Colt to take care of me.

Now, dawn was rising.

“I’ll explain later. Colt’s gotta get to work and I gotta make his frittata.”

“Frittata?” Mom whispered again and I sucked in breath at another display of my stupidity.

I was famous for my frittatas. When I was away, every time I came home Frittata Morning was always scratched on the schedule. Morrie, particularly, loved my frittatas. They were revered. They were like Christmas morning or a reservation at Costa’s. They were a special occasion even though they were easy to make. Still, they were good even I had to admit that.

“Mom, just… let me concentrate.”

“Sure thing, honey.”

I started the burner under the skillet that had pre-prepared raw, scissored bacon pieces in it, the eggs, chopped mushrooms and minced garlic would go in later. The shredded cheddar cheese I would toss on top before I slid it under the broiler.

I did this at the same time I started the toast. I was multitasking, on a mission, why this was so important to me; I wasn’t going to go there. It just was.

While I was cooking, Mom and Dad were taking turns in the hallway bathroom, Mom making the pull out, Dad pushing it back in, Mom returning the cushions.

I wasn’t wrong, Colt didn’t primp. Mom and Dad weren’t even dressed when he came out, jeans, belt, boots, shirt, hair wet, badge on belt, blazer and shoulder holster in his hand. He threw them on the dining table and hit the kitchen as I was sliding the frittata under the broiler to finish it off.

I wondered how this would play out, me and Colt after our colossal shift having breakfast with Mom and Dad in attendance.

Colt didn’t touch me as he went straight to the coffee and I tried not to be disappointed. Instead, I pulled out plates.

“Feb’s giving us an impromptu Frittata Morning,” Mom announced, hitting the kitchen and the coffeepot too, wearing her Mom nightgown that was cotton and had cap sleeves, little flowers embroidered around the neck. It hit her at her knees and made her look like the Mom she was.

“Yeah?” Colt answered and the far away way he said this made my eyes move from the cutlery drawer to him.

He was leaning against the kitchen counter, one fist wrapped around the handle of a coffee mug, this held up and forgotten. His other hand was out, his fingers poking at my jewelry. Something about him doing this, and the way he was, his neck twisted and bent, his eyes on my jewelry, his mind definitely elsewhere, made me stop and watch.

He pulled my choker free, carefully straightening it so it was flat on the counter top. He picked out my earrings, placing them together by the choker. Next came the rings, which he set in a row. He did this with what seemed like a strange reverence, fascinated by the process, his touch light on my jewelry and I felt it on each piece, as if his fingers were at my knuckles, my ears, my throat. It felt nice.

“Coffee, Jackie, I’m flaggin’,” Dad said as he slid his boxer-clad ass onto one of Colt’s stools.

I pulled myself together and dumped the cutlery by the plates, turning to grab the mountain of buttered toast I’d made and then turning back to place it up on the bar by Dad.

Mom gave Dad his coffee and I pulled the frittata out of the oven then switched it off then grabbed a plate and a spatula to start serving.

“You ever have Feb’s frittata, son?” I heard Dad ask Colt and I didn’t look to see if he was still engrossed in my jewelry.

“Nope,” Colt answered and his voice was no longer far away.

“In for a treat,” Dad muttered and I slid Colt’s piece on a plate, twisted and handed it to him.

“It’s just essentially scrambled eggs,” I said to Dad, not looking at Colt but feeling him take the plate.

“Yeah, scrambled eggs injected with a slice of fuckin’ heaven,” Dad replied.

I went back to serving up frittata and decided to change the subject.

“Dad, can you go by my place after the frittata and pick up my yoga mat?” I asked, still serving and handing Mom a plate which she moved to set in front of Dad.

“Sure thing, darlin’, after my mornin’ constitutional.”

I handed Mom her plate, grabbed my coffee and turned to Dad.

“After frittata, your constitutional, you goin’ over to my pick it up and coming back, me doing yoga and then getting a shower, I’ll be late to open.”

“Don’t miss my constitutional, February,” Dad said and this was true.

“You can have it when you get back,” I told him and this was true too though I doubted he’d go for it as nothing messed with his morning schedule. Not even a daughter who seriously needed the relaxation of yoga.

“Feb –”

“I’ll get it,” Colt said and my eyes went to him, most of his frittata was gone, he had a forkful arrested halfway to his mouth and was looking at Dad. “There may be crime scene tape on the door and it’s best I go in for it.”

I forgot about that.

“Don’t you have work?” I asked.

“Won’t take fifteen minutes,” Colt answered. “I’ll get it, bring it back and then get to work.”

I couldn’t argue with that and didn’t want to. It was nice of him and I was beginning to like the nice things he did for me. I’d been taking care of myself for awhile, keeping myself to myself, I hadn’t had that in a long time.

“Thanks,” I said quietly and looked away.

“Jesus, darlin’, you outdone yourself with this one,” Dad proclaimed, mouth full.

“It’s scrambled eggs, Dad.”

“It’s fuckin’ beautiful, Feb.”

“Whatever,” I whispered, feeling embarrassed. This was, of course, the effect I was going for, for whatever reason, but getting it made me uncomfortable.

“Why aren’t you havin’ any?” Colt asked and my eyes went to him and then skittered over his shoulder.

“I don’t eat before yoga,” I informed him.

“Missin’ out, baby,” he said softly and my eyes skittered right back and I felt a warm heaviness hit me in three different places in my torso and I wondered if my camisole was holding up or if everyone could see my nipples had gotten hard.

They ate in silence and then Colt moved to take his plate to the sink. He turned, reaching around me to grab a slice of toast off the stack. He was behind me and I felt his hand hit the small of my back.

“Walk me to the door, Feb,” he said in my ear.

I followed him to the dining table where he stopped, the toast in his teeth, to shrug on his holster and blazer then I followed him to the door.

He took a bite of the toast and as he chewed his other hand came to the top of my neck, under my jaw, his thumb jutting out to press under my chin and lift my face.

“Great mornin’, baby,” he whispered and that heady heaviness in my breasts and between my legs got headier. “Which means me askin’ this is gonna suck.”

“Oh shit,” I said.

“Sully says Nowakowski wants you to make another list. The fifteen years you been away.”

I pulled in breath through my nostrils then I let it go and nodded which wasn’t easy with his thumb at my chin.

“They’ll need to know where to find ‘em so if you know, even last known whereabouts, you add that to the list.”

I nodded again.

He took in a breath before he said, “It’ll help them to know what they did. They might be able to lock down a victimology, try to guess who’s next. You’ll need to record that too and try and be thorough.”

I didn’t like doing this at all, but the last part I really didn’t like.

“Give yourself some time, do it after yoga,” Colt said. “You finish, you call me. Have someone walk it down to the Station when you get into the bar.”

I nodded again.

His face changed, I couldn’t put my finger on how but, I swear to God, it seemed like he looked like he was proud of me.

“I’ll call you when I get a reservation, tell you the time,” he said.

I nodded yet again.

“‘Tween then and now, honey, I suspect lots of shit is gonna go through your brain.”

He wasn’t wrong.

“Colt –”

He cut me off. “Ignore it.”

I closed my eyes and opened them again when his lips touched mine.

He lifted his head an inch away and stated quietly, “This is good.”

He wasn’t wrong about that either.

“Promise me, whatever marches through that head of yours, you stick with me. Tonight we’ll talk it out.”

“Colt –”

“Don’t say my name, give me your promise.”

I sucked in breath and when I let it out, I whispered, “I promise.”

His thumb left my chin to trail along my cheek.

Then he said, “I’ll be back soon as I can with your mat.”

“Thanks.”

“Later, baby.”

“Later.”

Then he let me go, unlocked the door and disappeared.

I turned to my parents and they were both openly watching me and more than likely had been openly watching Colt and me.

“Don’t start,” I warned.

“Got nothin’ to say,” Dad replied, “you know how we feel.”

I did and that didn’t help that feeling of fear that kept gnawing at my belly. Though it did make that feeling of happiness that was coating the region of my chest intensify more than a little bit.

“February,” Mom called when I dropped my head to look at the floor as I walked to the kitchen.

