The Savage President

seconds Wren

peak without witnesses. Pool balls cracked. Boots scraped. Somewhere a woman laughed too loudly. But the space between Wren and the ma

at last, very evenly.

rgotten it, a mistake so small and so stupid that she wanted to laugh. He turned the bag over and held up the luggage tag looped around the

cated life, a whole shadow person built brick by brick, and she had been undone by a lu

e quiet voice. "Calloway on the bag. Most people only

his hand, brush a bit of dust from the strap, set it back where it belo

and I went by whichever one kept me out of trouble. The motel clerk got the wrong one, so I wro

udied her for a long moment. "Peop

lucky I'm

hed until the ice in his untouched water had begun to melt. At the far

s down, and slid a twenty across the oak. "Keep it. For the gl

n her throat, and understood with perfect clarity that she had won a single battle, that the war was

◆

booth, and when he did it was with the stiff,

president for six years and his friend for twenty, and in all that time he had nev

t," Ca

rough on

's l

against the scarred wood. "You buried a man this morning. You rode back from the cemetery with your jaw clenche

n, he could see her. Dark hair tied up in a careless knot. Sleeves pushed to the elbows. She was pulling a pint with an easy

othered him was how well she did it. She had taken the shock of that name like a punch to the stomach and given back nothing but a polite, ti

out to him an hour before he walked in. A wrench c

y a breath. "Four days ago a stranger walks into Dolly's place and asks for work, and now she's

she's

ll buy her a drink and apologize." He drained the bott

quiet brown eyes. "That's n

n't

ot the look of a man checking a threat." The big man

orning. He had a traitor in his club and a war on his doorstep and a hole in the center of his chest that no whiskey wou

d found that he did not much care to stop, and found that this al

◆

faithful and Wren's feet had begun to scream, and when Dolly finally turne

d, pulling out a

lly glasses and pushed one across the oak, and for a moment the older w

to your friends, not to your boyfriend, not to your priest. What's said at t

erst

, not to fix it, not to wipe a spill off it. That patch is hi

erst

did before you got here. I don't care what name you were born with. I care that when I ask you a quest

ze. Her heart was a fist aga

to my bo

him th

one, and Cade bought maybe half." Dolly sip

gainst the bar. She turned. Hatchet stood three feet away with his vest unbuttoned and his pale

he rules, new girl," he s

ted hi

aching for the shore. A harbor patrol officer in a yellow slicker was reaching for him with a gaff. On the dead man's belt, jus

badge

bb. The man she had been sent here to replace. The man whom the Bureau had told her,

edge twice with one thick finger, watching her face the way a cat watc