The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

“Did your dad go after you again?” I said.

“He’s not thinking straight. He’s all right when he sobers up.”

“Your father did that to you?” Valerie said.

He looked straight ahead, trapped inside his shame. Valerie cut off a piece of watermelon from her slice and put it on a paper napkin and pushed it toward him. “Aaron says you’re the best friend he’s ever had. He says everybody respects you.”

There were strings of electric lights in the trees, and I could not tell if the shine in Saber’s eyes was from their reflection or not.

“How’d you know where we were?” I said.

“Called your mom. Krauser popped up today. He came by the house right after Jenks did.”

“What’s Krauser want?”

Saber looked at Valerie, not sure how much he should say. “He works part-time for the probation department. He says he knows I’m going to end up in Gatesville. He can get me into a youth camp of some kind that’ll protect me.”

“You mean summer camp?”

“No, it’s some kind of political crap.”

“What did your parents say?” I said.

“Neither of them finished grammar school. They think Krauser is big shit, the intellectual of the Houston school system.” He glanced at Valerie. “Sorry.”

She smiled at him with her eyes.

“Stay away from Krauser. Don’t listen to anything he tells you,” I said.

“Tell that to my old man. He eats up Krauser’s war stories. ‘Ole boy from South Carolina blew the treads on a SS Panzer and put a flamethrower on it. We nicknamed him Hotfoot.’?”

“You okay, Sabe?” I said.

“Sure.”

“You could fool me,” I said.

“I think I’m going to turn myself in,” he said.

“You’re sure that’s what you want to do?”

“Jenks says they found the brick and they’re going to dust it for fingerprints.”

“Then why tell you about it?” I said. “Why not just bring you in?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

A car passed. It had straight pipes, and the engine roared like a garbage truck. The guys inside it were big, their arms tattooed and hanging out the window, the sleeves cut off or rolled to the shoulder. One of them yelled something. Saber kept his eyes on the car until it turned the corner at the end of the block. “You know who those guys are?” he said to Valerie.

“I couldn’t see their faces.”

“How about the car? A ’49 Hudson.”

“No, I don’t remember seeing it,” she said.

“Did you recognize them?” he said to me.

“No.”