Free Chasing Luck by Brinda Berry Page A

closing my eyes at hearing this lie the second time. City boys. Like our diligent officer is going to believe that.
    He asks a few more questions before he’s satisfied. Ace and I watch as their car pulls away from the hospital parade-car-slow.
    “Wanna hold up the emergency room nurse with me? Demand all the narcotics?” Ace squints at the receding police car taillights. “Our wonderful judicial system just treated us like suspects.”
    He takes a lighter from his pocket and flips it around and around in his palm.
    “So, you smoke?” I rub my forehead. If I could curl up on the sidewalk and nap, I would. “You don’t smell like a smoker.”
    “No.” He doesn’t elaborate.
    “Then why the lighter?”
    Ace shrugs. “Quit a year ago but still put this in my pocket. Habits die hard.” He shoves the lighter into his jeans pocket.
    "Why didn't you tell the cops the truth—that I cut you?" I figure he has a reason, but I can't come up with it. "You don't protect people you barely know. You've done it twice—at the restaurant and today."
    "They didn't need to know. I tell them that and they might think you were trying to … well, hurt me. You were protecting yourself, not trying to kill me." He has a comforting voice. It's even and sure.
    "Well, I'm really sorry about—"
    "I told you it's all right."
    "There was a man with a gun. He was walking from the back lawn and I panicked and—"
    He holds up his hand. "Hey. Let's start over. Can we do that?"
    I nod.
    "I got to your place as fast as I could. Billy called me saying you'd run off."
    I screw up my face at him. "Why did he call you?"
    "He's offered me a job."
    "Oh. The security thing."
    "Hmm…" The sound is low like he's thinking about what he'll say next. "I'm going to be honest with you and you're going to be honest with me."
    "Sure.”
    "Billy didn't exactly tell you the truth that day.”
    I frown. “What do you mean, exactly? Something’s true or not true. Period.”
    “He said I would be putting in the security system and that's true. But he also asked me to keep an eye on things. I didn't know that some bat-shit crazy stuff was going on. I thought he was being paranoid."
    I can't help squeezing my eyes together at the lies people keep telling me. At this moment, a guy I recognize from the emergency room desk comes out to let us know the doctor wants to talk to us about Billy.
----
    I blink to a gentle shake of my shoulders.
    “We’re here.” Ace leans down and his face is so close to mine, but I’m too sleepy to move. With the truck’s dome light illuminating his face, he has this otherworldly glow.
    “Oh.” He helps me out of the car, up the front steps, and to the front room.
    “I’m locking up.” He shakes his head. “I’ll order a new door tomorrow and start on the security system I’d planned for this mausoleum.”
    I can’t stop my frown.
    “Sorry, didn’t mean anything negative.” He laughs. “Well, you have to admit. This place is gigantic.”
    I lean against the mantel hearth and close my eyes.
    “You okay?”
    "If I die, Billy inherits a fortune. I thought Billy would be tempted by that. So, I turned my back on him and now it’s my fault he's dying."
    Ace shakes his head. "Malerie, you've been through a lot with losing JT…"
    "I see everything clearly now, Ace. Whoever killed JT tried to get rid of Billy." I bend down and take an ornamental globe out of his hands and slide it to the far corner of the table out of his reach.
    "The old guy is at least eighty, right? He probably couldn't even get out of the way of someone breaking in here." Ace scrubs both hands over his head and leaves them laced at the top. "But you may be right. Someone shot at us out there. House burglars usually don't stop to shoot people in the woods." Ace drops his hands, stands, and looks around. "I'll sleep here tonight on the sofa. The arrangement with Billy was that I'd live in the guesthouse, but I don't want to be that far away. Just in