In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,101

had insulted them and seemingly forgotten they existed, Charlie didn’t go after him the way she had in the past for much lesser offenses.

Instead, Charlie and Stevie were leaning against a black Escalade, still laughing.

When the laughter didn’t stop after a few minutes, but Max could tell that the funeral was coming to an end, she suggested, “Why don’t we just go home? Or get something to eat.”

“No way,” Charlie said, straightening up; using the back of her hands to wipe her eyes. “We’re going.”

“Why?” Max had to ask because . . . seriously . . . why?

“Because, they should have to face what they’ve done.”

“You mean not killing Dad at birth?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.”

Organ music played, heralding the beginning of the procession of the casket to the hearse, and Max quickly pulled her sisters away from the SUV and over to the stairs.

“Now stop laughing,” she ordered.

In silence, the casket began down the steps and, once it was in front of them, Stevie snorted, and then all three of them were laughing so hard Max began to wheeze.

Then they were moving; someone had grabbed them by the backs of their necks and was yanking them over to one of the family limos. They were forced inside and the door shut. When Max was able to see through the tears in her eyes, it was their Aunt Bernice staring at them. Her daughter Kenzie sitting beside her, also trying hard not to laugh.

“You three,” Bernice said. “Laughing at a funeral.”

“Dad’s fault,” Charlie replied. “That was all Dad.”

“Oh, I know,” Bernice confirmed tiredly with a wave of her hand. “Your father—”

“Your brother,” Max corrected, not willing to let anyone in that family dismiss the problem they had created.

“He was born a fuckup,” Bernice went on. “My sister was right. We should have taken that little pillow that was in his crib and put it over his face and—”

“Ma!” Kenzie exploded in giggles, shaking her head at the same time. “I do not want to hear this!”

Bernice lifted a small door near her, revealing a row of liquor bottles. She grabbed the scotch and poured herself a splash in a crystal glass. “You can’t say these girls wouldn’t be better off if we’d done that.”

“If you’d done that, they wouldn’t be here.”

“I’d be here,” Stevie said, gazing out the window. “I was meant to be here. Genius like mine doesn’t just come around every day.”

Bernice shook her head. “The fact that your father would show his face here . . . with your Uncle Will in town.”

“Why is he here?” Max asked.

“Not sure.” Bernice swallowed her scotch in one gulp and began pouring another. She shrugged her big, honey badger shoulders. “Maybe he thinks he can get money.”

“In what world . . . ?”

“He definitely wants money,” Stevie said flatly and without doubt.

“He can’t truly believe—” Charlie began.

“Wait.” Bernice let out a bitter laugh. “When all the family members’ accounts were hacked and their money stolen . . . no one touched Uncle Pete’s or his sons.”

“Do you think he’s actually stupid enough—”

“Yes.”

“—to think because he didn’t steal from Uncle Pete—”

“Yes.”

“—that Uncle Pete’s sons will give him money?”

Bernice gazed at Charlie over her empty scotch glass. “Child, what part of yes are you not grasping?”

* * *

It took some time to find the limo that the sisters were in. They hadn’t arrived in a limo and Shen didn’t think they’d be going anywhere in one. The limos, he’d been told, were for “family only.”

But, apparently, the MacKilligans were beginning to see Stevie, Charlie, and Max as family because they were in one of the limos with an aunt and a cousin.

Shen knocked on the window and the door opened.

Stevie leaned out. “Where’s Kyle?”

Shen had thought the kid was right behind him. Sighing, he looked around. Not hard, because the honey badgers weren’t very tall. But there were a lot of them at the moment.

The Dunns were still standing on the church stairs. “Hey!” he called out to them. “Do you see Kyle?”

Dag pointed. “With the coffin.”

Shen briefly closed his eyes. “What is wrong with that boy?”

“He’s simply fascinated by death and rituals,” Stevie explained. “It’s a phase many artists go through.”

“Is it? Really?”

Kyle arrived before Shen could retrieve him. Britta’s hand tight on his arm, she shoved him into the limo and followed him in.

“Do not be weird,” she told Kyle as she settled into a space.

Shen entered the limo and was just sitting down when the Dunn brothers arrived.