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“Tonight,” I agree, pondering how to ignore this brutal hard-on that’s fixing to make me black out.
It’s hard as hell to pull away from the curb, leaving her behind.
Yeah, I’m reeling with how quickly things keep changing all around me. Despite the nonstop string of bad luck that hits this town too often, for once it feels like things might be changing for the better.
The woman I’ve always been obsessed with under my roof.
Talking like an old friend.
Sharing meals and bedtime stories with Nell.
Kissing me until I’m redder than a freshly painted barn.
Especially when she smiles at me like I never took an axe to her heart.
Yeah, fuck.
Today’s gonna be a real good day, no matter what the universe has planned.
* * *
Correction.
Today isnota good fucking day.
I smell trouble brewing the second I walk into the station.
The whole crew’s already gathered, huddled around my desk like they own it as usual, but there’s something different in the air.
This whole vibe is wrong, tension and quiet so thick it’s immediately near suffocating.
When I open the door, they all break away from their semicircle, looking up at me like they’re about to announce a death.
Frowning, I shrug off my jacket and toss it over the nearest chair.
“Report. What’s got everyone looking so miserable this morning?”
“The Jacobins again,” Micah answers grimly. “They’ve been quiet for too long. Not surprising after their boy went down being an accomplice to a serial killer. But it looks like they’re starting to make their move again.”
“What?” I frown.
“The unmarked trucks are back, for one,” Micah tells me. “No, I can’t ever get close enough to see what’s going into them without tipping the whole clan off and getting my ass nailed full of buckshot, but there’s a lot of coming and going in the middle of the night up there. Has to be the distilleries again, assuming it isn’t something worse.”
Aw, shit.
I feel like Chief Bowden should be here for this conversation.
Where the fuckisthe chief, anyway?
Ever since the Arrendell bust, Bowden barely shows up for work, taking his lazy absenteeism to new heights. A hibernating bear would make a better police chief at this point.
Essentially, him being MIA leaves everything in my hands—including making big decisions above my pay grade about our resident bootleg booze makers.
“So, they’re moonshining again,” I mutter, tugging at my beard. “Goddammit. We’ve looked the other way on this for ages, but after the way they closed ranks to try to cover up for murder... Yeah, I think we’ve given them enough leeway. No telling what else they’re hiding.”
My mind snaps back to what almost happened to Delilah Graves.
The way both Ephraim and Culver Jacobin would watchher around town like they were marking her, two creepy scarecrows eyeballing her on behalf of their master.
