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“You went to her?” she exclaimed. “Have you lost your freaking mind? I thought you’d have the good sense to go to the hospital, where you’d be known, but at least it’s out of town.”
“I was looking for Doc Patton. Nobody told me that he’d retired.”
“Or that your brother set up his ex-mistress in business here?”
“No. Nobody told me that either.”
He tried to keep his voice free of telltale inflection, but Darcy wouldn’t have noticed anyway. He could tell the wheels of her scheming brain were in full gear.
“She could report the gunshot wound to the sheriff,” she said worriedly.
“She could, but I doubt she will.” He glanced toward the exit. “She’s got enough to worry about. Besides, she couldn’t prove anything. No bullet. It tore off a chunk of flesh on its way through.” He leaned down and spoke softly so they wouldn’t be overheard by those loitering about. “I ought to skin you alive for shooting at me. You could have killed me, you dumb bitch.”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” she hissed, which was hard to do while keeping her deceptively friendly smile in place. “If I hadn’t acted quickly, Fergus would have caught us mother-nekkid and screwing like rabbits. He could have killed us, and no jury in this state would have convicted him.”
“Sugarplum?”
She spun around at the sound of her husband’s voice. Key hitched his chin at him. “Hey, Fergus. It’s been a long time.”
“How’re you doin’, Key?”
“Can’t complain.”
Years ago there had been a rift between Fergus and Jody. It had something to do with the Tackett oil lease adjacent to Fergus’s motel property. The details were murky, and Key had never wanted to know them badly enough to ferret them out. He figured that Jody, in her lust for oil and the power and money that went with it, had somehow cheated Fergus.
Their dispute was none of his business, except that Fergus had always looked at him like he was lower than buzzard shit, but that might have had more to do with how he had conducted himself during his youth. More than once he and Possum and their crowd had nursed their hangovers in the coffeeshop of Fergus’s motel. He vaguely remembered puking up pints of sour mash in the rosebushes in front of The Green Pine after a particularly wild bacchanal.
Anyway, Fergus Winston didn’t like him, but Key had never lost sleep over it.
“I’m not real excited about this committee job your wife just roped me into. By the way,” he said to Darcy, “I’m resigning. Effective immediately.”
“You can’t resign. You haven’t even started.”
“All the more reason. I didn’t ask to be part of any Crime Watch committee. I don’t want to be. Find yourself another co-chairman.”
She flashed him her most dazzling smile. “Obviously he wants to be begged, Fergus. Why don’t you bring the car around to the front door? I’ll meet you there. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to change Key’s ornery mind.”
Key watched Fergus amble into the wings of the stage, calling good night to the custodian who was patiently waiting for everybody to leave so he could secure the building.
Darcy waited until her husband was out of earshot before turning back to Key. Keeping her voice low, she said, “Can’t you see an opportunity when it all but bites you in the ass?”
“What do you mean, sugarplum?” he asked with mock innocence.
“I mean,” she stressed, “that if we’re on the same committee, people won’t think anything about our being seen together.” His stare remained opaque. Exasperated, she spelled it out. “We could get together anytime we wanted and wouldn’t have to sneak around in order to do it.”
He waited about three beats before bursting into laughter. “You think I’d sleep with you again?” As suddenly as it had started, his laughter ceased, and his face became taut with anger. “I’m royally pissed at you, Mrs. Winston. You could have killed me with that damn handgun of yours. As it is, I can barely climb into a cockpit with this bum ankle.”
She gazed at him through eyes gone smoky. “Small price to pay for the fun we had, wouldn’t you say?”
“Not even close, sugarplum. You act like that’s the golden fleece,” he said, glancing pointedly at her crotch, “but I’ve had better. Lots better. Anyway, if you think I’d touch it again after this stunt you’ve pulled, then you’re as crazy as you are easy.”
The smoke in her eyes cleared. He saw fire. “I wouldn’t fuck you again, either!”
“Then from what I hear, I’m in a minority of one.”
Darcy was livid. “You’re a son of a bitch and always have been, Key Tackett.”
“You’re right on the money there,” he said with a terse nod. “In the most literal sense of the words.”