I lifted my head to look at her.

“No matter what, we love you, you know that?”

My step stuttered but I recovered. Then I swallowed.

Then I said, “I know that.”

“Now, can I have the last of the frittata?” Dad asked, eyeing my piece left in the skillet.

“Jack! That’s for Feb,” Mom scolded.

“She can make another one.”

“Jack!”

I hit the kitchen, grabbed the skillet and tipped it over Dad’s plate, sliding the last of the frittata onto his.

“We’re even for last night,” I said when I completed this task.

“What I saw at that door, girl, we already were,” Dad replied.

Damn, but I was definitely stupid.

Colt collected Feb’s mat, took it to his house and took advantage of the fact that her father was in one bathroom, her mother in the other and she was alone. Therefore, he spent some time necking with her pressed against the wall at the side of the front door. He did it until she moaned in his mouth and then he stopped, partly because he liked the idea of turning her on and then coming back to her later after she had time to let it stew. Mostly, because he liked her moaning in his mouth and if he didn’t stop, he wouldn’t have.

He wasn’t going to think about what happened between him and Feb last night or that morning. He was going to wait and see where their conversation led tonight. For his part, he was willing to set the past where it belonged and move on from there and he was going to do everything he could to get Feb to come around to his way of thinking.

He drove to the Station, parking out back, going in the backdoor and up the backstairs. He checked in, checked his voicemail then he walked down the front and saw Sully in the conference room with what had to be Marie Lowe’s parents.

He only gave them a glance, didn’t want to get caught in what could seem like a stare. It wasn’t right nor was it kind to stare at someone who’d just been tossed into the pit of grief.

He noted a lot in his glance.

He saw they were from money which meant the house was likely not just Denny providing for his wife but his wife being a trust fund baby.

The father had finally given into age, he was letting himself go, had put on weight, didn’t hold it even sitting down like he was comfortable with it in his flesh. The mother hadn’t given in, she’d had work done on her face, she was ten pounds underweight and she spent a goodly amount to keep her hair that healthy and blonde. Their clothes were expensive and likely designer but they didn’t shout it. Marie’s parents didn’t have anyone to impress, the company they kept knew they were society. Even heading down to a small town on the news that their daughter had been murdered, they were put together well. Not because they gave a shit what anyone thought about them. It was habit, it was ingrained.

In his glance he also saw they were destroyed. They loved their daughter, it was clear to see and this had broken them. They weren’t young anymore but they had life left in them and for the rest of it this break would never heal.

Denny Lowe had caused that and the second after Colt slid his gaze away from Marie’s parents, he felt a swift rage burn through him, worse than anything he felt at what Denny did to Feb or Jack and Jackie, Morrie and him. When they caught that fucker, his family’s fear and anguish would fade, time would heal their wounds. It’d leave a scar but it’d be a scar, a reminder, not an open, bleeding gash that would never close.

Only one thing Colt could do about his rage was what he intended to do. He headed out the front door and started toward the bank. It was two blocks and still, normally he would have driven it. But he hadn’t been to the gym since this business started and he found he had an abundance of energy. This shit wasn’t happening, he’d be taking the day off and working out that energy in his bed with Feb. Unfortunately, this shit was happening.

Dave Connolly was in his office with some clients when Colt got there. Colt scanned the teller’s stations and the name plates sitting on the high counters showed there were two Julies.

His scan also showed there was no Amy.

Colt gave Dave a chin lift and Dave gave Colt a “one minute” gesture with his hand. Colt nodded, headed back out, crossed the street and went to Mimi’s to get a coffee. Mimi eyed him the minute he came in and so did half of the dozen patrons she had in line and at her tables.

“Hey Colt.”

“Meems.”

Her eyes sparkled but then they usually did. Mimi VanderWal didn’t often get in bad moods not since he could remember. This was likely the cause of Al’s extreme devotion. Any man would count his lucky stars he woke up to that sparkle every day and went to bed beside it every night.

The sparkle turned playful and she asked loudly, “How’s Feb?”

Colt shook his head but answered, “Doin’ good.”

“She wup your ass at pool last night?”

“She took a game.”

“How many’d you have?”

“Four.”

Her smile went huge. “From what I hear, that’s four to you, one to her.”

There it was, Mimi announcing to the entire place that after years of avoidance Colt and Feb were now spending their time together playing pool. Most of them knew something was up, now Meems handed them another nuance.

It was time to put a lid on it. “Got work, Meems, can you get me an Americano?”

“Sure thing, you want a muffin?”

Colt decided to give her and his audience a bonus. “Nope, not hungry, had Feb’s frittata this mornin’.”

Mimi’s eyes got wide, she knew exactly what Feb making a frittata instead of some eggs and toast meant and she hooted, “Oowee, a February Owens Frittata Morning! Don’t tell Morrie, he’ll be pissed.”

Colt was done and his voice lowered when he said, “My coffee, Meems.”

She grinned when she replied, “Gotcha.”

When she finished his coffee and handed it to him as usual he reached for his wallet.

And as usual she said, “Colt, like I always say, money’s no good here. You serve and protect, I keep you caffeinated while you do it.”

And as usual he dug in his wallet, took out several ones and shoved them in the tip jar.

But not as usual when his fingers wrapped around the cardboard that surrounded the paper cup, Mimi didn’t let go.

“Cheerin’ for you, Colt,” she said quietly, words meant for him not her customers, “both you and Feb.”

Then she let his cup go and turned away before he could say a word.

When Colt returned to the bank, Dave was free and he didn’t hesitate in waving Colt into his glass-fronted office.

The minute Colt closed the door, Dave launched in, not sounding worried, sounding excited, fuck, the man was nearly jumping up and down in his chair. “Amy’s no call-no show today.”

Jesus, there it was. Amy was in thin air.

Colt, unlike Dave, was worried.

Seeing Angie Maroni and Marie Lowe and crime scene photos of Pete Hollister and Butch Miller would do that, considering instinct was telling him Amy was caught up in this shit. Colt barely knew her but he was learning about her and she lived her life protecting herself in a bubble of shyness. He found her hacked, he had no idea why, but it’d cut him deep.

He hid his reaction and took in Dave.

Some folk wanted nothing to do with cops or crime or crime investigation. Some did it when they had to but it was obvious they’d prefer their life had not veered down a course which would take them to a place they were involved. Some, like Dave, got off on it, their lives so small they welcomed any involvement in something bigger even if it had to do with hacked up bodies. Dave had no idea what this was about and he didn’t care. He was willing to play his role in this drama no matter what it was and he was going to play it to the full.

“Julie McCall in today?” Colt asked.

“Sure, she’s in,” Dave answered, ever helpful.

“Sorry to trouble your business, Dave, I know you’re busy but you got a place where I can talk to Julie in private?”

Dave did what Colt expected he’d do. He jumped up and rounded his desk, bobbing his head. He didn’t care if his customers had to wait in line for a teller. He just cared that his life, which was mostly the same every day and he was too lazy to do shit about it to make it better, was suddenly filled with something more important, no matter he didn’t know what that something was.

“Conference room,” Dave motioned to a big windowed room in the corner of the bank.

“Private, Dave.”

Dave’s eyes got big. “Oh! Yeah, right.” He thought about it and Colt clenched his teeth, thinking the guy was half moron. He had to know the bank like the back of his hand. “Staff room!” Dave announced. “Basement. No windows.”

Jesus, this guy was annoying him. Unfortunately, he also needed him.

Dave led Colt to the windowless, vacant room and said he’d be right back with Julie. He didn’t lie. Five minutes later Dave walked in with one of the two Julie tellers.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Dave said with extreme consideration and closed the door behind him.

Julie McCall eyed him up the way a lot of women did, interest and appreciation clear on her face and she was sure to take in his ring finger. He’d had that kind of thing all his life, even when everyone knew his mother and father were drunk and no good and even when everyone knew that he was taken by Feb or, later, Melanie.

