Hush Hush by Erik Carter (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📗

continue with life knowing I got my best friend killed?”

As with earlier, when Jonah had asked Silence for advice on whether he should watch the videotape of Amber’s do-over vows, Silence had no advice.

Kim Hurley’s path forward was entirely determined by her own choices, no one else’s.

And, as she has just stated, she’d gotten her best friend killed. Silence wasn’t feeling exceedingly sympathetic.

He stepped past her, opened the driver-side door, one foot in, a hand on the wet roof, ducking inside.

“Wait!” Kim said.

He put a hand on the top of the door, fingers gripping the rubber weatherstripping, and straightened back up to his full height.

She stepped to the door, looked up at him, eyes desperate. “Please! Whatever you are, whoever you work for, you’ve surely seen situations like this before, haven’t you?”

Silence’s former life.

His best friend.

Lying in a puddle of blood. Her face destroyed.

A crimson-and-black crater in the back of her head, circled by dark, wavy hair.

Kim’s lower lip trembled. She shook her head. Slowly. Eyes not leaving his, not blinking. Droplets of rain on her face. “How do I move forward?”

Silence took a deep breath. “Carefully.”

He got in, shut the door, put the gear selector into drive, and took off.

Chapter Fifty-Two

The following night.

A rumbling ball of warmth sat on Silence’s lap, staring up at him with a look of sheer admiration from the inside of what looked like a tiny lampshade.

Baxter’s purring felt soothing against Silence’s legs. The heat was particularly evident from the cat’s stomach, as it was devoid of fur. The veterinarian had indeed “shaved his belly,” as Mrs. Enfield had predicted, leaving just velvety soft, strangely pinkish cat skin with wee cat nipples and a strip of white gauze covering his stitches. He wore a clear plastic cone collar—also known as an “Elizabethan collar” or a “cone of shame”—which kept him from disrupting his fresh wound, but it hadn’t dissuaded his drooling, which continued to collect on the sloped plastic. Periodically, when the puddle grew large enough, gravity took over, at which point the puddle traced down the slope of the cone, off the edge, and onto Silence’s pants, a new favorite pair—five-pocket, medium-dark gray, casual, slightly distressed, dress-’em-up-dress-’em-down, cotton-poly blend, now with an oblong patch of cat saliva.

Drat.

Some things never change, not even with the introduction of a cone of shame.

He sat on the rocking chair on Mrs. Enfield’s porch. She was in the porch swing a few feet to his right. They had been quiet for a few minutes, watching the gentle evening unfold in front of them—a few neighbors out for nighttime walks with their dogs, a kid on a bicycle, the occasional vehicle. The sounds were faint and subtle and few in number, just a bit of noise carrying over from downtown, cars on distant streets, and Baxter’s enthusiastic purring.

Silence looked down at the cat.

Baxter’s eyes were slitted with contentment, and they looked right back up at Silence. When their gazes met, Baxter’s purring spiked. Silence ran a hand along his back, Baxter’s soft fur soothing against the coarse skin of his palms, the calluses at the base of his fingers.

Baxter was unaffected by the cone and the stitches and the discomfort in his stomach. Nothing fazed this cat.

Silence thought back to the screeching monster under Mrs. Enfield’s guest bed with whom he’d fought an epic battle, trying to get the beast into a pet carrier.

Almost nothing fazed Baxter. Nothing except going to the veterinarian. And a few other select things—lawnmowers, people with a negative aura, robust squirrels.

Mrs. Enfield broke the quiet. “Sit with me, Si.”

He gingerly put his hands beneath Baxter—a blip in his purring as he was lifted—and sat beside Mrs. Enfield on the porch swing. Her ghostly eyes stared across the street, into the warm glow of the streetlights.

“Let me see your face,” she said.

Silence leaned over. Baxter’s adoring eyes followed him.

Mrs. Enfield brought her hands up, slightly off target at first, then found his cheeks. Her tiny, wrinkly, dry palms explored, pressing gently here and there.

“You’re softened, boy,” she said. “Did this business trip see you doing some fighting?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Enfield didn’t know what exactly Silence did for a living, but she was quite intuitive, and shortly after they met, she’d determined that he was involved in something violent. Like Silence, she was a good judge of character, so she’d never assumed that Silence did anything immoral. But despite her kindly-grandmother appearance and demeanor, she was also no idiot—she knew it was in her best interest to be unaware of what Silence actually did. So she’d never asked.

Not that Silence would have given her an honest answer. Naturally, he wasn’t permitted to do so. But he was glad that she proceeded through the years in this wink-wink, I-don’t-want-to-know fashion. He didn’t want to lie to her, and he’d never had to.

“You were safe, though?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t drink?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good.” She patted him on the knee. “Lola was upset that she didn’t get to say goodbye to you.”

She had told him earlier in the day that Lola had left for Tennessee only hours before he returned.

“She thinks you’re a good guy, a quality man.”

“I know.”

More of Mrs. Enfield’s wink-wink, nudge-nudge subtleties. In the same way that she never outright asked about his way of life, she’d never outright discussed Lola’s subtle advances toward Silence. She knew Silence was committed to C.C. beyond “till death do you part.” So while she never pressed him on the issue, she always gave him a subtle reminder of Lola whenever she visited.

Baxter finally broke his gaze off of Silence. He wanted his momma. He rose to his feet—four tiny points of pressure on Silence’s thighs—and a little squeak of discomfort sounded through his purring. Silence helped him over to Mrs. Enfield’s lap, and he curled into a ball in her floral print dress, the cone propping his head up at an angle that surely was uncomfortable but, again, didn’t seem to bother him.

The patch of drool on Silence’s thigh began to cool almost