She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,194

a plump mouse inside one of the walls of the house we had borrowed from Cammie Brotherton, his tiny paws digging away at the backside of the drywall in a frantic attempt at escape, dust bellowing out around him, piling up at his tiny pink feet. Freedom on the other side of that wall, but he had to dig.

My eyes snapped open.

Sunlight streamed in through the windows.

Stella and I had slept in the kitchen, a small space between the counter and the island, protected on both sides by cabinets and counters. She was still sleeping. I could hear her soft breaths beside me.

Scratching.

Still, the scratching. Coming from one of the bedrooms.

I got up quietly and went through the pile of clothes on the table, tugged on my jeans. I found the shotgun on the counter where I left it the night before and gently picked it up, careful not to make a sound. I knew it was loaded and primed. I flicked off the safety with my index finger and started down the short hall.

I found him in the pink room.

A man of about five-ten, with long, tangled brown hair riddled with gray tucked up under a hat that reminded me of the kind worn by hunters, fur-lined with flaps over the ears. He wore dirty jeans, brown boots, and a blue flannel shirt.

He had brought his own gun, some kind of hunting rifle. The weapon was propped up in the corner of the room.

This man had his back to me, feverishly scribbling on the walls with a thick, black marker.

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

David Pickford is a beautiful man

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

With the barrel of the shotgun pointing at the man’s back, I noiselessly circled the room, following the outer wall past the closet, past the corner, until I was close enough to reach out and silently snatch the rifle. I put my head through the attached sling and hung it behind me, against my back. Then I pointed the shotgun at the stranger again.

“Who are you?” I said, hoping my voice didn’t betray my nerves.

The man continued to write.

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

I cocked the shotgun, ejecting one unspent shell and loading another. A completely futile effort, but I hoped the sound would snap him out of whatever fugue held him.

The marker still moving, he said, “Where’s Cammie Brotherton?”

The man had a freakishly large forehead. His wiry hair looked like it had been cut with a knife and hung down over his face at varying lengths. His eyes had this blank, dead look. His beard was a tangled mess. I figured he was in his late forties or early fifties, but I found it hard to tell.

“She’s supposed to be here,” he said. “This is where she said she’d be. David wants me to say hello to her. Have you seen Cammie Brotherton?”

“Who are you?” I repeated.

The man glanced over at me, then went back to his writing. “You’re Eddie’s kid, aren’t you?”

With that, I nearly lowered the shotgun, but thought better of it. Something was wrong. The way he talked. Like someone speaking in the moments before they fell asleep.

“How do you know my father?”

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

David Pickford is a beautiful man.

“He and I go way back,” the man said. “Your momma, too.”

I thought about the names on my list, the people from the yearbook. All dead but three. If the man in the GTO was Jeffery Dalton, then, “You’re Dewey Hobson, aren’t you?”

He tilted his head as if the thought just registered with him. “Dewey Hobson, that’s right.”

I hadn’t heard Stella get up. She was standing in the doorway, dressed in the same clothes as yesterday. We never did get to the laundry. She opened her mouth to say something, and I quickly shook my head. I handed her the shotgun and nodded toward Hobson. She understood, raising the barrel and pointing the weapon at him.

I showed him both of my empty palms, the rifle still dangling on my back. “I’ve been looking for you, Dewey. You and all the others. You’re a hard man to find. Do you know where my father is hiding?”

Hobson finished one wall and moved on to the next. If he saw Stella, he