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“No, I actually haven’t done much on the Strip,” she admitted. “I really did come to Vegas to work.”
“Crazy, I’ve been getting chased out of casinos since I was ten,” he said, “which makes both of us oddities. Born and bred, the handful of us that there are, usually avoid the tourist shit—”
Bree narrowed her eyes, and he glanced down at Aiden, who was swinging his legs, unfazed by the swear word.
“And you are one of a million transplants who isn’t working in tourist crap,” he continued, but adjusted slightly his phrasing. “In many ways we are the same.”
“Yes,” she agreed, her fingers absently braiding Jane’s hair, keeping the child as a chastity shield in front of her. “I really think the kids need to be in a place with more than a window air conditioner and more rooms.”
“Your place,” he stated, unsure if he could trust the woman before him fully, but knowing an unknown debt needed to be repaid to keep the two safe. “I’d lose the protection of the men I trust there.”
“They can’t be locked away in this parking lot forever,” she said.
“They found John,” he said and watched as her body stiffened from his tone.
“Was John with Mommy?” Jane asked. “Is that why Daddy hasn’t dropped us back home yet? John and Mommy were on a date?”
“Janie,” Bree said, dropping to a knee and leaving the braid unfinished. “Janie, Mommy isn’t ever going to come home again.”
“Yes, she is,” Aiden said. “The man said it would be a few minutes and he’d let us know when we could come out.”
“What man?” Ice asked.
“The guy who came over to talk to John. Mommy knows him. She gave him a soda,” Aiden said, and Janie nodded in agreement.
“Why didn’t you tell the cops about the man before?” Bree asked.
“She ain’t no snitch,” Aiden said, and Ice balanced between pride and shame.
“But why didn’t you tell me?” Bree continued.
“I don’t know,” Janie said. “He’s just one of John’s friends, kinda like you’re Mommy’s.”
“Is he an uncle like I’m an auntie?” Bree asked, the guiding question opening up new realms of information even Nunez didn’t possess.
“He lives far,” she said, pressing her thumbs and index fingers together, then twisting back and forth. “We went once, but his dogs were mean.”
“Yeah, they barked the whole time, and he wouldn’t tell them to stop so we could pet them,” Aiden whined.
“And that’s who talked to your mommy?” Ice asked.
“Maybe.” Jane shrugged. “They didn’t yell like you and Mommy used to yell, or like when John and Mommy whispered at night.”
“Yelledmeans…” Bree spun her hand in a circle as if ashamed of the word she’d need to use, and he mouthed the wordfuckedto her. “Yeah, that’s what it means. They told me how you and Misty talked really loud to help you go to sleep.”
Ice did his best to not smile at the innocence his daughter still possessed. At least in that realm, Misty had kept his kids in a child’s place.
“How many men came to yell with Mommy to get her to go to sleep?”
“Two, but one showed up later,” Aiden said. “We thought the first one forgot to tell us he was done. With Mama sleeping, she wouldn’t tell us, so I snuck out, but saw a different guy by the steps before Mommy started yelling again, and I guess he didn’t know we were there.”
“How about we drive to Auntie Bree’s and you tell me more about the two guys,” Ice suggested, and Bree took a pen and pad of paper out of a drawer she must have organized as the two adults instantly agreed on a plan without saying a word.
* * *
Maybe it was because they were the center of attention finally, but someone had put a damn quarter in the twins. Forty minutes of back-and-forth had them talking over each other, finishing sentences, and spilling things from a child’s lens both adults were trying to interpret. This wasn’t the first time the man had come over. Most times John was there. Bree wasn’t one for gangster movies, but she’d seen more than her fair share of documentaries to know the way Ice was processing in the driver’s seat. This was a puzzle, one he didn’t trust the police to solve. If only there wasn’t a pang of jealousy building inside her over the idea he saw Misty’s death as a mark against him, as if by killing her they’d insulted a set of rules he lived by.
His jaw tightened and hand clenched around the steering wheel as he made his way back to Bree’s home. Once in the neighborhood, the kids became even more animated.
