Theirs to Keep

“This is a test then,” I theorized. “Some sort of a job interview, to date your brother.”

“You getting in, or what?” asked the driver.

I eyed her skeptically. “Depends on where we’re going.”

“There’s a great coffee shop a few miles up the road,” the freckled passenger pointed.

“Well why the fuck didn’t you say so,” I laughed, as I reached for the door handle.

Forty-Three

KARISSA

The blonde with the freckled ears introduced herself as June. The brown-haired driver, as Kate. They seemed interchangeable, in terms of wit and sarcasm. The two sisters remained relatively silently on the way to the coffee shop, other than murmuring to each other in the front seat.

The girl in the back of the Jeep was Melanie, and I liked her most of all. She was the youngest — possibly too young to have been around for when they’d done this with Bryce’s other girlfriends — but she had that unspoiled exuberance of youth. The one that goes away after you’ve been screwed over a bunch of times, leaving you older, more bitter, and more jaded.

“So you’ve done this a bunch of times, huh?” I asked, sipping my coffee.

The place was too quaint for its own good, and cluttered with tchotchkes. You could barely sit down without bumping into something strung up on the walls, or scattered across shelves placed uncomfortably close to the seating areas. But hey, it made damned good coffee though.

“A few,” said Kate. “The ones we can catch, anyway.”

“Do you usually give them the third degree?”

June laughed, bringing her own latte to her full, Bryce-like lips. “If you think this is bad, you should see what he puts our boyfriends through.”

They went on for a bit, detailing some of the things Bryce had done to guys who’d come sniffing around after his sisters. It turned out he’d pulled everything from lying about where they were to telling potential suitors they’d moved away. The ones who still stuck around got an earful of “the speech,” which came complete with passive-aggressive threats veiled as glib promises and a whole lot of physical intimidation, all accompanied by Bryce’s most twisted smile.

“He told a guy I really liked that I’d left to join the Navy,” said June. “All because he didn’t like the shoes he showed up in.”

“That’s nothing,” laughed Melanie. “When Rob showed up for our first date Bryce let him in, handed him a drink, and told him I’d just run out to the pharmacy to pick up my herpes medication.”

I nearly spit my coffee. “Oh shit.”

“Yeah.”

“He took my fiancé out for a ‘gentleman’s lunch’ at a really expensive restaurant,” said Kate. “He slipped out while pretending to use the bathroom and stuck him with the bill.”

“And also left him without a ride home,” Melanie pointed out.

“That too.”

I suppressed a chuckle, picturing Bryce doing these things to the poor guys trying to date his sisters. At least they only had to deal with him one-on-one. I was getting triple-teamed here, and the irony wasn’t lost on me.

“So tell us about yourself,” said June. “If you’re going to date our brother, we should at least know who you are.”

The three of them leaned back in their comfortable mismatched seats, pretending to tend to their lattes. It was a deception though, because they were still focused on me. Probably examining my expression and my body language every bit as much as my answers.

I’d been a police officer long enough to know when people were pretending.

“Well you know I was once a cop, I’m sure.”

“Yes,” Kate admitted. “Bryce told us, up in New Hampshire. Only we couldn’t find an officer named Karissa Smith registered anywhere near Concord.”

“That’s because my last name’s not Smith,” I told her. “It’s Jandris.”

I saw Melanie look at Kate, and her eyebrows went up. She nodded back to her sister.