lowered his weapon. The Malone brothers. Just great. And he was having such a very nice morning, too.
“What are you doing here?”
“My sister’s here. We want to see her now.”
“Well, thank you for not taking down the door this time.”
Keane Malone’s snarl was disturbing but Zé ignored it and led him and his brothers into the house.
Kyle was eating breakfast at the kitchen table. “What’s going on?” he asked.
When he didn’t get an answer, he grabbed a piece of buttered toast and followed the group through the house.
As soon as they were near the sunroom, Keane shoved Zé out of the way and charged in. He picked up the young girl standing with Max and Stevie and hugged her so tightly, Zé was afraid he’d crush her.
The hug lasted a bit and then he lowered his sister to the ground. That’s when they started talking to each other using ASL.
Zé had to admit . . . he was shocked. Shocked that someone like Keane Malone knew goddamn American Sign Language. And, from what Zé could see, knew it really well.
The pair were just chatting away, the other Malone brothers interjecting occasionally, when they heard yelling coming from out in the street.
Max and Stevie looked through the window and then both sisters were running out of the house.
“What’s going on?” one of the brothers asked.
“Nothing good,” Zé admitted.
* * *
Charlie was walking back to her house from Ruth’s. She’d dropped off six large honey-pineapple upside-down cakes for Ruth Barton and her husband. If her kids had been home, she would have made the family at least a dozen cakes because Ruth’s grizzly family could pack it away. She normally didn’t just give the bears baked goods. She waited until they asked . . . or demanded. But Ruth had helped her. Had been kind to her when she didn’t have to be. The least Charlie could do was bake the woman and her husband their favorite “Charlie Cake,” as they named her nonexistent baking company.
Passing her garage, Charlie looked up ahead and saw the trunk of a car burst open and someone scramble out, tossing rope off his arms.
“Dad?” She hadn’t said it loudly, but her father heard her anyway. They looked at each other, eyes locking . . . and that’s when her father made a run for it.
“Motherfucker!” Charlie growled before taking off after him. When she caught up to him, she tackled him from behind, dropping him to the ground.
Before she knew it, she was kicking him across the street. A moment later, her bear neighbors came out of their houses. Soon the triplets reached her. And a few seconds after that came her own sisters.
Berg wrapped his arms around her body and carried her away from Freddy. She never wanted to hurt Berg, so she didn’t fight him. But that didn’t stop her from yelling.
She yelled a lot.
* * *
“Youmotherfuckingcocksuckingspunkbubblebastardcuntwhoreofa-motherfucker!”
Trying not to laugh—because hearing her sister use “spunk bubble” as part of one long diatribe of profanity was too perfect—Max grabbed her father by his hair and dragged him to his feet.
“Going somewhere, Dad?” she asked.
Freddy pulled away but he lost a hunk of hair in the process since Max refused to let it go on her own.
“I paid it back,” he immediately told them. “I paid everything back.”
“Dad,” Stevie sighed. “Come on.”
“It’s true! Call your uncle. Call Bernice. They’ll both tell you.”
“Yeahhhhh,” Max dramatically rolled out, “the thing is, Dad, we don’t care if you paid them back.”
“She’s right,” Stevie agreed. “We don’t care.”
“We do care, however, that you kidnapped a seventeen-year-old girl.” Max pulled out her phone. “That reminds me . . . her oh-so-pleasant brothers are at the house right now. I’m sure they’d love to say ‘hi’ to you. Don’t you think, Stevie?”
“They’d love it.”
“Wait!” her father begged. “Just let me explain.”
“Explain what?” Max asked as she texted the eldest Malone on his phone so he could come down and slap her father around. “How you’re going to be arrested for statutory rape?”
Her father, for the first time she could ever remember, actually looked honestly stunned by her words. Not one of his fake expressions either, but as if she’d really caught him off-guard.
“Why the hell would I be arrested for statutory rape?”
“Because when one kidnaps a seventeen-year-old girl, the assumption is kind of made whether you did it or not.”
“I didn’t kidnap anyone.”
“Riiiiiiiiiiight.”
“I didn’t. I just . . .”
“You just . . . what, Dad? What did you just?”
“I just spent time