All Shook Up (14 page)

It was a perfectly polite recital of the facts—and it made him crazy. Would it kill her to inject the smallest
inflection
into her voice? It wasn’t as if he were asking
her to jump for joy or even
smile
at him—although she sure as hell was quick enough to smile at everybody else. Surely she could spare a meager hint of warmth. Was that asking so fucking much?

But then, why should he expect otherwise? She wasn’t the great Edwina’s relative for nothing. The Lawrences were real big on offering affection and then yanking it away just when you thought it might be safe to reach out for it.

J.D. drew himself up. “Well, I’m sure you’ve got things to do,” he said flatly. “Don’t let me keep you.”

“What?” She blinked those intensely blue eyes at him. Then they went all frosty and she, too, drew herself up. “Oh. Yes, of course.” She surveyed him dispassionately. “Good luck with your canoe and your thingamabob there.” She waved vaguely at the pile of wood curls that used to be his threshold. Then she turned and walked away.

J.D. went back to work. It was quite a while before it dawned on him that if Dru had been busy settling in the drunken sous-chef, she probably hadn’t had the time to carry through on her threat to find herself a stud. Good. He could just shelve this stupid-ass jealousy once and for all. Get back to his real life.

So why did he still feel like putting his fist through the nearest wall?

B
utch stopped to pick up a six-pack of beer on his way home. It was celebration time. He’d just completed his last day on the current job and the next one didn’t start until the middle of the month. So he had a couple of weeks to enjoy the summer weather, maybe go down to Alki and watch the girls in their bikinis in-line-skate along the path fronting the beach. Life was good.

It would be a helluva lot better, though, if the family of the man he’d accidentally shot would quit agitating for their brother’s case to be kept open. Unfortunately, it had been a slow couple of weeks, newswise, so the local stations kept running the damn story with updates on the family’s sense of outrage. One of the younger, more militant members had even insisted it was a hate crime based on the store clerk’s race.

What a crock of shit. It was a fucking
accident;
if
the clerk hadn’t made that dumb move that looked as if he were going for a gun, he never would’ve been hurt. His stupidity was what had gotten him killed—he could have been frigging
purple
and it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference. They oughtta just let him rest in peace.

But what the hell, it couldn’t last much longer. Statistics were in Butch’s favor—a more newsworthy story was bound to break any minute now; then today’s filler would become yesterday’s sound bite. Besides, it wasn’t like J.D. had ever resurfaced, so even if the damn stations did squeeze another ounce of drama out of a story that had already been sucked dry, chances were he was already somewhere halfway across the country where he’d never hear it, anyhow.

Butch collected the mail from the row of mailboxes on the apartment building’s first floor but didn’t bother sorting through it as he climbed the stairs to his apartment. What was the point—all it ever contained was either bills or Gina’s beauty magazines and catalogs. Mail was strictly her territory.

He let himself into the apartment and tossed the stack on the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. He put the six-pack in the fridge, pulled out a bottle, and popped the cap. Grabbing a bag of chips from the counter as he passed by, he headed into the living room and turned on the tube.

He was still sitting there, a pile of greasy crumbs and a half circle of empty bottles on the coffee table in front of him, when Gina got home from work.

She took one look at the mess and snarled, “Dammit, Butch! Pick that shit up!” Without awaiting
a response, she dropped her purse on the counter and continued on into the bedroom.

A few minutes later she reemerged, wearing skintight jeans and a red sweater. She scowled at the mess that still cluttered the table. “I told you to clean that up.”

Butch slouched lower on his tailbone. “C’mon over here and make me.”

She snorted. “Forget it. I’m not in the mood for a hump. And I’m not your fucking maid, either.”

“Hey, who asked you to be? I’ll clean it up when I’m done here.”

“Yeah, right. I’ll hold my breath waiting for that to happen. Your idea of cleaning up is carrying your mess into the kitchen and dumping it on the counter for me to deal with.”

“Grouse all you want, babe.” He folded his hands behind his head and smirked at her. “We both know you’re just jealous because my job’s finished and I’m on vacation. Well, tough. I’m in the mood to celebrate, and you’re not gonna screw it up for me.”

She shrugged and picked up the mail. Butch heard her mumbling under her breath over the bills as she sorted through them. Then she suddenly looked up.

“Hey, did you know J.D.’s east of the mountains?”

Butch froze, his beer bottle suspended mid-tip. He lowered it without draining the last sip, a queasy feeling commencing a slow roll in his gut. “J.D.’s still in the state?”

