by Cara McKenna
“Do it,” Raina told Abilene.
“Don’t,” Duncan countered, and managed to stand up straight.
Casey let him go and stepped back a pace. “What the fuck you on?”
“Nothing fatal. I’m just having a bit of a reaction,” Duncan said, eyes unfocused, words reedy and far off.
“A reaction of what and what?” Casey asked.
“Pills and alcohol and a rather potent anxiety attack.”
“Good God, get him upstairs,” Raina told Casey. She pulled her apartment keys from her pocket and Casey caught them.
She gave the bar a quick scan, filled an order, but found most folks preoccupied with the news. To Abilene she said, “Think I’m going to need you to fly solo for a bit.”
“Oh. Um, okay.”
“I’ll get Casey to help out. He worked here when he was your age.” Raina tossed her bar towel aside and rounded the counter. “Anybody tries to rob us,” she said to Abilene, “there’s a loaded shotgun between the cooler and the cupboards.”
She jogged up the back stairwell and heard Casey swearing through the open apartment door. She hurried through the kitchen and found him easing Duncan onto the center couch cushion in her dark den. By the light slipping in from the kitchen, the man looked woozy, but conscious. His lids were heavy, those normally blade-sharp eyes dull.
Casey waved a hand in front of his face.
“Yes, yes. I see you.”
“What the fuck’d you take?” Casey repeated.
“It’s prescription.”
“You better not OD in Raina’s apartment, man. That’s so fucking rude.”
“I took two Klonopins,” Duncan said. “Or maybe three.”
“And two shots,” Raina said. “What’s Klonopin do?”
Casey flipped on the side table lamp, illuminating his frown. “When I did time, my cell mate took that shit to keep from going psycho.”
Duncan seemed to will himself lucid enough to glare at Casey. “I take it for panic attacks. And anxiety.”
“Doesn’t seem to be working.”
Raina felt her perceptions about Duncan bang a U-turn, with his normally dominant character trait—cool control—suddenly gone.
“Were you shaking from the pills when you came in,” Raina asked, “or the anxiety?”
“The latter,” Duncan said. “Or both.” He leaned forward to plant his elbows on his knees and rub his face. Inappropriate though it probably was, Raina got distracted, watching his arms. She’d never seen him in a T-shirt, never seen his bare skin past the elbow. Nice. Inappropriate, but yes, very nice.
“What are you so anxious about?” she asked.
Not meeting their eyes, he said, “I’ve been sacked.”
Raina blinked. “Whoa.”
Casey did a double take. “Sunnyside fired you?”
“I’ve been on probation since we got Tremblay arrested,” Duncan said, long fingers tangling in his messy sandy brown hair. He had more stubble on his jaw than Raina had imagined him capable of growing. The man was coming apart at the seams.
“That’s shitty,” Casey said.
Duncan sat up straight, still avoiding their eyes. “That was only fair, considering the way I exploited my position.”
“But now you’re fired, for real?” Raina asked.
Duncan took a deep breath. “David Levins told the feds I was accepting bribes from him, in exchange for not reporting shoddy construction practices.”
“Jesus. That was you?”
“It was an accusation.”
“Is it true?” Casey asked.
Duncan leveled him with a stare like smoldering coals—a blaze, subdued. “Of course it isn’t. I’ve never broken the law in my life, not until I met your brother and the rest of you lot. I don’t need to, besides. Sunnyside paid me too well for money to have ever been a temptation.”
“Way you dress and that car you drive,” Casey said, “not sure if people will believe that.”
“Yes, thank you. So I’ve been told.”
“Half the town already thinks you’re a dick. Hope they don’t upgrade you to something worse.”
Raina said, “Shut up, Case.” Though she shared his concern.
“Just saying. It’s bad enough everybody’s been calling him Mr. Peanut.”
Duncan stiffened, frowning. “Mr. Peanut?”
“Because you’re, like, one monocle shy of a dandy,” Casey said.
“Mr. Peanut, really . . . He’s not even British.”
