I felt all kinds of things at once: flattered, a little bit turned on, and slightly petrified. If Russo were a car, he’d be a Lambo with a stick shift and way more engine than I could handle. Take him for a spin, and I think I’d end up rolled over in a ditch.
“I-I like drinks,” I blubbered like I had a concussion, because I had no defense against that much testosterone.
Russo didn’t seem to care that I’d lost my ability to communicate like a nonconcussed human. “Good. What’s your favorite watering hole?”
“Holy Water?” It was the only bar I could think of at that moment, the one I worked in for a hot minute the summer after senior year of high school. Wisconsin was one of the few states where eighteen-year-olds could serve beer.
Holy Water was located inside an old Baptist church two blocks from Main Street, complete with stained glass windows, stone archways, and large wooden crosses. Worry not—there were still plenty of other churches in town. Lake Sanguis was still God-fearing. They just also loved their beer, like all of Wisconsin.
“Odd name for a bar,” Russo said.
“Lake Sanguis can be an odd place,” I said.
“I can see that.” Russo glared at the old-fashioned streetlights decorated with colorful wreaths of fall leaves and the big planters filled with gold and maroon mums as if they insulted his sense ofclean, modern lines, because they probably did. Russo didn’t do kitsch.
“I’ll meet you there. Six work? Tonight.”
I wanted to scream yes, until I thought about the possibility of having a drink with Russo in public in Lake Sanguis and how long before Tammy found out and told the entire town.
“Uh…” Why was I hesitating? I was a fool.
“I promise I’ll make it worth your while.” I swore his already gravelly voice dropped another octave and reverberated in my abdomen.
“Yeah, I can make it. I’ll meet you there. Uh-huh. For sure. Yep.” I don’t know why I answered yes in four different ways.
Russo smiled slowly. Deliberately. “Good girl.”
I felt like I’d just been given a gold star, and I wasn’t sure what I’d done to earn it.
Four
The Canceled Killer’s fourth victim was the president of a for-profit college that took in millions in tuition money but failed to tell students it wasn’t accredited. It sent thousands of students into staggering debt but ended up giving worthless degrees in return. The Canceled Killer took the president’s life with the scrape of a poisoned pen.
—Crime Hivepodcast
“You’ve got a date with the hot detective?” Olivia asked me, skeptical, when I returned to Koi later that afternoon. She’d finished up her classes and now she was sitting in the kitchen folding towels to stock in each guest bathroom. I haplessly tried folding a towel longwise, and Olivia gently removed it from my hands, saving me from making a lopsided rectangle.
“I don’t think it’s actually a date,” I said. I’d only ever had a professional relationship with Russo, but considering I didn’t have a profession anymore, there’d be no HR representative to stop me if I wanted to get to know him in the biblical sense.
“A date?” Mom called from upstairs because she had supersonic hearing and was also incredibly nosy. She hurried down the stairs from their third-floor mother-in-law suite in the attic, complete with dinette, bath, and bedroom, where she and Dad lived most of the time, when guests filled the second and first floors.
“Not from Spark, I hope.” She was wearing a trendy red jumpsuit and matching red lipstick. Her face seemed pinched with worry.
“No, not Spark,” I said, and Mom’s shoulders sagged in relief. “He’s law enforcement, Mom. Homicide detective. Happy? Or did you want to run a background check anyway?”
Mom considered this. “I’d feel better if it was Jude, since I know his parents, but I guess I’ll allow it,” she said, as if she had any influence on my adult decisions. Also, her overprotectiveness always irked me. I should drag her to Irene’s dojo and make Trevon convince her that I was fully capable of taking care of myself.
Or Eric. He would probably be able to tell her, too.
“Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. Gordon’s Frozen Custard is closed. Listeria outbreak,” I told Mom.
“Tammy told me,” Mom said. “She said five people are in the hospital!”
“I guess that means no mudpacks this week,” Olivia said, sounding despondent.
“Tammy said there might be a lawsuit.”
“Why do you even hang out with Tammy, Mom?” I glanced at Olivia. “She’s… pretty terrible.”
