“Also means he knows her better than we expected, he’s goin’ after folks from the last seventeen years, not just folks in town,” Colt replied.

“Yep.”

“This is not good,” Colt stated the obvious.

“This is not good,” Sully repeated.

“Are you getting anywhere?”

“Lore’s in town and has been without leaving, alibis for every move he makes. You know Lore, he’s not much into bein’ alone.”

This wasn’t a surprise. “What about the other three?”

“Two, we’ve had conversations with. They’re unlikely. Denny Lowe, though, right now is prime suspect.”

Colt thought about Denny Lowe.

Denny had lived in that town most of his life. Pipsqueak of a kid, no meat on him, always had greasy hair, grew up late, took a whole helluva lot of shit in the meantime and was teased viciously, mostly by Susie Shepherd and her gang. But when he grew, he grew. Susie had graduated by then but everyone was shocked at how he’d turned out. Good-looking guy, not tall, average height, built lean but tough. He was painfully shy like Amy, but once he came into his own, he seemed to shake it off. He wasn’t the most popular kid in school but he wasn’t a whack job either. Sully’s search into him showed he’d gone to Northwestern and got out doing something with computers, moved home, making a mint, lived on The Heritage in a big house off the golf course with a wife, no kids. Colt didn’t see him much, sometimes at Frank’s having dinner with his wife, sometimes at the grocery store, again always with his wife, a couple of times at the liquor store, not with his wife.

He’d been in J&J’s but he was nowhere near a regular. Colt hadn’t seen him there in years. Definitely not since Feb got back.

Still, he fit the profile.

“Colt?” He heard Feb call.

He was looking at his lap and thinking about Denny Lowe and missed Feb coming out of his room. His head came up and he saw her dark silhouette in the hall.

Damn it all to hell, now he was going to have to tell her about this.

“Give me a second Feb,” he muttered, twisted and turned on the light behind him then twisted back, saw her wearing nothing but a big t-shirt, her cat in her arms. He aimed his eyes at his lap so he wouldn’t get another glimpse of her legs and said into the phone, “Why’s Denny on your hook?”

“He’s disappeared. His wife has too. No one answering the door and he’s not been to work. They said he has the week off.”

“So maybe he’s on vacation.”

“Maybe. His car sure as fuck is gone but no airlines have him or his wife on their reservations list. Family and friends don’t know anything about a vacation. And you use your credit card on vacation. No transactions on hers or his. Funny thing, though, last coupla months Denny Lowe has been making hefty withdrawals from their joint account. Sum total, he withdrew fifteen G’s.”

That cold slithered around his chest and he asked, “Where’s he got his account?”

“County Bank.”

Shit, where Amy worked.

“Sounds like that hook’s in deep,” Colt remarked.

“Deep enough for you to talk to Feb about him,” Sully said.

Fucking shit.

He lifted his head, found her eyes, noticed she’d leaned a shoulder against the wall and her cat was purring as she scratched his neck and said, “She’s here. Just in from J&J’s.”

“After the scene at the Station maybe you should get some bourbon in her before you do it.” Sully was trying to make a joke.

Colt didn’t feel like laughing. “Feb drinks rum.”

“Right,” Sully still thought it was funny. “Heard about today at J&J’s, man. That shit’s flying around town faster’n snot. I know you like that house, hope you two can live under the same roof without that roof blowin’ clean off.”

Colt was losing patience. “You wanna chat or you want me to talk to Feb?”

“Get the rum. Talk to Feb.”

“Later.”

Colt started to take the phone away from his ear but Sully’s call stopped him. “Colt?”

“Yeah.”

“I know you don’t wanna hear it but I’m gonna say it. Accordin’ to Lorraine, you two were born to be together. And what I heard Feb say yesterday…” He let that hang but before Colt could get in word one, Sully continued. “You don’t sort your and her shit out, man, it’ll be a tragedy.”

“You done?” Colt asked.

“I’m done.”

“I’ll call you if there’s something to report. Later.”

“Later.”

He flipped his phone shut and threw it on the coffee table. His eyes went to Feb and she was still leaning against the wall, holding her body like she was bracing.

“You still drink rum?” he asked her.

“Just tell me,” she replied.

