Yeah, well, he was used to CJ going for his jugular. That was his fault too. Just something else to regret.
He paused at the street. “I’ll just have to deal with whatever she tosses my way.” He glanced around even though he knew Cooper’s truck wasn’t here. It wasn’t like it could be overlooked. “Where’s the monster?” She didn’t like that he called her vehicle that, but she’d given up trying to win him over to the joys of owning something fully capable of climbing over small buildings.
“I was running a little behind after lunch.” She hunched her shoulders in one of those careless shrugs she was famous for. “I got dropped off.”
“Uh-huh.” Which meant lunch wasn’t about dining.
“About the carving.” She paused before opening the door of his SUV. “Could be the first move in a game.”
Braddock opened the driver’s side door. “Could be an invitation to play.”
“Or a riddle.” She dropped into the passenger seat and propped a sneakered foot on the dash. Braddock grimaced.
“It might”—he started the engine and pulled out onto the street—“be a reference to a place or an event.”
“True,” she agreed. “I’ll run it through the system and make some calls.”
As unnecessary as he knew it would prove, ruling outE. Noonas a name was step one.
Chapter Eight
The Mill Village, 3:48 p.m.
CJ shoved her three-quarter sleeves higher up her arms. Sweat slid down between her shoulder blades. She raised her fist and banged on the next door.
She’d been knocking on doors for the last hour. This house had been her initial stop, but no one had been home. She hoped against hope that was no longer the case. Frances Jennings never missed a Sunday in church. Surely by now church was over.
If the cops couldn’t find Ricky Banks, it was because they didn’t know the right places to look. Or simply didn’t care, like Braddock. CJ had grown up in this neighborhood. She knew where to look.
The door opened a tiny crack.
Thank God.
“Mrs. Jennings?” CJ couldn’t see a damned thing through that narrow opening, but, according to the neighbors, Frances Jennings still lived at this address.
“You Cecilia Patterson’s girl? The doctor?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Anticipation fired in CJ’s veins. It was definitely Frances Jennings, one and only aunt to Ricky Banks. “Is it okay if I come in, Mrs. Jennings?”
“I heard about your sister.” Frances opened the door a little wider, eyed CJ suspiciously over her bifocals. “It’s a shame, that’s what it is.”
CJ nodded, pushing aside the images that immediately tried to invade her thoughts. “I was hoping to talk to Ricky.” Just saying his name made CJ want to tear something apart. A year younger than CJ, Ricky had been in and out of Shelley’s life since middle school. One of the mistakes her sister hadn’t been able to stop repeating.
“He ain’t here, but you can come on in.” Frances Jennings shuffled back, opening the door wider and staying slightly behind it as if she feared she might need it as a shield. Life in the village would do that to a person.
“Thank you.” CJ stepped across the threshold, flashbacks from all the times she’d been here before, usually complaining about Ricky, tumbling one over the other.
Frances closed the door and set the lock. “The two of ’em never could seem to stay away from each other. I always thought they’d end up married.”
Yeah, right. Ricky loved whoring Shelley out too much to marry her. She was his meal ticket. “I know what you mean,” CJ lied.
Frances smoothed the skirt of her Sunday-go-to-meeting dress and lowered her hefty bulk into her rocker-recliner. She set the chair in motion. “Neither one of ’em could ever stay out of trouble either.”
Moving to a chair, CJ tried as inconspicuously as possible to survey the living room and what she could see of the kitchen beyond. “It’s harder for some than others.”Careful. Don’t say the wrong thing. Don’t let her see your hatred.
Frantic scratching somewhere deeper in the house had CJ leaning forward in her chair before she could stop herself.
“Don’t pay no mind to that,” Frances said. “It’s that big old dog of Ricky’s. I make him keep that beast shut up in his room when he ain’t here.”
