Never Die Alone

“You have your cell. Come on. How about a cup of coffee?”

Tanisha, who had overheard the conversation, was on it, reaching for a cup. “Regular?” she asked.

“I don’t care.”

Bria

“About time,” Enrique remarked with a pissy expression as he glared at the clock mounted to one side of the stage.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning.” Jenkins lifted an eyebrow and gave Enrique a stare as he stirred Equal into his coffee.

Bria

“Shit, man, are you waiting for Roger?” Enrique snorted his disgust. “You can’t count on that dude. He’s whacked!”

“Well, aren’t we all, to some degree?” Jenkins threw back at him. “Wow. Way to be judgmental, Rico.”

“It’s Enrique.”

“Whatever.” Jenkins’s smile stretched a bit. He loved toying with the hothead.

Bria

“Oh, ouch. I’m not the touchy one.” Jenkins took a sip from his cup, made a face, and said, “You know, we really oughta get some real cream here. This chemical garbage doesn’t cut it.”

“Organic?” Lincoln joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Tanisha wasn’t amused. She glared at Jenkins. “Fine. From now on, the cream and sugar and whatever anyone wants, that’s your job.” She pointed a glossy-tipped finger at the middle of Jenkins’s chest. “And while you’re at it, maybe some of that foo-foo flavoring. Hazelnut, or vanilla, or whatever other crap you all are into.”

“Wow. Seems to be an epidemic of irritation around here.”

“Excuse me?” Tanisha demanded hotly, but Jenkins backed off and found his seat.

“Take it down a notch,” Bria

“Humph. With numb nuts?” Tanisha’s eyes narrowed on Jenkins.

“Hey!” Bria

With an effort Tanisha tamped down her temper. “Yeah, I know. I’m just edgy. Lack of sleep.”

Reining things in, Bria

“No, but . . . why not? I can’t just sit in the apartment.”

“Okay, then maybe you should be first tonight. Come on.” She guided Selma into a chair and took the seat next to her.

Although Tanisha left the steaming cup of decaf on a small table beside her, Selma didn’t seem to notice. She clasped her hands between her knees and hung her head for a few seconds. Then when she finally pulled herself together enough so that she could talk, she took a deep breath. “This isn’t about Sandra,” she said, mentioning the twin sister she’d lost fourteen years earlier. “It’s about my daughters, Zoe and Chloe.” Her voice cracked on their names. “They’re missing.”

CHAPTER 11

“I don’t need much,” Edward said from somewhere on the other end of the phone co

Jase imagined his father, thin as a rail, lines marring his face, the scents of smoke and stale whiskey clinging to a graying beard that needed to be trimmed and jeans that hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine for several weeks. Once a lean, tough ranch hand whose craggy face and sexy smile had caused more than his share of female hearts to skip a beat, Edward Bridges was now a ghost of his former Marlboro Man self. “You know, I just could use enough to get me through to the first of the month when I get my check.” Ed’s words were slurred as he wheedled his way through the pitch, which was always the case when he called to ask his son for money.

“Dad,” Jase said, leaning against the wall of his apartment and glancing to the living room where the slider door was cracked a bit, the night air slipping inside. “We’ve been through this all before.”

“I know, I know, but just hear me out. It’s been rough around here for the past couple o’ weeks. Landlord’s threatening to throw me on the street.” Ed laughed then, the chuckle rolling into a cough aggravated by forty years of cigarettes. “I’m just talkin’ a couple o’ hundred. Maybe three. You know I’ll pay ya back.”

That, Jase didn’t know. He had no idea how much he’d loaned his old man over the years. But in a way, it was payback to a father who had, in his dysfunctional ma

Prescott had given up on the man who, as far as he was concerned, had done such a piss-poor job of single parenting. As for their mother, Marian Selby Bridges, child-bride and runaway wife? Neither Jase nor Prescott had ever heard from her. Neither man knew if she was dead or alive, and neither cared. At least she wasn’t calling and begging for money.

At that thought, Jase cringed.

“The old man’s playing you for a patsy,” Prescott had advised a few years back. Prescott had never bought into their father’s “poor me” act, and Edward Bridges’s series of girlfriends who called themselves “Auntie Maureen” or “Auntie Raydeen” or “Auntie Lou” to Edward’s sons had left a sour taste in both boys’ mouths. It wasn’t much of a wonder that Prescott had moved out and married Lena Hendrix, a woman with a firm set of values and a commitment to God, country, and, once she was wed, her husband.

Prescott had offered advice about handling their dad over the years. “You’re enabling him, bro,” Prescott had said during one memorable phone call. Jase had been in his truck, having just met with his father and, yes, “loaning” the old man a couple of hundred bucks. Again. Prescott had called as Jase was driving through the slanting rain to his apartment. At a red light, Jase waited while a man walking a huge dog crossed the street. His cell had been jammed against his ear listening to his brother. Prescott had said, “Stop. Okay?” Jase didn’t respond as the wipers slapped off the fat drops and the streetlight shimmered scarlet against the pavement. “Just don’t give him the cash. He’ll quit calling. Trust me. That’s what I did and he finally took the hint. Hell, I can’t take care of a wife and two kids and Dad, too.”

Jase hadn’t argued. He’d known his brother was right, but he’d never had the heart to completely write off his father. Not then. Not now. Not when he felt responsible to the father who’d raised him.

Times had been hard. Jase had grown up rough and tumble as his father had followed the work, moving from town to town, ranch to ranch until Edward with his affinity for the bottle and dragging two trouble-making boys had worn out their welcome. Along the way Jase had learned how to build a fence, round up strays, and buck hay, all the while attending three different elementary schools. He’d also discovered how to fight and when to run. Eventually, with a little luck, a lot of work, and an inheritance from his grandmother, he’d been able to make his way through college and law school. Scholarships and a federal loan or two had helped. He’d also found out that sitting in an office twelve hours a day doing legal research wasn’t in his DNA. A year after he’d taken a job with DeWitt, Montgomery and Horowitz, he’d quit and pursued freelance journalism, which had been his minor as an undergrad.

Ridiculously, because of his father’s own struggles Jase felt more than a little guilty about his accomplishments, something Edward had sensed and preyed upon.

As he was now.

“The way I figure it,” his father was saying, “I took care of you and your brother for all those years after your mother took off. And then you two kids inherit a shitload of money from your grandma, enough so you can get yourself through school and Prescott can pay for a goddamned BMW, a fuckin’ engagement ring with a rock the size of Gibraltar, and a damned wedding in the Bahamas. Talk about pissin’ it away!” He snorted in disgust. “You two kids ended up with the house and ranch, too.” Now he sounded bitter. He’d inherited his mother’s twenty-year-old Cadillac and a few thousand dollars, a hand slap from the grave. “So now, son, you and your brother?” Ed said. “You owe me.”