“Thank you, Sheriff,” Lauren said, gathering her bag and the remainder of her food. “But because of your own choices, you won’t be watching me leave today. Ms. Audrey, do you mind pointing me in the direction of the bed and breakfast?”
“Sure thing sweetie, I’ll meet you out front once you get your car.”
Bags in hand, Lauren linked her arm around Derry’s—believing it would further aggravate the sheriff—and let him escort her toward the door. “Like I said before Deputy Derry, you are way too cute to sue. Don’t let your idiot boss bully you, you’re doing a wonderful job.”
Despite her travel funk, baggy clothes, and box braids pulled back in a sloppy bun, she walked out of that building with a switch in her hips and her head held high.
The warm afternoon air had apparently fled with the sunlight. Lauren leaned into Derry’s body heat as he walked her to the parking lot. “The town feels abandoned and eerie at night,” she whispered. No open stores, no people out walking the streets, a dark so black surrounded them making her feel that if the lights went out, they would cease to exist. And despite all that, she felt unusually free. Then her hunter-green Toyota4Runner came into view and reminded her why she was here and not at home. That numb, dead-inside feeling returned.
Unable to muster a smile, she thanked Deputy Derry for dinner again.
“Well, if I’m not in the doghouse and you’re around tomorrow, I’ll meet you at Lou’s and this time your meal will be on me.”
Tipping his hat, he walked away, and she climbed into her vehicle and drove out of the lot and back to the station where Ms. Audrey stood on the sidewalk.
Part of her just wanted to drive away, put this place in her rearview and continue healing on the road. But the way the sheriff had treated her; she couldn’t let that shit slide. She had to take a stand, fight not run, or else the universe would continue to create situations where people felt emboldened to discount and disrespect her.
Audrey opened the front door of the station after pulling her car in front of the building to wait for that shrew of a woman. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Audrey reprimanded Santiago. “There is no just reason for you to have locked Ms. Green in that cell while Veronica Archer stumbles through life free as a dodo bird.”
She’d pointed her finger at him, jabbed it in the air straight to his heart, then stomped out down the three stairs as his most senior deputy walked up them.
“You sure have pissed off a lot of people today, Sheriff,” Cutter Banes drawled as he entered the building and closed the door. “What happened up on Old Lotty Road anyway?”
Santiago tossed his hat on Audrey’s desk and rubbed his palms over his face.
“Veronica was drunk off her ass again and I needed to clear the pass to get traffic moving. This outsider drives up, and I swear to you Cutter, if you mated a shrew with a dragon, that spitfire would’ve been its first born. The way she…” He ground his teeth and shook his head. “I don’t know what the hell happened. One minute I have the situation under control and the next…” He recalled the satisfaction he felt throwing that woman over his shoulder, the way her body molded against him…
“I told you, delaying this Archer situation is doing more harm than good. You know what to do. Putting it off is creating more problems—bigger problems—than what you experienced today.”
Santiago sighed heavily.
Cutter was right. As was the castigating, indignant…loudvoice of Lauren Green reverberating through his head. He imagined her in front of him demanding he do the right thingnowand not when it was most convenient for him. Had Veronica Archer been anyone other than an Archer, married into one of the remaining wealthy White families who brought money to Shrouded Lake over a century ago, she would’ve been sitting in his cruiser before she’d even got the chance to assault Roan, and definitely before that hellion reached the scene.
“I owe her an apology,” he told his deputy, mostly confirming the truth to himself.
“Well from what I heard you don’t want to go apologizing tonight. I’d hate to have to investigate your murder.”
Santiago shot him a look.
“Get on home, Sheriff. I’ll call if we need ya,” Cutter said.
“Don’t need me,” Santiago cautioned as he grabbed his hat.
“You wouldn’t know what to do with your life if we didn’t.”
Santiago made a sound low in his throat. It sufficed as thefuck you Cutterthat it was.
“Gotta head over to the mayor’s house to bring formal charges against Ms. Veronica, so I’ll be in late in the morning.”
“You know those charges won’t stick this long after the fact. Not saying your word ain’t good, but you know that family will spin the story a million ways to Sunday.”
“I might only be a year and a half into this job, but if the navy taught me one thing it’s how to get the outcome I plan for. People could’ve been hurt today; the hellion was right about that part. Ms. Veronica won’t get another opportunity. I’ll work on my report at home, and I want Roan—justRoan—to log the evidence before she ends her shift. I don’t want any allegations of evidence tampering and I especially don’t want anything gettinglost.”
Santiago and Cutter both agreed that the mayor had a plant in the sheriff’s department. Hell, it could’ve been more than one. Santiago had cleared Roan, Audrey, and Cutter, but he had several other employees—deputies, administrative, custodial, and dispatch—to rule out.
“Go home Santi. The night watch’s got this,” Cutter assured.
Pocketing his sunglasses, Santiago stepped out of the building into darkness. The night was illuminated by wrought iron street lanterns and buildings that, even though closed for the night, had the fortune of still being in business.
