“Ignore them,” he said, nodding at the front desk, where two deputies were watching us like it was the most action they’d seen all week. “They’ll eat anything that doesn’t eat them first.”
I grinned. “You know how I feel about cops and oral fixations.”
“Classy,” Dan said, but his eyes crinkled at the corners, which is how I knew he appreciated it.
A phone started ringing again, then another, and suddenly the tension in the room shifted—something electric, like the seconds before a bar fight. One of the dispatchers slammed a fist down, shouting, “We got a 10-96 at the Blacktail. All units.” Then the radio squawked, words tumbling over themselves: “Subject’s armed—repeat, subject’s armed.”
It was instant chaos. Chairs screeched as everybody in the room lurched into motion. Deputies clipped on gear and sprinted for the exit. Dan’s eyes went wide; the paper bag crumpled in his hands, forgotten. And then—right behind me, so close I smelled his aftershave—a hand closed tight around my bicep.
It was Floyd. Of course it was. Who else in town had hands like a vise and an attitude to match?
“Come with me,” he said, his voice low but sharp enough to leave a mark.
For once, I didn’t have a comeback. Maybe it was the way he looked at me—like I was simultaneously a suspect and the only lifeline he could trust. Maybe it was the press of his fingers, so deliberate I felt every callus through the sleeve of my shirt. Or maybe it was the siren wailing to life outside, all adrenaline and inevitability.
He didn’t wait for me to answer. He pulled and I followed, barely keeping pace as he hauled me through the side door and down the concrete steps to his truck. I noticed, with a distant part of my brain, that he never loosened his grip—not until he’d shoved me into the passenger seat and slammed the door behind us. Even then, he hovered, breathing hard, as if ready to physically restrain me if I bolted.
The inside of the truck was even smaller than I remembered. Maybe Floyd made it that way on purpose, a moving interrogation room. There was a rifle rack bolted to the back window and a plastic divider that looked like it could take a bullet or two. The radio jabbered with overlapping voices; the whole dash shook with the idling engine.
“What the hell, Floyd,” I managed, but it came out softer than I liked.
He put the truck in drive. His hand hovered on the shifter, veins up under the tight skin, and he finally looked at me—not just at me, but into me, like he could see all the way down to the bone.
“Don’t say a word,” he said. “Not right now.”
I didn’t. For once in my life, I didn’t.
He floored it, lights flashing, siren blaring, and for the next ten blocks I could feel the imprint of his grip on my arm, radiating heat through every inch of me.
I hated how much I liked it. I hated that I could still feel his hand even after he let go.
And I really hated not knowing why he’d chosen to bring me along, instead of leaving me back at the station like just another town problem.
But that was Floyd for you: always keeping things contained, never letting anyone out unless he decided it was time. I watched the town blur by through the windshield, every storefront and mailbox rendered in high-def panic by the strobing red and blue.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get away.
I wasn’t sure if I could.
Floyd drove like he’d been born behind a wheel—both hands locked at ten and two, jaw set, eyes on the horizon. The siren turned every intersection into an empty threat, and we blew through stop signs with all the grace of a controlled demolition. I tried to focus on the houses flickering by, the old sheds and horse trailers I could name like second cousins, but in the cab the air kept growing denser.
Floyd’s radio blared with a life of its own.“Unit four, confirm location—subject’s on premises, repeat, subject’s still on premises. Bar staff evacuated through rear, unknown number of patrons remaining. Advise.”
He cut the siren for half a second. “Four, copy. ETA less than two.” Then, to me: “It’s Gator Jenkins.”
“Shit,” I said, before I could catch myself.
He flicked a glance my way. “You know him?”
“Used to. We were in school together. He’s been in a tailspin since Mary threw him out.” I didn’t mention the rest, but Floyd didn’t need me to—he probably had the full file in his head. Gator had always been a disaster with a six-pack and a chip on his shoulder, but after the baby, after the miscarriage, something in him went from off to broken. Nobody in town talked about it. Nobody wanted to.
Floyd’s grip on the wheel tightened. “She said he’s got a handgun. Walked in waving it, shouting about ‘taking his life back.’ Drunk as hell, and probably high too.”
I let out a breath. “You want me to do what, exactly? Talk him down?”
“He’s not talking to the deputies. But he might to you.” He met my gaze, held it longer than was safe at seventy miles an hour. “Sometimes it takes a bastard to reason with a bastard.”
There was a compliment in there, somewhere. Maybe. I snorted and looked out at the road, the blur of blue and red playing across the wet pavement. The world out there was all motion and streaked color; in here, it was a cage match of pride and possibility.
