The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,61

really don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

Tean was tapping madly.

“Maybe you should let him wait a while,” Jem said. “So he doesn’t think you’re too eager.”

If Tean heard him, he gave no sign.

“I heard some families make everybody put their phones away during dinner.”

“You literally beat some sort of fruit-slicing game last week during dinner and had to dance around the room shouting and celebrating.”

“I didn’t beat it,” Jem said. “I got past a hard level and—you know what? I’m not even going to get involved. I’m just going to eat my burger.”

But he took one bite and set it back down.

“What’s wrong?” Tean asked half-looking up.

“Nothing.”

“You don’t like bleu cheese.”

“No, it’s great.”

“It’s really strong. Not everybody likes it. That’s what I tried to say.”

“You’ve never had an onion ring. You’ve never had cheese fries.”

Without shifting his gaze from the phone, Tean grabbed an onion ring and took one bite. “They’re ok, I guess.” Then he wiped his fingers and went back to typing.

“They’re ok,” Jem repeated.

Reba was still asking. Reba really wanted to know.

“I bet Orion likes bleu cheese.”

“That’s funny,” Tean said, and Jem guessed he would have said the exact same words, in the exact same tone, if Jem had told him the restaurant was on fire. “I’ll ask him.”

“I need to use the bathroom,” Jem said.

He lucked out. It was a single-user facility, so he locked the door and stared at himself in the mirror. Then he turned his back on the guy in the glass. You’re just friends, he told a paper-towel dispenser. Good friends. Best friends. And tonight, after you drop off your best friend, you can drive around Salt Lake until you find somebody named Orion and then you can disembowel him. Hell, maybe you can take a page out of John Sievers’s book and just chop the motherfucker to bits. Then he washed his hands and went back to the table.

While he’d been gone, Tean had switched burgers. He’d put away his phone too.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Jem said.

“I like bleu cheese. And you like chili burgers.”

“How’d you know that?”

“You like chili dogs. And you love hamburgers. And you made a moaning noise when that Carl’s Jr. ad with the chili burger came on. The one with the girl who probably needs a back brace.”

Jem smiled in spite of himself. “You got me.”

“You’re a really good friend, Jem,” Tean said.

“What brought that on?”

“I just wanted to tell you.”

Jem just nodded and took a bite of the chili burger. He couldn’t taste a damn thing. Then a thought struck him.

“Jealousy.”

“Huh?”

“Leroy said that Joy was having affairs. If something bad happened to her, maybe that’s connected somehow.”

“I don’t think Zalie is going to talk to us, and even if she did, she probably wouldn’t confess to hurting or killing her wife out of jealousy.”

“Zalie might not tell us,” Jem said, wiping chili from his face with a napkin—the burger was messier than he expected. “But I bet those girls Joy was fooling around with, I bet they will. Especially if we put the fear of God into them. How do you feel about trying to hack some dating apps?”

“You look unbearably pleased with yourself.”

“It’s a great idea,” Jem said, puffing up a little. “Sue me for being proud of it.”

“You’ve got chili in your nose hairs.”

19

They struck gold on their third try, and the dating app—Playmates—recognized Joy’s email. The password was a combination of her first dog and date of birth; to Tean, it felt like more impossibly good luck on a night that had already been perfectly lucky already. It had been Jem’s idea to try that app, which was notorious for same-sex couples having affairs or conducting open relationships. It had been Jem’s idea, too, to extract the relevant information from Joy’s Facebook page. As usual, he had been right.

Inside the Ford, the only light came from the dash; when Tean turned to Jem, he was surprised to see his friend looking washed out, almost ghostly.

“She definitely found what she was looking for,” Jem said.

Joy’s inbox was full of messages from women. Tean had only sampled them, but the content was surprisingly banal: hi, how are you, what are you doing this weekend, you’ve got a nice smile. Several of the messages included arrangements to meet in person, and the locations for those meets ran the length of Utah: from St. George all way to Logan. On April 18, though, something changed.

“She stopped responding,” Tean said, waving at the unanswered