He wasn’t interested in Julie McCall and there were a lot of reasons why. Most of them obvious but they also included the fact that she was unattractive and he knew she thought the opposite. She was lean and fit, not from being an athlete, from working out way too much to keep thin, going well past the good look of healthy to hit gaunt. She probably felt disgust for anyone overweight and had no problem saying it or showing it, mostly with her eyes, he was guessing. She was the kind to be able stare at anyone she thought inferior, do it openly and do it in a way that made them feel low. Her hair was two shades too blonde, looking false and not suiting her coloring. It was arranged in a style too young for her years and, unlike some women whose youthful personality let them not only get away with this kind of thing but it was appealing, it made her look desperate.

Colt found even though he hadn’t spoken a word to her or she to him, he didn’t like her and he couldn’t have been more surprised that Amy apparently did.

“How can I help you?” she asked, solicitous and even a bit suggestive, she had all day if he wanted to take it.

“I’m Lieutenant Alec Colton.”

She smiled and it was wincingly shrewd. “I know who you are.”

Definitely suggestive and he didn’t like that she knew who he was when he didn’t know her. But then again, most everyone in town knew him. It came with his history and with the job. The last mainly because any time Monica Merriweather reported on a case he was working and she made certain his picture was included with the article in the paper.

He motioned to the table. “If you don’t mind, Ms. McCall, I’d like to ask a few questions about Amy Harris.”

Her eyebrows shot up, she might have thought a lot of things about him wanting to talk to her but pathologically shy Amy wasn’t one of them.

“Amy?”

“Yes, Amy,” he waited until she sat and he sat close to her, not because he wanted to but because playing her game would get him what he needed.

“You want coffee?” he asked, his glance moving to the staff coffeepot in the corner.

“Nah, that coffee’s terrible. I always wait,” she eyed his cup, “I usually go to Mimi’s on break.”

Shared tastes, she was telling him, they had something in common.

He took a sip from his coffee before stating, “Amy’s no call-no show today.”

“Yeah, weird,” Julie said.

“Dave says you two are close.”

“Wouldn’t say anyone was close to Amy but, yeah, we have a laugh every once in awhile, me more than any of the other girls.” She was reconsidering her casual friendship with Amy, pleased that it finally bought her something she liked.

Colt caught his lip curl and kept going. “You speak to her recently?”

“Not since we left work Friday night.”

“She seem to be acting different lately?”

“How ‘different’?”

“Anything.”

She shook her head. “Nope, except she took that Maroni woman dying pretty hard.”

“Yeah?” Colt prompted.

Julie’s head tipped to the side, trying to read him, get a lock on what this was about. “Yeah. She was always nice to her. The rest of us…” she paused, her face showing her disgust as if a visit from Angie at her station tainted her in some way, “we did her business and got her to move on,” she leaned in and whispered, “Skank City.”

Colt tried to ignore the feel of his blood heating and went on. “They friends? You know, outside the bank.”

“Not that I know of. Amy went to high school with her. Told us all she was nice, always was, she just had a tough life. But Amy’s nice to everyone, much as she could be, seein’ as she’s screamin’ shy.”

“She say anything about Angie?” Colt asked.

“She wound up in this murder business?”

Fuck. He didn’t want his investigating Amy to get around. He wasn’t worried about the town; he was worried about Feb finding out.

“Nope, it’s just she came into J&J’s and she and I had a chat. She seemed distraught, I’m checkin’ up on her.” He forced a smile. “Occupational extra, got a worry about one of my citizens, I can do something about it.”

He was talking out his ass. He just hoped she wouldn’t know that.

She didn’t know it. She probably spent her evenings watching Survivor or Amazing Race and rooting for the biggest asshole in both, not watching cop shows.

“Only thing I know is, she was cut up about Angie Maroni,” Julie said. “Then again, anyone would be, knowin’ that person for awhile and them endin’ up murdered.”

Dead fucking end.

New direction.

It was a risk. Word about Marie was undoubtedly making the rounds. Word about Denny would be close on its heels. Soon, Julie McCall would link their chat to the murders and she’d talk, he had no doubt and he didn’t have the inclination to make any deal she would open to him to stop her mouth from running.

People were dying so he had no fucking choice.

“Do you know Denny Lowe?” he asked.

Another eyebrow raise then, “Um… yeah, sure. He’s a customer.”

“He come in a lot?”

“Sometimes Saturdays. He works.”

“He seem partial to Amy’s station?”

She shook her head, now confused. “Not really,” she was thinking, trying to recall, “actually, thinkin’ about it, can’t remember him ever goin’ to her station at all,” she focused on him again, “though I can’t be sure.”

“They ever talk? She ever mention him?”

She kept shaking her head.

Christ, she was all he had and she was giving him nothing.

“‘Cept…” she started.

“Yeah?” Colt prompted.

“Amy had a bit of a flip out not long ago. It was on a Saturday and it was when he came in.”

Colt felt a spiral of exhilaration in his gut.

“What kind of a flip out?”

She waved her hand. “Well, Amy wasn’t prone to flip outs and it wasn’t a big one. She just said she needed a break early and took it but that’s not her style. When she came back, she looked like she’d been crying. Didn’t have to do with Mr. Lowe, though. I just remember that he was in when it happened. And I only remember because he took a big withdrawal and that doesn’t happen often. Most folks can get their money from the cash machine, have to come to a station to withdraw that kind of dough and it’s still unusual. Usually folks come to us to deposit, move money around, check balances, ask about or pay on their line of credit or mortgage. Stuff like that. You always remember a big withdrawal.”

Colt reckoned you did, especially when you didn’t have thousands of dollars in your own account which he guessed she didn’t considering she wasn’t wearing wedding rings but she was wearing clothes that were too expensive on a teller’s salary. Envy and curiosity about how the other half lived likely baked those memories into your brain.

“You did his withdrawal?” Colt asked.

“That day, yeah.”

“He talk about what it was for? Takin’ a vacation? Buyin’ somethin’ special?”

She shook her head.

“He seem to have a preference in tellers?”

“Nope, there’s just one line, folks come up to whichever one of us is open. Only Angie Maroni waited for Amy.”

“That day you know why Amy was cryin’?”

Julie shrugged. “Sure, I asked after work if she was okay. She said she was it was just that she was thinkin’ about her boy.”

It took everything Colt had not to jerk back at this news and that cold circled his chest, tight and vicious.

“Her boy?”

“Yeah, she had a kid, years ago. Put him up for adoption. She thinks about him a lot, she told me, but she doesn’t get upset. She just got upset that day, somethin’ struck her and she got sad wonderin’ where he was.”

Colt didn’t reply.

Amy Harris had a child. He had no idea.

And she’d got upset about it when Denny walked in, probably not a coincidence.

She was petite but nicely rounded. Very pretty but dark-haired. She had dark brown eyes. That and her curves were the only thing she shared with Feb. Feb was tall, blonde and her curves were more attractive considering the length of her frame and the way she held herself.

Denny Lowe wouldn’t get it up for Amy Harris.

Unless while he was doing it, he was doing something else that would get him off.

Fucking hell.

Poor Amy.

“You would,” Julie said, taking Colt from his thoughts, “you know, think about the kid you gave up. It’s natural.”

“She tell you about the kid’s Dad?”

“Yeah,” Julie was now a font of information, “she knew him but she never told him about the kid. I wasn’t around but she told me she took a sabbatical from work so no one would see her showin’ and came back after it was all done.”

“Why didn’t she tell the Dad? Weren’t they together?”

“Nope, she said it was a one night stand, if you can believe that of Amy, which I couldn’t at first. Thought she was jerking me around when she told me, tryin’ to seem more interesting. But you could tell it was genuine. Said she didn’t want him to know or anyone to know it was him. She was protectin’ him from something, I reckoned. Thought maybe he was married but didn’t ask. She wasn’t big on talkin’ about it and didn’t for years. Most of the girls, though, know now, even though none of us were around when Amy started here and it all went down.” This was, Colt knew because Julie McCall had told them, the bitch. Colt focused as Julie continued. “Only some of the bank officers were around back then but only because, between most of ‘em, they own the bank,” she finished.

Colt leaned forward in order to pull out his wallet, which took him closer to her. Instead of leaning back as anyone would, she leaned forward too and he just caught another lip curl.

