Lost Bird (10 page)

“Yeah?”

“What we were talking about the other night. You mean it?”

“Moving in with her?”

John nodded.

“Well, sure. I love Aunt Tammy.”

“You wouldn’t have a problem living there with her if we have to start caring for her more?” John asked.

“No. Why would I? I told you, I’m in. If she wants me there, I’m happy to be there. You thinking about it again?”

“Yeah. I stopped by my mom and dad’s on the way home.”

“Ah. Well,
there’s
the problem. Your mom will be up our asses about it nonstop if we do.”

“I know.” He leaned against the wall. “We’ll see if Aunt Tammy brings it up again tonight. If she does, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

“Sure. And we are.”

When they let themselves in the front door at Tammy’s house, the delicious aroma of beef stew hit them.

“Oh, man,” Oscar said as he lead the way to the kitchen, where they found her at the stove. “That smells great!” He kissed her on the cheek before stepping out of the way so John could kiss her other cheek.

“Glad you think so. Haven’t made stew in a while.” She turned from the stove and stared at them. “You’re going to think I’m nuts, but Herbert told me you two are thinking about finally taking me up on my offer.”

The men shared a guilty look. “What?” John asked when he found his voice first.

She wore a smile. “No, I’m not crazy. Let me prove it. You boys discussed signing a lease with me and everything.”

Oscar fumbled the plastic cup he’d been pulling down from the cabinet next to the sink. Despite his best efforts, it tumbled out of his hands and into the stainless steel sink, where it bounced around until he finally got his fingers wrapped around it.

The look of shock on Oscar’s face had to mirror the one John knew he now wore. “How did you—”

“I told you. Herbert told me.” She smiled. “I dreamed it last night. He comes to me in my dreams and we sit and talk. So yes, if that’s the only way I can convince you two boys to give up that horrible little apartment you’re living in and move in with me, fine, we’ll do a lease and you can pay me rent.” She turned back to the stove.

Wide-eyed, Oscar shrugged and shook his head, his meaning clear.
I didn’t say anything to her.

“Will you boys please set the table?” she called over her shoulder, effectively ending the conversation.

“Yes, ma’am,” they parroted back with a final glance at each other.

* * * *

The rest of dinner went relatively normally. Oscar thought they were going to get out of there without any additional weirdness.

Until just after dessert.

That was when Aunt Tammy lobbed another oddball at them.

“Sachi seems like a very nice woman. Very sweet.”

Oscar glanced to John for guidance. Seeing none, he stumbled forward. “She seems like it.”

She stood and picked up her now empty dessert plate. “That nice young man, Brad? He said she’s single. I think you boys should consider asking her out.” With that, she turned and walked into the kitchen.

John sat there, his fork frozen midbite, and stared at Oscar.

Oscar stared back. After a long, uncomfortable moment, Oscar gave up trying to figure out a response to her comment and shoved another bite of red velvet cake into his piehole.

John did the same.

On the ride home that night, they didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t until Oscar pulled in and parked that John finally spoke.

“That was weird, right?”

“Um, yeah, kind of.”

“You know, if it turns out she really is losing it…”

Oscar couldn’t blame him for not wanting to finish that statement. “Dude, I’m there with you, regardless. I’m not walking away from her just because she’s not a blood relative.”

“Okay. Thanks. I appreciate it.”

But as they said good night and closed themselves behind their respective bedroom doors, Oscar couldn’t help how his thoughts returned to Sachi. He’d researched her story and knew far more about her than she’d probably be comfortable with. The tabloids had done a fine job scouring her past and putting it all out there in a scandalously condensed version for the world to one-click on, but he’d wanted to know the full truth.

He knew it was crazy to label what he thought he might be feeling for her as love, since, technically, he barely knew her.

But he also knew he hadn’t felt this way about Karen, even in the best of times.

Troubled and knowing no answers would be forthcoming, he climbed into bed and tried to go to sleep.

Early Thursday afternoon, Sachi felt she owed Ellis an apology as he walked around to the trunk of his car and opened it.

Inside lay two of her 12-gauge over-under shotguns, her favorite Browning and a Stoeger she let him use for his lessons.

“I could kiss you, chief. Seriously. I mean flat-out on the lips and everything. Maybe even slip in a little tongue. Even if you are Mandaline’s guy.”

He opened the zippered cases, removed the guns from the trunk, and broke them both open before he carried them over to the shelter where he set them in the gun rack. “A deal’s a deal, though. Right?”

She nodded. “Yeah. If it hurts too bad, I’ll stop. I promise.”

Sachi didn’t know if Ellis had told Mandaline what he was up to. When he’d called Sachi earlier in the day and confirmed that she would be at the skeet field that afternoon, she’d hoped and prayed he’d had an idea up his sleeve.

She dumped a box of shells into the pouch she used for shooting while Ellis pulled on his new skeet vest. After they both put in their earplugs and donned their shooting glasses, Ellis grabbed the controller and followed Sachi over to station one, where she removed a shell from her pouch.

“You remember what to do?” she asked.

“High, low, doubles,” he said, smiling. He carried the Stoeger broke open and balanced on his shoulder.

He was turning into one of her better adult students, although he had yet to hit twenty in a round.

After taking a deep breath, she slid the shell into the lower barrel and snapped the gun closed. Then she mounted it to her shoulder, wincing a little as she locked her right elbow into position.

“You want to see one first?” he asked.

