For You (The 'Burg #1)(2)

My guess? Alec had called him.

“Sis,” he whispered at my nod and I closed my eyes. He didn’t call me “Sis” very often anymore, hadn’t since we were kids. I missed it.

Still, no tears came.

“You want coffee?” I asked, Morrie pulled away and gave me a look.

He didn’t like what he saw, I knew it but he still said, “Yeah.”

I made him a cup and we were taking sips when Alec filled the doorframe.

In the light I caught sight of the scar under his left eye. It was a little, puckered, crescent moon, about the size of your thumbnail. I thought that was weird, it being that small, considering at the time it was made it bled a whole helluva lot.

As it did anytime I saw it, it made flashbacks flood my brain. Flashbacks of Alec, sixteen years old and sitting silent on the toilet seat in my Mom and Dad’s bathroom and me, fourteen, standing there wiping the blood off his face with one of Mom’s wet washcloths. Morrie coming in, giving me ice, me wrapping it up and holding it to the gaping cut under Alec’s swelling eye. My Dad walking in, taking in Alec, his bloodied face, his knuckles torn, bleeding and swollen, the way he held his body like if he moved it would be torture and saying, “Police are going to your place, Colt, you’re going with me, Jackie and the kids to the hospital.”

That was the first time my father called him Colt. He never addressed him as anything else since.

“Jesus, what the f**k, Colt?” Morrie said upon seeing him. “Mom and Dad’s bar? Seriously? Who the f**k would do that?”

Alec’s gaze flicked to Morrie and he shook his head.

This was a good question, I thought. A dead body behind their bar? Crazy. My Mom and Dad were beloved in this town. So were their parents. So was Morrie.

Me? I wasn’t sure. Maybe.

Or at least, I once had been.

“You called 911,” Alec said and I looked at him though I didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“You found her?” Alec asked.

“Yeah.”

“What were you doing in the alley?”

I stared at him not seeing then said, “Darryl.”

“Fuck. Fuckin’ Darryl,” Morrie muttered, now he sounded pissed.

“Darryl?” Alec asked.

“He never takes out the trash at night. I tell him, every night. Guy’s got nothin’ between his ears,” Morrie explained, telling the God’s honest truth about Darryl and pulling a hand through his thick hank of blond hair. “Leaves it at the backdoor and forgets. First person in in the morning, usually me or Feb, take it out.”

This wasn’t exactly true. The first person in in the morning was usually me, not Morrie. Though, I had to admit, on occasion, namely my rare days off, it happened.

“You on last night?” Alec asked me and I shook my head.

“Night off,” I told him.

“I was on,” Morrie put in.

Alec turned to Morrie. “Angie here?”

Morrie nodded. “Dude, she’s always here.”

This was true. Angie was a regular. She also regularly wore slut clothes and regularly got shitfaced and regularly picked up anyone who would f**k away whatever demons tortured her, though obviously these efforts never lasted long because she was always back again, usually the next night. Angie wasn’t hard on the eyes if you didn’t look too close and see what her lifestyle was doing to her skin. There was no lack of choice for Angie.

“She go home with someone?” Alec asked Morrie.

Morrie moved his neck in that funny way he did when he was uncomfortable, like he was pulling at a too tight collar and tie, even though he was wearing a t-shirt with a zip-up hooded sweatshirt over it and his hand never moved.

Then he said, “Cory.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” Alec muttered and he could say that again.

Cory’s wife Bethany was pregnant with their third child. Bethany was also a screamer. And Bethany was going to have a shit fit. It wasn’t the first time Cory strayed. Hell, Cory came on to me practically any time he got hammered enough to pull up the courage. It wasn’t the first time he dipped his wick in Angie either. This also wasn’t going to be the first time Bethany found out about Angie. Though it would be the first time Angie showed up the next morning dead in an alley and Cory would be involved in a murder investigation.

“You see anyone last night? Unfamiliar? Give you a bad feeling?” Alec asked Morrie and I knew this was brother-speak.

Alec would lay his career down on Morrie telling him he had a bad feeling about someone. Both of them could read people like books, something they could do forever. I’d never been able to lie successfully to either of them, not once, and I’d tried. It wasn’t surprising Alec became a cop, it was natural-born even if on the face of it, considering his parents and, well, how he used to be, you wouldn’t know it. It also wasn’t surprising Morrie took over the bar. Even in our town, which wasn’t huge, but also wasn’t small, the clientele was regular. Still, trouble could happen, especially when the races were on and anyone could wander in. You had to be able to weed the good from the bad so you could lock down the bad before shit happened.

“Nope, no one. Normal night at Jack and Jackie’s,” Morrie answered.

Alec looked at me. “Where’s the trash?”