He sat back, flipped out his wallet and gave her a card.

“You hear from Amy, you can tell her I want to talk to her, see she’s all right. Or you could just call me.”

She’d call him, she heard from Amy or, he reckoned, even if she didn’t.

She took the card and smiled, back to suggestive. “Sure, Lieutenant Colton.”

He stood, pushing his wallet in his back pocket and grabbing his coffee. “Thank you, Ms. McCall.”

He didn’t offer his hand, he should have but he had what he wanted from her and he doubted there was any more to be had. Now she needed to know the limits to his friendliness.

She didn’t take the hint. “Call me Julie.”

He wasn’t going to have the opportunity to call her anything and he found this a relief.

He just smiled and threw his arm toward the door, inviting her to precede him. Interview over.

She walked in front of him deliberately slow, drawing out her time with him and likely away from her job. She moved and he knew she wanted him to watch her ass while she was doing it. He did and almost laughed. He’d been watching Feb’s ass move around her bar for the last two years and Julie McCall? No fucking comparison.

At the top of the stairs he thanked her again, turned and gave Dave a nod. Dave was in his office with customers he was now ignoring as his eyes were glued to Colt. Before he could give his customers excuses and hightail it to Colt, Colt gave him a wave and took off.

He walked to Amy’s and thought about her pregnant, having a baby and giving it up for adoption. He had no idea when this happened but he’d find out. She was working at the bank so it was after high school maybe while Denny Lowe was in Northwestern or even later, when Denny married Marie. Like most kids whose parents didn’t leave town, Colt remembered Denny came back during summer breaks and for visits before he moved home with Marie. It could have happened anytime.

There were lots of reasons women gave up kids but Amy didn’t seem the type, not if she’d be crying about it years later. She was shy but she was sweet, responsible, close to her kin, she’d likely make a good Mom. Something made her give up her kid and Colt worried it was something not good for Amy.

If it was because of what he worried it was, Denny had raped her or courted her and then forced rough, weird sex on her, then what this had to do with Feb and Feb’s reaction to Colt being around Amy, Colt had no fucking clue. Except if Denny called Amy February and demanded she call him Alec in return. He could see how that’d freak Amy enough to stay quiet a long while. Enough to take some time to get the courage to come forward, head to the bar, get ready to share then lose your courage when the time was right and get the fuck out of Dodge.

Still, none of this explained Feb’s extreme response to seeing Amy with Colt.

He made it to Amy’s to see her car still in her drive. He knocked then waited then knocked again. And repeat. Nothing and no movement at her draperies this time. He stood around long enough, checking the quiet neighborhood and letting the quiet neighborhood have the opportunity to see him again at her front door. He scanned the windows of the houses he could see, looking to see if some nose was watching just so he’d have another lead, he’d take anything. He stood around long enough for someone to come out, go to their car or come to him and ask him if he needed something.

Nothing.

So he went hunting, knocked on a few doors, both sides of her house and across the street.

No one home.

He gave up and as he walked back to the Station, his cell rang. He yanked it out of his pocket and the display said “February calling.”

When Morrie gave him her number and he’d programmed it into his phone several days ago, he’d been uncertain how he felt about doing it. There was no uncertainty about how he felt about it being there now.

He flipped it open and put it to his ear. “Feb.”

“List is ready. Mom’s bringing it down to the Station once we get into the bar.”

She hated doing it he could hear it in her voice.

That’s why he made his voice soft when he replied, “Okay, honey.”

“You call Costa’s?”

He could see she was rabid for Costa’s but then again Feb liked to eat, always did. He’d noted in the last two years she still did the amount of times he saw her, Morrie, Ruthie or Darryl take off with orders and they got Reggie’s or take out from Frank’s or a delivery came from Shanghai Salon. You didn’t get the kind of curves she had, curves he’d now seen naked and touched with his hands, from eating salads. The vision of her sliding off his bed to stand naked at its side this morning was pleasantly seared to the backs of his eyeballs and he hoped to God that burn never healed.

“Not yet.”

“They get busy on a Tuesday.”

They were busy every day.

“Baby, I’ll call.”

“They give you a song and dance about being booked, throw your police detective weight around,” she advised.

He bit back his laugh and smiled into the phone. “We don’t tend to do that.”

“Colt, you get called out to see dead bodies for a living, you gotta get somethin’ good outta that badge.”

“We’ll get a reservation,” he told her and they would. Costa’s was in another town but Stavros Costa knew Jack and Jackie from way back, Feb, Morrie and Colt too. They’d all been going there together for years, Feb’s birthdays, Colt and Feb’s first official date, when Colt made All-State the first time and the second, when they took sectionals, when they took regionals, the time Jackie won five hundred dollars in the lottery. Stavros knew all about Feb and Colt. If Colt called and said he and Feb were coming in for dinner, Stavros would build a table for them with his bare hands if he had to.

“All right,” Feb said.

“How’s your head?” Colt asked.

“My head?” Feb asked back.

“Yeah, you exhausted yet at how busy it’s been in there?”

She was silent a second then he heard her soft, husky laughter and he felt that laughter slide through his gut straight to his dick. “Nope, not yet.”

“Good.”

“Gotta jump in the shower.”

Now that was a pleasant thought to leave him with, he’d have to find a way to thank her.

“All right, later.”

“Later.”

He was walking down the sidewalk, the Station in his sights when he saw Sully walking Marie Lowe’s parents to a car parked on the street. He shook the mother’s hand and clapped the father lightly on the back. Sully was uncomfortable with their grief and didn’t try to hide it. There was an art to dealing with victims. You needed to show empathy while at the same time displaying professionalism. You had to say your pain means something to me and I’m going to do something about it at the same time.

Dealing with victims was the hardest part of the job, it didn’t matter if their cars stereo was stolen or their daughter was hacked to goo with a hatchet. They all got that lost look in their eye, their belief in the good of the world shaken. Difference was, you had your car stereo stolen you got another one and moved on. No way to replace a daughter.

He waited for Sully at the foot of the steps and had to wait awhile because Sully watched long after their car drove away. What Colt saw in his glance of Marie’s parents had sent a surge of rage through him. Sully had spent a morning visiting with them in that pit of grief and even though he could walk out and they were there for eternity, it always took you awhile to shake off the feeling of that place.

Sully caught his eye when he turned toward the Station.

“You all right, Sul?” Colt asked when he got close.

“No,” Sully’s gaze moved away, “Denny Lowe is a goddamned cock sucking motherfucker who I’m glad’s gonna burn in hell.”

There you go, that pretty much said it all.

“Wanna walk down to Meems’s and get a coffee?”

“I wanna hunt down Denny Lowe with a hatchet,” Sully said then sighed and looked at Colt’s hand. “You already got a Meems.”

“It’s empty.”

Sully nodded. “Don’t think even Meems’s ginormous chocolate chip cookies would make me feel better but it’s worth a try.”

They walked to Mimi’s and she didn’t try to rib him. She took one look at Sully and was all business. They got their order, Colt shoved more money in the tip jar and they sat at Feb’s table which was in a corner, wall to one side, back to another short wall that led to an opening that allowed staff to get around the glass-fronted counter, space all around for ordering customers to stand and wait for the coffees, no table close. Feb chose it, he knew now, to build that invisible wall around, keeping out townsfolk she thought had lost respect for her. That table worked for him and Sully to keep their conversation quiet, though the morning rush was long gone and only a guy with a laptop and a mug at the table by the front window was company.

He put his coffee mug down and saw etched into the table, “Feb’s Spot, sit here and die.”

Meems’s kids were terrors.

Still, how Feb thought the town had lost respect for her was beyond him. She may have shocked some, disappointed others but that was a long time ago and she’d always be Feb. The woman who took her time to make Angie laugh, who told Sully she’d make him hot, honeyed whisky to soothe his cold and meant it, who kept Darryl employed when he was more burden than boon – that part of Feb had never changed and nothing she did back then could erase all that.

It was something to add to their list of things to talk about, after they got what was going on between them straight, but close after. He didn’t like that she thought it and it was time to disabuse her of that notion.

