She Can Hide (She Can #4)(37)

“I’m sorry.”

“No need. You didn’t raise the worthless son of a bitch.” Turning, Mrs. Faulkner pointed her walker toward a yellow kitchen. She clunked and shuffled down the short hall and eased into a metal-and-vinyl chair, either the effort or the pain of her son’s betrayal exhausting her. “Zeke comes by his worthlessness naturally. His father was also a waste of the life God gave him.”

“Do you have any idea where he went?” Ethan asked.

“He didn’t say outright, but Zeke isn’t the sweetest cookie in the batch. He was talking about contaminated evidence and how this fancy lawyer was going to sue the county for false imprisonment. Zeke said he’s going to be set for life.” Mrs. Faulkner rolled her eyes as she shuffled through some pamphlets on the laminate counter. “Big ideas. Small brain. That’s Zeke.” She grabbed a pen and wrote on the back of a postcard advertisement. “Here are the three most likely places.”

She’d listed three cheesy local motels.

Ethan folded the note and stuck it in his pocket. “I’m surprised he didn’t try to stay with you.”

“My guess would be he’s gorging on hookers, another habit he had in common with his daddy.”

Ouch. “Other than the lawsuit, did he mention the old case at all?”

The loose skin of Mrs. Faulkner’s neck flapped turkey-like as she shook her head. “No, but he was acting nervous.”

“In what way?”

“In a way that made me suspect he left some people hanging when he went to prison and is afraid they’ll be looking for him now that he’s out.”

“Do you think there’s any chance he was innocent?” Not that Ethan thought for a second that Faulkner had been wrongly convicted. But what kind of a case did he present to his mother?

She snorted. “The one thing I know for sure about Zeke is that he sure as hell isn’t innocent. He never said he did it, but he didn’t deny it either. Not to me. His feeling was that his actual guilt or innocence was irrelevant. What mattered was that the county had to prove he did it, and they screwed up.”

“Does he have a car?”

“Yup. 1990 Camaro. White.”

Ethan spotted a photo on the fridge. Zeke was standing in front of the house with a couple of other men about the same age. He looked younger than he did in his mug shot. But then, no one took a good mug shot. “Who are those men with Zeke?”

“My sister’s boys. Zeke’s cousins are all nice young men. They have jobs and wives. My sister has three grandkids.” Mrs. Faulkner heaved a disappointed sigh, rich with all life’s milestones she would never reach.

Ethan stowed his pity. He couldn’t help Mrs. Faulkner. Some people couldn’t be changed. Zeke sounded like one of them. “Can I borrow the photo?”

“You can have it.” Mrs. Faulkner reached back, snatched the picture off the fridge, and handed it to Ethan. Anger animated her features. “When you find Zeke, call me. He owes me three thousand dollars.”




Steam followed Krista out of the shower. She wrapped her body in a towel, covering the bruise on her breast from last night. That wasn’t the worst of what he’d done to her last night. In place of the usual exhaustive misery weighing her down, the aches in her body were real. The evidence of Joe’s abuse mottled her body like purple camouflage.

Shame inched across her clean skin, making her feel like she needed to get back in the shower and scrub a hundred more times. But the darkness within her wanted to do it all over again.

What was she doing? Too drunk to drive, let alone wait tables, she’d called in sick to work last night. Her boss wouldn’t put up with many missed shifts. This had to end. She should send Joe packing.

But God, the pain was more addictive than booze.

In the bedroom, a naked Joe was lounging on her bed. She turned away from him. “I have to go to work.”

“First you have some work to do here.”

“Didn’t you get enough last night?” She tried to laugh off her fear. “I have an early shift.”

“I never get enough.” Joe’s young, hard body moved fast. In a second, he had her pinned against the wall. “I have a present for you.”

He held a small pipe in one hand. A tiny smoking chunk of bluish crystal sat in the bowl. That explained the strange smell coming from the basement last night. Krista’s stomach heaved. The remnants of last night’s beer and bile burned a path up her chest and into her mouth.

No. She couldn’t let this happen. Her own life wasn’t worth fighting Joe, but Derek’s was another story. She was already up for shittiest mother of the year. Meth addict was not a title she wanted to add to her résumé.

She pushed his hand away. “I don’t do that.”

“Come on. You’ll love it.” He wrapped a hand in her hair and towed her to the bed. Still sore from the night before, her scalp screamed. He released her, and she stumbled onto the mattress. The scarf he’d used last night was still in the covers. One look at it sent fear skittering through Krista’s bowels. She cringed and inched in reverse until her back hit the wall. Joe followed her, crawling across the bed like a big cat, a predator cornering a helpless mouse. On his knees, he pressed his body up against hers, pinning her with his hips. He wrapped the scarf around her throat and pulled the silky fabric tight.