“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.
She let him, didn’t move away, just tipped her head back to look in his eyes.
“They’re investigating Lowe,” he told her. “You remember him?”
“I, yes, I…” she stopped and her head tipped to the side, “Denny had it rough, Colt, Susie was a bitch to him. But he pulled it out, got the last laugh. He was gorgeous when he graduated. Half the girls in my class had a crush on –”
She stopped talking suddenly, her face blanked of everything and she took a step to the side, sliding down the counter.
Then she turned to face him, put her hand to the counter and leaned into it heavily.
“What?” Colt asked but she didn’t speak, so he moved into her and repeated, “Feb, what?”
She focused on him and said, “Freshman year, in lunch, during lunch…” she stopped and shook her head, looking to the side before she hissed, “fuck!”
Colt slid his hand under her hair and curled his fingers around her neck again, putting pressure there for a different reason, to keep her attention on him. He got what he wanted, she looked back to him.
“February, tell me what.”
She nodded but it was jerky. “Susie was going after him, her and some of the cheerleaders, a few jocks. God, I don’t even remember who was there but I remember it was Susie doing most of the talking.”
When she stopped speaking, Colt prompted, “What happened?”
“I waded in,” she told him, “me and Angie, but mostly me. I was always the one with the big mouth.”
This was true.
“And?” he pressed.
“And nothing, that’s it. I just walked over to them and told them to fuck off, leave him alone. I wasn’t nice about it either. Susie had a few words for me but the jocks drifted away, probably because they knew you and Morrie wouldn’t like it if they got into it with me. Once she realized she didn’t have anyone at her back, Susie backed off too. Denny was long gone by then. He didn’t do anything, say anything, just escaped as quickly as he could. I didn’t even see him go since I was into it with Susie. He just vanished.”
“That the only time you did that?”
She nodded.
“Denny ever say thanks, show gratitude, anything?”
“Nothing, I didn’t know he knew I existed,” she told him then her eyes, still on him, went far away and she went on. “I’d smile at him in the halls. I remember. I’d smile at him even when he was scrawny. But also when he filled out,” she focused on Colt again and finished, “he never smiled back, looked right through me.”
Colt had never been scrawny and he’d never been teased, growing up he had his own hell to deal with but it wasn’t that.
February had never been scrawny either and, because of him and Morrie, definitely never teased. She was a pretty little girl who grew into a very pretty teenager who grew up to be a very beautiful woman.
A pretty girl smiling at a shy, skinny, taunted kid with greasy hair, fuck, it must have felt like the clouds opened up and angels shined their light on him.
“Denny come into the bar very often?” Colt asked.
“I haven’t seen him since I’ve been home,” she answered and then said, “Colt, I don’t think I’ve seen him since high school.”
“Far as we can see, he fits the profile, Feb, and he’s disappeared and he took fifteen K out of his bank before he did.”
Feb dropped her head back and closed her eyes. “This can’t be.”
He gave her another squeeze at her neck to get her attention and he got it. She righted her head and looked at him again.
“All sorts of shit trips triggers,” Colt said gently, “maybe that tripped his.”
“That’s insane.”
Colt couldn’t help it, he smiled. “Honey, he’s the guy, he’s not acting exactly normal.”
The skin around her eyes went soft as did her eyelids and her lips tilted up at the ends before she muttered, “This is true.”
He’d never seen her face get soft like that, never seen that little smile, her look saying a lot, sharing humor but still holding something back. Fuck, but it was sexy as all hell.
She didn’t move, didn’t pull away from his hand when she kept talking. “I can see him knowing about Angie, he was in that class, he could take the note. And Pete,” she didn’t even hesitate in saying her ex’s name, Colt was surprised to note, and she hadn’t said Pete’s name in Colt’s presence since the day she showed up bloodied and broken on Morrie’s doorstep, “everyone knew about him. But Butch?”
“It’s him, there’s a trail and we’ll find it.”
She studied him a moment before she nodded then her eyes drifted to his throat. “Will you do something for me, Colt?”
What he’d like to do was tell her to stop calling him Colt and call him Alec again but he didn’t say that.
Instead he said, “What?”
Her hand came up and she grabbed his wrist which was holding his bourbon. She lifted his hand with the glass up between their bodies and she rested her glass to his. She kept her head bent, her gaze on their drinks for a second before she looked at him.
“Angie was fucked up but she was a good person. Her parents were nearly as shitty as yours and she wasn’t touched with a lot of love,” Feb said softly then he felt her put pressure on her glass against his. “To Angie,” she whispered then she took a drink.
Colt put pressure on her neck and she came a few inches closer before he took his own sip.
When they were done, she put her glass up between them again and taking her cue, he rested his against hers. Her eyes grew soft, this time in a different way, before she kept speaking.