“Yeah, in the Okanogan, it looks like. I wondered where he’d gotten himself off to; I haven’t seen him around lately. Here, he sent you a postcard.” She
flipped it in his direction, then rose from her stool. “I guess I oughtta figure out what to get out for dinner. Would it kill
you
to get it started once in a while? You get home before I do.”

He wasn’t listening. He got up off the couch to scoop the brightly colored postcard off the carpet, where it had landed a few feet away. Turning it over, he read the message. His legs went rubbery beneath him and he stumbled back to the sofa. He dropped down with uncoordinated abruptness, and for several long moments he simply sat on the edge of the cushion where he’d landed and stared at the card in his hand.

Eastern Washington? J.D. was just over the mountains in frigging eastern Washington? Where the hell was this Star Lake place, anyway? He’d never heard of it. The card said in the beautiful Okanogan, but
where
, exactly? That covered a helluva lot of territory.

Christ. He rubbed a hand over his face. He’d thought for sure J.D. had headed down to California, or maybe lit out east. East of the mountains had never even occurred to him. There was bupkes construction going on over there for one thing, and besides, Butch had visited that side of the Cascades once when he and J.D. had decided to try their hand at fishing, and he’d never understood why anyone in their right mind would want to go back. It was just one big wasteland, as far as he could see, all ugly brown terrain and sagebrush.

But I’m still expecting to see your face plastered on the six o’clock news any day now
.

Ah, man. Every one-stoplight little town they’d stopped at on that trip’d had cable television, since
without it reception was nonexistent. And on those cable TVs had been the three main Seattle channels, KING, KIRO, and KOMO.

Two of which were currently airing the brouhaha stirred up by the clerk’s family.

Shitfuckhell. If J.D. caught sight of one of those reports, he’d be back so fast Butch wouldn’t know what hit him. For all he knew, J.D. was on his way back over the mountains this very minute.

He shoved to his feet. He’d made one little mistake and he was sorry as could be about it, but it was over and done, and there wasn’t one frigging thing that could be done about it now. He sure as hell couldn’t raise the freakin’ dead.

Well, damned if he was going to let J.D. screw up his life over some sorry-ass clown who didn’t have the brains to put his hands in the air when a gun was aimed his way. Butch was going to find himself an atlas and see where this Star Lake town was located. Then he’d just have to take himself a little trip.

Timing was on his side, at least—he had a couple of weeks before his next job started, so he wouldn’t have Gina riding his back because he’d cut out on work. His mistake was relaxing his guard in the first place—but he’d take care of it now. No way in hell did he plan to put up with having the constant threat of exposure hanging over his head. That was no way to live, and it was clear that the time had come to make his move. From now on, he followed the Golden Rule According to Dickson.

He’d do unto J.D. before J.D. had the opportunity to undo him.

Dru’s office door banged open and Tate and Billy raced in. “We’re tired of playing Ping-Pong,” Tate said. “We’re gonna go set up a fort in the woods.”

She glanced out the window. It had been threatening rain since yesterday, but although dark-bottomed clouds boiled low in the sky, the rain still hadn’t materialized. “Okay, but make me a map of where you plan to set up this fort so I can find you if I need to.”

“’Kay. Can we ask the Eagle’s Nest to pack us a lunch?”

“If they aren’t too busy. No pop, though. Ask them to throw in a couple of cartons of milk.”

“Ah,
man
,” he groused. But then he grinned at her and raced out as precipitously as he’d entered, Billy hot on his heels.

Dru smiled and shook her head. She got up to close the door they’d left wide open, then returned to the paperwork on her desk.

The intercom buzzed a short while later, and without taking her attention away from the report in front of her, she reached over to activate it. “Yes?”

“Dru, it’s Sally. I’ve got a map at the front desk that Tate and his friend dropped off, and you’ve got a visitor. Do you have time to see Kev Bronsen?”

“Kev?” She straightened in her seat. “Yes, sure, send him in.”

It seemed as if she’d just taken her finger off the intercom button when he opened the door and stuck his head in. “I hope this isn’t a horrible time. I know I shouldn’t interrupt you at work.”

“Actually, I skipped lunch, so I could use a break.” She smiled, genuinely happy to see him. They’d always had a wonderfully uncomplicated relationship. “Wanna go down to the Nest and grab a sandwich?”

“That’d be great.”

Seated across from him at a small table several minutes later, she openly studied him. Kev had always been good-looking. Now he also possessed a sophistication and polish that he hadn’t had as a teenager.

