I rolled down the window, so Lorde had plenty of fresh air, and stepped out of the truck.
Missouri’s early morning yawned, hot and sticky. If the lackluster wind was any sign, it was going to turn out to be a real scorcher.
“We each find one valuable item we can sell,” Lu reminded me, as if she had to. “You’re buying a pair of jeans.”
“My trousers are fine.” We sauntered toward the shop door, kicking up dust, the taste of gravel hitting the back of my tongue. Lu threw me a side-eye, and I worked on not wincing with each step.
My old wool trousers might be fine, but my new shoes were not.
“And a new pair of shoes.”
“My shoes are also fine,” I lied. I opened the door, setting off a clunker of a bell, glanced in the cluttered interior, then held the door open for her.
Lu slipped her sunglasses onto the top of her head and stepped past me. “Your shoes are too small because you didn’t try them on before you bought them.”
“I know the size of my feet,” I grumbled, but she was already gone, cutting straight toward a rack of clothing.
I took a breath, smelled mustiness, dust, and weirdly, dill, then plunged into the space after her. I did one lap around the shop to check for dangers out of habit, then paused by the checkout counter set in the far corner so it had a good view of the shop and the door.
The old man there had to be ninety if he was a day, his eyes glassy with cataracts, his hair a wispy afterthought behind liver-spotted ears. I was pretty sure the only light at the end of his tunnel was the glint off the Grim Reaper’s scythe.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” The old timer’s voice creaked there at the end, but was strong enough to carry over the garbling noise of the thrift shop’s speaker system plowing its way through hits from fifty years ago.
I raised my eyebrows and stuffed one hand in my pocket, aiming to look less intimidating. Added a slouch to knock a few inches off my six-feet four and tipped my shoulders so they seemed more narrow.
I was a big man and knew the assumptions folks made about me.
“I’m not one of anything,” I said. “Except passing through.”
His sour expression didn’t change, but his knotted knuckles tightened over the modern cell phone he’d set on the counter in front of him. “I know the sheriff. I’ll call you in. The both of you. I don’t need no trouble with the Riggs or the Kearneys. I run a clean establishment.”
“Clean…” The floor had been swept, but whoever had done it hadn’t bothered to do more than push dirt and debris against the walls. The windows were edged with a yellow smudge and crammed with stacks of suitcases and Mason jars filled with dirt. The shelves leaned at exhausted angles behind tables heaped with junk.
I frowned at the display of more canning jars behind him, all of those were filled with dirt too. The smell of dill was stronger here as was a hint of mint.
Clean was not the word I’d use to describe The Big Hunt Thrift and Junk.
“Riggs and Kearneys live around here?” I asked easy and low. “They giving you trouble?”
“I said I’ll call the sheriff.” He held my gaze, and I decided he’d served in a war or two.
“No need for the sheriff. We’re just shopping is all. My wife and I.” I tipped my head toward Lula, who was pushing hangers from one side of a rack to the other, listening, but not interfering yet. I supposed she was hoping I’d learned my lesson from the disastrous gas station stop in Fenton and wouldn’t let this get out of hand this time.
“Those Riggs,” I said, “they a gang?”
He blinked, and for the first time since I’d walked in, the anger rolling off him shifted to something else. Confusion.
“Not…well, I suppose… No. They’re related though. A family.”
“And they look like me?”
His gaze took me in, mostly the height, the width, as I didn’t think he could actually make out my dark hair or the color of my eyes.
“No, though they don’t all look the same, no matter what they are.”
“And what are they?”
His mouth folded back into deep wrinkles. “You wouldn’t believe me if I said.”
