Page 85 of Borden 3

The old lady beamed. “I just made some tea. You want a cup?”

“I sure do.”

She welcomed him into her cosy home and sat him down around a tiny table where his knees banged against the table top. He sipped the pink teacup with his lips puckered out, and her gaze lustfully trapped to his mouth.

—

“You wooed an old granny?” scoffed Tyler. “The fuck is wrong with you, Hawke?”

“I did what had to be done,” Hawke retorted. “Baby, the more I unearthed Emma’s life, the more I had to fucking know.”

“Concentrate,” Borden barked. “What did Debbie-Anne say?”

—

“So you lived here thirty years?” Hawke asked.

Debbie-Anne sat down, brushing back her white hair. “Thirty long years.”

“Kids?”

“Fuck no. It was just Ronald and me.”

Kay. “Good marriage?”

“He was alright.”

“I’m curious about the girl next door.”

“What girl?”

“Emma Warne.”

Her eyes narrowed in thought. “Oh, you mean Darlene’s granddaughter.”

“Yeah, the old lady. She probably babysat you, didn’t she?”

Debbie-Anne laughed. “We’re close in age.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

“Wow.”

“I know! I always leave people guessing.”

Kay. “Tell me more, Debs.”

It didn’t take much for Debbie-Anne to spill the beans. “Oh, it’s a sad story. Darlene’s daughter killed herself in prison. I think it was sorta fucked up, if you ask me. She got a lengthy sentence, even though she’d been beaten around by her deadbeat husband. Apparently, she shot him up when her daughter was in bed. Girl heard everything. Then when she died in prison, it made that young girl go a little nutty, if you catch my drift.”

Hawke grinned pleasantly. “Nah, sweetheart, you gotta break it down for me.”

Debbie swooned at the flirtatious tone he’d used on her. “She got dropped off by the police in the dead of night quite regularly.”

“Dropped off?”

“Yeah, she’d get into some trouble. Hanging around kids she shouldn’t be or some such shit like that.” Debbie shrugged. “It put a lot of stress on Darlene.”

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