He’d studied the crime scene photos repeatedly, read through her statement so many times that, lying here now in his boxer briefs, covered to the waist by a sheet and cooled by the ceiling fan, the events of that night played in his mind as if he’d been there to see it unfold.
Jamie had been behind the counter running the day’s register tapes, and counting and bagging the money in the till to drop in the bank’s night deposit. The lights in the diner had still been burning, the neon sign above the front door spelling out Closed in a nostalgic red font.
Julio Alvarez and Elena Santino had been out front mopping the black-and-white-tiled floor and scrubbing down the white Formica tables and red Naughahyde booths.
Kass Duren and Lacy Rogers had been scouring the kitchen, storing food, gathering the trash to take to the Dumpster. The bags and cans, spattered with Kass’s and Lacy’s blood, had still been sitting by the back door when the authorities arrived.
Julio and Elena had crumpled one on top of each other, their blood pooling into a shared circle of death. Jamie had been spared from seeing her friends die, having dropped to the floor when the first shots were fired.
The bullet that had grazed her scalp and the one that had gouged her shoulder had bloodied her and the floor around her enough to fool the killer into thinking she was dead. But she hadn’t been dead. She’d been quite alive, drifting in and out of consciousness, hearing the screams, the pleading, the voices choking in terror, drowning as her friends died.
His chest and throat tight, Kell tossed off the sheet and sat up, reaching for the jeans he’d left on the floor. He pulled them on, needing fresh air, water, a long walk with only coyotes and javelinas and the moon to watch. What he didn’t need was to think about Jamie revisiting the scene he’d just imagined. And doing it because of him.
He headed for the kitchen, barefoot and shirtless, figuring he could grab a glass of water, take it outside, and pace her driveway for now. If that didn’t help, well, a sleepless night wouldn’t kill him. He had his laptop. He could go over his notes and files again and—
The kitchen should’ve been dark, but the back door stood wide open, allowing the light of the moon to spill through. His first thought was his gun, his second, Jamie. But a couple of silent steps into the room and he saw her sitting outside on the concrete stairs that rose to the back door, a bottle at her hip, a glass in her hand.
Uh-oh.
He made sure she heard his next steps. He even nudged a chair with his hip, scraping the legs on the floor and knocking it against the table. Jamie startled, but quickly settled, reaching for the bottle and hiding it between her feet. Tried to hide it, anyway.
Kell stood in the doorway behind her. “You planning to drink all of that yourself?”
“Grab a glass,” she told him, scooting forward and leaning over enough for him to get through the screen door without pushing her off the top step.
He found a bottle of water and a glass that he filled with ice, and joined her. The night was warm, clear, the stars overhead like tiny twinkling Christmas-tree lights. It was a good night to get drunk. Tomorrow’s agenda made it an even better one—except tomorrow’s agenda required sobriety, ergo, the water and ice.
“Can’t sleep?” A stupid question since here they both were, barefoot and half dressed, Jamie wearing a skinny-strapped tank top with pajama shorts that came nearly to her knees. He thought they were blue, but they might’ve been a soft green. He thought, too, that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
She lifted her glass. “I will soon.”
He reached for the liquor bottle between her feet, poured just enough into his glass to balance the ice then added water, offering her the same. She gave a nod, and he diluted her drink to match his, keeping his mouth shut. This wasn’t the time to preach. Besides, he couldn’t blame her for wanting to take the edge off.
“The nights are my favorite part of living in West Texas,” she said after sipping her drink. “It’s so quiet. And so clear. Have you seen the stars from the observatory?”
The McDonald Observatory, on top of Mount Locke and Mount Fowlkes, was about seventeen miles away, and provided astronomers some of the darkest night skies in the forty-eight contiguous states. “I have. Amazing the things the human eye can see with nothing in the way. Satellites, the Hubble, the International Space Station.”
