Visiting hours are between8 and 11.
It’s 8:30.
“But it says?—”
“Thisis a special case,” the deputy says, turning in his seat to aim a fake smile at me. “Sheriff’s orders. You’ll understand that the rules are the rules.”
Makhi puts both hands on the shiny counter and leans over it, squinting. “What even are you typing back there? You should get one of the bird toys that peck the keyboard for you if you want to look busy. They’ll type more sense than that gibberish.”
The deputy’s face turns a deep, alarming shade of red.
With a strained smile brittle enough to snap, Vonn grasps Makhi’s shoulder in a painful hold from Makhi’s yelp and drags him back and out through the front door. “We’ll leave now.”
The deputy’s stare burns a hole right through Makhi as Vonn shoves him outside onto the quiet sidewalk in the center of town.
Nance and I follow Vonn and Makhi out. I only relax when the deputy sheriff doesn’t follow and arrest Makhi for… well, whatever crime involves pissing off a sheriff by suggesting he’s lazy.
The second the door slams shut behind us, Vonn unloads on Makhi.
“What thefuckis wrong with you?” Vonn snarls in his face.
Nance gets busy telling him that if she’d known he’d be this reckless, she wouldn’t have given him the ginger ale, leaving him to suffer from his hangover. It’s harsher than I expected from Nash’s housekeeper, so I make a mental note never to get on her bad side.
As they argue, my attention lingers on a black car rolling to a stop feet from Vonn’s truck outside the sheriff’s department. The driver cuts their engine, and the door swings open.
My first glimpse of the man who slides out are spotless, shiny leather shoes, black pants, and a white shirt that peeks between an expensive-looking black wool coat. The man himself bears a striking resemblance to Nash. But older. Late fifties or sixty years old with the same caramel-brown eyes and nose.
Nash’s uncle.
He slams the door shut as Vonn calls out, “Come on, Byrdie. Let’s go.” His voice is deep with warning, but it’s too late to move away from the man approaching me.
Nash’s uncle stops in front of me with a cold smile. “I heard my nephew had a woman making herself comfortable up in my house.”
I start to offer my hand, not knowing what else to do. “I’m?—”
He gives me a dirty look and steps around me. “I want you out of my house by the end of the week or I’ll have the sheriff remove you.”
He walks into the police station like he owns it; the door slamming shut behind him. I can’t help but notice the deputy springing up from his seat and nearly tripping over himself in his rush to open the front counter for him.
So much for no visiting hours.
“Was that?—”
“Yeah,” Makhi interrupts me, scowling at the man being treated like a VIP by the deputy sheriff. “Marcus Gabriel, mayor of this lovely town, who hates us all and turned the town against us.”
“Should we start packing?” I ask Nance.
Her eyes glitter with determination. “That man has more chance of moving Mount Everest than of moving me.”
Never get on Nance’s bad side. Ever.
“We should leave though,” Vonn says, leading the way to the car. “He won’t be happy when he’s finished talking with Nash.”
“Because Nash won’t talk?” I ask as he holds the door open for me.
“Because he can pay off whoever he wants, but he can’t make Nash do what he wants. No matter what he might think,” Makhi says.
Chapter 13
