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“Beau said he’ll be home around ten. Until then, Mrs. Marlow will be next door if you need anything,” Shay said, even though Max already knew. Shay and Aida Marlow had long ago come to an agreement where Shay brought home a couple of cartons of Marlboros a month and Aida kept an eye out in case Max accidentally started a fire in the couple of hours that Shay’s shift overlapped with their brother’s. As Max’s legal guardian, Shay felt compelled to add, “Read a book or something.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Max waved a hand at her. She’d had the attitude of a teenager since she’d come out of the womb, but she was really embracing theI’m over it allvibes as she stared down her twelfth birthday in a few weeks. Before Shay had even stepped out onto the dust-covered steps, Max was already rapping the next song.
Shay worked at a shithole bar where the bouncer, Craig, had to throw someone out more nights than not, and she was fairly certain the owner was deep into some laundering and/or drug scheme. But he had been the one to hire her nineteen-year-old ass six years prior,willingly pretending her fake ID was decent. There was some built-in loyalty there.
Also, the other bartender was a fifty-year-old man with an impressive beer belly. Shay got a lot of tips, even if they were off three-dollar beers.
Except she’d had a bad streak recently. She blamed the heat advisory. Everyone was too goddamn sweaty to heft themselves out of the trajectory of their fans and go to a place that didn’t have AC. And Lonnie refused to invest that laundered and/or drug money in making the place slightly more bearable in the Texas summers.
But for some reason, the place was busy when Shay got there for her shift. She raised her brows at Lonnie, who just shrugged and scuttled like a cockroach back into his broom closet–size office. She wouldn’t see him again until closing, and she was fine with that.
“Didya hear?”
The question buzzed like a mosquito through the crowd at the bar all night. For the first two hours, Shay was too busy to loiter and ask any of her customers what they had heard—she was just grateful for whatever it was. Big news brought people down to the watering hole to wag their jaws about it. She was going to be able to keep the lights on in their little house. A small accomplishment to most, a big one to someone who felt like a failure most hours of the day.
“. . . a girl . . .”
“There were tattoos on her body ...”
“They found her in a field.”
When Shay finally had a minute to breathe, her brain started piecing together the tidbits. She sidled over to two regulars who had set up camp at the end of the bar, two Shiner Bocks in front of each of them.
“What are they saying about a girl?” Shay asked, wiping away a nonexistent spill.
Bobby Dole grimaced around his toothpick. “Dead girl found up at the Double X Ranch yesterday. The foreman all but tripped over her.”
“Lost his lunch in the process,” Tim Stuebens added with a snicker. He worked as a hand on the ranch right next to the Double X, which explained his newfound popularity tonight.
Shay swallowed hard. Dead girls meant cops. Or worse, feds. She’d never exactly been fond of law enforcement, but as of late, her general distaste had ramped up to paranoia. She’d even stopped speeding just so she wouldn’t be pulled over.
An image of Max from a few hours earlier, rapping away to some ridiculous, misogynistic song, flashed into her mind. Then the memory shifted, and all she could see were Max’s hands covered in blood, her eyes defiant.
Her sister—always one blink away from the worst version of herself.
“A suicide?” Shay asked now, daring to hope. Murder would be the worst option. Cops might start looking around. They might hear some of the rumors that swirled around Max, might wonder why she had to see a psychiatrist who specialized in violent children. They might even find the gun hidden beneath Shay’s porch.
“Nah, that’s the wild thing,” Tim said. “It seems like one of those serial killers got her.”
Shay tried to hide her relief but probably did a piss-poor job of it. Of course, that kind of murder was terrible in the grand scheme of things. But it meant she could relax.
“A serial killer?” Shay asked, giving up all pretense of work. Lonnie was in the back room anyway, and there were only two people trying to get her attention. It didn’t get overwhelming until it hit five. “What are you talking about?”
“She had letters written all over her. Maybe it was some kind of satanic ritual instead.”
A man a few seats over cleared his throat. It hadn’t been to get their attention, though, because when Shay glanced over, he was staring down into his glass. Four Roses, neat. He’d looked like he needed a double pour, so she’d given him a splash more than she should have.
He could not have been more out of place if he’d tried. His suit was expensive and impeccably tailored; his haircut had probably costmore than what she owed for her electric bill for the entire summer; he spoke without an accent and saidPleaseandThank you. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten both.
“Something to add?” she asked as she finally moved toward the two—well, now four—people waving dollar bills in her direction.
The man just slid her a look, seeming to understand the question had been rhetorical.
Smart, then, too.
Shay had barely made note of him before, beyond hoping he tipped better than most of the rich boys who ended up in that seat slumming. But for the rest of the night, she felt his eyes on her.
It wasn’t in a sleazy way, either. He wasn’t ogling her ass or her chest like every other red-blooded male in the joint. He seemed to be studying the way she moved, her face, who she talked to.