He raises an eyebrow.
“I have my license, if that’s what you mean.”
After another long moment, and with a reluctant sigh, he dangles his keys in the air in front of me.
“What’d you do to your hand, anyway?” I noticed his bruised knuckles this morning, as he was loading the bags.
“Nothing important.” He sets the keys into the palm of my hand, the heat of his fingertips both comforting and thrilling against my skin, making me forget about bruised knuckles and heroin-addicted mothers for a split second.
“Ready?”
This is it. I’m going back to Texas.
Either I’m going to find a bunch of roads that lead to nothing but dead ends—the person or people behind my father’s murder having covered their tracks so well that no amount of digging will uncover them—or I’m going to find the truth.
All I’m certain of is that someone out there killed my dad and got away with it.
Until now.
“I’m ready.”
CHAPTER 27
Noah
Shit. I turn the volume down on the radio so I can grovel properly. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“You forgot about courtside at a Spurs game?” Jenson can’t hide the disbelief in his voice. I don’t blame him. They’re my favorite team and he won tickets for today’s game against the Rockets.
“I’ve been . . . preoccupied.” An eighteen-wheeler blasts its horn at another car as it speeds past.
“Where the hell are you, anyway? I haven’t seen or talked to you since Thursday.”
“Right now? At a gas station in New Mexico.” In my rearview mirror is an annoyed Gracie trying to coax Cyclops into peeing. I should have told her to take him near a sign; he’s partial to those. “I had some things to take care of for my mom.”
“For her will?”
“Nah.”
He waits a beat for me to elaborate before he starts pressuring. “Dude, what’s with all the cloak-and-dagger? It’s me.”
I sigh. Jenson’s good at keeping his mouth shut. “You remember my old basketball coach? The one who was shot in a drug deal?”
“Sounds familiar.”
“His daughter lives in Tucson. My mom left something for her, and I had to bring it to her in person. Plus I figured it’d be good to get away for a bit.”
“You could have told me.”
“Sorry, man. It was last minute.”
“Alright. Well, I guess I’m taking Craig with me. See you tonight?”
“Actually, I’m gonna crash at home.”
“Noah . . . you know you shouldn’t be sitting in that house alone.”
“I won’t be. Gracie’s coming back to Texas for a while and she needed a place to stay, so she’s staying there too.”
“Oh yeah?” A pause. “What’s she like?”
“She’s a firecracker, is what she is.” It would have been so much less complicated for me had I left her in Tucson.
“As hot as one, too?”
I chuckle. “It’s not like that.”
“So . . . she’s hot, then.” I can hear the grin in his voice. “How hot? Scale of one to your-hand-is-getting-sore.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Come on . . .”
I grin. “She’s hot as hell. She’s got this wild, curly hair, and these green eyes. And a body—”
The passenger door behind me opens, startling me.
“What about her body?” Jenson presses.
“I’ve gotta go.”
“You’ll be at tomorrow’s pickup game, right?”
“Probably not.” I hang up before he has a chance to bust my balls.
Cyclops jumps up onto the backseat, his tail wagging as he peers at me through his one eye.
“He’s getting used to his leash.” Gracie gives his head a scratch.
“He’s a whole new dog.” His once matted fur is soft and fluffy and almost inviting to touch.
I watch her round the hood of my Jeep. Maybe she didn’t hear me talking to Jenson.
“Are you sure you can drive?” she asks as she climbs in. “That five-hour nap may not have been enough for you.”
I smile at her sarcasm. “I feel great. You should grab a few hours, too.”
“This body doesn’t need it.”
I crank the engine and take a few extra seconds to check my side-view mirror, waiting for my cheeks to cool.
She heard me talking to Jenson alright.
* * *
A twelve-hour road trip with any one person can feel like an eternity, especially when you’re driving hundreds of miles through uncivilized desert and forced to either talk or listen to a static-filled country-music radio station.
And yet hundreds of miles with Gracie hasn’t been painful at all. Maybe that’s because we’ve taken turns being unconscious through most of it.
It’s only now that we’re attempting conversation.
“This is a whole lot of nothing,” Gracie murmurs, taking in the strip of gas stations as we make our way through another sleepy town.
“It’s not the most exciting drive.”
She groans and stretches her legs out on the dashboard. “Forget the drive. I don’t know how anyone could live out here. What do you do with your time besides sleep and drink?” She nods at a derelict-looking Mexican restaurant. “And eat tacos.”
Each time we pass a streetlight, it casts a glow over her shapely bare legs. “Not much,” I agree, stealing a glance every chance I get.
“I won’t miss serving queso and chips, that’s for sure.”
“How’d you leave the job situation, by the way?”
“I told them I’m going out of town.”
“And?” Sometimes getting Gracie to answer questions is like pulling teeth. I can’t tell if it’s because she can’t be bothered to talk about herself, or she doesn’t trust me with personal information, or her head is too wrapped up in other thoughts.
“They said to come by and see them when I’m back in Tucson. If they haven’t filled my spot, then it’s mine.” She snorts. “So much for being a highly valued employee. QuikTrip even gave me a raise last month. A whole fifteen cents more per hour.”
I whistle mockingly. “I’m sure you’ll find something new easily enough.”
“Yeah, I’m not worried. I mean, there are Aunt Chilada’s everywhere. Did you know my mom worked at one in Austin? Wouldn’t that be funny? If I decided to stay in Texas and worked at the same one?”
Gracie, staying in Texas? What would make her want to do that? Especially with everything that happened to her father. Though I can see why she doesn’t hold much love for Tucson, either.
“How did Dina end up in Texas, anyway?”
“She took off for Austin with a friend when she was seventeen. She had these grand plans of marrying into a Texas oil family. You know, get far away from her trailer-trash childhood. Anyway, my dad pulled her over for speeding one day. She cried and told him that they’d fire her if she was late to work again. She promised she’d never speed again if he let her go. It actually worked. He let her go with a warning.
“That same night, he showed up at the restaurant after his shift and asked to sit in her section. He wanted to make sure she hadn’t been fired. They got to talking and . . . by the end of her shift, she knew he was the one. She got pregnant with me three months later, and they got married straightaway.”
“That’s a great story.”
“Yeah.” She picks at a thread on her shirt. “When I was little, my mom would hold me in her arms at night and tell me all kinds of great stories about him. Those were the good old days, when I thought he’d died in an accident.”
Meanwhile Dina buried the dark, scary truths deep inside, until they began rotting away at her.
We pass a highway road sign for Austin.
“Only two more hours, right?” Gracie asks, and I swear I hear a tremor in her voice.
* * *
I navigate the familiar streets, a conflicting sense of emptiness and relief building as I turn into our neighborhood, and then into our quiet cul-de-sac. My quiet cul-de-sac soon. It’s strange to say that.
“Home sweet home.”
Gracie’s gaze rolls over my darkened house, which by comparison to what she came from is a palace. “It’s nice.”