“You get anything?” Colt asked after Sully had two big bites of his cookie. Colt had had several of those since Meems opened and it might be wrong, but Meems’s baking helped brighten any shitty day, no matter why it was shitty. She was that good.

“Marie’s Dad, Mr. Todd, liked the guy. He’s feeling like a schmuck. Thought Denny was ‘sharp as a tack’. Said so. Was pleased his daughter found a man who wouldn’t lean on her for money but pull his own weight. They’re loaded, you know,” Sully said.

Colt nodded, he knew.

“Mrs. Todd didn’t say much around about this time, didn’t want to make her husband feel more a schmuck but, glances he gave her, guilty ones, made me think they’d chatted in the past and she disagreed.”

“They give you anything else?”

Sully shook his head. “Tried to get the mother talkin’ but don’t think she had much to say. I’m guessin’ her daughter didn’t tell her that her husband liked rough sex and made her call him by another man’s name. Still, they were close, easy to see, doted on Marie. They have another daughter. She and her husband are flyin’ in from Houston. They’re off to the airport to pick them up now.”

“Get anything from the house?”

“Nothin’.”

“The office?”

“Nope, clean. No files on his computer tracking Feb or you or any sick shit. Though his boss is stunned. Loved the guy. Said he was a genius. Said Denny got head hunted two, three times a year but was loyal to the company. Said Denny could be makin’ double, even triple, but he never left. Thought it was because he liked his job. Had no idea it was because Denny wanted to be close to anything Feb.”

That turned Colt’s stomach but he shook it off and kept questioning.

“Colleagues?”

“The Feds are hittin’ them this mornin’, as we speak.”

“More from the neighbors, any other friends?”

Sully shook his head.

“Anything else? He use a credit card? Called family, a friend, anyone been in touch with him since he did Marie?”

Sully took a drink from his coffee and another bite of his cookie. He did this while studying Colt.

Then he swallowed and said, “Nothin’ so far, we’re askin’ though. But apparently, he’s vanished.”

Colt sat back in the chair Feb always sat in and looked out the window, taking a drink from his own mug.

“Colt,” Sully called his attention back to him, “I know this is frustrating but we’ll get this guy. He’s fucked up, he’ll fuck up again.”

Colt knew he didn’t have to remind Sully but he did it all the same. “He fucked his wife pretending he was me and pretending she was February.”

“I could see that’d make you impatient for us to find him.”

“What makes me impatient to find him is, he gets word Feb’s in my bed, he’s likely to get gripped by another rage and anyone could get in his way.”

Sully changed the subject. “You been in that bed with Feb?”

Colt didn’t answer his question.

Instead he changed the subject himself. “You know Amy Harris?”

Sully’s wife was a local; she was two years ahead of Colt at school. Sully was from a small town about forty-five minutes away. He’d made the sacrifice, pulled up roots and made his life close to Lorraine’s people. He did this because she had two living parents, three brothers and a sister, all who still lived in town. Sully only had a sister and she lived in Maine. Lorraine’s way of thinking was, considering her family was close, and she was close to them, her town roots went deeper than his. Sully’s way of thinking was he’d give Lorraine anything she wanted, part because he loved her and part because she could be a serious nag.

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“She works at County Bank.”

“Lorraine and me do our banking at State.”

Colt lowered his voice. “I need you to mobilize the Lorraine gossip tree but I need you to do it without Feb, Jessie Rourke, Mimi VanderWal, Delilah or Jackie Owens gettin’ wind of it.”

Sully leaned forward. “What’s this about?”

“Gut,” Colt told him, “Amy Harris walked into J&J’s a couple nights ago. She’d lived in this town all her life and never been there. She eyed Feb in a way I didn’t like. She acted funny, we had a conversation that didn’t sit well and walked right back out. Then she disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Never took a day off work that her boss remembers and now she’s had three, today, no call-no show. No one’s seen or heard from her and she isn’t answering her door.”

“What the fuck?”

“Found out she had a baby, ‘while ago. Don’t know whose as she’s not a girl who gets around. At all,” Colt told him.

“This somethin’ to do with Feb or is it somethin’ to do with Lowe?”

“Gut says, both.”

“How’s that?”

“Don’t know that either but I was surprised to hear she had a kid. We weren’t close but that was still news. Colleague reports she had a breakdown, took off from her station, early break so she could have a cryin’ jag, thinkin’ about her boy which was way out of her standard practice. But she had it after Lowe came in to make a withdrawal.”

Sully shivered and it was visible.

“You think he raped her?”

Colt shook his head, “No clue. I think she came in to tell me something or, way she was eyein’ Feb, her. I think it’s no coincidence she did it after Angie got murdered. I think it scared the shit out of her. And I think she lost her courage and didn’t do it. I want to know what that something was because what I do know is, after she did that, she disappeared.”

“What you want Raine to do about it?”

“I wanna know anything there is to know about Amy Harris.”

“Without any of Feb and her gang findin’ out Raine and her gang are askin’?”

“Without Feb or any of her gang findin’ out I’m askin’.”

Sully grinned. “Colt, man, you know, you’re gonna have to buy her girls with somethin’.”

Colt grinned back, “Sully, you’re so full of shit. Raine isn’t half as curious about the state of affairs as you are.”

“What?” Sully threw out a hand. “You’re my partner.”

Colt shook his head but said, “Tell Raine Feb made a frittata for breakfast this morning.”

Sully slammed his palm down on the table and gave a shout.

“Damn, man, you must be the master. Morrie tells me only thing better than Feb’s frittatas is being touched by the hand of God.”

Colt took another drink of coffee.

“They that good?” Sully pushed.

Colt thought of the best breakfast he’d ever had in his life. Jackie was no slouch in the kitchen, Melanie loved to cook gourmet crap and was always trying out a new recipe, and Frank’s specialty was breakfast and his restaurant was known throughout Indiana as a place you needed to have breakfast before you died.

Feb’s frittata beat all of them.

Colt’s voice was low again when he replied, “Best I ever had.”

Sully read his meaning and Colt realized it was a good idea to share. He’d helped his partner shake off the shadow of grief and remember life could be good.

Sully shoved the rest of his cookie in his mouth and took a slug of coffee right through it.

“I got a serial murderer to find,” he told Colt, still chewing and then turned his head to call to Mimi. “Meems, sweetheart, you got a to go cup?”

Colt got a seven o’clock reservation at Costa’s and called Feb to tell her he’d pick her up at the bar at six thirty.

He also called Doc to ask him if Amy came around to see him the day before. Or, more to the point, he called Doc’s receptionist Leslie, who was old as dirt but had been sweet on Colt from the minute Colt’s mother swayed in, drunk off her ass, yanking Colt, who was six and who’d burned his hand on the stove trying to make soup, behind her. Colt owed a lot of people in that town for their kindness when he was living his hell; it was part of why he earned his badge.

Leslie told him no Amy even though she shouldn’t have done it, she would have done anything he asked. Not because she was sweet on him, because she trusted whatever he was doing, it was the right thing.

An hour later, Colt got a surprise when Doc called him direct.

“What’s this I hear you callin’ ‘bout Amy, son?” Doc asked.

Colt stifled his surprise and replied, “Concern, Doc. She’s been missin’ a few days and she’s no call-no show at work. Not her style.”

“Since when the po-lice investigate no call-no show?” Doc asked an excellent question.

Doc was a good old boy and sounded like a hick. He did this because he wanted his patients to talk to him about what ailed them, body and mind, so he could do something to help. They wouldn’t do that if they held him up on the pedestal where most put doctors just because of their schooling. Doc broke down those barriers by affecting a personality that said I’m one of you. He was smarter than hell and should have retired years ago but the town wouldn’t stand for it. He’d be shoving thermometers under sick kids’ tongues until the day he keeled over and died.

“Since it’s Amy Harris. She doesn’t have kin close, no friends to speak of and this is well out of character,” Colt answered.

Doc was silent.

Then he said quietly, “Let this be, son.”

That cold hit his chest and it went into deep freeze.

