pressed the city under its weight like a leaden glove. Below me, hundreds of serpentine headlights drizzled down Peachtree. This I could see from thirty-five stories up, even if I couldn’t make out the individual faces of the people weaving their drunken way from bar to bar.
First, second, and third degree connections. Rico connected to Lex, I connected to Lex (barely), Trey connected to Lex (even more barely). And the rest of them, how did they connect to Lex, and to each other? I knew some of the stories, but they were sketchy, and all the more tantalizing for their gossamer insubstantiality.
I checked my watch and cursed quietly. Still nothing from Rico. He’d be paying for that come morning.
I knew I needed to get to sleep. Unlike Trey, I didn’t have an appointment with the pavement, but I did have a client to meet at the gun shop. I tiptoed into the bedroom. Trey was in deep slumber, his breathing slow and steady. I envied him that, that he could chart things and then fall asleep instantly.
When I crawled in beside him, he moved to accommodate me, not waking. He was warm, the sheets as soft as an old handkerchief. I stretched myself against him, my very own private mystery wrapped in an enigma and tied pretty with a riddle.
My familiar stranger. My boyfriend.
Interesting, he’d said. Yes, indeed.
Chapter Ten
The next morning, I arrived at the gun shop to discover Bobby McGraw from the 11th Regiment of the Georgia Volunteers reenactment group pacing on my sidewalk. He was at my car door before I could even get it open.
“You’re late.”
“Long night.”
“I heard.” His eyes sparkled. “Saw your name on the news, said you were mixed up in some murder. That so?”
I fetched my revolver from its carry case under the seat. “That is so.”
“Damn, girl. Remind me not to invite you over. You’re like that old woman on TV, people always dropping dead around her.” He checked his watch. “No excuse for keeping your customers waiting, though.”
“Sorry, Bobby. Traffic was bad.”
Atlanta traffic was always bad, but people said this anyway. It was the traditional greeting.
I unlocked the front door, then gave it a good shove to get it open. Bobby was a progressive reenactor, which meant that while he liked the best and most historically-accurate clothing and accessories he could afford, he occasionally broke character enough to swallow some Mylanta while still in dress grays. Nonetheless, his disdain for the not-so-well prepared was obvious.
“Did I tell you we had two idiots wearing Nike sneakers out on the field last Sunday?”
I made a disgusted noise. “Some people.”
I switched the lights on, and Bobby followed me in. He was an accountant at a downtown law firm, with neat brown hair, a rounded physique, and hands like a geisha. Had he been in the actual war, he would have been the butter on some Yankee’s toast in about five minutes.
He shook his head. “I know, right? If you’re gonna be out there, make an effort to look the part. Whoa, is that mine?”
As I put my gun away, he spotted the wool cap on the counter, a Confederate kepi with silver infantry bugle insignia. I’d tried to talk him into a suede version, but he’d wanted what the original boys in gray had worn, so wool it was. I broke into prickly sweat thinking about it.
“All yours, Bobby. Came in yesterday.”
He popped it on his head. “I thought you said it wouldn’t get here in time.”
“I bribed the supplier. For history’s sake.”
He beamed at me from under the hat’s dove-colored bill. “Speaking of history,” he said, pulling out a transparent aqua flask.
It was scroll glass, used during the Civil War for both medicine and liquor, and from the crescent-shaped pontil mark on the bottom, I knew it was the real thing. The fluted pint-size flask had two inches of clear liquid in the bottom. I took a sniff. Also the real thing.
I shot him a warning look. “Bobby?”
He grinned. “Shhh. Authentic stuff.”
“It’ll give you lead poisoning.”
“Not that authentic. Clean and pure.”
“And illegal. You get stopped with that in your trunk, don’t call me.”
Bobby grinned, too happy with his hat to argue. This was the biggest part of my business, tracking down late-1860s weapons and ammunition and clothing, both authentic and reproduction, and making it available to Kennesaw’s population of fervent reenactors. I kept the basics of pretend war-making in stock—black powder, shells, soft lead round balls—but the kind of stuff Bobby wanted often required