That Tex was adding a bit of humor, worried Julian. Why had the man thought it necessary to lighten his intel?
“So, uh, where did Bothswait come from?” Julian queried, wanting to move things along.
“From the people who adopted Petula and Statler when they were six and sixteen, respectively, but the siblings have evenchangedthatsurname a little since then. At their adoptive home, the name was Bothwin.”
“Adopted. Okay.” Julian had no problem wrapping his brain around that. It seemed fairly benign, and something that happened more often than people realized. Of course he wondered what had occurred for the kids to be yanked from their birth-household. Perhaps the parents were druggies, or simply negligent in the eyes of the state.
But if the situation in their adoptive home had been good, why thesecondname change?
“You want to give me some details about why they were adopted?” He knew that’s where Tex was headed.
Another thing occurred to Julian before the man could answer. “And what about the other brother, Jefferson?” he asked. Tex had left that boy out of one of his disclosures. Was this where the problem that Julian was sensing, came into play?
“Well, Jefferson was fifteen at the time of the upheaval, andnotadopted,” Tex told him, his voice growing hard.
“Because?” Julian prompted, a part of him not wanting to know.
“Because he went to jail.”
“And…why is that?” Julian managed to choke out.
“He murdered their parents.”
CHAPTER 8
Petula droveup her driveway after a very long day. She shook her head. Everything that could have gone wrong after her amazing time with Julian,hadgone wrong.
First, during her initial delivery stop, she’d fumed because someone had packed her van backwards. The stuff she needed to drop off at the beginning of her route had been piled to the back of the stacks, and the things that were last on her docket were front and center.
That had sucked. She’d gone back to the hub, found the new person who’d been responsible for the debacle, and the two of them had repacked everything before Petula had returned to her route.
Then, half way into her day when she’d been delivering on the outskirts of town, she’d hit a pothole; something that was unavoidable in Maine as the permafrost thawed. There’d been a popping sound, and she’d almost lost control of the van.
Emerging, she’d seen that she’d sustained a flat tire. She’d had to wait a half hour for UPS’s roadside assistance to come change it for her, but luckily, she hadn’t had to wait alone, which might have skeeved her out. The rural mail delivery person had seen her troubles and voluntarily kept her company until themechanic showed up. That had been nice, but the whole incident had set her schedule back even more.
Her day had finally wrapped up late by a total of two hours, even though she’d whipped through her deliveries.
Then, when was just about to leave, her supervisor had summoned her into the office, telling Petula she was scheduled for a performance review first thing Monday morning, and that she needed to be in the office an hour before her normal shift.
Great.Now that would be looming over her head all weekend. She glanced upward. Was there already a black cloud there?
It was all crap, anyway. Petula didn’t need a review. She’d been doing a fine job. At least shethoughtshe had. There’d been no complaints against her that she knew of.
Huh.Maybe this was agoodreview. Maybe they were going to give her a fat raise?
Right. A girl could dream.
Her new boss, Irma, was a bitch, and seemed to have it out for Petula, without the least bit of provocation.
Time would tell.
As Petula’s house came within sight, she wasn’t surprised at all to see a raft of trucks out front.
It was Friday night, and when Statler’s crew was local, they often ended up back here to have some beers and blow off steam.
At first, when they’d begun the Friday tradition, Petula had been uncomfortable with it. But that had been eight years ago, when Statler had started his own business after leaving the firm he’d been working for as a project manager.
Petula had been proud of him for daring to take the plunge, and knew she also deserved a few kudos. Statler had left behind a decent paycheck and work security to build his own company. Petula had helped make that possible by taking on somewaitressing work at night to supplement her UPS paycheck, picking up their bills while he figured things out.