“And those are all man-made. Think how much farther away the constellations and even the Andromeda Galaxy are.” She sipped again, swirling the liquid in her glass. “It sounds stupid, but even if things hadn’t gone so wrong, I don’t think I’d have ever moved away from this part of the country. I love the nights too much.”
“Too bad the days are so miserable,” he said, though really, living in Texas meant living with the heat, and he was Lone Star born and bred.
“You grew up here, right? You should be used to it.”
He nodded, and swirled the ice in his glass. “I am, but weather always makes for easy conversation.”
For a moment, she was silent, then she sighed with a deep resignation. “Easier than asking why I can’t sleep?”
Or telling her what was keeping him awake. He nodded, sipped the Jim Beam and let it warm the parts of him left cold by the thoughts that had driven him from bed.
Jamie stretched out her legs, spread her toes, then bent to brush away something he couldn’t see. “I don’t lose a lot of sleep anymore over…everything. At first, I didn’t think I’d ever sleep again. I had a prescription that helped. Or it did once my doctor upped the dosage a couple of times.”
“Made for some fuzzy days I bet.” He sat forward, his wrists on his knees, looking away from the smooth skin of her legs toward her detached garage and the moon shining in the windows there.
“Time was a big blur for months. I couldn’t go back to school. I couldn’t work. I did good to eat and bathe myself, though it took a while to care enough to do even that.” She brought her glass to her mouth. “I honestly don’t think I would’ve come out of it if my mother hadn’t been with me.”
She’d been so young, a kid, really. A very young woman at most. Either way, she’d been a girl who’d needed her mother, and had been lucky to have one so devoted. “She sounds pretty amazing.”
“You have no idea.” Jamie sat straighter, stretching her back, left then right, popping her spine before she leaned back against the frame of the screen door. “She did all of it herself, the taking-care-of-me stuff. Making sure I got through.”
He’d known from her file that her father had split about that time, but didn’t know the why. The way she said it…“Was it too much for your dad…what happened to you?”
“Something like that. I guess.” She lifted her glass, and stared at the contents where the moonlight glinted off the amber liquid. “It’s always been weird the way he bailed.”
“How so?”
“He’d been a perfect dad my whole life, though somewhat taciturn, I guess. He helped with my science homework and showed me how to fix a flat on my bike. Oh, and how to run the lawn mower.”
“The lawn mower?”
“I was the son he never had, taking care of a lot of things around the house while he and the seasonal workers handled the ranch chores.”
Kell found himself chuckling. “Terry, my baby brother, got the same treatment. Except in reverse.”
“How so?”
“My mother was determined one of her children would cook. Terry was the youngest, left behind when Brennan and I were in school, so he had a lot of one-on-one time with Mom.” He stared down at the concrete step between his feet, his bare soles soaking up the stored heat from the day. “It seems to have stuck.”
“He’s a cook?”
“He owns a restaurant. A pub. In Houston. Not sure he still does much cooking, but he has. And he can.”
“Runs in the family then.”
“The steaks?” He shook his head. “That’s bachelor food. Steaks, burgers, eggs. Nothing but the basics.”
She was quiet for the next couple of minutes, not drinking, not moving, just sitting, letting the night wrap them in its cloak, letting the darkness keep them rooted, letting the heat of the drink lull them into a sense of easy comfort until the solitude finally loosened her tongue.
“Have you always been a bachelor?”
“I’ve never been married, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Why not?”
He guessed she was waiting for him to tell her he’d never found the right girl. Wasn’t that usually the reason? And while it was true, it wasn’t the whole story of why he was alone. “I haven’t had the time to invest in a relationship. Not that sort of time.”
“That sort of time? What do you mean, that sort of time?” She leaned across him to snag the bottle from where he’d set it on his side of the steps. Her unbound breasts, firm, full, brushed his knees. “You make it sound like a job, or a chore. Like work.”
What he was working on right now was keeping his hands wrapped around his glass of throat-searing whiskey and melting ice. He wanted so badly to touch her. “You don’t think relationships are work?”