Tin Queen

by Devney Perry

  TIN QUEEN

  Copyright © 2021 by Devney Perry LLC

  All rights reserved.

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  ISBN: 978-1-950692-37-8

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  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations in a book review.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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  Editing & Proofreading:

  Elizabeth Nover, Razor Sharp Editing

  www.razorsharpediting.com

  Julie Deaton, Deaton Author Services

  www.facebook.com/jdproofs

  Karen Lawson, The Proof is in the Reading

  Judy Zweifel, Judy’s Proofreading

  www.judysproofreading.com

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  Cover:

  Hang Le

  http://www.byhangle.com

  Other Titles

  Jamison Valley Series

  The Coppersmith Farmhouse

  The Clover Chapel

  The Lucky Heart

  The Outpost

  The Bitterroot Inn

  The Candle Palace

  Maysen Jar Series

  The Birthday List

  Letters to Molly

  Lark Cove Series

  Tattered

  Timid

  Tragic

  Tinsel

  Tin Gypsy Series

  Gypsy King

  Riven Knight

  Stone Princess

  Noble Prince

  Fallen Jester

  Tin Queen

  Runaway Series

  Runaway Road

  Wild Highway

  Quarter Miles

  Forsaken Trail

  Dotted Lines

  The Edens Series

  Christmas in Quincy - Prequel

  Indigo Ridge

  Calamity Montana Series

  Writing as Willa Nash

  The Bribe

  The Bluff

  The Brazen

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Preview to Indigo Ridge

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  “Nova, don’t touch that.” Shelby smacked my hand before my fingertips could skim over the gleaming chrome on Daddy’s motorcycle.

  “What?” I shot her a glare and touched the metal anyway, feeling its warmth from the afternoon sun.

  She rolled her eyes as the screen door smacked closed and Dad walked out of the house with TJ on his hip.

  TJ was eight and too big to be carried around. I was ten and Mom said I was growing like a weed. But no matter how big TJ or I got, Daddy still picked us up. Except Shelby. She was thirteen and I think Daddy would have tried but she didn’t like it anymore.

  She didn’t like him anymore.

  Mom sniffled as she followed Dad down the driveway and my heart sank.

  She always cried when he left. We all did.

  Except Shelby.

  “Be good for your mom.” Dad set TJ on his bare feet, then knelt in front of my brother and leaned in, whispering something in his ear.

  TJ nodded and puffed up his chest. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good boy.” Dad stood and ruffled TJ’s dark hair, then walked over to Shelby and me standing beside his bike. He held out his arms to my sister. “Got a hug goodbye?”

  She shot him a glare.

  “Come on, Shelby. Don’t be like that.”

  “My name is May.” She took a step away from him and crossed her arms.

  I rolled my eyes. Daddy called us by our middle names but lately she only wanted to go by her first name, May. Even when I called her Shelby, she’d get mad at me and pinch my arm.

  My sister was a brat. That’s what TJ and I called her.

  Daddy rubbed at the whiskers on his face, the hair scratching against his palm. Then he took one long step to Shelby and pulled her into a hug. She might say she didn’t want one, but it wasn’t like she tried to push him away either.

  He let her go and came to me, arms wide open.

  I fell into his embrace, burying my face in his shirt and squeezing my eyes shut as I hugged his waist as tight as I could. Maybe if I hugged him hard enough, he’d stay a little longer. “Do you have to go already? You just got here.”

  We hadn’t seen him in three months and this visit had only been two days. Normally he would stay for a week. Sometimes ten days. Those were the best visits. Those were the days when Mom smiled and TJ laughed and I hugged Dad every chance I got.

  “Yeah, Nova. I gotta go.”

  Mom would be sad now. TJ would pout for the rest of the day and probably most of tomorrow. Shelby would be grumpy and lock herself in her room. And I’d go back to waiting, marking my calendar and wondering when we’d see him again.

  I hugged him tighter. His black leather cut was soft against my skin. He wore it everywhere, other than in the house. Beneath the fabric, I felt the straps of his holster and the sharp metal of the gun tucked against his ribs.

  Daddy always carried a gun so that if the bad guys came, he could keep us safe.

  “When are you coming back?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Soon, I hope.”

  Soon was never soon enough.

  He peeled my arms away and knelt in front of me like he had with TJ. “Help your mom with the chores.”

  “Okay.”

  “Study hard.”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  “Remember to keep your secrets. Can I count on you?”

