* * * * *

Colt lay on his back in the dark on the couch with the light he left on for Feb outside shining through the blinds he closed at the windows. He’d discovered that sitting on his couch it felt just fine, but lying on it, even not the pull out, it was lumpy.

Feb’s cat, who had given him a wide berth in the short time he was home before he settled on the couch, jumped up at Colt’s feet. The animal rightly hesitated before he made his way up Colt’s leg to his stomach then to his chest. Then he stood there for a moment before he lay down on his belly.

Colt wanted to shift the damn thing off him but instead his fingers went to the cat’s neck and he rubbed it behind its ears. The purring started immediately.

Trying to keep his blood pressure down, Colt didn’t think of February and their fight that day.

In the attempt to do the same thing, he kept his thoughts off Susie and the idea that her behavior at J&J’s might have scratched her name on a hit list.

Instead, he thought of Amy Harris.

He’d gone to the bank that morning only to find she’d called in sick. Dave Connolly, her manager, wasn’t put out by this, he was worried. Dave told Colt that she’d been working there forever, before he was even hired there, and as long as he’d been there she’d only taken half a day off once, in order to go to her grandmother’s funeral. She came in even if she had a cold or a headache and since she lived close she was always the first one there when it snowed because she’d leave early and walk.

With no Amy to be had at the bank, Colt went to her house. Her car was in the drive and even though he saw movement at her draperies she didn’t answer the door when he rang the bell. Not the first ring, or the second, or the third.

Colt was a cop in a small town. Years ago not much went down, speeding tickets, kids joyriding, a party at someone’s place that got too rowdy, a fight at J&J’s. Every once in awhile there was a domestic disturbance, sometimes folks would call with their concerns about how their neighbors were treating their kids.

Now there were more drugs, not just kids experimenting but adults flat out using. This meant more crime all around. He’d seen a lot, heard a lot, knew people did some shitty things to their neighbors, their partners, their kids, themselves.

Still, he didn’t have the relentless experiences a city cop would have.

Regardless, that didn’t mean he hadn’t learned from what he saw and one of the first things you learned when you were a cop was to watch the way people behaved. Not what they said but what they did, the expressions on their faces, the tone of their voice and always go with your gut.

And that ice-cold feeling Colt felt assaulting him last night came back when Amy disappeared after surprisingly showing at J&J’s, essentially the scene of a crime, and behaving the way she did, especially when it came to Feb. His gut was telling him something about Amy wasn’t right. He couldn’t break down her door but he could dig and that’s what he spent his afternoon doing after the incident with Susie and Feb.

He found Amy had good credit; was current on all her bills; was close to paying off her house because, a lot of the time, she made double payments (which meant on a teller’s salary she didn’t have a whole helluva a lot of other shit to spend her money on); and never even had so much as a parking ticket.

Earlier that night, he called Dave Connolly at home and asked if he’d heard word from Amy, telling Dave she came around to J&J’s last night, didn’t look sick but was acting peculiar and he was checking up on her that day because he was concerned.

Dave, Colt discovered, needed to take management classes. As long as Colt knew him, he’d always been a talker but even though she was an employee, with just a little coaxing, Dave didn’t hesitate in talking about Amy.

Not that there was much to say outside of what he already told Colt at the bank. She was a dependable employee, he could count on one hand when her drawer came up not balanced at the end of the day, she was just social enough to be liked by her colleagues but not social enough to call any of them friends and mostly she kept to herself.

“So shy, it’s ridiculous. It’s a miracle she can talk to the customers,” Dave said. “Don’t even know if she has any friends, never talks about them or what she does on the weekend. Know she’s close to her Mom and Dad but they live in Arizona now. Think she collects butterflies because all the girls get her shit with butterflies on it if they’re her Secret Santa or crap like that. Seriously, Colt, she’s so f**king shy, I’m surprised she’d walk into J&J’s without getting hives.” He hesitated before saying, “Damn shame. She’s fine. Pretty little thing, everyone thinks so.”

That sounded like Amy. He hadn’t paid much attention but what he could remember, that was the way she was in school too.

It also sounded strange in a way Colt didn’t f**king like when people were getting murdered and Feb and his necks were on the line.

And last, with no friends and no family close, it meant, unfortunately, he had no leads on Amy.

He heard the key in the door and he knew Feb was home.

The minute she entered, her cat deserted Colt and walked across the room, still purring.

He heard the rings on her hand sliding on the wall as she searched for the light switch and then the outside lights went out. Feb wore silver at her neck and ears, often at her wrists and she wore it on her hands too, always had on a variety of silver rings, could be a few fingers, could be almost all of them.

He wondered if she wore those rings to bed.

The purring escalated and moved and Colt knew Feb had picked up her cat and was on the move too.

She was in the hall when he heard her whisper to her cat, “Quiet, Mr. Purrsie Purrs. I know you’re glad I’m home.”

Jesus, she called her cat “Mr. Purrsie Purrs”. Colt didn’t know much about cats but he knew hers wasn’t a stupid one and if the damn thing understood English and recognized this affront to his dignity he’d scratch her eyes out.

She closed the door to the bedroom but the house hadn’t been built out of high quality material, you could hear everything. Therefore he heard the toilet flush and the tap in the basin switch on and off, on and off, on and off, washing her hands probably her face, brushing her teeth.

Then silence and he knew she’d climbed into his bed.

“Christ,” he muttered in the dark.

His phone on the coffee table rang and vibrated, both loudly, and he shifted and snatched it up, seeing Sully’s name on the display before flipping it open and putting it to his ear.