“Oh, come on, dude. You know as well as I do that you’ve been moping about this girl for years. You could never shut up about her. Nearly drove me up the walls with your pining. Now that you’re both in the same place, and both single, you expect me to believe that you aren’t cooking up some scheme to win her over?”
Dylan fully intended to win her back, but he had no idea how yet. Mainly because he wasn’t sure where he had gone wrong the first time.
Ah, screw it.He hoped he wouldn’t regret this later, but he sat up, resting on one elbow and angling his body toward the other guys. “Fine, what would you do?”
Kole’s smile turned wicked, and Boone looked as stoic as ever, if not a little bit wary of their friend.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
CHAPTER 13
Kelsi
19 Days to Trial
Friday afternoon, Kelsiwalked up to the small black-and-white one-story police station a street over from the two-block-long “downtown.” The facade had peeling paint in some places, caused by age and sun, but it was aesthetic in that way only small towns can pull off.
She pushed open the front door and approached the young officer sitting at the reception desk. He appeared barely out of high school, and his bright-orange hair was unruly at best. He looked up as she strolled closer, and the red flush on his face from a sunburn flared a deeper shade when he saw her. He scrambled to attention quickly, the desk chair being thrust backward on the slick linoleum floors. The officer stood straight, puffing his chest out a bit.
“How can I help you, ma’am?”
“Hi, I’m Kelsi Cameron, with the commonwealth’s attorney for the county. I was hoping to get access to the evidence locker to take a look at what’s in there for one of my cases.”
The young man nodded vigorously. “Of course, Miss Cameron. Let me grab my superior; he can get you sorted out.”
She glanced surreptitiously at the nametag pinned to the chest of his dark-blue uniform. “Thank you, Officer Simmons.”
He flushed impossibly darker and stumbled off to get his supervisor, moving like a boy who had sprouted overnight and still wasn’t used to his lanky limbs. Kelsi chuckled softly to herself as he disappeared into an office at the rear of the station.
The office itself was walled off by drywall until approximately waist high, with glass windows taking up the rest of the space between the drywall and the ceiling. All the windows had blinds, and only one panel of blinds was cracked enough for her to see the silhouettes of two men, one of which being Officer Simmons. He turned to head back toward her and the other man rose from his seat behind a desk. He trailed Officer Simmons out of the office, and his height immediately struck Kelsi. She had thought Officer Simmons was tall and lanky, but this other officer was even taller than he was, and Kelsi was able to see his eyes over the top of Officer Simmons’s carrot-colored mop.
Officer Simmons grabbed his rolling chair from where it had escaped to and dragged it back to the front desk, taking his seat again and giving Kelsi a small smile. “Miss, this is Deputy Sheridan. He can help you with looking over the evidence.”
“Thank you,” she said to him, causing his cheeks to pinken once more. With a smile across her face, she turned to the deputy. “You.”
He was taller than she’d guessed he would be at the burger place, probably close to six foot five, but his muscles appeared lean rather than bulky. His blond hair was carefully gelled back, but in a tasteful way. It looked like it would still be soft to push her hands through. His eyes were honey colored, two brilliant ambers looking down on her thanks to his height advantage. Hisgaze was a slow perusal across her body, appreciation evident in his gaze.
“Me.” He lightly mocked her and thrust a hand between them, one side of his full mouth quirked. “Nice to officially meet you, Miss ...” he trailed off, tilting his head to the side slightly and waiting for her to introduce herself. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name last week.”
She stared dumbly at him for a second before placing her much smaller hand in his. “Kelsi Cameron. I started at the commonwealth’s attorney’s office this week.”
His hand was warm and firm as he shook hers, his golden eyes never breaking contact. “Pleasure to meet you, Kelsi. I’m Deputy Mike Sheridan.”
She could feel her cheeks warming as he held her hand a beat too long to be casual. She pulled from his grasp, clearing her throat. “Nice to meet you, Deputy Sheridan. And I guess I should thank you for the margaritas.”
“Please, just Sheridan.” He shrugged. “It’s what everyone calls me. And it was my pleasure.”
“Right. Officer Simmons said you could help me access the evidence for my case? It’s the McGuinness one. I’m sorry for not calling ahead to check if it was okay; I guess I got a little ahead of myself diving in.”
“Of course.” His smile was easy as he stepped back and waved an arm out, gesturing for Kelsi to precede him and head toward the back of the station. “No worries about calling. I’m happy to help, and, well”—he glanced dramatically around the empty station—“doesn’t look like there are any emergencies pulling me away.”
She laughed politely at his joke, and together they walked through a maze of desks, most cluttered with papers or half-empty cups. Opposite the office Sheridan had come from, there was a hallway that had been obscured by a large filing cabinet. Sheridan directed her down it and pulled a key out of his pocket when they got to the first door. Turning the key in the lock, he pushed it open and ushered Kelsi into what resembled a large closet.
She peered around the space, absorbing the few boxes in the room layered on the wall-mounted wire shelving. Her shock must have shown on her face, because Sheridan’s face turned sheepish.
“Yeah, it’s not much. We don’t really get too much crime out here.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yet somehow evidence has gone missing? My boss told me that some of the cataloged memory cards for the McGuinness prosecution disappeared.”
