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“Forensics hasn’t come back yet, Rogue,” Alex stated. “I’ve been checking on it, and the coroners haven’t finished their tests on the bodies yet. We should know something conclusive soon. ”
Rogue shook her head. “Grandma won’t be with us much longer. ” Her lower lip trembled despite her battle to keep her emotions in check. Acknowledging that was a bitch. She would have to bury the boys with no one to comfort her, and she knew that soon she would be burying their grandmother the same way.
How had she let this happen? How could she let herself care for a man she couldn’t even lean on in her grief?
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Janey moved to the front of the desk and sat down gingerly in one of the chairs.
Her forest green eyes were somber and filled with compassion, but there was an edge of suspicion in them as well. She knew when Rogue was hiding things, when she wasn’t talking. That was the risk you took when you let someone become your best friend.
“Yes, there is,” she said softly. “Don’t ask questions. ”
It was the closest she could come to admitting anything.
Alex snorted as Janey’s lips compressed. “That’s not fair, Rogue. ”
“It’s very fair,” she told her friend. “I have to deal with family right now, Janey; I don’t have the strength to deal with more. ”
“Aren’t you telling the wrong person that?” Janey asked her.
“No. ” Rogue shook her head, her voice roughening. “I’m telling the one person that should understand I need time right now. And I need a chance to figure things out on my own. ”
Janey stared back at her for long, silent moments.
“You know we’re here,” she offered. “For family things or anything else. ”
She couldn’t risk it.
“Rogue?” Alex spoke then. “I can leave the room. Anything you tell Janey would go no further, you know that. ”
No, she didn’t know that. She knew men. She knew they talked and gossiped worse than women. And she knew Janey. Before she knew it, the entire Mackay clan would be privy to Zeke’s secrets, and that whole privacy rule he had would be shot to hell and back. Hell, she felt sorry for his former lover now.
“Not a problem, Alex. ” She smiled tightly. “I just want to get these receipts finished and head home to bed. It’s been a damned long day and it doesn’t look as though things are going to get any better for a while. ”
They were likely to get worse. It was normally not a good thing to threaten or attempt to commit bodily harm on an officer of the law, and she knew one she wanted to shoot with his own gun.
Janey sighed. “You’re sure there’s nothing we can do?”
Rogue looked down at the receipts, then back up to her friend. “I need a few days off actually. The bar is going to hell right now and I need to straighten a few things up. ”
The bar was the one place she knew Zeke wouldn’t enter. He may have that first night to question her, but he wouldn’t do it again. Too public, and of course, no one could know he was trying to fuck the little bar whore.
Fucking Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay. God, she had never hated them as much as she hated them now.
“How many days?” Janey asked carefully, causing Rogue to smile.
“I need at least four days, maybe five,” she told her. Long enough to get the need eating her alive out of her system. Long enough that when she returned she wouldn’t be watching for him, waiting for him. Long enough to find her balance again and get her heart straightened out. Long enough to avoid prison because of her homicidal tendencies toward one man.
“Five days. ” Janey nodded. “But you promise you’ll be back after that?”
“I’ll be back after that,” Rogue promised. “I just need to get things squared away. That’s all. ”
She could feel Alex’s stare, it was like a laser that cut straight through the lies she was telling.
“Fine. Five days. ” Janey sighed as she stood up. “You can leave tonight’s receipts. I’ll harass Natches and make him get them in the morning. He can work for his share of the profit for the next few days. But don’t think I don’t know what’s going on, Rogue. ”
Rogue’s head jerked up to stare back at her. “What’s going on?”
Janey leaned forward. “The plague. A plague known as redneck male stupidity. Want to know the cure?”
