Page 318 of Property of Whiskey

“Not really.”

His eyes narrow.

“Mercy House was for difficult girls?”

“Yes.”

“What happened in the blue room?”

Again, that almost invisible change around his eyes.

Then movement behind the SUV catches my attention.

A man steps around the rear bumper wearing a black jacket and ball cap. His build is familiar even before I see his face.

Black sedan. Crowley didn’t come alone.

I set my coffee on the hood of my Interceptor, freeing both hands. “Your friend lost?”

Crowley doesn’t look back. “He’s concerned.”

“About?”

“You.”

The man keeps walking.

I adjust my feet, opening my stance while keeping my gun side angled away from him.

“Tell him to stop.”

Crowley says nothing.

The man finally stops about six feet away. He’s bigger up close and older than I expected, with a scar near his jaw and both hands empty.

For now.

“You got a name?” I ask.

He looks at Crowley.

Wrong answer.

“Deputy,” Crowley says mildly, “there’s no need for hostility.”

“You brought backup to a sheriff’s department.”

“I came to talk.”

“Then talk.”

Crowley’s gaze falls toward the pocket holding my phone. “Perhaps without the phone.”

“No.”

The man moves. Fast. He reaches for me, but I catch his wrist, pivot, and use his momentum to send him chest-first into the hood of my patrol SUV. Metal booms beneath him.

He swears.