the curious Toby. “But maybe it runs in the family.”
Tenny didn’t comment; he hadn’t expected him to.
“You gonna come work some of them for Emmie?”
Tenny let out a short, sharp sigh that had Toby pulling his head back, and stepped away from the stall, shaking his head. “Congratulations on eavesdropping, you prick. What do you want?”
Again, Fox checked his initial reaction. You little shit, he thought. And then, Ugh, if anyone had the right to be…
He silently cursed his sister-in-law, and said, “The last time we spoke, you said there wasn’t brotherly concern between us, but that’s not true.”
Tenny cast a sharp, doubting look over his shoulder.
“I won’t bring it up again, since you so obviously don’t want to talk about it. But there is concern, at least for my part. If something’s bothering you, you can come to me. I wanted you to know that.” He shrugged. “That was all.”
He turned around and headed back out of the barn before Tenny could respond – positively or otherwise. Probably otherwise. He glanced back, though, before he returned to the house, and caught his silhouette again, edged with soft chandelier light; stroking the horse’s nose again, his head bent, his shoulders trembling.
Thirty-One
In his tenure as president, Ghost had learned to loathe early morning phone calls. If his cell chirped before sunup, it never meant anything good.
His eyes snapped open that Sunday and he was on instant, tense alert the moment he heard the chime. Maggie murmured something groggily beside him, sleepy fingers trailing down his arm.
He rolled over and snatched his phone off the nightstand, registering the faint bluish glow of just-before-dawn. “What?” he asked when he answered; he’d thumbed the screen without bothering to read the caller ID.
Walsh’s voice greeted him, heavy and serious. “There’s a scene at Bell Bar.”
~*~
The locks had been picked, and not busted, and secured afterward so that their lead contractor, Todd, hadn’t noticed anything amiss when he let himself in at ten ‘til seven. He was an early bird, didn’t mind working on Sundays, and trying to make up for lost time while supplies had to be reordered. He’d headed upstairs to retrieve a forgotten tool, and that was when he’d found it.
Or, rather, him.
“No obvious signs of struggle,” Walsh said, “at least not here. The blood fell straight down the sides of his throat and gathered there. It spread out to here, and here.”
Mercy toed one of the shiny bits of metal screwed down to the floor, the ones his bonds had been tied to. “Boat cleats,” he said. “Guess he thought that was clever.”
The pounding of boots on the stairs preceded Fielding, who burst into the room already winded and red-faced, in civilian clothes. His eyes bugged when he caught sight of the body. “Jesus Christ.”
Ghost took another drag off the second cigarette he’d lit since walking in here ten minutes before. “You can see why I didn’t want a forensics team out here yet.”
Vince looked at him wildly, eyes glazed with shock. “No. No I do not see that. This is a kid, Ghost! His parents need to – and the fucking – shit.”
“Yeah.”
Jimmy Connors had been tied by both wrists and both ankles, the bonds secured to the aforementioned boat cleats, which had been screwed down into the new plywood subfloor. He’d had his throat cut, on site, it would seem, and left to bleed out, most likely sometime in the wee hours of the morning, according the blood coagulation, and Walsh’s educated guess. His body had been laid out with his feet together, and both arms jutting straight out from his body.
“It’s just like in Texas,” Walsh said, standing, face twisted up uncharacteristically. “Staked out, throat cut. He must have been drugged, and I can guarantee the same paralytic is in his system the feds found in the Texas victims.”
“It isn’t just like Texas,” Fox observed. “They were spread-eagle, with their legs out, too.” He motioned with a negligent finger toward Jimmy. “This one’s in a T.”
“A T for Tennessee?” Mercy asked.
Albie murmured, “Jesus.”
Michael stared at the scene with arms folded, face set in harsh lines. He had no problem killing, not even unlikely targets. But there could be no approval or joy in this, not in a teenager who’d been displayed like this, as a message.
“Who did this?” Vince asked, voice faint. He sank down on his haunches beside the body; he didn’t seem able to take his eyes from it.
“Someone who’s trying to make us look bad. And