The Law of Moses (The Law of Moses, #1)(70)
“Goodnight, Stewy Stinker!” she said, nuzzling the curve between his shoulder and his neck.
“Goodnight, Buzzard Bates!” he responded gleefully.
“Goodnight Diehard Dan!” she immediately shot back.
“Goodnight, Butch Bones!” Eli chortled.
I came awake shivering with a stiff neck and a wet cheek where I’d slobbered on the photo album Georgia had left. I’d fallen asleep clutching it, and it had ended up beneath my head on the floor. I wondered if it was my discomfort that had awoken me, or if it was the dream of Georgia kissing Eli goodnight, but I eased myself up and rose to my feet, only to feel the all-too familiar sensations of unwanted company. My fingers flexed and began to cool and I pushed back the overwhelming desire to fill the freshly painted walls with something else. Something alive. Or something that once had been.
I tested the waters carefully, resisting the call of creation, and I peeked through the shimmering falls, trying to get a glimpse of who it was that waited on the other side. I wanted to see Eli again. I was afraid he wasn’t coming back.
At first I thought it was Molly. Her hair was similar, but as I let the waters thin, I could see that it wasn’t. I let her cross, keeping my back to the wall, watching her curiously. She didn’t show me anything. Didn’t send images of loved ones or pieces of her life gone by. She just walked toward the longest wall in the family room, the wall Tag and I had covered in white paint. We’d covered all the walls, erasing everything. She laid her hand against it, almost in memorial. It reminded me of the way people traced the names of the soldiers on the Vietnam wall Tag and I had visited in Washington DC. That wall hummed with grief and memory, and it drew the dead when their loved ones visited.
The girl curled her fingers softly against the fresh paint and then looked back at me. That was all. And then she was gone.
My phone rang out in angry peeling, and I stumbled around until I found it. I checked the time before I answered the call, and knew immediately that it couldn’t be good news.
“Moses?” his voice echoed like he stood in an empty hallway.
“Tag. It’s three a.m. Where are you?’
“I’m in jail.”
“Ah, Tag.” I groaned and ran a hand down my face. I shouldn’t have let him go. But Tag had been managing himself for a long time, and a beer hadn’t derailed him in ages.
“In Nephi. I messed up, Mo. I was playing pool, nursing a beer, shootin’ the shit with the local boys. Georgia was right, everybody was pretty plastered, but that just made it easier to win. Everything was just fine. Then these guys start talking about the missing girls. That got my attention and I asked him, ‘What missing girls?’ One of ‘em brings me a flyer that’s stuck to the wall. The girl that’s missing is a little blonde girl, maybe seventeen. She was last seen in Fountain Green, just over the hill, on the Fourth of July. It made me think of Molly, Mo. They said rumors were she was kind of wild. People said the same thing about Molly, as if she was to blame for her own death.” Tag’s voice rose, and I could hear the same old pain rearing its ugly head.
“Then an old guy sitting at the bar perks up and mentions that you’re back in the area. They all start speculating that you’re the one that’s been takin’ all these girls all these years. They said there’s been a few. They all remembered the picture on the overpass. One of ‘em even knew that you were the one who told the police where to find Molly. I shouldn’t have said anything, Mo. But that’s not me. Ya know?”
Yeah. I knew. And I groaned, knowing what was coming. My face was hot and my breath short. I knew I was hated, but I didn’t know the full extent of the reason why.
“Next thing I know, one of the old guys is swinging a pool stick at my head.”
I groaned again. Tag loved a fight. I was pretty sure how it all ended.
“So, now I’m here, at the county jail. Sheriff Dawson was so glad to see me, he questioned me personally. In fact, I’ve spent the last two hours answering questions about where I was on the Fourth of July, as if had something to do with the girl’s disappearance. Then they started asking me questions about you. Did I know where you were on the Fourth? Shit,” Tag spat in disgust.
“I had a fight that night, remember? So luckily I was able to provide them with a pretty clear timeline for both of us. I have to pay a fine, and I’m sure the owner at the Hunky Monkey is gonna want me to pay for damages. Which I will. But your truck is still there, parked on Main. So you’re gonna need to come get me in the morning.”
“The Hunky Monkey?” My head was starting to hurt.
“Or whatever it’s called. It might be the Honky Mama, but that seems kind of derogatory,” Tag mused before continuing on with his narrative.
“It’s all bogus. And they’re gonna let me go. But not until tomorrow morning. They’re telling me I’ve had too much to drink and I will have to sleep in a cell tonight. And I’ve been told not to leave the area for the next 48 hours.”
I could tell Tag wasn’t the slightest bit drunk. I’d seen Tag drunk. I’d pulled Tag from a bar before, swinging and cursing, only a few beers in, and this wasn’t even that.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “If my truck is sitting on Main in Nephi, then how am I going to come get you?”