The Bone House - Brian Freeman [110]
'What do you want?' Delia asked impatiently. She wasn't in the mood to deal with his naive gallantry today.
Troy peered through the screen door into the house, is Tresa here?'
'No, she went to the grocery store. Why?'
'I don't want her to hear this. You know how she is about Bradley.'
Delia's eyes narrowed. 'What's going on?'
The boy gestured to the house. 'Let's go inside, OK?'
Delia sighed and handed her jewelry tray to Troy as she pushed herself out of the rocker. Smokey scampered between her legs and disappeared through the cat door into the house. 'Take off your shoes,' she snapped. 'I don't want you tracking dirt on the carpet.'
Troy kicked off his shoes on the mat. He followed Delia inside, and she led him back to the kitchen. She needed to get dinner started. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out an egg and a package of ground beef and dumped it into a metal bowl, where she separated the meat with her fingers. She cracked the egg into the bowl and poured in breadcrumbs.
'So what do you want?' she asked Troy again.
Troy sat at the kitchen table and fidgeted. 'You heard about Peter Hoffman?'
'Of course.'
'The word is Bradley did it.'
'I heard about the fight. So?'
'We have to do something,' Troy said.
Delia shot him a look of disdain. She didn't need false hope now. 'Troy, do you really think you're some kind of hero? You? Let it go. Leave this for the men.'
'I can do this,' Troy insisted. 'Bradley has to be stopped.'
'And you're the one to stop him?'
'Yes.'
'Oh, quit kidding yourself and go home,' Delia said.
Troy shook his head. 'I'm going to do this, and it has to be tonight.'
Delia stopped kneading the beef. 'What are you saying?'
'My friend Keith called. He saw Bradley's wife leaving the island on the four o'clock ferry. He's going to be alone.'
Delia realized that something was different about Troy. He was older. Determined. She'd assumed all along that the boy was puffing out his chest with his threats, but now he'd gone from talk to action.
'Troy, you don't know what you're saying,' Delia said, hesitating. 'This isn't a game. It's serious business.'
Troy reached inside his coat and laid his gun on the table. It was the same gun he'd shown her at the lake, a silver revolver with a fat black grip that must have been thirty years old. 'I am serious.'
'All you're going to do is get yourself killed. That gun looks like it would blow up in your face if you pull the trigger.'
'It's old, but it works fine. Look, I know where I can steal a boat from a summer house, and I can get to the island myself. I'll stay overnight at Keith's and go back in the morning.'
'Why are you telling me this? Do you want me to talk you out of it?'
'No, I want you to get rid of Tresa tonight. Send her to a friend's house for a few hours. Whatever it takes. That way, you can say I was here with you. We were talking about Glory, looking at pictures. If anyone tries to point a finger at me, you can back me up.'
Delia's fingers were thick with raw meat. She pulled them out of the bowl and ran them under hot water in the sink. When they were clean and damp, she wiped them with a towel. She studied Troy, who was watching her intently, his face hungry and mean. He was still just a boy, but he was also big and strong enough to go up against a man. She'd known him since he was a baby, and she knew his father had never stopped treating him like a kid in diapers. He'd always been desperate for approval. Desperate to prove himself. He was going to do this whether she said yes or no.
She spotted Smokey in his cat bed on the floor. The cat was curled into a ball, but its eyes were open, watching the two of them like a co-conspirator. It was as if he knew. It was as if he understood. This was about justice for Glory. That