“Nope.” She let her mind settle. “Ha.”

Above them, the machine cycled in the high house and launched a clay. She nailed it over the center bunker, where it exploded into a cloud of dust.

“You winced a little.”

She lowered the gun and broke it open, her hand cupped over the shell so the ejectors didn’t send it flying out of the barrel. “A little.” She looked up at him with all seriousness. “It’s not as bad as it was last week, but I’ll admit I don’t know if I’m good for a whole round or not.”

He nodded and didn’t question her further. She deposited the spent hull in the front section of her shooting pouch and grabbed a live one, sliding it into the lower barrel.

This time, she lined up her shot and her hold point for the low house. “Ha.”

That one she nailed a little closer to her than she liked to hit them, but still got it.

She broke the shotgun open and put two fresh shells in. “This will be the test,” she said, snapping the action closed again and mounting the gun.

She felt the low, dull ache in her healing shoulder, but it still wasn’t as bad as it had felt last week. “Ha.”

From each house, an orange clay arced out of the windows and across the field toward each other. She picked off the high house first, nailing low house late, but she got it.

“Well?” he asked.

“It hurts, but I want to try another station.” She looked at him after she’d unloaded the spent hulls. “You’re all right, chief. I take back anything nasty I might have said or ever will say about you.”

He laughed. “Sweetie, it was pitiful. Like watching a wounded animal trying to gnaw off its leg in a trap.”

She batted her eyes at him. “Aw, you lawyers have such a sweet way with the wordage crap. Seduce me some more.”

“So says the mistress of bitchcraft.”

She grinned. “That’s
princess
of bitchcraft, thank you very much.”

They switched places, Ellis handing over the controller to her. By the time they reached station four, Sachi had missed two shots and knew she was finished. She set her gun in the rack under the shelter and spent the rest of the round pulling for Ellis.

When they finished and walked back to the shelter, she sat on the bench, feeling so frustrated she worried she might break down and cry in front of him. “I just…It wasn’t bad enough the fucker tried to kill me, he had to take away my only joy in life, too?”

“Sachi, he didn’t take it away from you. You just need a little more time to heal, that’s all. Give it time and be thankful it wasn’t worse.”

She returned her unused shells to the box in her shooting bag before she and Ellis dumped the spent hulls into a cloth grocery bag. She’d take them home and reload. “The only good thing that came out of all of this is that the fucker’s dead,” she said.

“And your dad is moving here.”

She snorted. “You and your freaking logic.”

He smiled. “Just remember our deal. I won’t tell your dad we did this, but you have to take it easy.”

Ellis was one of the only people she’d let talk to her like that. Partially because he’d saved her and Mandaline’s lives, and mostly because she really liked and trusted him.

And he was one of the few people whose counsel she’d actually listen and give weight to. “I promise, chief.”

“You have students today?”

“Yeah.” She glanced at the time on her phone. “They should start arriving here shortly.”

“Would you mind if I hang around?”

“No, but why?”

He shrugged. “I like watching you teach. I learn from you.”

She grinned. “Most of them shoot far better than you.”

“So I learn humility from them.”

It felt damn good to be able to laugh. “Sure, you’re welcome to stay and hang out.” She wasn’t an idiot. He was hanging around to make sure she got out of there and got home safely. No doubt Mandaline would be calling or texting her if Sachi didn’t call or text her first later.

And she wasn’t about to complain about it, either.

Admitting it, however, would take her getting shot again first.

* * * *

When Sachi’s dad gave her the firm moving dates and the okay to buy plane tickets the next morning, she felt a thrill run through her.

Yes, it was a minor aggravation to reschedule some of her skeet students after having had to reschedule them when she got shot, but when she called them and explained why, they all understood.

But it also meant having to reschedule, again, Tammy Evans’ investigation.

I want it done and off my plate.

Until they could get feet on the ground, so to speak, and get that investigation underway, she wouldn’t be able to focus on much else. After consulting with a calendar and padding a little for safety for the road trip, she called the woman with a tentative date.

“Oh, I completely understand,” she told Sachi. “I’m not in any hurry. I haven’t seen anything the past couple of days.”

“That’s good. I mean good that it’s quiet.”

“You know, I would love to have you out here for dinner when you return. I’ll invite John and Oscar, too.”

Greeeeat. Just what I need. Someone else throwing them at me.
“That sounds wonderful, but I can’t give you a firm date on that. We’ll have to do that on a different night. I’ll be playing catch-up after we get my dad moved, and I really want to get your investigation started.”

“No worries. I understand. Good luck, and have a safe trip.”

“Thanks.” Sachi hung up, wondering if the woman had been trying to hook her up with the guys, too.

No. That’d just be…silly.
She could see one of her friends, someone close to her own age and who was more open-minded about alternative lifestyles doing that.

But Tammy Evans?

I’m just paranoid, that’s all. I spent too many years looking over my shoulder. Sometimes, coincidences are just that.

* * * *

Nearly ten years earlier, Sachi had hugged her father good-bye, climbed into her pickup truck, pointed it east, and never looked back.

It hadn’t mattered that her rapist—the man who’d also murdered her mother—was dead, and his father, who’d attacked and tried to strangle her, was in jail.

All that had mattered was the fact that she couldn’t sleep more than an hour at a time, or through even the slightest noise. That she slept with her loaded shotgun propped next to her bed, and her bedroom door locked, the window locked and clamped shut with extra antiburglary devices.