“I’ll let them know Ryder Bailey is untouchable. But Delaney, if he is involved, I will not stand aside. Not even for you.”
No pressure.
“If he’s involved you will talk to me. We’ll decide what’s best. Unlike the vampires in town, Ryder Bailey has family who would wonder what happened to him if he went missing. He has college friends, business colleagues. He can’t simply disappear without turning a lot of unwanted attention to our town.
“Remember, I am the police. I won’t allow the murder of any creature, deity, or mortal to go unpunished. Do you understand me, Travail?”
Very few people knew Old Rossi’s first name. Even fewer ever spoke it. Something like anger hardened his features and I could see in him the soldier, the warrior, he had once been.
“More than you would think, Delaney Reed.”
In those words were my dismissal. So I moved quietly through the door and closed it behind me, careful not to rattle a single, fragile shell.
Chapter 4
The rest of the day dragged by with a few actual incidents to deal with—mostly fender benders from cars not stopping quickly enough on the wet street, or cars that were stalled while trying to navigate the puddles that swallowed the wet streets, or the car that got swamped because some tourist didn’t realize driving on the beach in the waves wasn’t as safe as it looked in a car commercial.
It wasn’t until almost ten that night that I finally had a chance to talk to Myra and Jean.
We had the calls from the station forwarded, and met up at the all-night Blue Owl diner that had opened up on the north end of town last month. Terrible weather meant tourist traffic was cut to almost nothing. The diner had been struggling when it should have been doing its best business of the year.
The owner, Joe Boy, also owned the gas station where Sven had been found. I figured the diner could float for a year or so on the gas station profits. The diner had enough room in the parking lot and the back gravel lot for truckers to catch some sleep before taking the highway east toward the capitol of Salem, north to Portland, or further on to Seattle.
Other than one burly guy in a trucker’s hat skyping on his tablet in the corner booth on the far side of the restaurant, it was us, the cook, and a single waitress.
We sat in one of the retro-style 1950s booths, each of us with a cup of coffee. The waitress, Piper, a mortal who had just moved into the area, had poured our coffee without asking, somehow knowing Myra would want decaf.
“What can I get you ladies? We have pie that would make your granny jealous.”
Piper was in her early thirties, had long blonde hair that fell in soft curls. Her ears were pierced with tiny jeweled studs all the way from her lobes to the inward curl of the helix, and her face was squared at the chin, which somehow made her wide, sea-gray eyes softer.
I hadn’t heard where she’d come from originally, but figured one of the town gossips would eventually fill me in.
“Let’s make granny jealous,” I said, realizing she had nailed exactly what I wanted. “Pecan if you have it and only if it’s amazing.”
“Best in the state.”
“I’ll have...”Myra started.
“Apple ala mode?” Piper suggested.
Myra looked a little startled and studied Piper’s face. “Yes. That’s perfect.”
“And give me anything banana with lots of whipped cream,” Jean said.
“We’ve got a banana-bourbon caramel cream that will knock your socks off.”
“Good. I’m tired of these socks.”
“Great.” She jotted our orders down. “Sisters, right? Reeds?”
Looking between the three of us, most people might guess friends instead of sisters. I was built taller and more athletic like our father, had my long brown hair pulled back in a scrunchie and hadn’t bothered changing out of my tan, button-down uniform over which I’d thrown a plaid flannel.
Myra was shorter than me and curvy in a soft blue sweater, rocking a noir pageboy hair cut and deep red lipstick. Jean, the youngest, currently had her long pigtails in several shades of turquoise tucked behind her ears and, even though she was the one who was actually still on duty, wore jeans. Her T-shirt had a head shot of the cartoon spy Archer on it, under which was written: I’DDOME.
Despite our differences, it was something about our eyes that tagged us as sisters, all shades of blue from deepest to lightest. But it wasn’t just the shape and color of our eyes that made it obvious we were from the same blood. It was the light. It sounded weird when I thought of it that way, but it was true. There was something about the Reeds in Ordinary, our bloodline having been chosen to uphold the laws of the town, that gave us a certain kind of light.
“I’m Police Chief Delaney Reed, and these are my sisters, Myra and Jean.”
