LITMIR.BIZ

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game system. He hadn’t heard a word Mac uttered. The kid was placating him. They were stuck together in a small cabin in a coastal town in the middle of nowhere, and Sam McNally realized for the first time how little he knew his son.

      “I’ll put in a pizza.”

      “Yeah.” Levi stopped and for once Mac thought he’d caught the kid’s attention until his boy picked up his cell phone, read the display, and began texting like crazy. Mac hadn’t even heard the damned thing ring.

      “Someone callin’ ya?” Mac turned on the oven, preheating the ancient thing.

      “No.”

      “But you saw a message.”

      “I texted Seth. No big deal.” The phone either vibrated or made some inaudible noise and Levi snapped his head into the direction of the tiny screen. Once again his fingers flew over the keypad.

      “Seth must’ve had something pretty important to say.”

      “It wasn’t Seth. Someone else.”

      “You can do two at once?” he asked and smelled old crud burning off the inside of the oven. This fleabag was the first place he’d tried when he called for a place to stay, and now he was second-guessing himself. He’d known as soon as he’d driven up and seen the rates for daily, weekly, or monthly that the units wouldn’t be five-star. But he’d thought a fireplace and a cabin feel would be roomier and a little more relaxing than a sterile motel room with two matching beds, TV in an armoire, coffeepot, and maid service rapping on the door in the morning.

      Now, looking at the sagging, scratched furniture and ancient paneling, he wasn’t so sure. Even the plumbing at the Coastal Cove Cabins seemed suspect.

      “It’s easy to text a bunch of people,” Levi told him disparagingly.

      “If you say so.” Mac slid the frozen meaty pizza out of the box. Hell, he could count the pieces of pepperoni and sausage on the thing on the fingers of one hand. He figured it didn’t much matter. The oven reached the temperature and he placed the pie inside.

      Levi had abandoned his game completely and now was texting faster than the best typist in the department.

      “How many people are you talking to?”

      “I dunno. Why? Oh. Don’t worry, I’ve got unlimited texting. It’s not costing you…er, Mom or Tom anything.”

      “Tom? Who’s Tom?” he asked before he realized what he was saying.

      “Mom’s latest.” For the first time Levi met his gaze.

      “You don’t like him.”

      A shrug. “He’s okay.”

      “And he’s paying your cell phone bill?” This was news to Mac, but then Connie only told him what she wanted to, when she wanted to.

      “He added me to his plan. It doesn’t cost much.”

      “But—”

      “Mom’s on it, too. Tom’s moving in.”

      “How do you feel about that?”

      Levi’s phone zinged again and he looked away. “It’s all right.” He began texting again and Mac sensed the conversation was over. He’d known Connie was “involved” with someone, but he’d never heard his name and figured it would pass. In the years since they were separated and divorced, she’d dated a number of men. One guy, Laddie, had moved in with her twice, and twice she’d kicked the bum out. Now, it seemed, she was onto a new one.

      Mac didn’t begrudge her the new men in her life. He just hated that Levi had to be dragged along for the ride.

      “You could move in with me,” he suggested and Levi’s head bobbed up as if it had been pulled by an invisible string.

      “You’re serious.”

      “Thinking about retiring.”

      Levi’s eyebrows drew together. “You sure?”

      “Yeah, why not?”

      “I don’t know…” He shook his head. “Mom wouldn’t like it.”

      “We’d work something out.”

      “I don’t think so. Mom, she says she and Tom are gonna move in together and get married. He’s got a couple of daughters. They’ll need a place to stay, so the den, that’ll be their room when they come.”

      “How old are they?”

      “Dunno.” He thought. Scratched at his chin and Mac saw the first evidence of a beard, a few stray hairs on his chin.

      At twelve? The kid was growing up. Fast.

      “I guess they’re five and eight maybe. Little kids.”

      “How do you feel about that?”

      Levi was about to equivocate, to lie, and say it was “all right” or “not too bad.” Instead, he scowled and yanked off his stocking cap. “It sucks. Big time.”

      “Then we should talk about you moving in with me.” He hesitated, then said, “Mom and I already talked about it.”

      “You did?” The first he’d heard anything like this.

      “Mom told me to give it a chance, that Tom would make things…better. We would eventually get a bigger house, and, you know, I could go to a better school. Get ready for college.” He forced a smile he didn’t feel and in a falsetto mocked his mother’s voice. “We’ll be this one big happy family and everything will be just perfect.”

      “That what you want?” Mac asked, surprised that his kid was opening up. Connie hadn’t said a word about the new guy, just that she was seeing someone and that Levi had a girlfriend. Mac couldn’t remember the girl’s name, but he’d bet his badge she was texting Levi up one side and down the other.

      “I just want everyone to leave me alone,” he muttered and picked up his phone again.

      It ain’t gonna happen, Mac thought, then waited as the pizza finished baking. When the timer dinged Mac found an old towel to drag the bubbling, half-burnt thin crust from the oven. He cut the pizza into pieces and Levi ate with him, only to slip into game mode again. Rather than bug the kid, he turned his attention back to the case. He was going to check in with the sheriff’s department in the morning, see what, if anything, had developed on Renee’s accident, then do a little reconnaissance around the cabin the Brentwoods had owned.

      Afterward, weather permitting, he’d take Levi crabbing on the bay and talk some more.

      He might just learn something about his own damned kid.

      “Hey, Sleeping Beauty.”

      Becca opened a groggy eye. She’d slept like a rock after making love to Hudson, and sometime during that time, the storm had passed. Struggling to sit up, she found him at the foot of the bed dressed only in jeans, his hair dark from a shower, his torso as bare as his feet.

      “Weather’s better,” she observed as sunlight streamed through the now unshuttered window.

      “Don’t count on it lasting. Supposed to get colder again. Maybe snow in the passes.”

      Becca groaned. “What time is it?”

      “Nearly ten.”

      “Really?” She couldn’t remember when she’d slept so late. She blinked and stretched as Hudson walked to the coffeepot and poured some into a cup.

      “Here, this is all that’s left, but there’s breakfast until eleven, so…”

      “I’m up!” She rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom where she got a glimpse of herself and cringed. Her hair was a tangle, her face still heavy with sleep, her makeup long gone. What had Hudson called her? Sleeping Beauty?

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