Chapter Seventeen #2
Whiskey glances at me, then pointedly at my open jeans.
I finish buttoning them while he fixes his belt.
“Happy?”
“Disappointed.”
I stare at him. “Focus.”
“Trying.”
We move toward the sound slower this time, watching where we put our feet and checking the spaces between trees instead of charging straight through them. Whiskey stays half a step ahead with his pistol low but ready.
I let him.
Only because he has the damn gun. That’s my story.
Our flashlight beams cross over a deep impression beside the roots of an oak.
A human boot print. Fresh enough that rainwater is only beginning to collect in the bottom. I crouch while Whiskey lowers his light beside mine.
“That yours?”
“No.”
“Mine neither.”
The tread is different from both of ours, larger than my boot with a narrower heel than Whiskey’s. The edges haven’t softened yet, and displaced mud still ridges one side.
Somebody was here very fucking recently.
I follow the direction of the print and find another farther downhill, then a third several feet beyond it. Beside that one lies something small and laminated.
I pull on another glove and pick it up.
It’s a faded card with a white background and tarnished gold border, water damage curling the edges. An old logo stretches across the top.
Two wrought-iron gates.
I know exactly what I’m looking at before I finish reading the faded print beneath them.
PEARLY GATES YOUTH & FAMILY RETREAT
Whiskey’s flashlight lowers several inches.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
I turn the card over. There’s no handwritten name, and whatever address was printed near the bottom has blurred into nothing. A short prayer remains on the back, most of the ink smeared beyond reading.
Whiskey takes one step backward and looks uphill toward his house. Toward Wren’s bedroom. Every trace of humor leaves him.
“You got another bag?”
“Yeah.” He digs into another pocket and hands me a second Ziploc without making the snack joke this time.
I slide the card inside and seal it. “This could be old.”
“No.”
“You think?”
“Somebody was just here.”
“The boot print proves somebody was here. It doesn’t prove they dropped this card tonight.”
“Twila.”
His voice stops me, not because it’s angry but because it isn’t.
Whiskey is scared. “They’ve been near my house.”
“We don’t know whoever made that print came from Pearly Gates.”
“You wanna bet Wren on it?”
“No. Absolutely fucking not.”
He turns uphill. “We’re done out here.”
I follow for about six steps before he says, “You ain’t going anywhere alone.”
“What?”
“You’re not going home tomorrow. You stay at my house.”
I stop.
Whiskey gets another two steps before realizing I’m no longer beside him. He turns, rainwater dripping from his hair onto the shoulders of his cut.
“Come on.”
“No.”
His hand closes harder around the flashlight. “Twila.”
“You do not get to make that decision.”
“Somebody connected to Pearly Gates might’ve been fifty yards from my kid’s bedroom.”
“I know.”
“And they know you are on to them as well.”
“I know.”
“So until this shit’s done, you’re staying with me.”
“That is not your choice.”
“It is.”
I laugh once, and there isn’t anything warm in it. “Interesting.”
He understands immediately, anger receding just enough for regret to show. “That ain’t fair.”
“Everybody loves me so much they keep building walls. Remember?”
“Fuck. That ain’t what I’m doing.”
“You just told me where I’m staying.”
“Because somebody might be trying to kill you.”
“I know.”
“Then why the fuck are we arguing?”
“Because you’re not asking.”
He stands beneath the dripping branches with mud streaked across his cheek and tangled into his beard, his cut filthy and his belt still crooked because ten minutes ago I was trying to get into his pants.
He drags in a breath. “This is my kid.”
The anger underneath those words stops me. “I know.”
“My fucking kid, Twila.”
“I know.”
“I don’t care about procedure. I don’t care about jurisdiction. I don’t give a shit what your daddy thinks. If somebody came onto my property because of us getting close to this Pearly Gates shit…”
“This is my case.”
“Fuck your case.”
The words hit hard enough that I stop moving.
Whiskey hears himself at the same time I do. “Shit.”
I turn away and start uphill.
“Twila.”
“That sounded pretty clear.”
He catches up but doesn’t touch me. “That ain’t what I meant.”
“What part was confusing?”
“I mean if I gotta choose between a fucking case and Wren breathing, there ain’t a choice.”
I stop. Because that I understand. Of course I do. When I turn back, he isn’t angry anymore. He’s terrified and doing a bad job hiding it.
“She’s seven,” he says more quietly. “She sleeps with a stuffed raccoon named Earl and gets mad if peas touch mashed potatoes. She ain’t part of this shit.”
“I know.”
