AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She grinned. “Maybe.”
Tex stepped to her and leaned down. “Memorial Day BBQ. Bring your A game, Slick. Don’t mess with Texas.”
Slick crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Well, don’t mess with GRITS.”
Then Chris saw both of them stiffen. Hayley took a step back and scowled. Tex’s face matched hers. Whatever just happened wasn’t good, but Tex covered it up by saying, “Friday night. Chocolate cake,” and walked out.
Hayley crossed to the sink and washed his glass.
“Getting late,” Chris announced. “Game hasn’t even started yet.”
She nodded, not looking at him.
Chris slid the door closed behind him. When he entered his place his eyes sought out Tex immediately.
“Want to explain what just happened?” he demanded.
Tex sighed and drummed his fingers on the counter. “Your girl got sassy and fucked up, that’s what.”
“What happened?” Hawk asked, drifting into the kitchen.
“I don’t know,” Chris admitted. “One minute they were going at each other, friendly-like, and then the minute she mentioned grits and the whole room turned glacial.”
Hawk chuckled. “Only Tex would start a fight over food.”
Tex shook his head. “She wasn’t talking about food. GRITS. It’s an acronym. Girls Raised in the South.”
“Phoenix isn’t the south,” Doc noted.
“Nope. Sure ain’t,” Tex agreed.
“Shit,” Chris muttered. “Sunday she said she learned to make the cookies at a bakery in Albuquerque.”
“Albuquerque?” Hawk asked.
“When I asked her about it, she said her aunt lived there. Which was a lie, but I didn’t call her on it.”
Hawk whistled. “So. She got off the bus from Denver. Maybe she lived in Phoenix before that.”
Chris nodded. “I think she did. We talked about the desert at lunch.”
“And New Mexico at some point,” Hawk added.
“And somewhere in the South,” Tex mused.
“He’s gotta still be out there,” Doc decided. “You get raped, you move on. You start over in a new city. New life, new friends. But if you keep moving….”
“Means he’s after you,” Chris replied. “It happened in college. I know that much. She dropped out her junior year and never finished. So she’s 26, she told Maria, might be a lie, but it fits her.”
“Junior in college puts her at 21, maybe 22. So she’s been on the run for five years, thereabouts,” Tex declared. “I don’t think this is some frat boy date-rape thing where she got drunk and woke up without her panties. You don’t run for five years over that. Drop out of college, yeah, sure, but not running. Not as long and as far as she has. She doesn’t have a cell phone, either. That’s some serious off the grid shit for a girl like that.”
Doc pushed off the counter and opened a drawer underneath the microwave, taking out a box of ziploc bags. He pulled one out and returned the box to the drawer. Then he turned the bag inside out and picked up the plastic pie server. He saw Chris looking at him. “You want to know, right? We all do. She lives next door. In your house. We need to know what we’re up against. If there’s a possibility this asshole-”
“Or more than one asshole,” Hawk interjected sullenly.
“Christ, don’t even say it,” Tex mumbled.
“It’s not more than one,” Chris declared. “Can’t be. She wouldn’t set foot in this house with four men who look like us if…if it was gang rape. No. No way.” But it even sounded to his own ears like he was trying too hard to be convincing.
“Okay,” Doc continued. “So, whoever we’re talking about. We need to be prepared.” He zipped up the server. “If she has any kind of criminal record, her prints will be in the system. You think she is?” he asked Chris. “Think her folks are looking for her?”
“A criminal? Hell no,” Chris declared. “But as far as her folks, sounds like she had a good relationship with them right up until it happened. And then…” He thought this through.
“Then what?”
“Well, we were taking about Easy. And how he needs to move on. And she said maybe he doesn’t want to move on because moving on means forgetting and acting like it didn’t happen. And Easy can’t forget.”
“Okay,” said Tex. “So she gets assaulted and mom and dad want to play it off like it never happened.”
“Wait,” Hawk interjected. “Even though this fucker’s still after her? They pretend it’s over?”
Doc grimaced. “Some people are like that. Close their eyes tight and pretend their world isn’t upside down. Lot of people act like that.”
“So they act like nothing’s wrong, even though it is,” Tex continued. “And he’s still after her and either they don’t believe it, or they do, but they can’t protect her. Either way, she runs. So there’s a chance she’s in the system and they’re trying to find her and bring her back home.”
“Where she’s a walking target for this bastard while being forced to pretend everything’s fine in ‘Leave it to Beaver’ land,” Chris ground out. “I don’t care if they’re looking for her. She’s not going back to them.”
