Mated to My Step-brother and His Best Friend novel · Chapter 5 of 32

Chapter 5: Split Three Ways

Deacon looked at the hole in the wall.

Then he looked at the slashed cot where he'd bled.

"I'll cover it," he said.

"No."

"Sixteen thousand. I'll write you a check today."

"Five of it was already yours," I said. "I'm not taking it twice."

"Dovie."

"I said no."

I got up off my knees and walked out past both of them.

The whole diner had gone quiet.

They'd heard.

The cook was standing at the end of the counter with her mouth flat and her eyes wet.

"When did you last go back there?" I asked her.

"Friday night. You were still here." She swallowed. "I locked up behind you Saturday when you drove off to that supper. Didn't open the back since."

"So somebody got in last night."

"While you were at my father's table," Deacon said.

An old man at the far end of the counter cleared his throat.

He was a rogue, older than the cook, with a face like a walnut and a cup of coffee he'd been nursing since I came in.

"Lovett truck," he said.

Everyone turned.

"Last night, round eleven. Parked out back with the lights off. Two men went in the back door."

"You didn't call anybody?" I said.

"Who'd I call? You were gone. Sheriff's forty miles." He sipped his coffee. "And it ain't the first time."

My skin went cold.

"When else?"

"February. The morning after you dragged those two in." He nodded at Deacon and Bowie without looking at them. "Sun was just coming up. Lovett truck backed up to that door. One man went in. Came out in a minute flat."

Bowie and I looked at each other.

The truck he'd heard pulling away.

"And once in the summer," the old man said. "Middle of the night. Just sat out there an hour with the engine running. Then left."

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