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A hand reached out and grabbed my wrist, surprising me. I stopped a couple of booths away from my destination and looked down. Mayor Rosewell smiled back up at me, her almond-shaped eyes magnified by the thick pair of glasses. Her son, Byron, sat next to her, across from another young guy and his mom.
“Agent Hale, are you enjoying the house?”
“I am, thank you,” I said, deciding not to bring up the suspected break-in that happened the night before. The fewer people who knew about that, the better, at least for now. “It’s a beautiful place.”
“It really is, and it’s the least we could do.” She looked across the table and motioned to her friend. “This is Shelly Ming. She owns the pet store underneath your current office.”
Shelly raised a hand and waved.
“Ah, so you’re Houston’s boss?” I asked, returning her friendly smile.
“Boss? Please, that feathery asshole is the one that’s the boss. I’m so glad he found a friend in Darrien because then it keeps his beak out of my hair.” She gave me a wink and sipped on her lemonade.
The mayor leaned in and dropped her voice so that it slipped under the background noise of the diner. “And how’s the investigation going?”
I crossed my arms and tried to keep from giving anything away with my expression. “We’re making progress, Mayor. I’m hopeful we’ll have this solved before anything else happens.”
“Okay, good. Okay.” She seemed reassured by that as she sat back in the booth, the shiny red cushion squeaking. The wrinkles in her forehead and frown lines around her lips disappeared as she put an arm around her son’s shoulder and rested her head against his. I realized then how worried she must have been, not only for every single soul in her town but for her own son, a gay man who could potentially land on the Pegasus’s radar.
We had to find the fucker. Jason going to Colton’s today could have produced something. Maybe he’d have more to report than I did.
I said goodbye to the mayor’s table and walked to the back, picking up pieces of conversation along the way. Some talked about family, others about work. A couple talked about the Pegasus. I knew that as each day got crossed off the calendar, the conversation would spread, like a rancid disease feeding off the fetid mixture of fear and gossip.
“Did you find anything?” Jason asked first thing as I sat down. He looked good (as usual) with his blond hair buzzed short on the sides. The red leather jacket he wore brought out the emerald flecks of green in his hazel eyes. A patch of Saturn wearing a crown was stitched on the front, the planet painted in splotches of bright blues and purples.
“Nothing,” I said, giving Harry a side-hug as I slid into the booth. He had his brother’s sense of style, wearing a long-sleeve beige shirt with leather patches on the shoulders and elbows. “I searched the entire house and went into the woods behind the property. There wasn’t a sign of anything except maybe a deer orgy judging by how many poop pellets I found.”
“Deer are notoriously horny,” Harry chimed in. “Rabbits get the bad rep, but deer must be taking lines of Viagra off tree branches out there.”
Jace and I both shot Harry a surprised look before we started to laugh. “I’m not going to even ask how you’ve made these observations,” Jason said.
“How about you?” I asked Jason when the chuckles subsided. “What happened at Colton’s?”
“He wasn’t there, and the woman who was told me he died.”
My eyebrows shot up, matching the way my spine straightened. “Dead? From what?”
“That’s the thing, I don’t know. I’m not even sure he is dead. I haven’t been able to verify it yet. After this lunch, I’m going straight to Stonewall so I can do some digging.”
“And what did the mayor want?” Jason asked. “I saw her pulling you over.”
“Just for an update and to ask how her house was. Met Shelly. She seems nice.”
“She’s awesome, yeah. The waitress was saying how nice it is to see Byron out—I guess they’re trying to set the sons up. Kind of awkward, having a date with your moms there, but they seem to be having a good time.” Jason grabbed a handful of truffle fries and ate a few before continuing. “Apparently he lost his partner in a car accident years ago. It was big news in the town. And he’s like the town’s golden boy, so people are rooting for him.”
“And you learned this all from the waitress?” I asked.
Harry nodded and laughed. “All that and more. She told us that his brother also lost someone in the accident. That’s when he left Blue Creek and hasn’t come back since.”
“And,” Jason said, “she brought me extra ranch without me even having to ask.”