“Isn’t he?”
“You’re not helping, Casey,” Raina cut in. To Duncan she said, “The feds won’t have any proof.”
“Not any credible proof, no . . . Though apparently a witness has come forward who claims to have seen me accepting money from Levins. My motel room and car were searched this morning, though they won’t have found anything.”
“A witness? Shit. You could fight it, though. Sunnyside would have to give you your job back.”
“Yes, I could fight it.” But his posture and his voice said he didn’t have the fuel, just now. “Though I’d prefer a time machine, so I could go back and keep far away from the lot of you.”
The comment stung Raina deeper than she wanted to admit. “We might not have proven Alex was murdered, without you.”
“Forgive me if I’m finding it hard to give a shit about your dead friend at the moment.”
“Hey—” Casey was poised to take issue, but Raina grabbed his arm and stilled him.
“He’s freaked-out and basically high. Let him be an asshole.”
“That was a real fucked-up thing to say,” Casey spat at Duncan, fists clamped to his sides. “Our friend was murdered. All you lost was a fucking job.”
Raina corralled him toward the kitchen. “Go help Abilene behind the bar. And don’t go telling anyone about any of this.” Surely Duncan wouldn’t have spilled half of what he had if he’d been in his right mind.
“You’re welcome,” Casey muttered, and headed for the door. “Exactly what I wanted to do on my Friday night . . .”
Raina crouched and put a hand on Duncan’s knee. It seemed like the kind of thing a nurturing woman would do.
His lips were a hard line, eyebrows drawn and angry, but when he spoke, he sounded cooler. “Apologies. I shouldn’t have denigrated your friend’s death.”
“You have any clue of the kind of nasty shit I hear, surrounded by drunk people every night? Save your apology for Casey.”
Duncan sank back on the couch, glaring up at the ceiling.
“Can I make you some tea or something? I’ve got black, and some kind of mint.”
“I don’t need nursemaiding.”
“Funny, seeing as how you needed hauling up the stairs just now.”
He stared at her, gray eyes softening by a degree in the lamplight. “Fine. Tea would be lovely. Black, please.”
“How do you take it?”
“Milk and honey.”
“No honey. Sugar?”
“One. Thank you.”
She headed to the next room and turned the burner on under the kettle. “Have you eaten much today?”
“Just some toast, around ten. And that didn’t stay down, I’m afraid.”
“Well, Jesus. Three pills and a stiff drink on no food? And that horrible slap in the face? No wonder you’re a shaky, douchey mess. Come in here.”
He joined her after a moment, pulling out a chair at her small table. Raina looked through the fridge. “I’ve got . . . not a lot. Leftover spaghetti. Or I could make turkey sandwiches.” She turned to find him studying her, with something like uncertainty or surrender on his face, the anger gone.
“A sandwich would be nice,” he said tightly.
“Mustard or mayo?”
“Just dry.”
> “Easy enough.” She got them started, and filled a mug with water when the kettle squealed. She set sandwiches on the table, then Duncan’s tea. “Milk and one sugar.”
“Thank you.”
She laughed to herself. “This is so weird.”
He blew on his steaming cup. “My breakdown?”
“No. My acting like a hostess.”
He cracked a little smile at that. “Not the happy-homemaker type, I take it.”
“Whatever gave me away?”
He glanced around the kitchen. “Looks homey enough to me.”
Raina shrugged. “Hasn’t really changed since I was a kid.”
They ate in silence for a minute, and she watched Duncan’s eyebrows rise as he studied the writing on the mug. A Giant Cup of Suck My Dick.
“My dad’s,” she said. “I forget sometimes what it even says.”
“He must have been quite . . . colorful.”
“When he got diagnosed . . . his doctor said something like ‘Mr. Harper, you have stage-four lung cancer.’ We were sitting in the guy’s office, and my dad just shot out of his chair and told the doctor, ‘Well, you can suck my dick.’”
Duncan’s shoulders hitched with a silent laugh, expression officially softening. “He chose to take the denial and anger steps two at a time, it sounds like.”