He threw back the blanket and got up, walking to the kitchen. He flipped on the lights and went to the cupboard where he kept his spirits. Dee drank rum like Feb, he knew he had a bottle and he was right. He pulled it down along with the Jack and grabbed some glasses.

“Colt, seriously,” she said to his back.

“What do you cut it with?” he asked.

He heard her sigh then she said, “I’ll get it.”

He twisted to her. “You mix enough drinks. What do you cut it with?”

She stopped moving toward the fridge, stood still for a moment then headed to the opposite counter. He watched her lean against it but drop her cat.

“Diet,” she finally answered.

He opened his fridge and couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Holy fuck.”

The fridge was brimming with food and beverage. It’d never been that full, not even when Melanie lived there and Melanie loved to cook.

“What?” Feb asked.

“Jackie’s been here,” Colt answered, grabbing a couple of cans of pop, diet for her then he put his back, thinking he’d prefer his bourbon cut only with ice.

He mixed her drink, poured his, dumped ice in, handed hers to her and stood close. She had her back to the counter; Colt had his side to it. She had her waist against it and he rested his hip beside her.

He watched her take a drink, her eyes on the floor.

“Don’t know if I can soften this, February,” he told her the God’s honest truth.

“Don’t try,” she told the floor.

“He did someone you know, in Colorado, guy named Butch Miller.”

Her head twisted around so fast the drink in her hand shook and the ice clinked against the sides.

“Colorado?” she asked quietly.

Colt nodded.

“Butch?” She was still being quiet.

Colt nodded again.

She took another drink, this time definitely a drink not a sip, and her eyes returned to the floor.

“This guy do you wrong?”

She licked her lips, kept studying the floor and nodded her head.

“What’d he do?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It does, Feb.”

She twisted only her neck to look at him. She was losing it; he could see it plain on her face. “Yeah? Why?”

“It was private, between you two, we need to know. It was public, that’s something else.”

She held his eyes for awhile before she looked away and muttered, “Fuck, that makes sense.”

“What’d he do?”

She moved her neck in a circle then lifted a hand to pull the hair away from her face, holding it back behind her head then, fast and low, she said, “He owned the bar I worked at. We hooked up. It was good for awhile then it turned bad. I took off after it did.”

“How’d it turn bad?”

“He cheated on me.”

“Were you exclusive?”

She dropped her hand but didn’t lift her eyes. “I thought we were but apparently he didn’t agree.”

“Anyone know about this?”

“Me, Butch, the woman he was screwing.”

“Anyone else?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

She looked at him then. “No, I’m not sure. Butch may have bragged about his escapades, she might have too. I didn’t know who she was and didn’t hang around long enough to chat. Just packed my shit and got out. What I saw, she looked like a snow bunny, probably a tourist or a city girl up the mountain with her lift ticket clipped to her parka. I was workin’ the bar, came home because I felt like crap and caught them in the act.”

Jesus, and he thought his scene with Susie that day was bad. No comparison.

“You lived with him?”

Her eyes slid away but he caught the pain that sliced through her face. It wasn’t raw but it wasn’t easy to see either. “Just moved in the week before.”

“Fuck, Feb.”

She took a sip from her drink and said to the floor, “He was a handsome guy who owned a bar in a cool town. He knew how to have fun and liked to do it, obviously with anyone who struck his fancy.” She shook her head. “Even though it felt shit he cheated on me…” she paused, took another drink, shook her head again then whispered, “Butch.”

Colt lifted his hand to the back of her neck and pulled her to him. She didn’t resist, just fell to the side, her shoulder hitting his chest and sliding along it until it was tucked under his pit and her temple hit his collarbone.

He kept his hand at her neck but tightened it.

He gave her a minute before he took his hand away but only to slide her hair out of his way so he could hold her there skin to skin. Again she didn’t resist, didn’t move away, even standing in his kitchen, in the middle of the night, her wearing nothing but a t-shirt, Colt wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No.”

He gave her neck a squeeze.

“I know, Feb,” he said softly, “but you okay to keep talking?”

Her head came back and she looked at him. “More to say?”

“I gotta ask a few questions about Denny Lowe.”

Those lines formed at her eyebrows again and she pulled away. He dropped his hand, took her glass, refreshed it and walked back to her, resuming his position.