  “Yes.” He could always count on me.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s my good girl.” He kissed my cheek, his goatee tickling my chin, then he stood and took a pair of sunglasses from the collar of his shirt. He slid them over his dark eyes and turned, walking to Mom.

  She fell into him, much like I had, holding tight like maybe she could make him stay.

  He whispered something to her that made her arms fall away. Then, like TJ, she nodded and lifted her chin.

  She wouldn’t cry until he was gone because Daddy didn’t like weakness.

  He took a step away from her, but Mom’s hand shot out, brushing his elbow.

  “We love you, Tucker.”

  “I love you too. Be careful.”

  “Always.” She went to TJ, pulling him against her leg.

  Daddy climbed on his bike, his legs straddling the machine. He looked to Shelby, waiting for something, but she kept her arms crossed. She stared at a mailbox, at the blocky white painted letters on its side that read JOHNSON.

  She’d painted our last name on it five days ago. The mailman knew exactly who lived here, we’d lived here our entire lives, so it wasn’t like the name
was necessary. Shelby wouldn’t admit it, but I think she’d done that to irritate Daddy because Johnson wasn’t his last name.

  It wasn’t really ours either.

  It was Talbot. Legally, it was Johnson, but in our hearts, we were Talbots—that’s how Mom had explained it.

  With one last look at Mom, Dad started the engine of his Harley and the roar forced me back a step, the rumble vibrating the sidewalk beneath my feet. Then he was gone, a streak of black down the road that disappeared too soon around the corner.

  We all stood there until the echo from his bike disappeared.

  Mom didn’t say a word as she turned and retreated into the house, the screen door smacking closed.

  “Great, now she’s going to cry all day.” Shelby kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk. “I wish he’d just stop coming back.”

  “Shelby,” I hissed.

  “May.”

  “Whatever,” I muttered. “Why are you so mean to Daddy?”

  “He doesn’t love us, June.”

  “That’s not my name.”

  “Yeah, it is. Sooner or later, you’re going to need to get used to it.”

  “Shut up, Shelby.”

  “May,” she corrected again.

  “Daddy does too love us.”

  “He loves his club more.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but stopped because she was right. Daddy loved the Arrowhead Warriors.

  But was that such a bad thing? That club was the reason we had such a nice house. It was the reason we always had new shoes and new clothes and Mom didn’t have to work. Being in his club was his job. It wasn’t that different from our neighbor three houses down whose dad was in the Army and he was gone all the time too.

  “I hate his club,” Shelby spat.

  “Well, I don’t.”

  TJ marched over and slipped his hand into mine. “I don’t either.”

  “Because you two are stupid.” Shelby huffed and before I could think of a comeback, she walked away.

  Her best friend lived two blocks away. She’d go there and jump on their trampoline and they’d talk about boys. Shelby would pretend she didn’t care that Dad was gone and that it didn’t hurt her when he left.

  Shelby was the best at pretending. But she’d had more years to practice.

  “What did Daddy say to you?” I asked TJ when Shelby was far enough away she wouldn’t hear.

  “It’s a secret.”

  Daddy always told TJ the secrets, and TJ never told me what they were. It was because TJ was a boy.

  “I’ll give you five bucks if you tell me.”

  TJ pondered it for a minute, then he shook his head. “Nope.”

  Figures. Why couldn’t I know the secrets? I was good at keeping them. We all were.

  Because our lives depended on it. That’s what Dad said.

  Chapter One

  Nova

  “Hey,” I answered my sister’s call.

  “Hey, where are you?”

  Prison. “Just running some errands over lunch,” I lied as I crossed the parking lot for my car. Behind me, the state penitentiary loomed behind a twelve-foot chain-link fence topped with rows of razor wire.

  “Oh, good. Can you swing by for like five minutes? I need to get this cake loaded into the van, but I can’t lift it by myself. I was stupid and didn’t think ahead. I should have done it in two parts and assembled it at the bank. Jack is stuck in a meeting until three and Mom isn’t answering her phone. I need to have it delivered by two for this guy’s retirement party.”

  “Um . . .” Shit. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I need to get back to work. I’m swamped.”

  “You’re already out running errands. Five minutes. Pretty, pretty please? You know I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. I even went to Mrs. Frank next door, but she was gone. I promise to give you a cupcake when you come over.”

  Shelby had just started her own business making custom cakes. She was baking out of her house, but it had taken off faster than she’d expected thanks to a string of satisfied brides who’d hired her to decorate their wedding cakes. Missoula was one of the larger towns in Montana, but word of mouth still traveled fast through the right circles.

