Free DARK THRILLERS-A Box Set of Suspense Novels by Billie Sue Mosiman Page B

out. “Mama,” she called.
    “ Girl! I heard about Craig on the news. I wondered if that was you got him out.”
    “ Crow, Mama. Call him Crow, okay?”
    Jo pushed two small mongrel dogs back into the trailer with her feet, then pulled shut the door. She came down the two ringing metal steps, but just before she got her bare foot to the ground she looked down and made a face. “Goddamn dog shit right where I got to walk. I swear to God I ought to eat them dogs for supper.” She waited on the step for Heddy to approach. She held open her arms and Heddy saw how the skin flapped beneath them. She was old, drunk, always drunk, and about as useless as any mother could be. Heddy still cared.
    “ Can we come in, Mama? We can’t stay long.”
    “’ Cause you’re on the run, huh, girl?”
    Heddy nodded. “I guess so.”
    “ I told you Cr..uh...Crow would get you in trouble one day.”
    Crow herded the family forward. He bowed to the old woman and said, “I love you too, Mama.”
    “ Shut up, you wimpy asshole. C’mon on in, Heddy. I’ll pour us a drink. Mind the dogs. One of ‘em bites.”
    Heddy watched her mother open the door, scoop the two dogs into her arms, and then disappear into the gloom of the trailer. She turned to Crow, shrugged, and went inside too.
    The rest followed, crowding into the tiny living room area littered with torn newspaper, dirty glasses, and dog excrement. Heddy stepped over a little pile that had dried to brown crust and dropped onto the sofa. She watched Crow push Jay, Carrie, and the kid her way. They took seats, with the girl sitting in her mother’s lap. Crow just stood there, scowling like an owl.
    Jo was in the nearby kitchenette pouring two glasses of bourbon. “You want some, Crow? What about your friends, they need to wet the whistle?”
    “ Nah, not for me.” Crow backed to the wall by the small television set and scooted down until he rested on his heels. “Not for them, either.”
    One of the dogs came up to Crow and sniffed at his crotch. Crow bopped it on the head with his knuckles. It yipped and backed away.
    “ Don’t be hurting my animals,” Jo said, handing the bourbon to her daughter. “Tell him he can get the hell out of my house if he’s going to abuse my animals.”
    “ Tell me yourself, Mama. I can hear you.”
    “ Don’t call me mama. I would have smothered you at birth.”
    Heddy interrupted, saying, “Mama, I don’t know when I’ll get to see you again.”
    Jo drained her glass and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before she said, “I don’t reckon you came to see me much anyway.”
    “ I know, but this is different. I have to go pretty far away.”
    “ Will it be Canada or Mexico?”
    “ Look at her,” Crow said. “Ain’t she the smart one.”
    Without hesitation Jo whipped her empty glass around and threw it at Crow, narrowly missing his head. The glass struck the wall where it was soft from termite infestation, bounded off, and rolled over to Heddy’s foot. She leaned over and retrieved it, handed it back to her mother. She mouthed “Stop it.” silently to Crow.
    “ Well?” Her mother asked. “Canada or Mexico?”
    “ Does it matter? I just have to go. And I won’t be coming back.”
    Jo turned, her loose flowered house dress flapping around her ankles, and found the bottle. She poured herself another shot.
    “ Who’s all those tongue-tied people you got with you there? They going to?”
    “ Never mind about them, Mama, that’s on a need-to-know basis and you don’t need to know.” Crow laughed at his little witticism, but not for long. Jo put down her glass on the counter very deliberately and reached over to the stove for a kettle of water. Steam rose from the spout.
    “ I was heating water for washing dishes, seeing as how my hot water heater’s busted. But now that Crow’s here, I think I can use this hot water for scrubbing out a dirty mouth and that would be a much better use for it.”
    Crow came up from