We left him to it. He paid his tab at the end of every month, though God only knew how he managed that. Things were rough for Morrie now that he was paying rent, helping Dee with the mortgage and paying child support. It was sad and it was wrong but Joe-Bob was now beloved by Morrie. His tabs were helping to keep two roofs over Morrie’s kids’ heads.

I didn’t laugh with Joe-bob, got Jessie a drink and then got down to work. I spent that time, like last night but more so today, trying not to think about Angie, about the note, about Alec, about whether my cat Wilson would make Jessie’s husband Jimbo sneeze or about anything at all.

About an hour later the door opened and Alec and his partner Sully walked in.

Unable and maybe unwilling to stop it, I felt my jaw move in a nonverbal greeting, the way it always did when I saw Alec. Always and forever. Since I could remember.

I used to do it because it made him smile at me, a smile I hadn’t seen in years, a smile that others saw and it was handsome so I was sure they liked it, at least the girls. But they didn’t get it. They didn’t get how precious it was. They didn’t understand, it not being directed at them, what that smile could do. The power of it. It was like every time he smiled he’d opened a chest of treasure and said, “All this is yours.”

Now I did it because it made his expression change. He didn’t smile but there was something there, not treasure but precious all the same. It was nostalgic in that painful way nostalgia could be, but it was still precious and addictive, like a drug. I’d forget between times, but when he walked in, the craving would assault me, too much to fight, I was jonesing for it. So I went after it, lifting my jaw then his face would change and I’d allow myself half a beat to drink it in before I looked away.

Even after all that happened, today was no different.

Quick as I could, the second I got my Alec hit, I looked at Sully and understood why he wasn’t around yesterday.

He looked like hell. Brimming eyes, red rimmed nose and he was carrying a tatty tissue which had been overused.

“You need hot, honeyed water,” I said to Sully when he hit the bar, hot, honeyed water being what Mom used to make Morrie and I drink when we had a cold.

It probably had no medicinal effects at all except those wondrous ones only mothers could generate. Mothers who gave a shit about their kids and took care of them when they were sick like they were the most cherished things on earth and the world would not be right until her kid’s cold went away. Mothers like my Mom.

“I need hot, honeyed whisky,” Sully told me with a smile.

I could do hot, honeyed whisky. I would have to run down to the corner store to pick up the honey but it was only six doors away.

“You on duty?” I asked.

He gave me a look, it wasn’t a bad one. It wasn’t pitying or filled with blame. It was one filled with concern and a hint of understanding.

“Feels like, this case, with this cold, I’ll be on duty until the day I die.”

“I’m sorry, Sully.”

“You apologize again I’ll ask you over for dinner.”

That made me laugh, the first time I’d done it in over twenty-four hours and it felt rusty in my throat.

Still, Sully’s wife Lorraine was a shit cook. She was famous for it. Ever since she brought a half-dozen casseroles to the high school band’s pot luck fundraiser the first year they were married and gave food poisoning to half the band and some of the town.

The extra late afternoon bodies filling the room and the work and likely Alec being there made me feel suddenly hot.

I pulled off my sweater to strip down to the tank underneath as I replied, “I swear, I won’t apologize again.”

Sully’s laughter was muffled by my sweater being over my ears.

Alec’s comment was not because the sweater was off by the time he said it.

“What happened to your arm?”

I dropped my hands, my sweater still in both of them, and looked at my arm. Morrie’s fingerprints were clear as day, purple and blue and looking angry.

Fuck, but I always was an easy bruiser.

“Shit,” Morrie muttered, eyes glued to my arm.

“Shit, what?” Alec asked, his gaze swinging to Morrie who looked just as guilty as he was.

“Alec,” I said.

“Colt,” Sully said.

“Shit, what?” Alec repeated, ignoring Sully and me, looking pissed.

No, looking murderous.

I’d seen him that way once. I was barely conscious then and it scared the shit out of me. I was fully conscious now and worried I was about to pee my pants.

“Alec, don’t –” I tried.

Morrie tore his eyes from my arm and looked at his friend. “Colt –”

“Shit, what?” Alec cut him off, totally ignoring me. “You do that to her?”

Sully got close to him. “Colt.”

“Please calm down, it was not a big deal,” I tried again.

Alec ignored me again. “You put your hand on her?”

“Let’s go to the back, talk,” Morrie suggested.

“That why she moved in with Jessie and Jimbo?” Alec asked.

Oh Lord.

I’d never lived in a city. Even when I was travelling, trying to find a way to get back to myself, I picked small towns. I did this because you were never faceless, not for long. You were never a number. When something happened to folk in small towns, the entire town felt it. Even if you didn’t know someone, just knew of them, or a bit about them, you felt it when something happened. You sent a card. You gave them a smile when you saw them or someone who cared about them, a smile that said more than “hello”. People looked out for one another. You were friendly even to people you might not like just because it was the right thing to do and you’d likely see them again, maybe not the next day, but soon. And their kid would go to school with your kid. Or there would be a time when you knew you’d need their kindness or you’d give them yours.

But sometimes living in a small town sucked.

This was one of those times.

“Really, guys, this isn’t the time –” Jessie entered the conversation and she was just as unsuccessful as Sully and I had been.

“Your job was to keep her safe,” Alec told Morrie.

“Colt, trust me, we don’t want to talk about this,” Morrie said back.

“Jimbo can’t keep her safe. He wouldn’t have the first clue,” Alec said.

“Excuse me,” Jessie put in.

Alec’s eyes cut to me. “You stay with Morrie or you stay with me.”