Chapter One
Wednesday
It was a real scorcher, and the heat was so thick you could chew it while it cooked you from the inside out.
Hank paced back and forth across his lawn, walking a rut into his carefully manicured grass, while sweat trickled down his spine and into his cargo shorts. Good Lord, he’d never get used to the Texas heat, and summer hadn’t even started yet.
He looked over at Agatha with a scowl. She sat in the shade of a big elm tree sipping her lemonade without a care in the world. He hmmphed and kept pacing. Little did she know her world was about to be turned upside down. He’d tried to warn her, but she was stubborn as a mule. It served her right, in his opinion.
He rubbed at his stomach, his nerves and the heat making him feel slightly ill.
“Hank,” Agatha called out. “Why can’t we just wait inside? We might be out here for hours. They didn’t even tell us what time they were coming.”
“Oh, they’re coming,” Hank said, almost to himself. He’d felt the disturbance in the atmosphere. Either aliens had come to invade the planet or his sisters had crossed into Bell County.
On second thought, maybe waiting outside was a bad decision. That made Agatha a sitting duck. She’d never stand a chance.
“Why don’t you go back inside where it’s cool,” he said. “I’ll keep watch out here.”
“It’s not the National Guard,” Agatha said, laughing.
“That’s what you think.” Hank kicked at the ground and then immediately regretted it when a clump of grass shot across the yard. The muscles in his chest began to tighten. Maybe he was having a heart attack. Maybe he was dying. That wouldn’t be so bad. He swiped at the sweat dripping from his forehead.
“Why don’t you come sit by me,” she said. “I’ve got extra lemonade, and maybe you can explain to me why you’re terrified of your sisters.”
“I’m not terrified,” he said, snapping back. And then he closed his eyes and blew out a breath. “Sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on you. But this is a bad idea.”
“Come sit and cool off,” she said again. “You’ll be no good to anyone if you keep standing there worrying to death. And you don’t want to be sunburned for the wedding.”
“All right, all right,” he said, heading toward the elm. He let the tension release from his shoulders and exhaled, long and slow.
“What in the world?” Agatha asked, coming to her feet. “What is that horrible sound?”
“Huh?” Hank asked.
“That noise,” she said. “It sounds like a cross between fingernails down a chalkboard and putting a car in a wood chipper.”
Hank stopped to listen, crossing his fingers he heard what Agatha was hearing. Too many years of gunfire and flashbangs had left him with permanent damage, and Agatha had not-so-subtly hinted more than once that he should get hearing aids. But he wasn’t old, so he sure as heck wasn’t going to get hearing aids.
Then he heard it. And it sounded exactly as Agatha had described. Neighbors were coming out of their houses and standing on the fort porches, looking for the source. The sound grew closer and more offensive, and Hank pulled the Colt .45 from its holster and held it down at his side so as not to alarm the neighbors.
A silver minivan ran a stop sign and squealed around the corner on two wheels, knocking over a trash can and a decorative lion someone had put at the end of their sidewalk.
“Holy smokes,” Agatha said. “They must be drunk. I’ll call it in. Make sure you get the license plate number.”
The van bore down on them, gaining speed, and Hank pushed Agatha toward the front porch so they weren’t so close to the street. Smoke blew from the engine of the van, and the windows were tinted almost black. Maybe it was a hit job. Or a bomb. It wasn’t impossible that his past had followed him to Texas.
The van swerved as it passed by them and did a U-turn in the middle of the street, leaving black tire marks and a trail of black exhaust. Hank pushed Agatha behind him and aimed his weapon, and then the van drove onto his lawn and came to a sudden stop.
The license plate was hanging off the front by a single screw, and Hank closed his eyes and said a quick prayer. Pennsylvania plates.
“Please, God, no,” he said.
The driver’s side door opened and a short, round woman dismounted unceremoniously, waving away the black smoke and coughing. Her hair was steel gray and looked like she’d brushed it with a Brillo pad, and she wore army-green BDUs and a gray T-shirt that said Armed and dangerous on the front. Hazel was a good fifteen years older than he was, and she’d never had a problem letting everyone know she was in charge.
“Umm,” Agatha said, gripping his arm so tight he thought it might leave bruises. “Is that?”
“Yep,” he said.
And then he watched as the passenger door opened. Two bare feet stuck out at him and then his sister Betty hopped out of the van in a swirl of color. The caftan she wore was shades of blue and green, and there were tiny bells sewn in the hem so she tinkled when she moved. Her white-blond hair flowed down her back, and there was a slightly vacant expression on her face.
“Let us out of here,” someone said from the back of the van as they pounded on the window.
Betty smiled serenely and pulled open the sliding door. Soda cans tumbled out onto the lawn, and then a bunch of arms and legs fought their way to freedom and Brenda, Patsy, and Gayle stood before him, looking a little the worse for wear and not at all happy about it.
“Good Lord,” Patsy said, fanning her shirt. “Would it kill you to get air-conditioning in that thing? I thought I was going to have a stroke.”
“Oh, hush up,” Brenda said. “At least you didn’t have to sit by it. Last time I was next to anything that dead was Arthur’s funeral. Dead as a doornail. But didn’t look that much different when he was living.”
“That’s true,” Gayle said. “I could never tell if Arthur was dead or alive half the time.” She patted her freshly permed locks and stretched her arms high above her head, and then she bent at the waist and touched her toes. “I stuck a fork in his hand during the Thanksgiving of ’95 just to make sure.”
“I remember that,” Brenda said, nodding her head. “He was in one of those turkey comas so it was kind of hard to tell. I do miss that man. We had some good times.”
Hank let the conversation rush over him. There was no stopping it, and he’d learned the best way to deal with them was let them run out of steam.
“Hank Davidson,” Hazel barked. “Where are your manners? Aren’t you even going to tell us hello?”
Hank took a deep breath and squeezed Agatha’s hand. “Hello, Hazel. How was your drive?”
She harrumphed and they all started talking again. He had no idea what had happened, but he heard flat tire and Cracker Barrel, and something about gunshots that made him terrified for whoever had the misfortune of running into his sisters. And then they all rushed him and threw their arms around him.
“Sweet little Hank,” Betty said, stroking his cheek like he was a baby. Of all his sisters, Betty had been the one to give him the least amount of grief over the choices he’d made in life. But as their chatter rolled over him all the old resentments came rising to the surface. They’d never forgiven him for marrying Tammy. They’d never considered her good enough, and had told him at the time he was making the biggest mistake of his life. They hadn’t been nice, to him or to Tammy, and none of them had even bothered to show up to her funeral. Betty had sent flowers.