Cold Winter

Her long-sleeve shirt clung to her like a second skin on that unusually warm November day. I found Susanna barefoot and bent unnaturally over the Adirondack chair in her mom's backyard, with her face a few inches above the grass. Her glasses lay broken beside her.

"Suze!" I cried, and raced over, but she was long dead; the bullet had left a bloody trail through her body, now contorted and draped across the lawn chair.

"So, you didn't think I'd do it, and now that it's too late you believe me," Donny said from behind me.

I clenched a fist without turning around. "You think Vinny's men will protect you? They can't stand up to Virginia courts."

Donny laughed. "Peter! We killed the D.A. this morning. What, don't you watch TV, you snot-nosed beggar?" As he spoke he punctuated his words with his palm, for all the world like some benevolent class lecturer. "Lucky for you it ain't too late. Lucky for you the old man's got a soft spot for you. Lucky for you, he's still got a spot on his payroll." He chuckled grotesquely. "Looky. He even got you a welcome-home gift."

I turned reluctantly from Susanna's warm body. Donny tossed me a box of socks. I stared at him.

"Nothing quite as comforting as a warm pair of socks when you're having a cold winter," Donny said gleefully. "Now look inside the sock."

I did. There was a key.

Donny nodded, not smiling for the first time since I'd seen him. "That safe has a cool forty mill in it. Peter. You know what to do."

"Yeah, I do," I said, and punched Donny in his fat gut.

Later they'd find my prints on the gun that killed both him and Suze. That's okay though. Even if I hadn't left prints, Vinny's men would make sure I got blamed for both murders.

I threw the key to the safe down on the lawn by Susanna's feet. I wasn't going to take their money. Not after what they did to Suze.

But those woolen socks were great. I know. I wore a pair of them that cold night on the blind baggage of the overland, and that overland went west.

• A response to Prompt 8