In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(69)

“I . . . I . . . I . . . ,” Franklin said, mocking him. “You didn’t think that far, did you? I told you that just so you’d shut the hell up.”

“I . . . I . . . I just figured we’d ho . . . ho . . . hold on to them forever. That eventually they’d like us and could be like our wives,” Carrol said, the words tumbling from his mouth.

Franklin shook his head. “What the hell happened to the family gene pool after me?”

“We ain’t killers, Franklin.”

Franklin shook his head. “You don’t know the half of what we are.”



Tracy swore under her breath, slumped low in the booth, and tilted her head to the side to cover her face. Carrol Sprague didn’t know what she looked like, but Franklin certainly did. It didn’t help that she was one of only three women in the bar, and the pub looked like the kind of place where a woman attracted attention just walking in the door. She thought about getting up and leaving, but Franklin sat across the table from Carrol, facing Tracy. He would certainly see her. Beyond that, Tracy had an opportunity here she might not get again.

Not soon enough.

She decided to wait.

The waitress approached the Spragues’ table with a menu and a beer. Franklin waved off the menu but accepted the longneck Budweiser bottle.

Another fifteen minutes passed with the brothers in quiet conversation. Whatever they were discussing, Carrol looked like he had lost his appetite. Finally, they stood and grabbed their jackets. Tracy lowered her head and turned toward the wall, as if searching her purse on the bench seat beside her. She heard the two men shuffle past her table. They didn’t stop. A moment later she heard the bells on the door. She looked up as the Spragues left. The waitress approached to clear their table.

“Miss,” Tracy said. The waitress turned, set down the bottles she’d been collecting, and came to Tracy’s booth. “I don’t think I’m going to wait any longer. Could I get the check?”

“Sure,” the waitress said. She looked at her pad and ripped off Tracy’s bill, handing it to her.

Tracy handed her a twenty.

“I’ll get you change.”

“The bathroom?” Tracy asked, though she had determined the location earlier. The woman pointed past the Spragues’ booth to a narrow hallway with an arrow above the word “Restrooms.” “It could have jumped up and bit me,” Tracy said.

When the woman returned to the bar to get change, Tracy stood with her purse and walked toward the sign. At what had been the Spragues’ booth, she stopped as if to watch the football game. She set down her beer bottle on the table and picked up two bottles, one from each side of the table. She slipped them and the crumpled napkins from Carrol Sprague’s food basket into her bag before she walked down the hall to the bathroom.



Carrol followed his brother outside, then realized he hadn’t paid the bill. “Shit,” Carrol said. “I forgot to pay.”

Franklin shook his head. “You’re a dumbshit. Go back in and pay it; I’ll meet you at home.”

Carrol pulled open the glass door and stepped back inside the bar, lowering his hood and shaking beads of water from his shoulders. Franklin had him so worked up he hadn’t even remembered the bill. He hurried to the booth but didn’t see the check. About to turn toward the bar and look for Janice, he noticed only two beer bottles on the table. A Bud Light and a Budweiser. The Budweiser remained half-full. It certainly wasn’t like Franklin to leave a beer unfinished neither. Then again, Franklin’s mind had been occupied. More for him, Carrol guessed.

He picked up the bottle to drain the remainder but noticed a funny taste. He set the bottle down, trying to figure out the taste. A woman walked down the hall from the bathroom and hesitated when she saw him at the table. She smiled, real friendly like, then stepped past him to the door. He’d never seen her in the bar before, and she was someone he would have remembered. As Franklin would have said, “She was a fine piece of ass.” Tall, blonde, and good-looking.

“Miss,” Janice called out, but the woman kept walking. Janice stepped out from behind the bar with money in hand.

“Something wrong?” Carrol asked.

“She forgot her change.”

“Maybe she meant it as a tip.”

“It’s change from a twenty; she only had one beer.”

Carrol smiled. “More for you, I guess. I forgot to pay my bill,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “I figured that woman distracted you, and I’d get it from you next time you came in.”

“Never seen her in here before,” Carrol said.

“She was waiting for someone. I think she got stood up.”

Carrol made a face. “Really? Who would stand her up?”

“Don’t know,” Janice said. “She just ordered the one beer and said she was waiting for someone.”

“Just the one beer?” Carrol looked back to the table where he’d been sitting. Then he answered his own question. Who would stand her up?

“No one,” he said.

“What’s that?” Janice said.

He looked to Janice. “Did you clear anything off my table?”

“Not yet. Why?”

Carrol suddenly felt warm.

“Carrol? You all right?”