“See?” Brantley added. “It’s all okay. Sophie and Clay are together, and April and I will start our lives as newlyweds.”
“We’re not together,” Sophie said.
Clay talked right over her, though, so she wasn’t sure anyone heard her. “You’re not starting anything,” he warned Brantley. “Where’s April?”
“My house here in Wrangler’s Creek. Our house,” Brantley corrected. “I just moved her and the boys in.” And despite Clay’s intense glare, Brantley managed to hike up his chin and look as if he’d located his backbone.
The backbone display didn’t last long, though.
The color bleached from Brantley’s face when Clay took hold of his arm. Hard. The kind of grip he no doubt used when making an arrest. “Come on. You, April and me are about to have a little talk.”
* * *
TALKING SUCKED, TOO.
At least it did when a big brother was talking to a knot-headed kid sister. After an hour of trying to drill home why marrying Brantley was a stupid idea, Clay had left to regroup and try to come up with an argument that might get April to come to her senses and annul the marriage. Or at least rethink it.
In the meantime, he hoped Brantley didn’t a) break her heart b) stunt the emotional development of his nephews or c) knock April up. Just in case of the latter, Clay made a mental note to send April a jumbo box of condoms.
That hadn’t worked with Spike and her, but maybe this time April would remember to have Brantley use them. Even though he wouldn’t trade his nephews for the world, his sister needed another kid to raise even less than she needed another dickweed husband.
Clay walked into the police station, and of course, all eyes immediately went to him. Ellie’s, Rowdy’s and Reena’s. The gossip had probably already reached them, and they might be concerned that he’d assaulted Brantley.
“Brantley’s alive and in one piece,” Clay greeted to put their minds at ease and to stop them from asking him anything. But it was clear that it eased nothing.
“Uh, you got another of those envelopes,” Reena said, scrubbing her hands down the sides of her jeans, and she immediately looked away. “I put it on your desk.”
Clay didn’t ask for any details because he knew what she meant by those envelopes. Reena and the crew had no idea what was in them, though. They only knew he got one on the first of each month and that he only opened them behind closed doors. They also knew the envelopes put him in a shit-kicking mood. Since his mood was already at the shit-kicking level, it didn’t bode well for workplace morale.
He made his way to his office, and right off he spotted the large document-sized envelope in the center of his desk. Hard to miss it since it was Pepto-Bismol pink. Like the others, it was addressed to Detective Clay McKinnon, care of the Wrangler’s Creek PD and was postmarked from Houston. Also like the others, the sender had made a heart of the o in his surname.
Because he needed a minute—he always did when it came to these deliveries—Clay sank down into his chair and considered a drink. He kept a bottle of cheap Irish whiskey in his bottom drawer. It was on top of a copy of his resignation papers from Houston PD, which in turn was on top of his last case file when he’d worked there. Beneath that were more pink envelopes, one for every month he’d been at Wrangler’s Creek PD.
Just opening the drawer was like going into his “shit to forget” box in his head so he decided to pass on the whiskey. Good thing, too, because there was a knock at the door, and it opened.
Before the woman even stepped into his office, he caught a whiff of her. Garlic, for sure. Limburger cheese, maybe. And Listerine. It was his neighbor, Vita.
Clay wasn’t sure exactly how old Vita was, but she had to be a lot younger than she looked because she had a thirty-year-old daughter, Mila. Yet she looked to be a hundred and sixty. Or maybe that wasn’t actually wrinkles upon wrinkles but instead she was smearing her face with Limburger cheese.
Like the other times he’d seen her, Vita was wearing a long brown skirt, so long that the hem was dusting the floor, and enough cheap bead necklaces to act as an anchor if she ever got caught in a tornado.
“I came,” Vita announced as if he was expecting her. He wasn’t. But then you never really expected Vita. She was like a cold sore and just showed up.
Best to cut her off at the pass and make this visit as short as possible. The longer she stayed the more air freshener he’d have to use. “If this is about my sister and Brantley—”
“No. There’s nothing to be done about that.” Her attention landed on the pink envelope. “Or that, either.”
Well, this was a cheery visit. Not that he had any faith whatsoever in Vita’s future-telling/ESP powers that she claimed were in her gypsy blood, but if she’d offered him any hope, he might have latched on to it.
“I came about the chickens,” Vita said. “They’ll attack again soon.”
That got his attention, and Clay frowned over the way his gut suddenly tensed. “How do you know this? Have the chickens been talking to you?”
The woman didn’t crack a smile at his bad joke, but she did take something from her skirt pocket. An egg. Not a clean one that came in a carton from the grocery store. This one had what he was pretty sure was a smear of chicken shit on it and a bit of a feather.
“It belongs to one of them,” Vita went on, her voice all low and dramatic. “Keep it with you at all times, and they won’t attack. Their scent is on it, and they won’t risk hurting one of their own.”
Clay had no idea how to respond to that so he just grunted. Vita must have taken that as an agreement that he would go along with this because now she smiled. The joke hadn’t amused her but a grunt had.
He made a mental note to talk to her daughter about getting her some psychological help.
Vita pulled something else from her pocket. A massive can of Mighty Lube. It was shaped like a penis but double the size.
“For Sophie,” Vita said.
All right. Clay wanted to know why Vita believed Sophie would need glorified vegetable oil and why the woman couldn’t just give it to Sophie herself. But he was afraid this was meant to be a sex aid, and like feral chickens, he didn’t want to discuss that with Vita. He just thanked her, said goodbye and asked her to close the door on her way out. She did those things but not before uttering what sounded like a threat.
“If you hurt Sophie, you’ll be sorry. I’ve read her palm so I know your paths cross.”
“Of course they cross. It’s a small town.”
But he seriously doubted that Vita meant that.
“They’ll cross,” she went on, “but it’ll be up to you which direction she takes after that. Hurt her, and you’ll have to deal with me.”
As the interim chief of police, Clay supposed he should remind her that it wasn’t a good idea to threaten a cop, but instead he reached for the air freshener in his bottom left
