Once Ms. Green was out of the car, Santiago watched her walk into the station and the three women disappeared inside. He didn’t need this fucking shit. He wanted an easy day. Didn’t matter that his impulsive actions were responsible for making it hard.
“A man would die a thousand deaths just to watch Ms. Lauren walk away from him,” Cutter said, leaning against the side of Santiago’s patrol car. He took a bite of a biscuit as he looked longingly at the closed door.
“Not this man,” Santiago stated, sliding on his shades.
“That’s all fine and well,” Cutter shrugged. “She’d probably end up killing you anyway.” He wasn’t one for abusing his subordinates, but in less than one hour he’d burned through his reserve of patience.
He gazed down at the older deputy licking syrup from his fingers and thumb.
“Imagine Ms. Katy’s reaction to you buying dinner and breakfast at Lou’s BBQ before coming home,” Santiago said. “Then imagine what it would be like to be on the chopping block for a forced retirement when these budget cuts the mayor is threatening comes down.”
Cutter snorted. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
Santiago smirked and walked toward the building. “Every meal for the rest of your life, sitting across from your beloved wife’s nasty cooking sounds exciting, doesn’t it? See you inside.”
“You’re a low-down evil bastard, Santigo,” Cutter called out.
Santiago’s smile was dark. “Only on my best days.”
“Don’t get comfortable,” Ms. Audrey called out to Santiago as he walked into the station. “You’ve lost another neighbor up there on that cursed lake,” she said, hanging up the phone
“What’s the count now, like nine?” a red-eyed Jessie asked. The young deputy usually worked nights, but he’d come in for swing shift due to the accident and worked through the night.
“Inyourlifetime,” Ms. Audrey corrected. “But that place has been a revolving door of death since the Moor family massacre over two hundred years ago. I don’t know why they won’t just tear that house down.”
“Can y’all stop your yapping,” Clyde Mason snapped from the jail cell opposite the one Ms. Green had settled in. Santiago should’ve but wasn’t going to be the one to tell her she wasn’t under arrest. “I’m trying to sleep.”
“Because people are stupid,” Cutter said from behind Santiago, ignoring Clyde. “There’s always a fool willing to get a lake house dirt cheap, even if it is haunted.”
“I’ve lived there on and off since I was born and neither I nor St. James have a problem with living up there.”
“Well, when you’re born to evil, evil don’t touch you,” Clyde chimed in from the back. “And the serial killer, he probably has sunk a trove of bodies in that lake.”
“Like Dexter,” Derry nodded. The kid watched too many crime dramas.
“What happened to the neighbor?” Lauren asked, reclining on the cot, multiple decorative pillows propping up her back. Her purse was beside her as she perused the Shrouded Times, the towns independent newspaper, like the Queen of Sheba.
Santi pulled off his glasses and looked at Audrey.
“Where the pillows come from, Audrey?”
“I got them out of the basement just in case Ms. Green made another appearance. Which she has. Faster than I thought.”
“You owe me twenty dollars,” Derry said to Cutter, sitting down on the opposite side of Audrey’s desk as the one he shared with Cutter was occupied.
“Sherry Lynn says her momma maybe had a heart attack, or was pushed and hit her head and died.”
“Morning folks,” Roan Gray said, stepping into the building carrying a box from Diedre’s Delicacies. Santiago glared at her. “Audrey called as I was driving in, said Ms. Green was back. I brought her some beignets. Audrey said you hadn’t eaten before you left the bed and breakfast.”
“Drop the damn box and grab your gear, Ms. Congeniality,” Santi snapped, taking the box and grabbing a beignet. Everyone knew he had a sweet tooth, especially Roan, but did she ever bother to bring him beignets before shift, hell no. Ms. Green’s treatment was now feeling like mutiny. “There’s been another fatal incident at the Moor house.”
Roan placed the box on her desk and strapped on her belt, vest, and coat.
Santiago’s gaze shifted to Lauren’s cell as she set her newspaper aside and stood, walking out of the cell and straight for him with a gaze as flat and empty as the bottom of a whiskey barrel.
The room grew tense, bloated with anticipation as she stopped in front of him, plucked the half-eaten beignet from his fingers and finished it. He blinked in surprise at his empty fingers, then turned his cold gaze on her.
But that wasn’t the end of it, oh no, not for this full-lipped, evil-tempered woman. No, she finished chewing his food and grabbed his hand. He let her because all he needed was a reason to lock her up legally. Then she sucked the powdered sugar off his finger and thumb, picked up the box, and walked back to her cell—because that’s what unhinged fucking women apparently did. He gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and tried to breathe through the storm of emotions whipping through him.
