Looking for Smoke by K. A. Cobell

Author:K. A. Cobell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Brody Clark

Tuesday, July 16, 1:20 p.m.

I turn up the volume on the TV, but even over the machine-gun fire, I can still hear Jason and the lawyer through the walls of my bedroom. He didn’t want me sitting out there listening when I didn’t need to. He wants to keep me out of it as much as he can. I think he can feel I’m more stressed about all this than he is.

I need to be more like him. Even keeled. Assured. I don’t know how he stays so cool about it.

I doubt any of the other kids’ rigs have been searched.

At least the cattle ranch is doing well enough that he can actually afford a lawyer. A good one at that. There’s no way we could’ve afforded one in the past. The hollow feeling of opening a mostly empty fridge and the ghostly pressure against my toes from squeezing into too-tight shoes edge into my thoughts. From the hard days after Mom left and Dad wanted us to keep up with school instead of helping him more. Pushing Jason to go to college. Sacrificing.

I hope we really can afford all this and Jason isn’t just throwing us into deep debt.

Some nasally preteen yells into my PlayStation headset. “Come on, EagleRib! Pull your frickin’ weight!”

The respawn countdown ticks on the screen over my dead body, and the other team takes the lead.

“Whatever, CALLofDOODIE. Don’t get your Pampers in a bunch.” I try to concentrate on the Battle Shock team match, but my legs are restless. My mind is on the hum of conversation outside the door.

When I die again, the hum stops. I pull off the headset and listen, but they’re silent. Then the crunch of tires on our gravel driveway sends chills dripping down my core, like slow water on Glacier’s weeping walls.

I shut off the PlayStation and crack open the blinds. Kurt Staccona and Jeremy Youngbull are sauntering to the front door like they own the place. The bastards are even wearing sunglasses.

Beads of sweat form on my forehead as I stride down the hall. Jason’s lawyer positions himself at the end of the entryway and nods. The black braid down his back is just as long as the bolo-tie hanging down his buttoned chest.

Jason opens the door. “Have something else to search?”

Staccona looks between the men.

“Dalton Gaudreau,” Youngbull says. “Good to see you.”

Dalton extends his hand to Staccona. “I’m the Clarks’ lawyer. What’s your business with my client?”

Staccona glances at me, the shadow in the corner of the room, before answering the lawyer. “We have some more questions for Jason.”

I press farther into the corner as they argue back and forth the reasons why Jason should or shouldn’t agree to the questioning. Ultimately, they decide to go into the station, as a show of having nothing to hide. Dalton Gaudreau will make sure they’re not trying anything funny with Jason.

It doesn’t make me feel much better.

But at least it’s him and not me. I’d probably say something stupid.

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