Home Fires by Claire Booth

Author:Claire Booth [Booth, Claire]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-03T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

The driveway was short – and very, very long. Sheila’s walker rolled down it slowly, her feet trying to keep up. She focused on the cross bar and the blue racing stripe she was shaming with her slow hobble. Up and down she shuffled in her lavender sweat suit, ignoring the spring flowers and the neighbors’ side-eye. She’d finally reached the point where she couldn’t think if she couldn’t move. And the inside hallway and its damn carpet made wheeling more difficult than she could manage more than once. She stopped at the end and eyed the mailbox. Tyrone would be furious that she was out here. What he didn’t know … as long as damn Mr Callahan next door didn’t rat her out. She eyed his immaculate hedges and wondered if he was peering at her through his ugly plaid kitchen curtains. He wouldn’t be the only one. They all kept a close watch on the only Black couple on the street. Then she laughed at herself. She had much bigger things to worry about. Which was why she was out here in the first place. Walking off her astonishment at a murder and her anger at Hank.

Where the hell was he? He wasn’t answering texts, or calls. Hell, she’d even sent him an email. There’d be another murder when she finally tracked his derelict ass down. She inched her way into a turn and was halfway around when she heard the sound of a rickety car muffler. She was so relieved she sagged against the walker and waited for Sammy to come around the curve in the road. His Bronco pulled up and jolted to a stop as he saw her standing there. He climbed out with a look that was puzzled, frazzled and horrified all at once.

‘Don’t think I’m out here like some welcoming committee,’ she said. ‘I just needed some air.’

‘Oookay. Can I help you back inside?’

‘Do you want to join Hank on my shit list?’

That wiped all three emotions off his pinkish-white face and replaced it with irritated bafflement. ‘I can’t find him either. He’s not anywhere. I don’t know what’s going on. I talked to him yesterday and told him about all the burglaries. He said he was sorry he hadn’t responded, but he wouldn’t say why.’ He flapped his gangly arms in the air. ‘He went and got the search warrants I needed, but now he’s disappeared again.’

‘That’s better than what I’ve gotten, which is a big, fat nothing,’ she said.

‘Well, maybe he hopes that if he doesn’t engage with you, you’ll stay home recuperating like you’re supposed to and not do any work.’

Sheila gripped her walker handles and glared at him. ‘He and I have already had that argument, and he lost. So he knows better than that. And now I need to talk to him about the extra body.’

Sam tugged on his ear. ‘Do the feds know?’

‘Not yet,’ she said.

‘That’d kinda be Hank’s job to tell them, wouldn’t it?’ It wasn’t really a question.

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