Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
clay
I tear the phone from my desk the moment Bronson’s name blazes across the screen. “Where are you? Why the hell are you calling?”
The line crackles with wind, a car door slams, and Bronson’s voice rolls through the speaker. “We ran into the foster mother.”
I sit up, jaw locking. The foster mother—Fawn’s? “Where’s Fawn now?”
“On her way home with big boy Bolton.”
“And you?”
A slow, wild drawl, “Guess.”
“Don’t play games with me.”
“I trailed a little bunny back to its warren,” he sings. “She spotted Fawn at the market. I didn’t like her one bit— imagined shoving a rose through her eye.”
Why was she there?
Stalking my sweet girl, or pure chance?
I exhale through locked teeth. “Is Fawn okay? Did she seem uncomfortable?”
“Uncomfortable? Yeah. But she handled it like a queen. A sweet, young queen, but still a fucking queen. She is on her way home with a bunch of roses. She had a ball with her big brother Bronson. I promise. If she dreams about me tonight, don’t be mad—
“And the mother?” I rise and walk to the window.
He laughs low. “Hopped into an old Civic, headed east through the underpass, straight back to her house.”
“Take me through what happened.”
“Fawn asked the soldiers to let her pass. I didn’t stop it—I was at her shoulder, beautiful brother, don’t worry.
They talked for six, maybe seven minutes.
The foster mother stared at Fawn like she was a ghost, but there was something else going on.
Not sure what. Her eyes, they held some serious resentment.
Reminded me of the way my Outlaw looks at store-bought tomato sauce; she-a true Sicilian, that one. ”
I picture Fawn with her chin high, defiance burning in her pretty eyes. My chest tightens. “And Fawn?”
“Fawn stood her ground,” Bronson says. “But that woman is gnarly manipulative, needs either a good fuck or a hammer to the skull. I’d like to help with the latter.”
I nod. One hand cracks my knuckles, stiff from years of boxing and tension, the other crushes the phone until the plastic creaks. Did she follow them? Impossible. Not with my soldiers, our surveillance, decoy cars, mixing lanes masterfully confusing onlookers. “Where are you now? Bronson?”
A grunt, then the hollow thud of wood. “Jumping her fence.” He curses in Sicilian as he lands.
“So,” he pants, “she drove straight home, brother. Didn’t glance back.
Parked, walked up to the house like a corpse.
Ordered Chinese—the delivery guy just left.
Smelled good. Now I’m hungry. She shut the curtains.
Of course, I’m going around the back. Can I kill her?
I’ll make it toxic as fuck,” he says ‘toxic,’ as if it’s code or laced with meaning. “I’ll bring her Chinese home.”
“She’s a registered government foster carer and worker.
Don’t kill her yet. After the wedding, perhaps.
We don’t need police poking around over the next four months.
” I glare out the window. Dusk bruises the blue sky.
“And? Did she stop at the market for Fawn or just pass through? What’s your take on this? ”
Silence crackles.
“She bought flowers,” Bronson finally says, voice low, leaves rustling. A dog barks. “Hey, little buddy,” he coos, talking to the fucking stray. “Oh, you’re a handsome boy. Did you smell that Chinese food? I’ll grab you a wonton. Wanna come home with me? My wife will probably kill me—”
“Bronson!”
“I’ll come back for you!” he whisper-shouts like he’s leaving an injured solider on the battlefield.
He moves again. “So, yeah, she bought a huge bouquet. I’m at a side window…
Oh, fuck, the place is a mess. Newspapers piled to the ceiling, junk in towers…
This room is like a depressed person’s shrine.
” I hear more leaves rustling, then he says, “Except in the bedroom. Hold up—” He chuckles.
“Three spotless bedrooms, almost sterile. The woman can clean.”
I frown. Three rooms?
“Has she accepted new foster kids?” I muse aloud.
“I’ll climb in the window and check,” Bronson offers as casually as one might order a coffee.
I hear metal scrape on metal, followed by the sound of the screen popping free, then… silence.
No curses.
No breathing.
Dead air.
“Report,” I warn.
A moment stretches.
My mind churns through possibilities. Is she armed? Doubtful. Drugged? Good, put her head in the toilet bowl. On the brink of killing herself? That’ll make things simpler.
My little deer’s face flashes in my mind, the pain and confusion in her eyes as she crawled along the basement floor of that house, cum and virgin blood mixing, dripping down her thighs, while her foster brothers took turns raping her. My knuckles ache as I grip the phone.
Bronson suddenly whispers. “She’s moving past me outside with the flowers. Wait… She’s in the backyard.”
Twigs snap.
“Fucken ay,” he breathes, thrill and awe laced through his voice. “This is great. She is losing it. My little bunny is grieving. Three mounds over there, beautiful brother. And makeshift headstones.”
Makeshift headstones?
Bronson mutters something to the beat of one, two, three, four, then says amen.
“Stop fucking praying!” I order, irritation gathering along my forehead. “And tell me what’s happening.”
“I was just checking my goods. Spectacles, testicles, watch, and wallet, amen. So, not one big bunch of flowers, but three small ones—one for each mound. I couldn’t write this shit. She’s kneeling by them, talking and crying.”
I tense. “Are there names on the headstones?”
“Oh, yeah,” Bronson almost sings. “You’re gonna love this. Benji. Jake. Landon.”
Empty graves.
Missing boys.
Their names slide into my ears—the two we tortured and sank to the bottom of the river, and the one who took his own trip through a glass table in the foster mother’s basement.
So it wasn't stalking. She was just making her regular pilgrimage, buying flowers for the fuckers who violated my little deer.
That thin coincidence is the only thing keeping her breathing right now—that and the wedding.
Had Eleanor been following my little deer instead of just tending to her empty graves, Bronson would be wiping blood from his face between bites of Chinese food right now.