Feels like Trouble (Lake Fisher 4)

Robbie grins. “You two,” he says, then he snorts out a laugh.

Evie lets her glass thud onto the countertop. “That’s not funny,” she says, as her cheeks turn as red as her hair.

“No, ma’am, it’s not,” Robbie says. He tries to look like he doesn’t think this is funny at all, but he does a shit job at it. “It’s tragic. Mr. Jacobson wants to press charges this time.”

I press my hand against my chest. “Against us?”

“Yep.” Little Robbie is all-out grinning now.

“But we didn’t…” We really didn’t do anything that bad. Everybody tags that building. I see Evie look down at her hands, which are streaked with red and black paint. On the back of my left hand, I have a similar mark. “Oh, fuck,” I say. Guilt is painted all over me.

Ms. Markie picks up her fly swatter and slaps my naked shoulder with it. “Watch your language,” she warns. She shakes that fly swatter while she glares at me.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say quietly, as I rub the sting out of my arm. “Sorry,” I add for good measure.

“I have to take you both in,” Robbie says.

“In where?” Evie asks. She looks from Robbie to me and back.

“To the station,” he says. He stands up a little taller and tries to look intimidating, but no matter the uniform, or the gun he’s resting his hand on, he will always be Little Robbie Gentry when I look at him. “So, let’s go.” He motions toward the door.

“You have got to be kidding,” Evie says, disbelief all over her face.

“Wish I was,” he replies with a sigh.

With a huff, Evie walks past him toward the door. She points her finger at me. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Did you hear that?” I ask Robbie. “She just threatened my life.”

“I didn’t hear a thing,” Robbie replies. He winks at Evie. “Sorry about this, Evie,” he says quietly. “Proper procedure and all that.”

“It’s not your fault, Robbie,” she says. She glares at me. “It’s his.”

I follow them to the car. I still have no idea where my clothes are, so Robbie has me get in wearing the apron. “This is undignified,” I complain.

Robbie grins. “It rather is,” he agrees.

He pushes my head down as he puts me in the car. I settle in the back seat, and Evie glares at me from her side. “If you so much as touch me—” She stops and lets the words hang there in the air.

“Clifford,” I say, “I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last woman on earth.”

“I hate you.” She sits there next to me, seething. I can almost see the steam coming from her ears. “I hope they lock you up and throw away the key.”

“I’d rather be locked up in a cell for the rest of my life than be stuck here with you,” I grumble and adjust the apron demurely around my thighs. When she catches me doing that, she rolls her eyes.

“I hate you so much,” she says as she stares out the window on her side.

I am well aware of how much she hates me. She has informed me of that very fact every time she has been in my presence for the past twenty-five years. And the fact that we now have matching tattoos does nothing whatsoever to change her feelings.

2

Evie

“I can’t believe you got me into this shit,” Barbara-Claire says from where she sits next to me in the waiting area by the holding cells at the interim jail. She whispers it out the side of her mouth.

I turn my head so I can glare at her. “You can thank that husband of yours for this. He was the only sober one, and he still let us do dumb shit.”

Junior Adams has never been known for his good judgment. When we were all fifteen, he decided we needed to drive to the state line so we could stand on top of the line and be in two states at once. “We’re like superheroes!” he’d yelled out, straddling the imaginary line, legs wide apart and hands on hips. “Look! I’m in Virginia and North Carolina at the same time!” Then his gaze had turned serious. “What’s my superhero name going to be?” he’d asked. And he wasn’t even drinking.