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Didn’t matter. Dane had his own issues, but at least those were all things he could handle. The first step was getting to the hardware store to order supplies to be delivered for the kitchen. This house was the only thing he needed to worry about.Chapter 4“We never got around to talking about brothers. Or powers since I fell asleep yesterday,” Clay said as he preceded Flo down the stairs.
“Yes, I know, and now isn’t the time to jump into long discussions. We’ll do that after you fetch your brother.” Flo huffed in irritation. “I don’t know what name he’s going by this time. Jo forgot to tell me. Damn woman is getting as flighty as Willie.”
“What about Dane?” Clay asked at the bottom of the stairs. He stepped onto the porch and held the door open for Flo. “Does he know about all this shit? The pestilents and powers?”
“No, and if you go telling him, he’s gonna think you’re nuts, just like you think we are.”
Okay, so not telling Dane that he felt a living thing in his chest since talking to Flo last night was a good thing. Wonderful.
Flo pushed and prodded him toward the master bedroom, where he found a pair of his socks and his shoes. She wouldn’t explain anything particularly useful such as what that feeling in his chest was about and who this man was he was supposed to find. Or even what he looked like. Clay was supposed to know when he saw him. Fantastic.
This whole thing was a giant mess. He no longer had his car, and only had ten bucks in his wallet. He should have been out looking for a new job. Something to put cash in his wallet, food in his belly, and his feet on the road.
Instead, he was being loaded behind the wheel of Jo’s mammoth truck while Flo gave him directions to a massive outdoor flea market outside of Savannah where he was supposed to find this guy.
As Clay was buckling his seat belt, Flo reached through the open window and handed him five one-hundred-dollar bills.
Clay’s jaw went slack as he took the money from the crazy old woman claiming to be a goddess.
“In case you need to pick up some supplies after you get your brother,” Flo said as if handing a relative stranger five hundred dollars for a bit of shopping wasn’t odd.
“You get that I can drive off with your money and your truck. You’d never see me or this truck again. You get that, right?”
“But you won’t.” She was wearing that same smug smile he’d seen on her mouth the day before.
“Why’s that?”
She leaned close to the truck so that her face was practically coming through the window. “Because I know you, Clay Green. You’re a good man.”
“You don’t know me,” he growled, but Flo’s grin never wavered. She backed away from the truck as Clay turned the key and fired up the engine with an angry roar. He jammed it into reverse and quickly turned the beast around, then headed down the gravel drive.
Clay looked in the rearview mirror to find Flo standing in the middle of the driveway. That infuriating smile was on her face, and she was waggling her fingers at him in a mocking good-bye before she completely disappeared. Clay slammed on the brakes. The entire truck lurched forward, front tires sliding in the gravel and dirt. As soon as the damn thing came to a halt, Clay twisted around to stare out the rear window, but she wasn’t there. Not a single sign of her.
Everything looked the same as it had the morning he’d arrived. Flowers in bloom, trees draped in Spanish moss, enormous plantation house rising up in the early morning light. But no crazy old lady.
Clay turned forward again and stared at the wads of hundreds clenched in his fist. He hadn’t imagined her. The whole conversation from Dane’s apartment to the truck had been real, but how the hell had she disappeared like that?
Unless…she and Jo had been telling the truth.
Clay rubbed his eyes and then his jaw with his free hand. He wasn’t losing his mind. That he was at least sure of. But what did he do next?
Flo didn’t fucking know him, no matter what she said. No one knew him. He was not staying in this house, and he certainly wasn’t part of some weird brotherhood circle thing. He could do exactly what he said. Just drive off with her money and go any fucking where other than right here.
So, why the hell wasn’t he moving?
Because if even an ounce of what she and Jo had been spewing at him for the past day was true, there could be a guy in a flea market being hunted by the same fuckers that had been hunting him. And he couldn’t leave anyone to that.
