Whatever it was, it better be good.
“Sit down, Petti,” Statler interceded.
“Huh?” Petula blinked.
Nothing that began with “sit down” was ever good.
Crap.
Petula dropped her bag on the coffee table, along with her spring-weight jacket, then lowered herself to one end of the sofa.
Everyone followed suit, taking their various chairs, with Julian sitting beside her.
Well, notbeside her, beside her. He kept a three-foot buffer between them.
Judicious.
“Alright. What’s so important?” she petitioned.
Julian looked at Stat. Stat looked at Julian, then her brother gave a nod.
Julian began. “I, um, might have had a friend do a little background check?—”
“Oh my God!” Petula hissed, interrupting. “Seriously? Damn, Julian. You do know this is making thingssomuch worse, don’t you?”
Stater cleared his throat. “Uh, Petula? We kind-of did the same thing with him. Remember?” he interjected.
Petula’s next words died in her throat.Right.Theyhadset Sherb to that. Not that she’d heard the entire results of his search yet, but she was sure the rest of the crew had.
Crap.
She couldn’t hold on to her anger quite so righteously now.
“Proceed,” she told Julian coldly.
He didn’t seem eager, but he complied. “I, uh, found out a few things about your past that I should probably have waited to hear from you,” he began.
“You think?” she snapped under her breath.
He persevered. “But along with that information, which—so you don’t feel completely blindsided—was just didactic, I came across something…disturbing.”
Petula dropped her attitude. She had a feeling that if Julian thought something was disturbing, it most definitely was. She glanced around the room, and everyone looked grim.
Yeah.This was clearly going to suck.
Julian spit it out. “Eight months ago, your brother Jefferson was released from state custody.”
Petula sucked in a breath. She and Statler had discussed this. They’d known it would happen, sooner or later, but later would have been nice.
“So, he’s out,” she stated. “Not a total surprise.”
Julian continued. “Agreed. But because you and Statler changed your last name, not once, but twice, you were…somewhat unreachable, and you weren’t contacted.”
Petula took that to mean that bureaucratic red tape hadn’t allowed anyone the resources to hunt them down. That sucked, but…
“Still, I’m not seeing the problem.”
“I’m getting to that,” Julian responded gently. “Whatwasn’texpected,” he resumed, “was that after nearly seven months of seeing his parole officer, where a lot of anger was still being displayed, Jefferson disappeared.”
