Next of Kin by Samantha Jayne Allen

Author:Samantha Jayne Allen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Chapter Twenty-one

At the county line, driving along the beer-way toward the pool hall to see how crowded it was, I changed my mind and kept going. Crossed into Price County, into Branch Creek, into the little neighborhood behind the Methodist Church and around the back of the single-story houses, parking on the packed dirt lane. I walked the block toward the Mott house on the corner, which was lit up inside, and had a shiny Cadillac SUV parked in the driveway. The smaller Flores house across the way was dark but for the soft changing lights of a television coming through the open curtains. Mrs. Flores was outside on her porch again, no sign of the nurse. I could barely make out her shape from the darkness, but the moon was full, and there was a single lamp near a transformer at the end of the street casting a cold thin light. I couldn’t see her expression quite yet.

“Who’s out there?”

I came up her walkway lined with pretty desert plants and pinwheels, putting my hands out in front of me. “Ma’am, it’s Annie McIntyre. I wanted to speak with you, though I understand if you don’t want to talk to me.”

She was quiet for a moment, and taking it as a no, I started to turn around.

“Wait,” she said. “Come on up.”

She motioned to a metal lawn chair beside her. I breathed in the heady scent of tobacco and the sprig of rosemary she’d plucked and rolled between her fingers, along with something sweeter, fruitier. Her steel-colored hair was unbraided, hanging down past her waist and damp from a shampoo—that scent. “It took me some time to put it all together,” I said. “But I realized how you knew my last name. I wanted to let you know that I’m sorry about what happened to Faye.”

“Why?” She let out a dry cough. “I don’t blame you any more than I blamed those poor Mott kids for their dad being who he was. Powerful men are powerful pieces of shit, in my experience.”

I bristled, a skeptical sound escaping my throat. I’d come here hoping she’d vent to me, that I’d gain insight, that I might offer secondhand remorse over the investigation. So, not sure what other reaction I’d been expecting, but calling Leroy a piece of shit still irked me. From what I understood, Mrs. Flores hadn’t done much to help her daughter, either. “Why’d you yell at me the other day?” I asked.

“Seeing Lorena suffering brought back horrible memories. You can’t comprehend the loss of a child, not unless it happens to you.”

“I understand if you don’t want to talk about her now,” I said, watching her face, but her expression was unchanged. “But I’ve been wondering, what do you think actually happened to your daughter?”

She gripped the arms of her lawn chair to sit up straighter. “She’d had enough of her boyfriend and hit the road—but see, my theory is that he went after her. That’s the part the sheriff, your grandfather, wouldn’t hear.

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