Hunter's Moon, Chuck Logan [i am reading a book TXT] 📗

crush-proof box on the desk next to her chair. She lit it and French inhaled. The smoke trailed up over her head and the mantis moved an inch.

“She wouldn’t marry Dad. She always married the wrong goddamn guys,” she said irritably. And then, meeting his hard, measured gaze, she raised her voice. “Don’t give me

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that. If I’d talked, there could be a trial and I’d have to be in court and a lawyer would ask me…questions. By the time he got through nobody would believe anything I said. He’s got us, Harry. I thought it all through.” She took a deep breath and said, “The only way to stop him is to kill him.”

Harry watched shadows walk out from the mesquite. “How do you propose to do that?”

She lowered her eyes and sulked. Randall and Hollywood stood on the patio, listening through the screen door. Quietly, they entered the room. Hollywood asked, “Why wouldn’t anyone believe you?”

Becky hugged the towel, walked to the bathroom door, and turned.

“Because I saw more than just Bud and Chris fight. I saw it all from the beginning. If I knew about it and didn’t tell, that makes me part of it. Bud planned it that way.”

They waited while she changed into a pair of jeans and a blouse and fastened a bone necklace around her throat and methodically braided her black hair.

“Mom had one of her fights with Dad and she moved Chris and me to Grandma Loretta’s and she rented an apartment in town and started tending bar at the VFW because that would really piss Dad off.

“One night she took us out to dinner and there’s this guy with her who turns out to be Bud Maston. Chris and I were impressed. We’d seen him on TV and his picture’s in the hall at school.”

“When was this?” asked Harry.

“A year ago almost exactly. He was thin then, and really funny in a sad way. Mom wasn’t tense around him like she was with Dad.

“He took us places—skiing, we even went on a dogsled into the Boundary Waters. But always out-of-the-way places, because Bud was sensitive about publicity after the political thing. But he kept his hand in. Pretty soon he and Mom were making all these plans about the town.

378 / CHUCK LOGAN

“We moved into the lodge and at first Chris was really against it.

He wanted to go back home. But it was like one big party. Chris and I could do whatever we wanted. Like no curfew. I could stay out all night with Mitch if I wanted. Bud let Chris smoke and even drink with him. And that’s when Mom made her first mistake. She was always downtown at that office they opened up, driving Bud’s new Jeep, being important, going to meetings with Don Karson.

Chris didn’t have to answer to anybody.”

“And what was your dad doing?” asked Randall.

“Getting furious. Bud wasn’t afraid of him like the other men in town. He owned the town. So he got the prettiest girl in town.”

She walked to the screen door and traced with her finger on the mesh. “Then Jay Cox drove up one day in an old truck full of tools and it all changed.”

“Last summer,” said Harry.

“May,” she sighed. “Bud and Jay went to the bank and Jay bought a new truck and a trailer and some land.”

“Apparently Cox decided that keeping Bud out of politics wasn’t enough,” said Randall dryly.

Becky nodded. “Jay figured Bud owed him a life-time job to keep his mouth shut. But we didn’t know that then. Next thing, Jay had these plans drawn up and he starts in on the lodge. Mom started getting nervous about Jay’s hold over Bud. But she thought the lodge was a good business idea, so Bud let her take over the finances.”

She shivered violently. “Bud would sit up all night and drink and stare at the fireplace. Sometimes he’d build a fire and it was June.

“Bud left dope around and Chris started getting high a lot and trying to shock people. Then dumbass Don Karson came to Bud about the mess at school, the silly gossip about Chris being gay.

And I was feeling like a real fool because the kids were saying that my brother had the hots for my boyfriend.”

Becky shook her head from side to side. “Karson should have talked to Mom and Dad. Chris was real vulnerable and Bud started getting him off alone. Mom was in this panic, Bud HUNTER’S MOON / 379

was falling apart on her. She didn’t see…or she pretended not to.

“He said he wanted to show Chris something, this secret place up on the ridge he found when he was a kid. When they got there, he said he needed to talk and he swore Chris to secrecy never to tell Mom. He said Jay was blackmailing him and that Jay was…sick, that’s why he took those pills all the time…”

A tear worked its way down her cheek.

“He confessed to Chris and told him how he had to leave the city and politics because Jay threatened to tell about him having a secret boyfriend. That’s when he showed Chris the pictures of Martin from the war. And that’s when the weird stuff started with the drugs. And Chris got that tattoo.

“Then Jay caught Chris and Bud together up there. It was ugly.

Chris was passed out stoned and…Jay…stopped…Bud and was going to tell Mom, but Bud had already started to turn it around.

He pointed out that Jay had taken money and so he was a blackmail-er.

“Chris told me how Bud got him high and…did things to him and it got very weird at the lodge. All of us, except Mom, were knee-deep in secrets and it stayed that way all summer. Jay was building the addition and the cabins and Mom was getting more and more nervous watching Bud sit there and drink and get fat.

“Except now Jay protected Chris from Bud and told him what really happened with that