“Maybe they should have thought about that before they started shooting at Juno?”
“Donna Hayes isn’t a bad person. The Hayes men are a waste of time, space, and oxygen, but she shouldn’t have to suffer for their mistakes.”
My eyes rolled all of their own accord. “Fine.”
I’d still be familiarising myself with their finances, just in case.
CHAPTER 27
NOLAN
When Donna Hayes opened the door, her first words were, “What did they do now?”
As for Nolan, his gaze fixed on the dish towel full of ice cubes she was holding against her left eye. Even then, her face was swelling.
“You okay?” he asked, and she gave a forced, nervous laugh.
“I just walked into a, uh, door. Yes, a door.”
A fist-shaped door?
“You want me to drive you to the hospital?”
“Oh, I’ll be fine.” She didn’t sound sure of that. “Really, I will. Can I offer you a drink? I made lemonade this morning, only the frozen kind, but it’s fresh.”
“Sure, I’ll have a glass.”
Donna was a woman who needed to keep busy, to find a use for hands that fidgeted constantly otherwise. She took a china jug out of the refrigerator and filled two highball glasses, then handed one to Nolan. Alexa had stayed in the car with Juno, on the phone to Jay Monroe about a problem with a zero-day exploit, whatever one of those was.
“Did the boys go running around on your land again?” Donna asked, and the quake in her voice suggested she already knew the answer.
“Yeah, they were up the hill with a rifle. I just hope they didn’t break through what’s left of the fence this time.”
“They’ll only be looking for rabbits. Meat’s so expensive to buy these days. I’ll talk with them, I will.”
“They weren’t shooting at rabbits. They were shooting at my dog.”
“At Juno?” Her hands flew to her cheeks. “I’m sure it was a mistake. They probably thought she was a deer.”
“Mistake or not, they were still on my land, and they still fired at her.”
“You’re sure it was Wyatt and Tucker?” she asked with a note of desperation.
“Got a real good look at them. Did they come back here?”
“Yes, but they were gone in a hot minute. I told them to stay put, but they took right off again. Kept talking about little green men. I asked them what they meant because what they were saying didn’t make any sense, but… Boys will be boys, that’s what Bo always says.” She promised again that she’d talk with them, but Nolan had heard the same pledge twenty times before.
“Will they listen?” he asked, confronting one of the elephants in the room.
She bit her lip, and if Nolan wasn’t mistaken, her eyes went watery too. “I mean, I’ll try.”
“You’ll try, but they only listen to Bo?”
“Bo doesn’t think it’s fair the way rich folks fence off all the land around here. How’s a man supposed to feed his family if he can’t fill the freezer with a deer or two?”
“There are hunting zones on public lands.” Not that Nolan expected Bo Hayes to pay attention to licences or tags. “It’s just not safe to go around shooting willy-nilly.”
“Maybe you could try wearing orange?”
