“Yeah, we’re okay.How about Katie?”
“She feels terrible.She feels just terrible.She said she should have gone with you to make sure you were okay.”Leaning forward with the little brush again, she resumed work on her nails, adding absently, “She’s one of our best customers.I hope she comes back.”
“Is Zeb here?”Jem asked.“We wanted to ask him some questions.”
“You want to talk to Zeb?”But then she looked up again.Those over-plucked eyebrows stiffened to peaks.“Oh.You want to ask him about Rydel.What are you, police?”
Tean shook his head.Jem said, “Investigators.A family friend asked us to look into the murder.”
She made a considering noise.“Poor Zeb.That whole family’s a mess.”
“That’s actually what we wanted to talk about,” Tean said.“I’m sure the police have already asked, but by any chance do you know where Rydel might be?”
“They asked,” Tess said.“And no.We don’t.”
“Not even Zeb?”
Tess snorted as she inspected her next toe.
“Were they close?”Jem asked.
That made her look up again, and a note of disbelief rang in her question.“Zeb and Rydel?”
“I guess not,” Jem said, “otherwise Zeb wouldn’t have turned him in.”
“Turned him in.Rydel’s lucky Zeb didn’t kill him.”
She went to work with the nail polish, applying it in smooth strokes, all her attention seemingly fixed on the task.And obviously dying for them to ask another question.
“But that’s what I don’t understand,” Jem said.“Zeb called him to warn him we were asking around.Why turn him over to the police?”
Tean kept his gaze on the door to the office.Just in case.
“He didn’t call him to warn him,” Tess said.“He called him to tear him a new asshole.Whoops.Excuse the language.”
“He was angry with him?”
“He was going to kill him.”The color dropped from her face, and she shot them a glance and said, “That’s just an expression.He was mad at him, that’s all.”
“Why?”Tean asked.He was still watching the office door.
“I don’t know,” Tess said.“I’ve got to finish up these nails and get back to work.”
Jem gave it a few seconds to clear the air.And then he said, “That’s one fucked-up house up there.You ever been inside?”
Tess’s shudder didn’t look feigned.“Momma wouldn’t ever let me.ThankGod.”
“They grew up there?”
“If you want to call it that.”
Jem let the moment hang, as though considering something, and then in a low voice he said, “There was a chair in there.Not really a chair, kind of like a frame.Super old.Super creepy.And it had these straps, like they used to tie somebody down.”
Tess looked up at him, and she even gave a little jab in his direction with the nail polish brush.“Okay, now Iknewthey had that chair, because this girl, Sarah, she saw it one time when Zeb tried to get in her panties, and he thought he could do it in the basement.But I asked Zeb, and he lied straight to my face.Can you believe that?”
“And locks on all the bedroom doors.”
“Everybody knows about that.”