“Let what be, Doc?”

“Just let it be. I hear you and Feb’re finally patchin’ things up. No sense diggin’ up the dead dog. It’s dead. That’s all you need to know.”

“Doc, this could be tied to a murder investigation. You know something, you aren’t doin’ right not sharin’.”

Now Doc was surprised. “What murder investigation?”

“We’re guessin’, and it’s a good guess, that Denny Lowe killed his wife, Feb’s ex, Pete Hollister, Angie Maroni and a man named Butch Miller.”

“Hoo,” Doc’s shock was audible; it came out of him like someone punched him in the gut.

Colt ignored the noise and thought about Amy.

Amy would go to Doc. Doc would have done her pregnancy test. He likely arranged for her care and even the adoption. Doc was a pillar of that community and he was for a reason. He wasn’t just a doctor, he was much more.

“You know somethin’ about Amy and Denny, we gotta know,” Colt told him.

“Knew Marie, heard ‘bout her this mornin’. Cryin’ shame, she was a nice woman,” Doc noted then asked, “Denny?”

“Evidence is pointing to him.”

“Hard to believe, son.”

“You don’t know what I know,” Colt told him. “You got somethin’ for me?”

“No, Colt, I don’t. Not on Denny and I would tell you, you know I would. Amy, I’m just sayin’, you best leave that alone. She’s a good girl.”

“She connected to Denny?”

“Not that I know of, would shock me deep I heard she was.”

“Then why would you need to tell me she’s a good girl?”

“Because, no matter what, it’s plain old true.”

The old man was hiding something.

“Doc.”

“All I’m gonna say.”

“Doc –”

“Colt,” Doc said firmly, quietly and in a way that made the cold inch tighter, “let it alone. Hear me, son?”

“I can’t. I’ll take it as read you’ll keep this between you and me but this shit with Denny is tied to me, it’s tied to Feb and we’re not talkin’ in good ways. You seen a lot of sick in your life but I’ll bet you your pension you haven’t seen sick like this,” he heard Doc take in a sharp hiss of breath but talked through it, “Feb’s in danger and I am too. If Amy’s in danger, she needs protection and she needs it now. Hell, Doc, she needed it last week and it’s my job to see that she has it.”

“I’ll tell you, Colt, far’s I know, Denny Lowe ain’t tied to Amy. God’s honest truth.”

That meant whatever he was hiding, and he was hiding something, might be tied to Colt or Feb and he wasn’t saying. Which meant it was.

“Doc, no matter how deep you bury that skeleton in your closet, somethin’ always happens to make it rattle.”

“You hear those bones rattlin’, son, take my advice. You close the closet door.”

Then Doc hung up. Another dead end.

“Fucking shit,” Colt cursed as he put down his phone.

“Looks like your day’s turnin’ out good as mine,” Sully noted as he walked up.

Colt knew what Sully was talking about. Colleagues, neighbors and friends of Lowe were being interviewed everywhere. All they got was a few “We always thought he was a bit quiet,” but nothing else. It was a shock even to his Mom and Dad, who still lived in town. Denny’s mother was so cut up she’d had to be sedated by paramedics. No one had heard from him or seen him since the day Puck died, which the coroner told them was also the day he reckoned Marie died. They were coming up zero which meant the only thing they had left was waiting for him to kill again.

He had no chance to reply to Sully, the phone on his desk rang again. He pulled it out of the receiver and put it to his ear.

“Lieutenant Colton,” he answered.

“She’s dead.”

Colt knew the voice, even if it was a whisper. Julie McCall.

Fuck.

“What?”

“She’s dead, Lieutenant. I’m standin’ in her house and she’s dead.”

“Who?” Colt asked but he knew.

“Amy,” she whispered and it surprised him, coming from that woman, but he heard tears in that one word.

“Exit the house immediately, Ms. McCall. Don’t touch anything. Officers will be there shortly and I’ll meet you out front.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t touch anything,” he repeated.

“I won’t.”

He hit a button on the phone and then hit the extension for dispatch. “Connie, get a unit out to Amy Harris’s house, one six eight Rosemary Street. We got a four one nine.”

“Four one nine,” Connie repeated. “Sure thing, Colt,” she finished and disconnected.

Sully was close when Colt put the phone down and grabbed his blazer off the back of his chair.

“Why you sendin’ a unit to Amy Harris’s house on a four one nine?”

Colt didn’t look at him when he answered. He was on the move.

“Because she’s dead.”

Colt stood in Amy Harris’s bedroom watching the boys cut her dead body down from the ceiling fan.

Hanged. Apparent suicide. No bruising. No marks. Hair tidy. Clothing tidy. House tidy, like she was preparing for company.

She had no shoes on. Chair on its side under her. No sign of struggle. No forced entry.

The coroner, Andy, told Colt his best guess, she died the day before, Monday.

Colt walked out of the room into Amy’s living room and pulled the phone out of his back pocket. The display said it was ten passed six. No Costa’s tonight.

He opened it, scrolled down to Feb and hit go.

“Hello?”

“Baby, hate to tell you this but we can’t do Costa’s. I got work.”

She was quiet a minute then she asked, “What kind of work?”

“Suicide.”

He heard her gasp before she said, “Who?”

Colt had no intention of telling her that when they were on the phone. He hadn’t had a lot of success controlling her temper or her emotions when he was in the same room with her. He was not going to make that attempt over the fucking phone.

“We’ll talk about it when I get home from work.”

“When’s that gonna be?”

He heard the zip go on the body bag.

“Late.”

“I’ll give Mom and Dad a break and close tonight.”

“They’ve only covered for you and Morrie one night.”

“They’re not as young as they used to be.”

“I heard that!” Colt heard Jackie shout in the background.

He would have smiled normally, but he didn’t feel like smiling just about now.

“Feb –”

“Colt, it’s just…” she hesitated, uncomfortable, edgy, not sure if she should share, “I need to store up my markers for when we actually make it to Costa’s.”

There it was. Indication of a future.

That made him feel like smiling. He didn’t smile but he did let it go.

“Is Morrie on with you tonight?”

“No, he’s home havin’ dinner with Dee and the kids.”

“He comin’ back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Call him, tell him he’s comin’ back.”

“It’s okay, Darryl’s on.”

“Honey, Darryl forgets what he’s doin’ in the middle of sharpening a pencil.” He heard her soft laughter and went on. “Do me a favor, call Morrie. Minute Jack and Jackie prepare to leave, his ass is there.”

“Okay.”

“Can you call Stavros? Tell him we’re not gonna make it.”

“Sure.”

“Sorry about Costa’s.”

“Beauty of Costa’s,” she told him, “it’s always a promise, even the minute you leave.”

Christ, he liked this new Feb.

“Later, baby.”

Her voice was a whisper when she said, “Later, Alec.”

That was another promise, one he liked better than the juiciest souvlaki and the sweetest baklava this side of the Mississippi.

He flipped his phone shut, tucked it in his back pocket, turned and called to Marty who was standing inside the front door. Marty jogged up to him.

“Do me a favor, go to your cruiser and call in a team. I want this place printed and combed.”

Marty stared at him and asked, “For a suicide?”

Colt sighed instead of curling his hands into fists. “Just do it, Marty.”

“Gotcha.”

Colt walked out the door and to Julie McCall. He’d spoken to her briefly before entering and again coming out and asking her to stay. She was shaken up and crying when he arrived. She was still shaken up but she’d reapplied her makeup since he’d last seen her.

“Ms. McCall, thanks for staying. I won’t take a lot more of your time.”

“I can’t believe it, I just can’t.”

He nodded and asked, “This seem like something Amy would do?”

She shook her head. “No. No way. She was shy but she seemed… I don’t know…” she searched for a word, “content, I guess.”

She wasn’t content the night she walked into J&J’s. She also hadn’t left a suicide note.

“You didn’t happen to see a note when you walked in?”

She shook her head again. “No, I just, you know, you talked to me about her and her bein’ no call-no show and all, I got worried. Then heard word about Marie Lowe and you talked about Mr. Lowe and well…” she trailed off then continued, “when she goes to visit her folks, I come and get her mail, turn lights on and off, that whole thing, so people won’t know she’s gone.”

