Shadow Boys by Harry Hunsicker

Junie’s legs or the swell of her breasts underneath the T-shirts she wore in the summer.
    Raul missed his brother. He wished he could visit with him, explain what he was thinking and feeling. Raul and Bobby were close, but there were certain things he just couldn’t talk about with the older man, especially when it concerned Bobby’s daughter.
    Junie fussed over the food. She was unusually quiet. Bobby and Raul looked at each other and shrugged. She was changing as well, becoming moody at times, stubbornly independent at others.
    After a moment she turned to Raul and said, “Add another place at the table, will you?”
    Bobby arched an eyebrow. “Who’s coming for lunch besides the three of us?”
    His daughter didn’t answer, intent on maneuvering a plate of chicken out of the oven or maybe avoiding the question—Raul couldn’t be sure.
    “Hey, Junie.” Bobby’s tone was insistent, forceful. “Answer me.”
    Raul paused, a knife and fork in his hand—the extra place setting. The atmosphere in the kitchen was tense.
    Junie turned around. A lock of hair dangled in front of her eyes, making her look older and more beguiling than her years.
    “Wayne’s coming to lunch, Daddy.” Her voice was soft.
    A sharp intake of breath from Bobby.
    Wayne was eighteen, a dropout from a little town near the ranch.
    Junie attended a private school in Dallas on a scholarship. But she lived here, in rural Ellis County, a world that was only a few miles from the big city but light-years different when it came to the types of people one encountered. Even at Raul’s age, he understood the difference those few miles made.
    Raul had met Wayne. He detested him, as did Bobby. Wayne had cruel eyes and an expression on his face like he enjoyed other people’s misfortune, like there was humor to be found in someone else’s pain.
    Wayne wore his hair long in the back, short on the sides, and dressed in skintight Wrangler jeans and plaid shirts with the sleeves ripped off.
    Bobby called him a punk, repeatedly pointed out to Junie that he’d been in and out of trouble with the law since he was thirteen.
    For some reason, this seemed to make Junie want to be around Wayne all the more.
    Raul heard the name and felt a little bit of his soul crush.
    Junie was so pretty, so kind. Why would she want to hang around with somebody like Wayne?
    Junie said, “He’s just a friend, Daddy. That’s all.”
    Bobby nodded once, his eyes cold and hard, like when he had to arrest somebody. He looked at Raul and said, “Set another place. Looks like Wayne’s gonna be joining us for lunch.”
    Raul did as asked, wishing with all his might that Wayne would just go away and die.

- CHAPTER FOURTEEN -
    At the Iris Apartments, leaving Tremont’s unit, I was halfway down the stairs of Building Six when I heard the screams.
    First floor. The breezeway. A woman’s voice, terrified.
    The smart thing to do would be to keep going, head straight to the Lincoln and leave.
    But I didn’t do the smart thing; I rarely do.
    At the foot of the stairs, I stopped. Turned. Looked down the row of ground-floor units.
    Two men in baggy shorts and T-shirts stood over a crumpled figure.
    A woman in a black dress, crying, hair mussed.
    Sawyer. Lysol Alvarez’s girlfriend.
    Crap. Why did I look?
    The larger of the pair, an overweight guy who looked like Fat Albert from the old Bill Cosby cartoon, smacked her face.
    “Where’s the rest of the money, ho?”
    Sawyer whimpered.
    “We gonna take that Mercedes, then,” Fat Albert said. “Plus, you owe for the last eight-ball.”
    “Noo!” She held up one hand, pleading.
    Fat Albert grabbed her fingers, bent them backward, an awkward, painful angle that would break bones if it went much further.
    Sawyer screamed again.
    The smaller thug laughed.
    I stepped into the breezeway.
    “Let her go.”
    Fat Albert and his crony, Little Albert, looked up. Sawyer yanked her hand free.
    “Move away from the woman.” I used my best cop