Impulse by Joann Ross Page A

she’d picked up Mandy at school, he’d had the feeling the rich bitch suspected the truth.
    But suspecting wasn’t knowing. And knowing wasn’t proving.
    Still, it wasn’t long after that holiday birthday party that the Longworths’ house was put back up for sale and the family moved back to Texas.
    Mandy Longworth’s Christmas kitten was the first life he’d taken. A great many animals and humans had died by his hand since that memorable day. The lovely young skater, who’d reminded him in so many ways of Mandy, was only the most recent.
    But not the last. As he ejaculated on a surge of hot pleasure, the man who was once the boy raised by wolves was already imagining his next kill.
     

 
     
    16
     
     
    A lthough he’d been in what deputy Trace Honeycutt insisted on calling The Box countless times, watching Sam question his son turned out to be the worst experience of Will’s life. Even worse than getting shot.
    And it damn well hadn’t been easy on Josh.
    It was nearly four in the morning by the time they left the station. The ashen green had faded from Josh’s face, leaving his complexion as white as bone. His eyes were swollen and red-rimmed and he stank of fear, sweat, vomit, and beer.
    At any other time, Will would want to know where in town two underage kids had gotten their hands on booze. But right now, that was the least of his concerns.
    If Josh was to be believed, and Will did, Erin Gallagher had been at the mini-mart when he’d stopped to get gas around nine thirty. She’d invited him back to her apartment, and like any other sixteen-year- old boy on the planet would’ve done, Josh had accepted. They’d had sex, ordered out for pizza, watched a video, drunk some beer. Had another round of sex. After which, Josh had proven himself to be a typical male by falling asleep.
    When he’d awakened, she’d already left the apartment for the lake.
    “You doing all right?” Will asked as they drove the darkened road leading out of town to the ranch he’d grown up on.
    “Oh, yeah. I’m just fuckin’ fantastic.”
    Will decided this wasn’t the time for a lecture about language. “It’s not your fault.”
    “Yeah. Shit happens, right?”
    “Sometimes clichés are true.” Hadn’t he told himself that time and time again after the shooting?
    “Well, that one’s fucking goddamn original. Maybe you oughtta put it on a bumper sticker. You’d probably sell millions. Maybe even enough to buy a house somewhere in California, or Hawaii. Get out of this shithole.”
    “Sarcasm’s good. At least it’s better than wallowing in guilt.”
    Josh folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
    “Actually, I don’t want to talk about it, either. Since we’re in a really weird father/son/law-e nforcement place. I’m not sure of the legalities, having never been in this situation before, but if you were to tell me something that might help me solve Erin Gallagher’s murder, even if it might complicate our relationship, I wouldn’t be able to ignore it.”
    Josh was staring out the passenger window, at the mountains looming over the valley. “Like we have any relationship."
    “Sure we do."
    That drew a sharp look.
    “It may be a fucked-up, shitty one. But you gotta admit it’s a helluva lot more of a father-son relationship than we had this time last year.”
    “You didn’t even know I existed this time last year.”
    “My point exactly. And it’s something you might want to keep in mind next time you find yourself getting pissed off at me for not having been around to go to your soccer games.”
    “I don’t play soccer.”
    “Neither do I. Which, I suppose means, as distasteful as the idea is, that you’ve got something in common with your old man after all.”
    Josh didn’t respond. But Will had been a cop long enough to know that his son was thinking about that.
    He’d shut his eyes tight, as if trying to block out the sight of Erin Gallagher’s