Colt nodded and she kept talking.

“I had her key. Keep it on my ring. It’s hard to get them off so I didn’t bother. She goes to see her folks regular, even during holidays, like the Fourth of July if they make a long weekend. I came straight after work, knocked on the door but she didn’t answer. I thought, ‘What the hey?’ Right? I have a key, she won’t mind.”

Julie was right about one thing, Amy wouldn’t mind.

“Place felt weird, silent, her car outside, she had to be there. So I had a look. That’s when I found her and called you.”

Death had a feel he knew, the place would definitely feel weird.

“I don’t believe it,” Julie said again, eyeing him and looking like she was trying hard to call up tears.

“Go home, Ms. McCall,” he told her, “call a friend, don’t be alone tonight.”

“Maybe I could… we could…” she paused, “maybe later you’d want to meet for a drink? You know, toast to Amy?”

Was the woman seriously asking him out on a date after finding her friend had committed suicide?

It didn’t matter. He’d toasted to enough dead people recently, it wasn’t much fun then and it was with Feb. He sure as fuck wasn’t going to do it with Julie McCall.

“I got work, Ms. McCall.”

“Yeah, but… later?” she pushed.

“Ms. McCall –”

“It’s just that,” she was searching and what she found was so lame it made him want to roll his eyes just like Feb, “I’m sad.”

It was time to shut this down once and for all and even though it wasn’t exactly true, it also wasn’t false either so he said, “I appreciate this was difficult and I also appreciate the offer but, later, I’ll be with my girlfriend.”

Crash and burn, her eyes screamed it, he knew, he’d seen it enough times. He had no problem with a woman being forward, he just had a problem with the ones who wouldn’t take a hint.

Her eyes flitted away. “Yeah, okay.”

“Call a friend,” he advised, “don’t be alone tonight.”

“Yeah, a friend.”

“Drive safe,” Colt finished and walked to his truck.

He opened the passenger side door then the glove compartment and found some plastic gloves. He closed the door, beeped the locks and snapped the gloves on while he walked back up to the house.

Colt was sitting at his desk, the Station mostly quiet and he was scanning the notes he’d written on a pad. He’d been writing and scanning them twenty minutes and nothing added up so he stopped scanning.

He picked up the phone and dialed the number he’d looked up half an hour ago.

It was late but Doc still answered, “Hello?”

“Doc, Colt.”

“Son –”

“Doc, Amy’s dead.”

There was silence but Colt could feel the shock across the line.

“Murdered?” Doc whispered.

“Suicide.”

“No,” Doc breathed.

“You know I respect you, Doc, but I gotta ask. In light of this, you got anything more for me?”

“She leave a note?”

“No.”

“Then I got nothin’ more.”

He did, the stubborn old jackass.

“All right, Doc.”

“You call her parents?”

“That’s my next call.”

“Give me their number, son. I’ll do it.”

“I don’t –”

“I know ‘em, Colt. Not good hearin’ this from anyone but I reckon it’d be better hearin’ it from someone they know who took care of their daughter since before she could crawl.”

Colt couldn’t argue with that and he gave Doc their number.

He put the phone down at the same time Sully, sitting across from him at his desk, put his down.

Sully was grinning.

“Fuckin’ A, Colt, DNA and some prints lifted from that shit we got from Feb’s fit DNA and prints lifted from Denny’s. We got him at her house.”

Colt grinned back. “Great, Sully.”

“Not done, my man. They also matched prints at Angie’s.”

Colt felt an electric pulse sear through his system. That news was more than great.

“Sure,” Sully went on, “you could argue with the prints at Angie’s, she had loads of visitors, probably why he was careless. He could have visited her anytime. But Feb’s? He’s fucked.”

He was, two plus two were equaling four, more than a coincidence, so much so if the impossible happened and this shit went to trial, a jury would think that too. It was fucking brilliant.

“Anything from Pete and Butch?” Colt asked.

Sully shook his head but he was still grinning. He leaned back in his chair and lifted his arms to place both hands behind his head.

“Those scenes are clean but this is what I think,” Sully started then leaned forward quickly, excited, ready to call it down and he put his elbows on his desk, “he goes to Feb’s before all this shit, we don’t know when, before Marie tips it with her confrontation. Does Feb routinely have her house fingerprinted? No. He doesn’t reckon she’ll ever find the cum rags ‘less she moves and she might not even know what they are. Or, he’s so sick, he might not even care or he might want her to find ‘em,” Colt nodded and Sully went on. “Then Marie tips it and he uses what he’s learned from Feb’s journals to go on his vengeance spree. From what we can tell, Puck’s between Marie and Pete, probably still actin’ on rage, maybe even lookin’ for you, but findin’ Puck. He’s careful at Pete’s but not so careful with Angie. Careful enough with the crime scene but, he lives in town, Angie’s place he’d reckon was infected. Might even be he would think we wouldn’t give two shits about Angie, bein’ who she was. He’s back to careful with Butch. After Marie, he’s controlled with all of them, even Angie, perfecting the kill.”

“The profilers get that list? Isolate a victimology?”

“They got it. They figure Angie was his way of announcing this to Feb, on a high from doin’ Pete and decidin’ it was time for her to learn she had a hero. But with that note about Puck, the warning about you and it bein’ Butch and Pete who bit it, they’re thinkin’ his next target is a guy named Grant who lives in Sturgis.”

Colt didn’t want to know but he asked, “What’d he do?”

Sully didn’t want to tell him but he said, “He worked a bar with her, assistant manager. Tried it on with her, wouldn’t take no for an answer, got insistent. She liked the job, liked the town, wanted to stay awhile, she reported him. Grant didn’t like it much and made his feelings known. Her manager made his feelings known by firin’ Grant’s ass. Guy left the job, not the town, kept harassin’ her until she finally took off.”

Colt again thought it was good Feb was home so he and Morrie had her back. He also wished he was the one who told this Grant asshole that there might be a serial killer with a hatchet after him, wreaking vengeance for all the wrongs done to Feb. He would have got a fair bit of satisfaction out of that.

“Grant bein’ warned?” Colt asked.

“Agents headin’ that way,” Sully told him then asked, “You find any link between Amy Harris and Denny?”

Colt shook his head. He’d spent a goodly amount of time in her house and even more time talking to her neighbors. He found nothing in the house. The neighbors, all the same story. Shock at the suicide, she didn’t seem that type of girl. They liked her as a neighbor. She was helpful, watching kids, dogs, cats, picking up mail while they were away. They knew her as sweet, nice, quiet and shy.

“Didn’t even find any evidence she had a kid which means zilch on her having him adopted. Like it never happened,” Colt told Sully.

“Maybe it didn’t and she was tellin’ tales.”

“Weird tale to tell.”

Sully nodded. “This is true.” He gave Colt a look. “Could it be the world just didn’t understand her and she’d had enough?”

In his sixteen years as detective he’d had five suicide callouts. In his career as a cop, he’d seen two more. Colt never understood murder, no matter what. Suicide was different. He didn’t condone it but the seven he’d seen, what he learned after, he understood them.

Amy’s, no.

“Doc’s informin’ her folks, I’ll get to them when they get here.”

Sully nodded. “Speakin’ of here, why are you? You’ll never earn another frittata from Feb sittin’ behind your desk.”

“She’s closing tonight.”

“Ah,” Sully grinned, “still, she’s behind a bar, wearin’ one of her chokers, no doubt, lookin’ hot, definitely no doubt and that bar’s two blocks away. You walk out the front door, you’re off duty, so, again, why you still here?”

“Good question,” Colt said and stood up, grabbing his blazer.

He was on the move when Sully called out, “You still want me to activate the Lorraine gossip tree?”

Colt didn’t turn, just lifted his hand in a wave that was a single flick of the wrist and called back, “Absolutely.”

Colt hit J&J’s and his eyes hit Feb.

Hers hit him and she gave him a jaw tilt.