“It became kind of a thing. Us and my dad’s buddies telling cancer to suck our dicks, when we got too sad or angry or frustrated about it. I forget who got him that mug, but it was his favorite.”
“I’ll be careful with it, then. And what about your mother?”
Raina shrugged. “I never met my mom. I mean, I did, obviously. Briefly. But she dumped me on my dad’s doorstep when I was a couple days old.”
“And he was actually your father?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I mean, he remembered my mom. They met when she was about twenty and he was in his late forties.”
Duncan’s eyes widened.
“Yeah, I know. I don’t think much logic went into it. She was this mysterious Mexican girl who blew through town, made a middle-aged bachelor feel ten feet tall. Blew back out the next week. Fast-forward nine months—instant fatherhood.”
“And you haven’t heard from her since?”
“No. I used to wonder if she’d ever come looking for me, but after thirty-two years, I’ve quit holding my breath.”
“Have you considered trying to find her yourself?”
She shook her head, smiling. “I’m hard-wired to harbor grudges, not longing.”
Duncan held her stare. “I believe that.”
They ate their sandwiches, and Raina put the plates in the sink and puttered around while Duncan drank his tea. “You seem way calmer, now,” she said.
“I suppose I am. Now I merely feel drunk.”
“Well, as I said—I like you drunk, Duncan.”
“I operate best under chemical influence,” he said faintly. He looked up and held her gaze. “I didn’t mean what I said, about regretting having helped you all.”
She smirked as she sat. “You did. But I don’t really blame you. You’ve got no loyalty to us.” And now he was in hot water over it all. And if Duncan was telling the truth—if he hadn’t taken bribes, and the accusation and witness were false . . . “Why were you so sure that Levins turned himself in?”
“I’m not certain he surrendered—it’s merely a hunch. He’s behind the fabrication of this alleged witness, of that I have no doubt, and he wouldn’t have bothered to arrange that if he hadn’t known he’d soon be in custody. I think he set it all up so he’d have something to trade the feds, in the hopes of a lighter sentence. With the bonus of ruining my life, as I helped ruin his.”
She nodded, head filling up with worries. Filling up with thoughts of Alex. Like her friend, Duncan was tangled up in the plot that had claimed three lives already—one good man, one bad one, and one as yet unknown.
She glanced over to find Duncan studying her, a curious look on his handsome face. “What?”
“Do people really call me Mr. Peanut?”
She smiled, though the fear still nagged. “It’s not so bad. He’s a sharp dresser.”
“And an anthropomorphic nut.”
“I’m sure they just couldn’t remember the Monopoly man’s name.”
“Uncle Pennybags,” Duncan murmured, sinking back wearily in his chair.
They’ll be calling you worse things, she thought with a shiver, if it gets out that you were the one accused of taking bribes.
Duncan stretched his neck and said, “You can return to work. I won’t be long—I just need to get ahold of myself, and then I’ll go. I promise not to steal anything.”
“Oh yeah, because I was totally worried about you making off with my ancient beige computer and my two-hundred-pound tube TV. You just chill out awhile. I’ll join you. Casey and Abilene have the bar covered. You want to watch something?”
He looked stymied, and Raina stood. She smacked his back. “Up you get.” She ushered him to the den with a hand between his shoulder blades.
She switched on the television and handed him the remote. “You pick—there’s only five channels. If you want to avoid news bulletins about Levins, stick with channel four—that’s all telenovelas and weird Mexican Jesus shit, twenty-four-seven. I’ll make more tea. Take your shoes off, get comfortable. Hug a pillow. Cry your guts out.”
He sat and Raina headed back to the kitchen.
Duncan Welch, framed . . . if she believed him, which she did. Framed and fired. And pretty fucked-up. Duncan Welch, on her couch. Why was it so unmistakably charming to see this man in tatters? To see everything that made him Duncan Welch ripped away. He’d never seemed like more of a stranger. And she’d never felt quite so . . . tender toward him.
