Jimmy grinned, and then stepped forward and helped himself to the Junior Mints in Lennox’s basket. “Thanks, kid.”
And he turned and sauntered away.
It was so bizarre that Aaron wondered if it was possible he’d imagined the whole thing.
Lennox let out a slow breath. “That was Jimmy MacGregor,” he whispered loudly.
“Yeah,” Aaron said.
“Mom says not to talk to the MacGregors,” Lennox said. He took another pack of Junior Mints from the shelf and put them in the basket. “But she talked to her friend Quinn that time, and he’s a MacGregor.”
“Quinn’s not like the others,” Aaron said. “Come on, let’s pay for all that.”
He walked slowly toward the register, making sure that Jimmy was well and truly gone.
* * * *
In the parking lot, with Lennox sitting in the front seat of the truck with the windows rolled up so he couldn’t overhear, Aaron called Uncle Will.
“What’s up, son?” Uncle Will asked. He sounded tense.
“I just ran into Jimmy MacGregor inside the grocery store,” Aaron said.
Uncle Will’s voice sharpened. “Did he threaten you?”
“Nope. Well, not in any words.” Guys like Jimmy MacGregor always knew how to menace people without stepping over that line where the law could do something about it. He’d been a bully all through school, though he’d mostly ignored Aaron. Other kids hadn’t got off so lightly. “Listen, he only just left the grocery store. If you get a deputy here straight away, they might be able to catch him still.”
“For what?” Uncle Will asked.
“To arrest him!” Aaron glanced at Lennox through the dusty windshield.
“Aaron, I don’t have any evidence yet,” Uncle Will said, his voice slow and patient like it was when he explained something to a child.
“Everyone knows he shot Ian MacGregor!”
“What people know and what I can charge folks with are very often two different things.” Uncle Will sighed heavily. “Go home, Aaron. The situation is under control, okay? I promise.”
But what aboutQuinn? The longer Jimmy was a free man, the more danger Quinn was in. Except he couldn’t tell Uncle Will who Quinn really was, not after Quinn had sworn him and Charlie to secrecy.
“How is it under control? Jimmy MacGregor is a free man!”
“Aaron.” There was a hint of steel in Uncle Will’s voice now—he was suddenly very much the sheriff. “I’m telling you that it’s under control, okay?”
Aaron squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and tried his hardest to believe that. “Yeah, okay.”
“Go home,” Uncle Will repeated.
Aaron went home.
* * * *
The news hit Spruce Creek that afternoon, like a ripple of water traveling through the dusty streets and filling every hole. Aaron heard it from Charlie when she picked Lennox up; Charlie had heard it from her manager at work, who’d heard it from one of the MacGregor clan.
Aaron was numb and jittery at the same time.
Ian MacGregor was dead.
Aaron was in two minds about it. Ian MacGregor wasn’t a good man—or at least not where the law was concerned—but he was still the fairest of the MacGregors, and the most stable. Not like Robert, and not like Jimmy. Not even like Quinn, who had such wildness in him still.
