Page 36 of Wretched Thorns

Tara picked up two coffees, some meat pies, and a couple orders of boudin balls.

Through the cooler glass, she watched the SUV.

The driver was on his phone. The front passenger watched the station door while the man in back kept his eyes on the truck.

She set the coffees down beside the twenty.

“They aren’t local,” she said, low, for his ear.

“No.”

“They aren’t wolves.”

“No.”

“What do they want?”

“Eyes on us. They’re not the trigger. Whoever’s holding their leash is the trigger, and whoever that is hasn’t made up their mind yet. I suspect that’s who they’re on the phone with.”

His hand came back to the small of her back as they walked out. He caught her elbow when she went to round the truck on the driver’s side and turned her, gently, toward her own door.

“Man-handle me one more time,” she said quietly, “and we are gonna have a real problem.”

“Mm.”

“You hear me?”

“Heard you the first time. Get in the truck.”

She hissed through her teeth, but got in. His time would come.

He pumped the gas. Got in. Put the truck in gear. Pulled out of the lot slowly, the way a man drives when he doesn’t want anybody behind him thinking he’s in any kind of hurry.

The black SUV didn’t move.

Grandmère from the back, eyes still closed: “We good?”

“For now,” Dex said.

“Define good?” Tara asked, simultaneously.

“Mm.”

***

Half a mile down the road, his body went quiet.

Tara saw it before she understood it. His shoulders. The hands on the wheel. The way his foot came up off the accelerator, like he’d heard something that hadn’t finished registering as a sound.

“Hold on,” he said.

He pressed the brake.

The pedal went all the way to the floor.

Oh, fuck.

Tara’s stomach dropped through the seat.