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“Not much,” Jed says, lifting his shoulders. “Just all of Vermont.”
“Sounds like trouble.” Sam shrugs at the thought. “Hey, Essex.” She lands a kiss to my cheek, a touch too close to my lips, and I notice Lemon openly scowling at her.
Sam has never been shy about claiming any part of me, especially around Lemon, and I certainly don’t approve.
“What’s going on?” I ask her, hitching my head toward Jed. “Don’t tell me you’re serious.”
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.” She giggles like a schoolgirl while flicking my tie. “Jed and I are as serious as a heart attack. And before you tell me Noah will have just that, he already knows.”
Jed sheds a greasy grin my way.
He’s always reminded me a little of a cardboard cutout villain you could stick in just about any movie and he’d effortlessly play the part of the nefarious troublemaker.
He’s doing just that right here in Honey Hollow.
He shifts his attention to Lemon. “Who’d you kill this time, Lottie?”
“I’m not a killer.” She pins him with a stare. “You know what side of the law I’m on. How are things going?”
He rocks back on his heels, his chest expanding. “They’re going well. I hear Rizzo’s is expected to open soon enough. I’m looking forward to it.”
“You stay away from it,” I growl his way. “In fact, stay away from everyone I know. Sam, you can do better than this.”
“Maybe so.” She gives a cheeky smile. “But you’re already taken.” She pulls Jed by the hand and they sail off into the crowd.
Noah heads this way, scowling in the direction they just took off in. “Was that my sister?”
“And Jed Silver,” I finish for him.
“Lottie.” He frowns her way. “I just saw your mother pull in down the street and she has Lyla Nell in the backseat.”
“Geez. Excuse me.” Lemon takes off with her fingers gliding over her phone as she puts in a call to her mother.
“I don’t like Jed around my sister,” Noah spits the words out as if I had something to do with the arrangement.
“I don’t either, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
“Bigger than Jed?” Noah looks amused by the fact. “This I’ve got to hear.”
“There’s a woman who’s mysteriously cropping up everywhere I go. She’s infiltrated Lemon already. I think we should do a little digging. Something is off with her.”
“Do you think she’s another one of your hussies who’s come back for a little revenge?”
I sigh in the direction of the woods. I’d take umbrage with Noah’s words, but it’s happened before. The stalkers, the hordes of embittered women, I’ve seen it all. We both have.
I take a moment to think back, spinning through an entire Rolodex of women’s faces and bodies as I try to piece together whether or not I’ve slept with Regina Pacheco.
“I don’t think she falls in that category,” I say. “She’s playing it as if we’ve never met. And I don’t think we have. But something’s not right, Noah. I’d bet my life on it.”
I give him the woman’s name, the street she lives on, and where she works.
Noah shifts his head from side to side. “Those are quite a few coincidences. I’ll check this out for you—for Lottie, and the safety of our family.”
“Good,” I say before relaying what Jed said about the man in the checkered fedora and his plans to infiltrate Vermont with his cronies.
He blows out a slow breath. “That’s a sobering thought. It was nice of Jed to give us the heads-up. That actually might be a good lead for the narcotics task force. If Loretti is trying to control Vermont, the drug trade would be a good place to start.”
“And a good way to end up in my courtroom.”
