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The security lights inside the shop flashing, the alarm screaming.
“Hey! It’s me. Lark Landry,” I called, rushing out of my car, not even bringing my purse, just the keys I would need. “Sorry, I was asleep,” I said, waving down at my messy pajama outfit as the officer turned away from the building to face me, a move that made his whole face fall into shadow.
Still, for some reason, my step faltered for a second, like something in me was trying to put pieces together in a puzzle with missing pieces, because for some reason, my stomach told me that I knew this guy. Even without seeing his face.
“I will go in and…” I started as I got close.
And then I saw something else.
Someone else.
For a second, he, too, was in shadow.
But then the moonlight caught him just right. Right enough for me to recognize him.
Patrick.
The new guy we’d just hired.
Someone the police would never have called in an alarm emergency sort of situation. And someone who would have no other business being at The Main Squeeze.
I had never met him personally, but it was company policy that we had a picture of each of our employees in our files, so I’d seen the picture Myles had snapped of him after getting him into uniform.
He wasn’t in the ugly uniform now, though. The uniform that made him look younger and unthreatening.
No.
He was in a black tee and black shorts, looking downright menacing.
And something else struck me.
The tattoos.
He must have had makeup on to cover them up when he’d shown up for the job because they hadn’t been in the picture.
And no wonder he wanted to cover them.
Because that one on the side of his neck?
Yeah, it looked a heck of a lot like a locust to me.
Panic, a flicker catching fire, had me turning and looking back at the policeman, ready to tell him something was very wrong.
Only to see that, yes, many things were very, very wrong.
Like the fact that, upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a police car at all. Just a regular old car with a police sticker stuck to the side.
And those flashing lights?
Yeah, they were coming from some device on the dash, not the top of the car like they should have.
Worst yet, the officer?
Yeah, it looked like he was wearing a cheap policeman halloween costume.
And he clearly wasn’t an officer at all.
Because he was absolutely the man who’d attacked me by my car that night.
