For You (The 'Burg Series) (2 page)

“You see anyone last night? Unfamiliar? Give you a bad feeling?” Alec asked Morrie and I knew this was brother-speak.

Alec would lay his career down on Morrie telling him he had a bad feeling about someone. Both of them could read people like books, something they could do forever. I’d never been able to lie successfully to either of them, not once, and I’d tried. It wasn’t surprising Alec became a cop, it was natural-born even if on the face of it, considering his parents and, well, how he used to be, you wouldn’t know it. It also wasn’t surprising Morrie took over the bar. Even in our town, which wasn’t huge, but also wasn’t small, the clientele was regular. Still, trouble could happen, especially when the races were on and anyone could wander in. You had to be able to weed the good from the bad so you could lock down the bad before shit happened.

“Nope, no one. Normal night at Jack and Jackie’s,” Morrie answered.

Alec looked at me. “Where’s the trash?”

I again stared and repeated, “The trash?”

“You said you went out to the alley to take out the trash. Crime scene, far’s I can see, is unaltered. Where’s –”

Alec stopped talking because I started moving. I wasn’t thinking much of anything. I didn’t even know why I was moving.

I plunked my coffee cup down, walked passed Alec and went to the bar. The heavy panel was already up and over on its hinges where I guessed I’d put it when I went in to make the 911 call. I walked behind the bar and stared at the two huge bags of garbage that were sitting on the floor by the phone.

I hadn’t even noticed I’d carried them back in and dropped them to make the call.

I turned around and saw Alec was standing close, his eyes on the trash.

“I just went to the door,” I told his throat, seeing his neck twist, his chin dipping down to look at me but my eyes didn’t move. “I just went to the door,” I repeated then my head jerked, my ear going toward my shoulder and I felt a weird pain in the back of my neck at the sudden movement. “I just went to the door,” I said again, for some stupid reason now whispering, “opened the door and saw her.”

That’s when I cried.

I didn’t feel anything, didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, didn’t taste the coffee in my mouth, just cried hard while my brain filled.
 

I saw her, I saw Angie and all her blood and all her exposed
parts
. Parts I should never see, parts with skin, parts without, all of it, all of her, lying lifeless in the alley by the dumpster.

Then I heard Alec say, “I got her,” and I realized his arms were around me.

I pulled away and stepped away. Distance with Alec, hell with
anyone
but
especially
with Alec, was good.

I swiped at my eyes, controlling the tears, not looking at him. “I’m okay.”

There was silence for awhile but Morrie moved in close to me. I could feel his bulk filling the long space behind the bar.

“You gotta walk me through your morning,” Alec said and I didn’t want to but I lifted my eyes to his.

“What?”

“Walk me through your morning, Feb,” Alec repeated.

“I came in to get ready to open –” I started.

“Your full morning,” Alec interrupted.

I felt my mouth open, my lips parting. I could feel the sensation of skin separating from skin like it was the first time I’d ever done it when I knew I’d done it before. It just didn’t feel like it then. It felt like the first time and it felt like my lips parted in slow motion.

I wished I’d brought my coffee with me.

“I woke up –”

“What time?”

I shook my head. “Normal time, seven o’clock, seven thirty.”

“You get up at seven thirty?” Morrie asked, like I had a screw loose.

“Yeah.”

“Shit, Feb, we own a bar,” Morrie stated. “How do you get up at seven thirty?”

“I don’t know, I just do,” and I did. Even if I lay my head down at three thirty in the morning, I woke up between seven and seven thirty. It was a curse.

“You woke up, what next?” Alec cut in giving Morrie a
shut up
look. I’d seen him do that a lot over the years. Usually Morrie didn’t shut up. This time he did.

“I fed the cat –”

“Did you do it alone?” Alec asked.

I stared at him then said, “Feed the cat?”

He shook his head but it was a rough motion, jerky. “Wake up.”

I sucked in breath, not wanting to answer the question, not wanting Alec to have that information, either answer I could give. But knowing I had to, I nodded.

He nodded his head, that motion was rough and jerky too. “What’d you do after you fed your cat?”

“I did yoga –”

Alec’s brows snapped together and now he was looking at me like I had a screw loose. “You do yoga?”

“Well… yeah.”

He looked away muttering, “Christ.”

I didn’t know what was wrong with yoga but I didn’t ask. I wanted this to be done. In fact, I wanted the day to be done, the year, I wanted it to be a year from now when all this would be faded and a whole lot less real.

“Like I was saying, I did yoga, took a shower and then walked to Meems’s.”

“Anyone see you walk to Meems’s?” Alec asked.

“What’s this about?” Morrie sounded like he was getting pissed.

“Just let me ask the questions, it’ll be over and we can move on,” Alec answered.

“Jessie,” I cut in, still on a mission to get my story out so this could be over and we could move on. “I walked to her place and then Jessie walked with me to Meems’s.”

Jessie Rourke and Mimi VanderWal were my best friends, had been since high school.

“You and Jessie went to Meems’s, what next?” Alec asked.

“We hung out at Meems’s, had coffee, a muffin, shot the shit, the same as every day,” I answered.

