Gard looked at Captain Kraig who still stood at the front of the room, then back at Royal. He didn’t answer the question. Royal scowled in spite of himself.
“He hates me.” Royal knew his past could be used against him, but he’d figured he wouldn’t have been hired if the sheriff held that past against him. His recordhadbeen expunged. That was how he’d even gotten into the police academy, that and some of Zeke’s family greasing the wheels.
But Royal hadn’t considered some of the men between him and the sheriff might see it all differently.
“He doesn’t trust you just yet. You’ll get there. Be conscientious, ask questions or for help when you need to and for the love of God, don’t complain to anyone but me.” Gard clapped him on the shoulder and nudged him out of the conference room. “It’ll make its way back to the captain faster than you can blink.”
Royal only grunted as they made their way through the building and outside to the waiting patrol cars.
“You’ve got this, Campbell.Ifyou can learn to swallow your tongue.”
“Big if,” Royal muttered.
Gard laughed. “There’s always bartending,” he said. “You wouldn’t have to hide those tattoos then.”
Royal snarled, then split off from Gard toward his patrol car. Itwashot to be wearing this damned long-sleeved uniform, but those were the rules and somehow he’d become not just a man who had to follow pointless rules, but a man whose job it was to enforce them.
With his current zone, he had two main jobs today. Run radar on the highway outside of Hope Town, do a walk-through of Hope Town in the afternoon, and respond to any calls that came over the radio for his zone.
So, he went about his business and didn’t allow himself to dwell on the fact that no calls came through forhim, while pretty much every other deputy on the road was getting called constantly.
He’d get there, he reminded himself. Gard had said he would, and Gard hadn’t steered him wrong yet.
After noon, he headed over to Hope Town, parked at the end of Main Street. The assignment here was to walk up one side of Main, then down the other. Mostly just looking for things that didn’t fit in.
He’d only done this duty with Gard twice on field training, and now that Royal was handling it himself, he wondered why Hope Town got special treatment. There were other tiny map dot towns in Bent County, but this was the only one that got a Bent County daily walk-through.
Besides, what would ever “stand out” here? They had a handful of shops—a bakery, an antique store and a bookstore.There was one other building that looked like maybe it was getting a new business, but he couldn’t tell what it was.
Maybe there might be some theft because of the businesses, but you’d have to be a pretty stupid thief to come all the way out here to get…what? None of these cash registers could be holding that much money.
He wouldn’t complain about it though, he reminded himself. Maybe it didn’t make sense, but being able to get out of the car, stretch his long legs, get some fresh air, that was definitely a positive for him.
It was eerily quiet for a sunny summer afternoon, but as he passed different storefronts, he realized that all of them that advertised their store hours said they were closed on Mondays. Still, there were people living in the apartments above the businesses, in the houses farther down the road.
It was weird to be this quiet. As he walked, he noticed up the street there was the antique store with a few cars in the lot. Somewhere a ways off a dog barked. There were signs of life here and there, he supposed.
When he came back on the opposite side of the antique store, things had cleared out again, but it wasn’t quiet. He heard…swearing? He stood still, and listened to the stream of creative, threatening profanity.
Was someone in trouble? Excited for some potential action, he moved quickly toward the sounds. Behind the bakery building. He turned the corner to find a woman at the bottom of a rickety-looking set of iron stairs that led to the upper floor of the building. Maybe an apartment above the bakery.
“You okay?” he asked.
The woman stilled for a moment, before she turned toward him and blew the bangs out of her face. She looked vaguely familiar, but Royal couldn’t place her. She had a bookshelf half her size leaning precariously against the wrought iron staircase.
“Just made the idiotic decision to purchase this from the antique store across the way.” She gestured in the direction of the antique store. “Then thinking, oh, it’s just right there, I could carry it back to my place. It’s small. And it is, but it’s anantique, so it’sheavy. Which would have been doable, if I didn’t have stairs to navigate.” She sighed dramatically. Studied him for a moment, then flashed a smile. “I don’t suppose you could give me a hand?”
“Not really in the job description.”
“No, I don’t suppose it is,” she said, her gaze moving over his uniform in a way that left him…oddly uncomfortable. It was like she was filing away every button, snap, pocket and item on his belt.
“Does Hope Town have its own police dep—” She shook her head before finishing the question. “No, you’re Bent County. But a deputy. How does the sheriff’s department decide how to police Hope Town?”
Not quite sure where she was going with this, Royal answered the question watching the teetering bookcase and the odd—if pretty—woman. “We get assigned zones. Zone’s a lot bigger than Hope Town.”
“Do you get a lot of trouble here?”
He frowned at her. He wasn’t used to being peppered with questions. That was usually his job. “You looking to apply?”