But she had to worry, beyond this moment of weakness, beyond the nasty legal mess Duncan might have ahead of him . . . It was likely that others had been complicit in Alex’s death, in Tremblay’s, in the unknown fate of those bones. And it spelled danger for Duncan, alone in that motel room. She pulled out her phone as the kettle heated and sent a text to Vince, Casey, and Miah.
Calling a meeting tomorrow at noon.
They owed Duncan, for the risks he’d taken—and that he was paying for now, if Levins’s accusations were payback for his role in August’s drama. They owed him protection. And it might take all four of them to convince Duncan to accept it.
All three of us, she corrected herself. Vince would be on board, and Casey would, too, with enough arm twisting; his emotions had no attention span, and his anger would burn off by morning. Miah, however . . . he’d be a tough sell. He’d have to call on every last ounce of fairness in his being to muster sympathy for Duncan.
She gave it some thought, then texted Vince. And bring Kim.
Kind of a ploy, but Kim had been in Duncan’s position. She’d seen and heard things she shouldn’t have, things that could’ve gotten her locked in Tremblay’s and Levins’s sights. Miah had found room for her at the farmhouse. It’d be hypocritical of him to deny that Duncan deserved the same rallying efforts, with Kim standing there. Both were outsiders who’d gotten wrapped up in the Desert Dogs’ problems, through no fault of their own. If they really were a club now, they’d look out for Duncan.
She carried the steaming kettle and a pot holder out to the living room and set them on the coffee table, then went back for the tea bags, sugar box, and milk carton. Duncan refreshed his cup, and Raina propped her feet on the table. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t follow suit. But his legs were crossed, and he’d taken off his shoes. His socks were charcoal gray, his feet long and elegant beneath that soft-looking weave, arches strong. It seemed so bizarre, to realize this man had feet. With delicate veins, and well-groomed toenails, surely. Too . . . human.
She gave him a pointed up-and-down, smil
ing, and he met her eyes. “Yes?”
“You look weird, just in a T-shirt and socks. Like you’re naked.”
“You look strange, out from behind that bar.”
“You’ve seen me away from there before. When we went after Tremblay.”
“Indeed. I saw you on the back of Jeremiah Church’s motorcycle that day.”
She paused. “How’d that make you feel?”
“You sound like my therapist.” But he seemed to consider it. “I can’t recall how I felt. I got distracted when your charming town’s head of law enforcement struck me in the teeth with his gun.”
“Fair enough.”
He held her stare. “I do remember you kneeling beside me, wiping the blood off my face with the hem of your shirt.”
She smiled. “That’s why I wear black.”
He sipped his tea.
“You shouldn’t stay at the Nugget anymore. You should crash with one of us, if you’re sticking around Fortuity.”
“If? As though I have a choice. The feds wouldn’t be impressed if I skipped town just now. Though trust me—there’s no place I’d rather be farther from.”
“Good.”
“But I don’t need protecting, as adorable as your concern is.”
“How come you came into the bar, so worked up?” she asked, changing tacks. “Doesn’t seem like you, inviting an audience to your mental breakdown or whatever.”
He didn’t reply, his brow furrowing as though he shared her surprise. He could’ve grabbed a bottle of vodka from one of the two liquor stores up the street, suffered his identity crisis in the privacy of his room. Why Benji’s? On a busy Friday night? She didn’t dare presume it had anything to do with her, with whatever twisted little bond they had. Maybe he’d simply known, deep down, that he’d wind up taking things too far, between the pills and the alcohol, and wanted witnesses. Seemed likely. Self-preservation was this man’s style, more than cry-for-help. She supposed that meant she was giving him what he needed, just now . . . though a silly part of her was disappointed to think it wasn’t personal, his coming to her when he was freaked-out.
“Maybe,” she said, baiting, “it was because of what happened when Tremblay pistol-whipped you. Maybe that’s why you came to the bar tonight, instead of holing up in your room. Because you knew I’d mop you up.”
