Bone Rattle by Marc Cameron (best ereader for pdf .TXT) 📕

She’d sent him a text telling him she and the boys had made it home safely. Like they were a real family. They were. Just not the way he’d imagined it, thousands… no, tens of thousands of times since he’d met her at that bait shop on Manasota Key.

Ethan had been almost eighteen then, much more at ease with himself and the ladies. Mim had naturally ended up with him, even though Arliss had met her first. He’d been too taken with her to say a word. Too smitten with her peaches-and-cream skin to move. He’d just stood there, feet rooted in the peeling linoleum floor of that sweaty bait shop while Ethan talked and moved, and swept Mim off her feet right under Cutter’s nose.

That’s what Arliss got for having a cool older brother.

That single moment in that bait shop had torn the rudder right off his boat. Left him drifting until he’d found himself in the army – and all that other mess. That at least had given him direction, purpose, even if that direction kept him teetering on the edge of getting fired or put in prison.

Then Ethan had gotten killed, leaving Mim and her kids alone. And for some reason, Arliss found himself unable to move or speak again. In everything else he was a paragon of strength, but when his sister-in-law was involved—

Mim answered.

“You’re up early,” she said, sounding even more exhausted than Cutter felt. He could hear the thick, clickiness in her speech that told him she was just out of bed, hadn’t had her coffee. Her text said she was going in to the hospital to cover another nurse’s shift – since she was home anyway.

“Can’t believe you’re going in,” Cutter said, turning his knife so it shaved off paper-thin slivers of wood, toward his thumb, exactly what he taught his nephews not to do.

“I owe her a shift,” Mim said. “I wasn’t asleep anyway.”

“Constance okay?”

“She’s got friends.” Mim heaved a long sigh. It was content, and full of emotion, and such a perfect sound that Cutter nearly sliced his thumb.

“I told her I was picking her up at nine,” Mim continued. “But now it’ll be after work. She didn’t sound disappointed. I’m just glad she’s got girls her age to talk to. No sense in wrecking her evening just because you had to work.”

“I am so sorry about that,” Cutter said. He stopped carving and let his head fall backward against the wall so he faced the ceiling, eyes closed.

“That’s okay,” Mim said.

“Listen,” Cutter said. “We didn’t get a chance to talk after—”

“What happened on the beach?”

“Yeah—”

“That was… I don’t know…” Mim paused, gathering her thoughts. “I thought I’d seen you lose your temper that time at the indoor track.”

I didn’t lose my temper, Cutter thought. That time or this one. Losing my temper is ugly, something I never want you to see.

He said, “Fights are nasty business. Better to end them as quickly as possible. I hate that you had to witness that. Sorry the boys had to see it.”

“I get it,” Mim said, her voice hushed. “Really, I do. It’s just that it seemed so one-sided, like those guys never had a chance.” She caught herself. “Don’t get me wrong. I wanted you to win. It was just…”

Cutter waited for her to finish. When she didn’t, he helped her out. “Violent?”

He could hear her nod over the phone. “Yes, and gruesome. That look in your eye. I have to admit it scared the crap out of me. For a minute I thought you might murder those guys.”

Not even close, Cutter thought.

“It’s just a lot to process,” Mim said.

“Are the boys okay?”

“Are you kidding me?” Mim said. “They’re fine. If I’d let them say ass they’d never talk about anything except how proud they are to have a badass uncle.”

“I am sorry,” Cutter said again.

“You’re always teaching them Grumpy’s Man-Rules. I guess I just thought they’d be a little older before they’d get the live demonstrations. Anyway, like I said. A lot to process.”

They didn’t speak for a time; Mim was making coffee from the sounds of it, while Cutter worked on his carving and tried to suss out any hidden meaning in the things she’d said – or hadn’t said.

“There we go,” Mim said at length. “I’ll be human again in five minutes. Listen, I gotta get ready for work.”

“Me too,” Cutter said. He was already a minute late for his meeting downstairs.

“Call me later,” Mim said – her way of saying she didn’t think he was wrong for beating the crap out of someone in front of her boys – or, if she did, she forgave him for it.

Chapter 30

McGivney’s sports bar was dead ahead as soon as Cutter got off the elevator in the Sheraton lobby, so he didn’t have far to go. He was only two minutes late, which was twelve minutes later than he liked to be. Grumpy’s rule: Ten minutes early was right on time.

Lola was still up in her room, on her way to the gym. That girl was always in the gym. She planned to spend the morning running down leads with Rockie Van Dyke, who wanted nothing to do with Cutter’s breakfast appointment.

Lori Maycomb was waiting at the center booth along the wall, looking out the window at the rain. A soccer game was on the big screen behind her, above her head. Argentina vs. Brazil. Lionel Messi dribbled the ball down the field like it was tacked to the end of his shoes. Messi was the twins’ favorite player. Arliss had bought them both number 10 jackets at a soccer store six months before, when he’d gone back to Miami Beach to testify in an old case, from before he’d gotten the supervisor’s job in Alaska.

Maycomb turned when he approached the table, and stood up to shake his hand. She wore a synthetic hoodie with a Native design that Cutter