He thrust his long legs out in the aisle on the side where they wouldn’t pose a threat to anyone walking by, tipped back his chair, and gave her a crooked smile. He raised his brows inquiringly when she continued to stare. “What?”

“I was just thinking how very big-city polished you look. Do we seem like rubes to you now?” They must, she thought as she took in his expensively barbered brown hair and the casual coupling of his fine-gauge cashmere sweater with a threadbare pair of Levi’s.

“My first couple of years away, I probably would have said yes,” he admitted with a shrug. “I was pretty full of myself then, and way prouder than it merited that I’d gotten out of here. But I’ve learned that people are pretty much people wherever you go, and a little of the basic decency you find in the folks around here goes a lot further in the long run than the surface sophistication of the city. Trust me, Dru, you scratch that, and nine times out of ten, you’re gonna find some poor slob harboring a shitload of insecurities.”

Because he looked disillusioned, she said with deliberate dryness, “I wouldn’t be too quick to roman
ticize small-town folks, if I were you. Your memory can’t be all that short, and not everyone around here is as decent as yours truly, you know.”

He laughed. “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten what a hotbed of gossip this burg can be.” He studied her as thoroughly as she’d studied him. “For instance, rumor has it that you and Carver were kissing on his porch.” He gave her a reproachful look. “I thought you had better taste than that.”

“Please.” Dru chortled. “This from the guy who chased Terry McMann for an entire year back in high school. Don’t talk to me about
better taste.
”

“Hey, she had great tits and she was accommodating in the backseat of Dad’s Chevy; it didn’t get much better than that.” He smiled reminiscently. “Whatever happened to Terry, anyhow?”

“She got religion and teaches Sunday school in Yakima. I heard she wears orthopedic shoes now, and has a passel of kids.”

“Aw,
man
,” he said mournfully, sounding spookily reminiscent of Tate when she’d told him he couldn’t have pop for lunch. “What a waste.” Then he smiled at her across the table. “I’ve missed you, Dru; it’s really good to see you again. What do you say we go down to the Red Bull Friday night and show the rubes around here how to shake a leg?”

“That sounds like fun. I haven’t been dancing in quite a while.” Then she thought of the chemistry she’d witnessed between him and Char, and the vow she and her friend had made back in junior high school not to horn in on each other’s boyfriends. “I’ll have to get back to you, though. I’ve got Tate to consider.”

“No problem. You know where I live—give me a call.”

She tracked down Char later that afternoon in the tiny office that fronted the massage-therapy room. When she stuck her head inside the door, she saw her friend sitting with her feet propped up on an open desk drawer, reading a magazine.

It always gave her a kick to see Char in her work environment. Forget pale-faced, Birkenstock-wearing New Agers. The pale green lab coat was about the only concession Char made to her profession—her hair was as bouffant as always, her makeup vibrant, and her fingernails screw-me red. Dru knew her clientele was often taken aback upon their first introduction, but no one who’d ever had a Swedish massage by Char ever again thought twice again about her flamboyant looks.

Dru smiled. “Hey. You got a minute?”

Char tossed the magazine aside and dropped her feet to the floor, sitting up. “Sure, come on in. I’ve got the entire hour. My three o’clock canceled.”

“Difficult to get rich that way.”

“Tell me about it. On the other hand, it was Roberta Manion, and no matter how well her daughter tips, I’m always wrung out by the end of a session with her. I swear that woman would complain if you hung her with a new rope.”

Dru laughed and pulled up the extra chair, breathing in the scents of Char’s aromatic oils and enjoying the London Philharmonic as it purled Bizet’s
Carmen
out of the overhead speakers. “I can’t stay the whole hour, but Kev dropped by a while ago and I need to talk to you.”

Char stiffened, her smile wiped away. “What on
earth does anything concerning that fool have to do with me?”

“He invited me to go down to the Red Bull Friday night, and I want to talk to you about it. It’s not a date or anything,” she rushed to add. “It would be strictly as friends, you understand, but I thought I should—”

“Drucilla Jean, you can have wild, unprotected sex with the guy for all it means to me.” Char shrugged. “Although, as your friend, I’d have to question your judgment.”

“Dammit, Char, why do you do that?”

Char looked at her warily. “Do what?”

“Why do you pretend you don’t care anything about him?”

“Well, gee, let me think. Could it be because I
don’t
care anything about him?”

You are so full of it
. “If you say so.”

“I do say so,” Char said tightly.

“Okay. Then prove it.”

“Excuse me?”

Dru looked her friend in the eye. “Prove it.”

“And how do you suggest I do that?”

“Say you’ll come to the Red Bull Friday night, too.”