Colt turned back to the door and opened it, nodding to Chip and stepping aside for him to enter but his eyes scanned the neighborhood. Chip’s van was parked on the street, no Audi in sight, no other movement. Street was waking up, half an hour it’d be alive, people heading to work. An hour after that, it would be napping again.

He closed the door, locked it and turned to Chip. Chip had his eyes on the lock Colt turned and then they came to Colt.

“You’re standin’ there holdin’ a gun, big man, and you still turn the lock?”

“Man out there’s hacking up people with a hatchet, he threatened me direct and Feb could turn his eye to her. Not leavin’ the door open to that possibility, Chip.”

Chip’s face had drained to the color of his hair, which was nearly as white as an albino, before he muttered, “Fuckin’ hell.”

“Damn straight, now what can you do for me?” Colt asked.

Chip recovered his composure, dipped his head to the door and said, “First thing, get you a decent deadbolt. My experience? Two kinds of cops. Those with families who got so many damned locks their house is like Fort Knox and their wives got scoliosis from carryin’ around their keyring. Those without who don’t spend enough time home to give a crap. You’re obviously Cop Type Two. Gotta tell you Colt, that lock’s a piece of shit.”

Colt couldn’t argue. His lock wasn’t near as bad as Feb’s but it was still a piece of shit.

“Put it in and a chain, all the doors. There’s one at the side, one at the back. I’ll need five sets of keys,” Colt told him, Chip nodded and Colt went on. “What else?”

“We talkin’ the basic model, the basic deluxe or the full-on deluxe?” Chip asked.

Security systems cost some cake, Colt knew, and this would be a hit. It was only six months ago he finished the last payment on Melanie’s kitchen. Other than that he studiously kept out of debt and saved as much as he could so when he quit the department his life could be a fair bit sweeter than a cop’s pension would buy him. He took a financial hit when Melanie left, she had a job and two incomes made their lives a f**kuva lot easier. Further, he let her clean out the house when she left. She let him keep both the house and the boat they bought together. Fair trade, to Colt’s way of thinking, she got a job across the city and wasn’t staying in town so she didn’t need the house and he cared about that boat a whole lot more than any couch. Except, he had to dip into savings to furnish his house when she was gone.

Now he intended, soon as he could, to buy a bike. Jack had taught both Morrie and him how to ride years ago and both of them always liked doing it, so much, every once in awhile Colt would rent a Harley and they’d spend the weekend riding.

But now he knew February felt free on the back of a bike and Colt wanted to give her that feeling as often as he could.

A security system would cut into that intention.

Then again, when this shit was over, he also intended to have a talk with Feb. A lot of the way she lived her life was going to change. Her living in a studio void of personality was one of them. Her spending a lot of time in his kitchen cooking him breakfast was another.

“Deluxe,” he told Chip and he knew by Chip’s response that Chip read his face while he was thinking.

“Good call, Colt,” Chip said. “I’ll give equipment to you wholesale and discount the labor.”

Colt shook his head and said, “No need.”

Chip gave him a look then he laughed, loud and long and Colt could do nothing but watch because he thought his friend might have a screw loose.

“What?” he asked when Chip stopped laughing.

“Colt, my man, you called me at two in the mornin’. You think you didn’t wake Josie with that shit?”

Oh f**k.

Chip’s wife, Josie Judd, had been a friend of Feb, Jessie and Mimi’s back in the day. She still was. Josie Judd was everyone’s friend, sliding in and out of cliques like she was greased with shortening. Josie was a pleaser but it wasn’t that. The woman was pathologically social.

Chip kept talking. “She heard me say Feb’s name and pestered me the minute I hung up the phone. She and her sister have been peckin’ over you and Feb for donkey’s years. Swear to God, they been drinkin’ so much coffee and dreamin’ up so many scenarios the last week, you’d think their brains would frazzle. They reckon this is a romance novel come alive. This bein’ about you and Feb, I don’t give you deluxe and discount it, she finds out I charged you regular, she’d have my balls.”

Josie might be social and a people pleaser but she was also a ball buster, known throughout the town for all of the above. Colt reckoned the men in that town had a case to make Chip a saint the way he put up with Josie’s energy, the endless round of parties she gave and dragged him to, all the times she said “yes” when Chip would end up doing all the work and the whip she used liberally on him.

Then again, the woman wasn’t hard to look at, got her figure back within months after each of their three kids and Chip let it slip regularly that she gave world class head, liked doing it and did it often. He could have been full of shit, telling his tale so as not to appear weak but Colt didn’t see it that way. Chip smiled a lot and was one of the most mellow, adjusted people Colt had ever met. Getting great head from a woman who looked like Josie who was talented with her mouth could do that for a man. Colt figured, his own life wasn’t totally f**ked, he’d be about as mellow and adjusted as Chip right now and he was looking forward to that time.

But now he didn’t have time to argue about what he’d pay and he wanted the system in without delay.

“All right, Chip, you do it discount, I’ll get Feb to make you a frittata,” Colt told him.

Chip whistled through his teeth. “Heard about her frittatas, big man.” His brows went up. “You tellin’ me you already earned one?”

Colt didn’t respond and didn’t have to, Chip grinned.

“Legend,” Chip muttered before he said, “Got the keys to the bar? I’ll swing by there, give it a look. It’s been around awhile, Dad put it in and I wasn’t on that job, probably could use some updating. Then I’ll round up the boys and come back here.”

Colt went to his keyring, slid off the keys, gave them to Chip and told him the alarm code.

He opened the door and Chip hesitated in it. “Know I don’t have to tell you this but keep her safe. Would suck, you two finally bein’ back together only for one of you to end up hacked up with a hatchet.”