I slip my arm around my husband’s. “Please let us finish this. Maybe—”
“No.” Clint’s voice isn’t loud, but it’s made entirely of steel.
55
SATURDAY
Eight hours later, I slip my hand around my coffee mug. The inch or so of cool brown liquid ripples inside. I shouldn’t have drunk the acidic brew on an empty stomach and certainly shouldn’t have had two refills. But I have no appetite. None of us do. My fingers itch to pick up Clint’s phone, lying on the Formica table next to me. I’ll check it again soon.
“So, you’re certain Dave had nothing to do with this?” I ask across the booth.
“Dave is in the dark. You have to understand, I never intended for any of this to happen.” Candace speaks just above a whisper.
“We don’t have to understand anything about you, Candy.” Clint spits his words.
We agreed to meet this morning. The four of us. Clint seems to keep forgetting that we just need to get the information and leave.
“Please, call me Candace.” This is not the first time she’s made this request. Each time with the same measure of patience.
Clint scoffs.
Candace tries something different this time. “I know, Clint. I was a wounded creature when we knew each other. I won’t pile it on, but my home was not a safe place for a small girl. I learned quickly to eat or be eaten. My dad and brothers were proud of the rough, take-no-prisoners young woman I grew into. My one rebellion was joining the Air Force instead of the Marines.”
Clint’s face is hard, but he’s not interrupting her.
“Remember that mutt that followed me around the end of our senior year?”
Clint’s eyes squint as if he’s looking deep into his past. “Squirrel?”
“Yeah, Squirrel. Stupid name for a dog, but he was a stupid dog. I told my dad that I did everything I could to get rid of him, but I was secretly feeding him behind the old Chevy. When I got home from graduation, Squirrel failed to meet me at the end of the drive. No one had come to see me toss my square hat and now, not even my stupid dog wanted me. As I got closer to the house, I could somehow hear her cries through all the shouting. They’d set up a dogfight in the backyard. Squirrel was a pit bull with as much aggression as a stuffed koala. I shoved those idiots out of my way, scooped her up, and walked her to the animal hospital on Ward, near the high school.”
Lucas murmurs something, but Candace continues.
“I knew the vet thought I’d sanctioned the fight. I also knew nothing I could say would change his mind. He saw the person he wanted to see, but he also saved my dog. Anyway, I told him to adopt her out. I enlisted in the Air Force and was on a bus to San Antonio before the ink was dry. I’ve been back home only once since then.”
“Got more joe for y’all.” Our waitress, her hair scraped back intoa bun, fills up our coffees yet again. “Still able to resist the call of the bacon and the smell of the sausage?”
“Can I get an ice water?” I slide my mug away.
“You know, I will take an egg, bacon, and toast platter,” Clint announces as if proposing a peace deal with a rogue nation. Perhaps that’s what it is.
“I’ll have the same.” Lucas shuts the menu he snagged from the wire holder in front of the window.
Candace and I order as well.
The waitress nods as she scribbles on her pad. “Back in a jiff.”
“Honestly, Candy, Candace, whatever, you can tell us anything you want. I’m always going to remember the girl who stole Kimmie’s new lunch box, the only new thing we ever saw her with. And when you were forced to return it, you set it on fire with a Roman candle.”
Candace’s eyes glisten in the harsh fluorescent lighting.
“I don’t care if you’ve become a Missionary of Charity; I need to know how to keep my family safe from online predators, nasty people with spray paint, and bad actors at Garman Straub. So, unless you can tell us more about what is happening and how you’re involved, I’m not interested in either one of you.” A ropy vein pulses down the left side of my husband’s temple. As sure as he sounds, this meeting with the two of them is taking a toll.
“I want to tell you everything I know, but I’m certain you don’t trust me.” Candace leans over her crossed arms on the table.
Clint widens his eyes at her blunt logic.
“Lucas mentioned that you know about my arrest in the Air Force—”
