Chuck Logan - Homefront

Gator nodded. “Agreed. No gas.”

“Good. I can do weird. I draw the line at fucking crazy.”

“C’mon, humor me,” Gator chided, his voice wide, stuck in his throat. Maneuvering her back into the bathroom.

“Been missing it, huh?” She slithered out of the sweater, elbows out, hands back in that contortionist trick chicks do, unclipping her bra. Then she peeled off the jeans and panties. “I don’t suppose you got a shower cap?”

Gator didn’t hear. He was staring at her. Sheryl and her tattoo. Not like the twisty flowery bullshit the girls these days get, curled around their waists and back. Uh-uh. This was from the old days when tats were the exclusive domain of crooks and GIs. This pair of red Harley wings spread out two inches below her navel. Hip to hip. Framed just so in her bikini bottom tan marks. Gator didn’t trust his voice. He pointed at the shower.

“Okay, okay.” She reached her hand past the curtain and tested the water, adjusted the handle, and stepped into the tub.

Gator let it build for about a minute, then threw back the curtain. She stood face to the nozzle, drawing her hands through the dark glistening stream of hair. He reached out and clamped his hand on her wrist, pulled her.

“Hey.” She stumbled over the side of the tub, banging her shin. She collided into him, slick, shadowed, her ribs tiger-streaked with tan fading from the beach in Belize. He spun her and forced her forward over the sink, his left hand straight-arming her, pressing on her neck. His right hand fumbled with the buttons of his jeans.

She always resisted, at first; like now, rearing at his rough grip on her neck, swinging her head around, dark eyes flashing, the long wet hair swinging round like black whips. “Christ’s sake, Gator; can’t we work this out a little?”

“Shut up, face forward. Stand.”

Pouting, she turned back to the sink and muttered, “Too damn old to get fucked flatfooted…” Then she broke out of her brooding stance, hips warming up in a slow canter. “…then again, maybe I’m not… ”

“Shush,” he said hoarsely.

“There…you…go…”

He finally got his angles working and hit the rhythm. Unsteady on his feet now, jeans around his knees, he leaned forward, forcing her head down with both hands so all he saw in the mirror was the top of her dark hair and the water beaded up glistening on her back, jiggling where her smooth ass…

Oh, yeah.

Shower running, little chain hanging down from the lightbulb got to dancing as she grabbed the sides of the sink with both hands to brace against the thrust of his hips.

“Ain’t you slippery.” He groaned.

He watched the muscles in her arms and back tense, corded, popping sweat; her voice a throaty chant: “One a…these days…gonna…tear…this sink clear outa THE WALL!!!”

When her cherries lined up, she just paid and paid- ca-ching-ca-ching -the coin coming in a hard hot rush handled endlessly, loaded by the sackful…

Gator just holding on now; ears plugged with blood, other parts of him getting away, runny with his sweat, her sweat. Panting, staggering back, he watched the cannibal gene seep down the inner curve of her thigh. Only way it worked for him. Worked really good. Here in this damn moldy room with the floor joists rotting out under the crummy linoleum. Sheryl, thinking he had potential, patiently went along. All year they’d been starting like this, here in the bathroom.

Breathing not quite returned to normal, Sheryl rolled to the side and sat heavily on the toilet seat; hair tangled, arms down straight between her knees like a spent runner.

“So much for foreplay,” she said, getting her breath.

Gator grinned, wiping off, doing up his jeans.

The real sex happened out in the shop, where everything was clean and in its place.

Where they talked about the plan. And where he would reveal his find.

Broker drove back home, parked the truck, climbed up into the bed, and kicked the garbage bin off his tailgate. Standing there in the sour wind, he gauged the anger pulsing in his throat, hot in his chest.

Usually his anger was fast surface burn, like spit hissing on a griddle. This was inside, and he couldn’t get it out. It just kept circuiting on this loop. His eyes traveled back into the woods, where he’d left Kit’s toy stuck on the pole. Sagging, he got down, closed the tailgate, and straightened up the bin, positioning it where it belonged.

Should call Griffin. He knows these people.

But Griffin had a tendency to go from insult to breaking bones in seconds flat; once he got involved, it might be impossible to hold him in check. Have to think about that.

He went inside, and after confirming that Nina was sleeping upstairs, he resolved to work it off. Clean the house. Stow the clutter. Wipe down the surfaces. If not a solution, at least a distraction. First he moved all the unpacked boxes into the garage and arranged them neatly along one wall. Then he attacked the downstairs bathroom, where he got stuck for a moment staring at the cat litter box as Kit’s words from this morning washed back in a wave.

When I die, will I get to see Ditech again?

Like dying was a reasonable price to pay to be reunited with a cat? Did he think like that when he was eight? He stood, holding a scrub pad and Comet cleanser, peering at the lathered washbasin, trying to remember. The main thing he recalled was his mother yelling at him about wearing a hat and unthawing his fingers and toes after playing hockey until after dark in subfreezing weather.

He shook it off, removed the cat box, and put it in the garage. When he finished in the bathroom, he went into the living room and stacked Nina’s weights in a tidy row. Then he brought a basket of laundry from upstairs and loaded the washer.

As he stuffed in towels and washcloths, he speculated how Mrs. Helseth’s admonition to contact the sheriff would now be complicated by his ad hoc garbage dump at Klumpe’s office. Then he considered how he had not advised Nina about his engagement in low-intensity yokel warfare. How he had enlisted Kit as an accomplice in keeping mom out of the loop.

He revisited his talk with Susan Hatch, who had weighed in with more advice. Both Helseth and Hatch were suggesting he needed filling in on Cassie and Jimmy’s “local soap opera.”

That he was getting his foot into…

Twenty minutes later he left the bathroom in perfect sparkling order.

As he opened the hall closet and took out the Kenmore canister, he caught himself again and looked upstairs. Vacuuming would wake her. Take a break.

There was still coffee in the thermos on the kitchen island, so he poured some into a travel cup, put on his coat and boots, and went out on the back deck, where he sat down on the steps and lit a cigar.

Didn’t work. He found himself staring at his footprints in the snow, leading into the trees. Where he’d been out walking around last night with a loaded shotgun.

Okay. Klumpe was here. But he could have found the bunny in the truck when he knifed the tire.

If he knifed the tire.

There was even a chance Broker had not entirely closed the garage door and the cat had escaped on her own. But someone-Klumpe-had definitely removed the cat’s collar and strapped it on the toy and rammed it on the pole at the trail intersection.

Kit was still missing her cat.

With considerable effort, Broker tried to step back from the spiral of anger and evaluate motive. You humiliated Klumpe in front of his wife and kid. No need to slap the choke hold on him like that. The sheriff was getting out of his car. All you had to do was back up.

He’d always taken his ability to function under pressure for granted…