Whatever Quinn was doing at the police station, whatever questions he was answering, took hours. Aaron and Charlie and Lennox checked out more of White Deer Lake—there wasn’t a lot more to check out, honestly—and then got some groceries and took them back to the house, which was about a fifteen-minute drive out of town.
They made lunch, and ate it on the back porch.
“So, I saw a notice in the window of the craft store,” Charlie said. “It said they’re looking for help. I might give them a call later.”
“Sounds good,” Aaron said. Work was something they hadn’t thought much about yet, but at least Aaron and Quinn had some savings to fall back on. Charlie didn’t. “I can’t say I was expecting a town this size to have a craft store.”
“I think it sells souvenirs as well,” Charlie said. “This place gets pretty busy in the fall. If I don’t get the job, there’s a brewery with a restaurant about twenty miles away that’s also hiring, but I honestly wouldn’t care if I never had to carry another hot plate in my life.”
“You’ve looked into it,” Aaron said, a smile tugging at his mouth.
Charlie rolled her eyes. “Don’t act like this is a gotcha moment. Of course I’ve looked into it.” She gazed down into the yard, where Lennox was playing with the remote-control car Quinn had bought him the other day. “Quinn’s right. If I go back to Spruce Creek, I just get pulled back into all my dad’s bullshit. And he’s my dad, and I love him, but Lennox deserves better than that.”
“I mean, so do you,” Aaron said softly.
Charlie rolled her eyes like she thought he was kidding.
Aaron hoped she’d believe him one day.
* * * *
Aaron went and collected Quinn from the police station after almost five hours. He’d expected Quinn to be glowering and short-tempered when he strode out into the parking lot, but instead he was talking to some guy in a suit, and smiling, and walking like he had a weight off his shoulders for the first time since Aaron had seen him again in Spruce Creek. When he saw Aaron waiting, he said something to the guy in the suit, shook his hand, and then jogged over to the car. He slid into the passenger seat, and sighed.
“You okay?” Aaron asked.
“Yeah,” Quinn said. “I’m worn out, but I’m good. I’d kill for a beer though.”
“We’ll get a six pack on the way home, if you want,” Aaron said. “You and Charlie can share.”
He didn’t spell it out that he was quitting drinking, but he didn’t need to. Quinn reached over and squeezed his hand and smiled.
Aaron pulled out onto the main street. “So everything’s good with your handler?”
Quinn leaned his head back against the headrest and laughed. “Day? He wants to punch me in the balls because of this whole mess, but he wants to punch the taskforce in their collective balls even harder, so I think by the time everything in Spruce Creek wraps up, he’ll have calmed down a lot.”
“What does that mean? Wrapped up?”
“With the Skulls,” Quinn said. “And Henderson. The DPS Investigation Division is going to rip through the Spruce Creek Sheriff’s Department like a hurricane. They’ll probably bring the feds in as well. It wouldn’t surprise me if they reopen the investigation into your dad’s death too.”
Aaron gripped the steering wheel.
“But Henderson sure as hell won’t ever see daylight again,” Quinn said. “I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”
“What for? For stopping me from killing him?”
“I’m not sorry for that at all,” Quinn said. “He deserves to live a long, long time in prison. I hope he lives another fifty years and hates every one of them. No, I’m sorry it turned out he was an evil son of a bitch. I’m sorry he wasn’t the man you thought he was. That shit hurts, I know.”
It didn’t though, not at the moment. Aaron was still mostly numb, but he recognized that feeling. He’d had it after Afghanistan. The anger, he knew, would come later. He’d work through it. He would, because Will Henderson had stolen his life from him once. He didn’t get to do it twice.
They stopped for beer, and Aaron grabbed sodas for him and Lennox.
“I talked to the new interim sheriff,” Quinn said as they left town, and trees flashed past the windows.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. She’s from Carson City. She’s got her work cut out for her,” Quinn said. He quirked his mouth. “Turns out she needs a place to stay that isn’t one of the trailer parks. I said I’d get you to give her a call.”
“She seem like a good person?” Aaron asked, wondering why it really mattered.
