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That gets me a shit-eating grin. “Gettin’ you riled up, for starters. You been spendin’ a lot of time out there, my friend.”
“She’s new in town. Fresh meat. I’m just being neighborly, helping her get settled in. Just helping her,” I emphasize, jabbing a finger at all three of them.
Micah’s mouth is a mess, clearly trying not to smirk.
Henri’s still giving me that grin.
Grant just eyeballs me skeptically.
“Can we move the fuck on?” I flare. “Don’t we got anything better to worry about?”
At least they take the hint.
Henri sighs. “We got six calls the last few days about the Jacobins. Been moving distilleries again, I think, and people are complaining about all the clanking and grinding in the hills.”
“By the time we go looking for their still, it’s always too late. Damn thing disappears like a ghost,” Grant points out. “And triangulating by sound doesn’t help much with the way noise carries over the trees.”
“They’ll settle down eventually. People will forget they exist again in a day or two,” I say. “I mean, unless you want to arrest them over some rotgut whiskey.”
Grant shrugs. “We’d just be chasing our tails while they laugh from the shadows. They move on to exporting cocaine, then we’ll worry about a sting. But right now, we’ve got other things to worry about.”
“Like what?” Micah asks.
“Like working out the shifts for crossing guard duty,” Grant snarls.
We all groan.
Life as a small-town cop sure is wild.
By the time we’re done sorting rotations for the first semester of the school year, it’s time for me to head out on patrol.
Not that there’s much to patrol. Most of our crime happens during tourist seasons, first in high summer, then in mid-fall. Summer’s when the vacationers and shoppers come through.
There’s always somebody who wants to shoplift or people getting into fights with their significant others in the middle of the town square—sometimes pretty violently, too.
Then there’s the kids they bring along, little brats defacing public property.
Autumn’s when shit gets weirder.
The hikers come out to see the trails and the exploding fall foliage.
Those are the folks who get arrested for flashing 'cause they got caught fucking in the woods, and some of them do it deliberately, getting off on exhibitionism.
Then there are the folks who didn’t mean it, didn’t realize their midnight skinny-dip in Still Lake was too visible. Poor humiliated bastards.
We’ve had to break up a few altercations when people stumbled on the Jacobins, too, though mostly the hillfolk take care of themselves. They’ve been known to run people off their property with a sawed-off shotgun, meaning me or the captain have to go up to their farm and have a stern talk with them about not shooting our goddamned economic backbone.
Mostly, though, it’s the kinky shit in autumn.
It’s always the kinky shit in autumn.
Being out in the woods does strange stuff to people.
Right now, it’s just a few of our local kids trying to sneak a little shoplifting. Half of them feel so guilty they confess and return the stolen shit before they get caught. Plus, a few drunken brawlers.
Which means all I have to do is park my car and read.
Instead of a book, though, I’ve brought along my thick file on Montero Arrendell and his sons.
I wonder about Vaughn, too, something with him that doesn’t sit quite right. The way he just packed up and left, cut all ties with his family.
What drove him away?
Did he learn something about his old man, about his family, that he couldn’t stomach?
Or did he do something so monstrous that even they couldn’t stand the sight of him?
Face it.
You’re wondering if something really did drive Celeste away.
If she’s still alive out there somewhere, better off than when she was stuck with your dumbass. Living happily ever after with Ethan, both of them running away from everything that hurt them.
Part of me wishes it was true.
I’d rather find out my sister hated me—we sure as hell fought enough—and ran off. That we didn’t have the bond I thought we did. That beats knowing for sure that she’s truly dead and gone.
Celeste and I were oil and water.
We tore each other’s egos up and down all the time, but we were all each other had, and underneath all that bickering, there was always a hell of a lot of love.
I’m smiling when I think of the way Delilah and I claw at each other, snipping and snarling and pushing each other’s buttons.
Like every barb is just a little warmer, the venom in the sting a bit sweeter.
Nothing like that last fight between me and Celeste.
Nothing like that last fight at all.
Years Ago
“What the hell do you mean, you enlisted?”
Celeste glares at me, clutching my enlistment papers in her shaking fingers. I won’t lie, her posture is a little intimidating.
Normally, I don’t blink when we start shouting at each other, but tonight Celeste doesn’t look like Celeste.
