Page 38 of Colton’s Inferno

“Hold up,” said Rusty. “You don’t have anything to wear. But I do.”

“I am not going out in your clothes. No way. No how.”

“Not my clothes,” he said, backing out of her room. “Stay here and don’t call Aiden.”

Lucy sat on the edge of her bed. Her grandfather returned moments later, holding a large cardboard box. “Let’s see what we have in here.” After setting the box next to Lucy, he opened the flaps. The floral scent of her grandmother’s perfume surrounded her.

He began to rifle through the contents. “Your grandmother was from a different generation. But she had some nice things. They were classics, you’d say.” After a moment, he pulled out a silk blouse in deep blue. “This was one of her favorites.”

“I remember her wearing that shirt every Christmas.” Lucy would sit on her grandmother’s lap, touching the pearl buttons, as her grandmother read “’Twas the Night before Christmas.”

“She has another in black and red.” Rusty found the other two shirts.

“The red was for Thanksgiving and the black one she wore to funerals.”

Rusty laid the three shirts on Lucy’s bedspread. He smoothed them down. “They’ve been boxed up for years, so they’re wrinkled. But it’s nothing an iron can’t fix.” Rusty paused. “What do you think? Is one of these nice enough for you to wear out?”

Lucy touched the pearl buttons on the blue shirt. For one moment, she was young and surrounded by family and love. She wanted that life again.

But everyone was gone and they weren’t coming back.

That meant she was going to have to make a new life.

She been silent for too long. Rusty shifted from one foot to the other. “Are you going to go out with Aiden?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice not much louder than a whisper. “I think I will.”

Stu Whittier never meant for his life to end up like this. It all started after being prescribed opiates for pain after breaking his collarbone. It was like a flip had been switched and he craved the drugs. For years, he complained to doctors about discomfort that didn’t exist. Then, even that wasn’t enough. He’d bought drugs off the street. To get the money, he’d broken into houses and taken everything he could carry.

He’d been caught once and gone to jail. That’s when he started working for his boss. At first, it seemed perfect. Stu had been given drugs for work.

But his boss was an unreasonable man with more power than anyone in Red Grove guessed. So, when he said that he wanted the Five Steers Ranch, Stu knew that he had to deliver.

The newest orders had been simple. Get rid of Lucy Harris. Once she was gone, the old man would happily sell the land.

His car rumbled down the road. The air conditioner quit working in July, forcing him to drive with the windows open. It meant that the stink of exhaust was always with him.

It had been dumb luck that he’d run into Ted Barrett and those two Colton do-gooders. It was more than luck when Ted had blabbed about the patrols. It meant that Stu knew the clock was ticking. If he wanted to get rid of Lucy, then he had to act quickly.

Parking his car far enough away that they wouldn’t hear his muffler in the house, Stu turned off the engine. He pocketed the keys and pushed a button, unlatching the trunk.

After opening the driver’s side door, he walked to the back of the car and lifted the lid. Inside, several tools were scattered on the floorboard. A hammer. A screwdriver. A wrench. A mallet. He found a pair of pliers, exactly what he needed. Holding them in one hand, he closed the trunk, careful not to make a sound.

Stu looked left and right, making sure that the road was free of traffic. It was. He jogged across the pavement. Trees lined both sides of the drive. A large sign hung over the lane. Five Steers Ranch. He moved into the tree line and walked toward the house. It took him only a few minutes until he was even with the property. Still hidden in the woods, he watched and waited.

An old blue truck was parked near the house. The house itself was quiet. Stu quickly crossed over to the vehicle. He slid under the chassis and found what he needed in seconds. There were four brake lines. Using the pliers, he nicked one of the lines. The sickly-sweet stench of brake fluid surrounded him.

The brakes would work at first. But once the vehicle got going, enough fluid would leak out for them to fail. Using his heels, Stu pushed himself out from under the truck. Without a backward glance, he ran for the tree line and disappeared into the woods.

Lucy stood in the bathroom. She looked at her own reflection, and honestly, she liked what she saw. Her blond hair was freshly washed and plaited into a braid. She’d scrubbed all the dirt from her hands and had even painted her nails a shade of light pink. She wore her grandmother’s blue silk blouse and thin gold necklace.

She checked her phone for the time.

6:36 p.m.

She was supposed to meet Aiden in downtown Red Grove in thirty minutes. If she left now, she’d make it on time. Turning from the bathroom, she walked down the hall.

“Grandpa,” she called, while coming down the stairs. “Where are you?”