And it was the same as every day, although sometimes Jessie didn’t come with and it was just me and my journals or a book or the paper and my cup of coffee and muffin at Meems’s.

I preferred when Jessie was there. Meems owned the joint and by the time I got there it was a crush so she didn’t have time to gab. She had a plaque that said “reserved” that she put on my table, though everyone knew it was my table and no one ever sat there in the mornings but me. She didn’t need the plaque, one of her kids carved into the table, “Feb’s Spot, sit here and die”.
 
Meems’s kids were a bit wild but they were funny.

“When’d you leave Meems’s?” Alec asked.

I shrugged. “Ten o’clock, probably around there. Came straight here.” Coming straight to J&J’s wasn’t far. It was two doors down from Mimi’s Coffee House. “I opened up, started the coffee going and went to the back hall to take out the trash I knew was probably there. It was there. I opened the door, grabbed the bags and –”

I stopped and looked down at the garbage bags beside me. The rest didn’t need to be said.

Alec’s voice came at me. “You see anything else, Feb?”

I took in a breath because I needed it and I thought it was a big one but it felt shallow. My chest felt empty like I could breathe and breathe but there was not enough breath to fill it, never would be again and I looked at him.

“Anything else?”

“Anyone in the alley when you went out?”

Morrie got closer to me, his arm sliding around my shoulders. “Jesus, Colt. What the fuck you sayin’?”

“She’s warm,” Alec answered, his words were clipped, short, bitten off like he didn’t want to say them but he had to and he wanted them out of his mouth as fast as he could do it.

“Warm?” I asked.

I watched his teeth sink into his bottom lip. I knew why he did this. I’d seen him do it a lot in my life. He did it when he was seriously,
seriously
hacked off.

“The body,” he said, “Angie.”

“What?” Morrie asked.

“She’s still warm,” Alec answered. “She’s not been dead long.”
 

“Oh my God,” I whispered, that empty feeling in my chest started burning, the vomit rolled back up my throat and I had to swallow it down.

“Are you fucking
shitting
me?” Morrie exploded.

“You see anything, Feb? Hear anything? Any movement, anything,” Alec pushed, he wanted answers but he was going about it quiet, gentle.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Morrie cursed.

“Morrie, you aren’t helping,” Alec told him.

“Fuck that, Colt, my sister opened the door to a fresh murder scene!” Morrie bellowed. “You’re sayin’ the guy coulda been out there?”

I felt my muscles seize.

Alec either saw it or sensed it and his voice went scary when he said, “Morrie, for fuck’s sake, you aren’t fucking helping.”

Morrie and Alec may have been best friends since kindergarten but they fought, a lot. It was never pretty and it could get physical. It hadn’t happened in awhile but, then again, nothing this big had happened in awhile.

“I didn’t see anything,” I said quickly and I didn’t and, at that moment, I was glad I didn’t.

I didn’t want whoever did that to Angie to get away with it and, if I saw something, I wouldn’t lie even though it would scare the shit out of me. But I didn’t see anything and this was a relief.

I wasn’t a bad person. But I wasn’t a good person either. I didn’t do good things like Alec did. I was just a normal person, I kept myself to myself. I also had been a bartender my whole adult life and grew up in a bar, not to mention I now part-ran one. So I kept other things to myself too. It was a job hazard; everyone told you everything when they were hammered. Shit you did
not
want to know.
 

But I’d have done the right thing for Angie.

I just hoped Alec knew that.

He looked me direct in the eye and I let him. This went on awhile and was very uncomfortable. Not that I had anything to hide, just that these days anytime Alec stared me direct in the eye, it made me very uncomfortable. I’d been able to avoid it mostly, for years, but now there it was.

“You’re stayin’ with me until Colt finds this fucker,” Morrie told me and I broke eye contact with Alec to stare at my brother.

“I am not.”

“You stay with him or you stay with me.”

This came from Alec.

I transferred my stare to him, thrown for a moment because while I was perfecting the art of avoiding Alec, I pretty much figured he was returning the gesture.

 
“I’m not doing that either.”

“Two choices, Feb,” Morrie stated, his arm getting tight around my shoulders.

“I didn’t
see
anything!” My voice was getting higher.

“Not takin’ chances,” Morrie didn’t sound like he’d be easily swayed.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, getting pissed.
 

I was a normal person and kept myself to myself meaning I
liked
to keep myself to myself. Not have myself living with my brother and
definitely
not Alec.

“Ridiculous?” Alec said, his voice weirdly soft and compelling, drawing my attention to him and his face was hard again. He was angry, at
me
.

And I knew why.

I’d seen it, all the gruesome, bloody evidence of it in the alley.

“I’ll stay with Morrie.”

Morrie’s arm gave my shoulders a squeeze.

Alec bit his lip again, still hacked off about something, what at that point I didn’t know, but he kept staring at me, making me think it was me. Then he let go of his lip and clenched his teeth, making both of his jaws flex and I wondered if he was biting back words.

He succeeded if that was what he was doing since without saying anything, he nodded to me then to Morrie and he walked away.

* * * * *