  Her orders had exploded, and she was hesitant to turn away business, so while she searched for the right assistant and commercial bakery, we’d all promised to pitch in and help through the growing pains.

  She paid me in cupcakes, so I didn’t mind. And if I were actually in Missoula, I’d drop everything to help her in a heartbeat. She was going to be pissed when she found out where I actually was.

  I braced and stopped walking. “When I say I’m running errands . . . I actually mean I’m out of town.”

  My confession was met with silence. A long, drawn-out silence that meant when the intercom turned on in the background and a loud buzzer filled the air, she most definitely heard the announcement that the inmates currently in the yard were to line up and return inside.

  Damn.

  “You went to see him again, didn’t you?” she asked.

  The air rushed out of my mouth and my shoulders slumped. “Yes.”

  “What are you thinking, June?”

  “Don’t call me that.” My words were as short as the click of my stiletto heels on the pavement.

  “It’s. Your. Name.”

  “You know that’s not my name.” Maybe it was to the rest of the world, but to my family, to the people who knew the truth, I was Nova.

  She scoffed. “You’re thirty-two years old and still haven’t figured it out. He’s manipulating you. This is all a sick and twisted game to get what he wants.”

  I bit my tongue, not wanting to have this fight. Again.

  My sister and I agreed on almost everything. Almond cake was better than vanilla. Buying designer heels was money well spent. Her son, Christian, was an angel on earth. The list went on forever, but the one topic where we never shared common ground was our father.

  “I don’t want to get into a fight about this.” I reached my car and set my briefcase on the trunk. “I’m sorry I’m not there to help.”

  And after the meeting I’d just had with our father, my absence from Missoula was going to extend well past a single afternoon trip to the prison. Something I’d tell her later. Maybe.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice no more than a whisper.

  “What needs to be done.”

  “Don’t get mixed up in his bullshit. Please. Let it go. Let him go.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. Walk away. Live your life.”

  She’d never tried to understand Dad’s loyalty to his club. Maybe because she’d been kept in the dark. I had too, until recently. But the blinders were gone now and there were things that needed to be done.

  People who needed to pay.

  “Can you just . . . trust me?” I asked.

  She groaned. “Now you sound like him.”

  “He’s counting on me, Shelby.”

  “My name is May.” And with that, she hung up.

  “Goddamn it.” I frowned at my phone, then put it into my purse.

  May. When it was just the two of us, I always called her Shelby, just like Dad. Just like he’d always called me Nova. But she’d been relentless about her name again lately. Even Mom had stopped calling her Shelby.

  I’d assumed it was because Mom spent a lot of her time babysitting Christian and now that he was two and starting to talk, they didn’t want to confuse him with names. But maybe that had nothing to do with it. Maybe since Dad’s arrest and conviction, she wanted to completely erase him from her life.

  Her husband didn’t even know that her name—her intended name—was Shelby. Jack thought it was her middle name and he always gave me a curious stare when I slipped and used it.

  Legally, she was May Shelby Johnson-Barnes. But her real name was Shelby Talbot.

  Mine was Nova Talbot. My driver’s license read June N
ova Johnson, but that was all part of the ruse. The secrets that kept us safe.

  Not even Jack knew who we were. Because the best way to ruin a secret was to tell people.

  And we told no one. Dad had taught us all that lesson young and I’d had thirty-two years to perfect the illusion. Shelby—May—was content with the façade. She wanted to be May, while I loathed being June.

  Maybe once my task was complete, I’d be Nova. I’d let go of the ruse and just be me, for myself and for the world.

  I turned and stared at the prison grounds, leaning against the warm metal of my car. The facility sat isolated on a wide expanse of land. In the distance, indigo mountains broke through the green and gold fields. But those mountains were miles away and if an inmate did manage an escape, there was only space to run, not hide.

  There were numerous buildings within the fenced enclosure, each one a shade of beige or gray with slits in the walls they considered windows. Dad was held in the building closest to where I’d parked.

  He was trapped inside. This was where he’d spend the rest of his days. This was where he’d die, not surrounded by his family, but alone in a cell.

  Maybe if Shelby came here to see him, she’d feel the same rage that coursed through my veins, though it was doubtful. She said this was what he deserved. That it was his choices that had landed him here with three consecutive life sentences.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  Dad had made numerous mistakes. He’d lived his life on the wrong side of the law, and his crimes had caught up to him. But if he was going to spend his life in prison for his sins, it was only fair that the men who’d put him here, the men who were just as guilty, were in cells too.