His eyes flick toward the black woods. “And now I got some asshole walking around my property dropping a calling card.” The fear in his voice hits harder than shouting did.
I step closer. “I’m not asking you to choose the case over Wren.”
“Then what?”
“Don’t make me choose between doing my job and you.”
That shuts him up.
I hold his gaze. “I stayed with you because I wanted to.”
His attention snaps back to me.
“There. Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
“Shut up. I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“I’m not your hostage. I’m not your property. And I’m not gonna sit in your house while you and the Kings decide what I’m allowed to know.”
He goes still, studying me. Whiskey steps closer, careful not to crowd me. “Wasn’t planning on giving you up that easy.”
My stomach flips, which is irritating enough that I immediately glare at him. “Who said I’m yours to give up?”
“Nobody.”
“Good.”
His gaze travels over my muddy clothes, catches briefly on my hair, then drops to my mouth. “Would you stay tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Don’t push it.”
His mouth starts to curve.
I point uphill. “Holler is probably planning our funerals.”
“True.”
We start back toward the house.
This time Whiskey doesn’t tell me where to walk or put a hand on me to keep me there. He just falls into step beside me.
Much better.
By the time we reach the yard, I’m cold, wet, muddy, and increasingly aware that my underwear contains enough of the Kentucky forest to qualify as a sample.
The porch light clicks on before we reach the steps.
Holler opens the door and looks at Whiskey, then me, then Whiskey’s mud-covered back and my mud-covered front. His gaze drops to his crooked belt before returning to my hair.
His eyes narrow.
“Did y’all find the deer or just each other?”
I start laughing.
Whiskey closes his eyes.
Wren is asleep on the couch beneath a blanket, one hand tucked beneath her cheek.
The sight changes Whiskey before he even reaches her. His shoulders lower, and the hand that has stayed close to his gun since we found the boot print finally eases away from it.
I’m starting to notice too much about him, which feels like another dangerous habit I should probably quit.
We wash up in the mudroom sink as much as possible while Holler carries Wren back to her room. Mud swirls brown around the old porcelain basin, splattering the chipped white enamel no matter how careful we are.
Whiskey stands beside me scrubbing at his beard with a wet towel.
I watch him long enough that he catches me.
“What?”
“You really do look like a swamp creature.”
“Still made you come in the woods.”
I cut my eyes at him. “You almost fucked me in the woods.”
“Would’ve done that too.”
Heat crawls up my neck despite the cold. “Cocky bastard.”
“Accurate bastard.”
He’s right. We ain’t been able to keep our hands off each other since last night.
I rinse the last mud from my hands.
Whiskey gets quiet beside me.
He leans one hip against the counter, the wet towel hanging from one hand. “You said you stayed because you wanted to.”
“I did.”
“Yeah.”
“You gonna make it weird?”
“Probably.”
“Don’t.”
A brief smile touches his mouth before his attention shifts toward the hallway where Holler disappeared with Wren.
“She could’ve been outside tonight.”
I dry my hands. “She wasn’t.”
“Could’ve.”
“But she wasn’t.”
He looks at me.
I step closer and wipe away a streak of mud caught near the edge of his beard. Whiskey’s hand stops against the counter, and that surprises me.
This man has had his hands over nearly every inch of my body, and somehow me touching his cheek makes him look like I pulled a gun.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” He starts toward the hallway, then stops and looks back.
“You coming?”
“To shower?”
“Yeah, and to bed.”
I glance at the two evidence bags on the counter. Pearly Gates. Mercy. Kaylee and Cider. Fresh human boot prints outside Whiskey’s home. A thing in the woods I’m still calling a sick deer because I enjoy sleeping occasionally.
Then I look at Whiskey.
“Yeah.”
Something eases around his eyes before he disappears down the hall.
I pick up the evidence bags and start after him, but something beyond the glass in the back door catches my attention.
The porch is empty, wet boards shining beneath the light. Then I see the mark near the bottom step. One small cloven print pressed into the muddy water.
A hoof.
I move closer, heartbeat picking up as I search the boards and steps for another impression.
There isn’t one.
No second print. No trail crossing the porch. No logical path showing how an animal came up or went away.
Just one muddy little hoof mark where there shouldn’t be one. I stare toward the black tree line.
Nothing moves.
“Twila?” Whiskey calls from down the hall.
I keep watching another moment before reaching for the porch light.
“Coming.”
Darkness swallows the yard. I take the evidence with me.
The hoofprint can wait until morning.
Whiskey’s bed can’t.