Denny Lowe’s psychotic vengeance, Cal Johnson’s bleak retribution and Amy Harris’s incomprehensible suicide and still, one jaw tilt from February and all was right in the world.

For the first time in twenty-two years after the jaw tilt, Feb didn’t take her eyes off him. And for the first time in twenty-two years, he gave her a smile.

She caught it then bent her head but he saw the smile that was directed at him but aimed at the floor. That smile was warm, it was knowing, it was everything it used to be at the same time it was a fuckuva lot more. He’d tasted her, he’d been inside her. She liked it enough to make him a frittata. Now her smile told him she also liked it enough to smile in a way that told him she wanted more.

Yes, all was right in the world.

He went to his stool and she followed him down the bar as he did.

He no sooner had his ass on it then she asked, “Off duty?”

“Yeah, honey.”

“Beer, bourbon or both?”

“Beer.”

She nodded and got him a beer.

He took a swig and she didn’t move away.

“You okay?” she asked and he saw her eyes on him when he dropped his arm.

“Been better.”

“Was it someone you knew who killed themselves?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Later.”

She nodded and said softly, “All right, babe,” she let it go and tilted her head to the side, “had dinner?”

“Baby, it’s nine thirty.”

“So? Frank’s kitchen’s still open. I could send Darryl down with your order.”

“I’d order a burger and he’d come back with a reuben.”

“Yeah but either burger or reuben, from Frank’s, you got no complaint.”

This was true.

“Get him to get me a reuben.”

She grinned and asked, “That mean you want a burger?”

Colt nodded, Feb laughed and everyone in the bar watched the show. For once Colt didn’t mind being their object of fascination. Fact was, hearing Feb laugh at that minute, after his day, he didn’t fucking care, they could watch all they wanted.

She took off around the side of the bar, walking behind him. Colt itched to grab her but he didn’t. In J&J’s, she’d decide how what was going on between them was communicated.

Morrie came around him with a tray full of empties. “Hey dude.”

“Hey Morrie.”

“Any closer to the world bein’ safe for my baby sister again?” Morrie asked, setting down the tray and throwing the bottles in the bin.

“Sully and The Feds scored some hits today.”

“Awesome,” Morrie smiled, transferring stacked glasses to the side of the sink under the bar.

Colt studied his friend.

Morrie was like his father when it came to Colt, always had been even before Jack. Morrie’s belief in Colt went deep, to the molten center of the earth, made of something so strong, even that heat couldn’t melt it, couldn’t even bend it. Morrie knew Colt would make things right for Feb again even before things had changed between Colt and Morrie’s sister. He knew Colt would work at it until he dropped and he believed that, even if the road to safety was paved with shit, Colt would make it to the end of that road, carrying Feb along with him.

Even though they’d disagreed and fought, Colt knew there was no better friend could be had. He had no idea why God decided to place him, at birth, in hell only to lead him to salvation in kindergarten. Though he suspected if he hadn’t experienced hell, he wouldn’t have understood salvation. It might be fucked but he felt grateful to God for showing him the way.

Colt swallowed the lump he felt in his throat and asked Morrie, “How’s things with Delilah?”

“When I asked if I could skip the couch tonight when I got home, she hesitated at least thirty seconds before she said no,” Morrie answered.

“Progress.”

“Damn straight.”

Feb came up beside him, close, wedging herself between Colt and the empty stool next to him. She leaned forward, forearms on the bar, her head turned to him.

“Burger, reuben or wildcard ham and swiss, comin’ right up,” she told him.

“I hate ham,” Colt replied.

She threw her head back and laughed, loud and wild, exposing her throat, highlighting her choker, making Colt scan the bar to see they had a decent Tuesday night crowd. Maybe too decent for Feb to feel comfortable leaving Morrie and Darryl at the bar so he could take her home and fuck her brains out.

He also noticed, unusually slowly, with her choker she was wearing a fitted, white blouse, a long, straight figure-skimming jeans skirt, a pair of cowboy boots and her makeup was different, heavier but instead of looking overdone, it made her eyes smoky and unbelievably sexy.

Dolled up for Costa’s. And for Colt.

When she stopped laughing, her eyes came to his. “Frank uses that honey-baked ham, Colt, not the boiled stuff. You’ll like it.”

“I see Darryl’s potential fuck ups come with the territory.”

After his comment, her face assumed that look again, eyes soft, lids part lowered, lips tilted at the ends in that little, sexy smile, but this time he understood it. She wasn’t giving him something, holding something back. She was giving him something fucking spectacular and she was promising just how much better it would be when she stopped holding back.

“Yeah,” she said.

“I’ll cope if it’s ham,” he told her.

She lifted up and turned her back to the bar. Reaching out a hand, she curled it around his neck.

“Promise, it isn’t hard,” she whispered, let him go and went back around the bar.

He was looking up at her when she’d touched him which left him facing the room when she walked around him.

She might as well have grabbed his crotch and stuck her tongue down his throat. He even saw Lanie Gilbert pulling her cell phone out of her purse.

He didn’t care about that either.

In all his years with Melanie, much as he loved her and he did love her, he never headed home knowing she would help him leave behind his day.

A couple of days with Feb and that was a given.

Colt turned from the bar to take a pull off his beer and watch Feb wash glasses in the bar sink.

Fifteen minutes later Darryl delivered Frank’s famous fried tenderloin on a sesame seed bun and fries.

And Colt ate it without muttering a word while he watched Feb’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

Colt was right.

February Owens was the kind of woman who’d sit on your face and fucking love it. She was the kind of woman who’d suck on your cock and get off on it. She was also, he discovered, the kind of woman who’d do both at the same time, and come while doing it.

He didn’t have the chance to try her on all fours because, the second time he made her come, he wanted to watch.

So he did.

After they were done, he took the time to use his cock to memorize her tight, wet pussy yet again at the same time using his tongue to taste the silver at her neck. He liked the sharp, cold, metallic tang of her silver mixed with the salty, warm taste of her skin. It was pure Feb, contradictory and addictive.

Then he pulled out, rolled off, turned out the light, settled on his back and tucked her into his side.

Regardless of the fact that he now had a newly painted guest bedroom with bed, dresser and a huge print of a fucking basket of flowers over the bed, Jack and Jackie had made it clear they didn’t intend to be the third and fourth wheel while Feb and Colt were exploring their new situation. Colt brought Feb home early because the crowd got light and Morrie declared he and Darryl could handle it and they found the RV gone and a note saying they were moving into Morrie’s apartment for the time being.

Colt could live with that, Morrie’s place was far more secure than an RV.

“You tired, baby?” he asked.

“Mm,” she answered and he had no fucking clue what that meant.

“You seem okay with all of this,” he noted.

She tensed against him and he used his fingers to draw patterns on her hip, giving her time, waiting, feeling the tension drift away.

“I’m scared as shit,” she finally whispered, again sharing instead of holding it in.

“Far’s I know, Feb, only folk who can turn back the clock are in movies.”

He listened to her take in a heavy breath.

Then she let it out and said, “That’s true.”

“Gotta live life lookin’ ahead, you keep lookin’ behind…” he let that hang and she nodded against his shoulder.

He decided to give it to her and see where she went with it. “I’ll make it clear right now, honey, I like the idea of looking ahead at life with you.”

“Colt –”

“I thought I was Alec in this bed,” he meant to tease but she lifted up and looked at him in the dark.

“Yeah,” she said softly, “but it was Colt just said that to me.”

He felt that warmth spiral in his chest, wrapping his innards so tight, for ten full seconds he found it difficult to breathe.

Then she dropped her head and he felt her slide her nose along his jaw before she settled back into his side.

“You with me on this?” he asked.

Her arm around his stomach got tight. “I’m with you,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes and his arm around her waist gave her a squeeze.

After awhile she asked, “Was that our talk?”

“Most of it, yeah.”

“Does that mean I don’t get Costa’s?”

Colt was tired, it was after midnight, there were always bad guys to catch and that was his job.

He still burst out laughing, turned to Feb and awhile later he learned he was right about her letting him do her doggie style, he was right she’d want more of it and he was right she’d beg him to fuck her harder.

And she got off on that too.