Lynnette composed herself. “I have a Marine recovering in my hospital from a brutal injury to his leg,” she said. “Not local. Came to town with another guy who ‘used to be’ from around here, apparently. That’s actually how I heard about what happened at Sweet Stop.”
Jon’s friend had landed on Jenna’s friend’s shift. She hadn’t asked, because it’d felt entirely too nosy and because even being friends with Lynnette, Jenna didn’t fully understand how the nursing rotation worked. But, somehow, it made her feel better.
Jenna pocketed her phone and motioned to the building once again. “I’m glad to know he’s getting decent treatment from at leastonenurse, then. I felt so bad about him getting hurt basically defending my store.” She lowered her voice for no reason and finally confessed her sin. “I couldn’t even remember his name when it happened, either.”
Lynnette laughed again. “Well, for what it’s worth, the only grudge he seems to be holding is with that shifter who shredded him.” She made a mock-shuddering motion. “Can’t say I blame him on that. I hate thinking about what he might’ve been through to be so calm about what he’sgoingthrough.”
Jenna bobbed her head, but her chattiness died away as they reached the single, glass-paneled door.
Lynnette pulled it open and met her stare. “These might be my good boots,” she said quietly, “but I will plant them squarely in any asses necessary, so don’t be shy.” She tilted her head inside. “No badge means they get to throw us away.”
Right.She was right. And in the back of her mind, Jenna couldn’t help but think Jon would have approved that speech.
Jenna continued forward, feeling actually confident with Lynnette at her back. She walked in with her head held high and marched past the sad offering of four whole chairs—hard, plastic seats anchored to a metal bar that ran either side wall—straight up to the front desk. She didn’t visually recognize the woman sitting there, but she recognized the name on the woman’s pinned tag.
First hurdle—Deputy Bitch.
Deputy Bitch looked up at Jenna, then past her to Lynnette, and arched a brow as if to say they had some nerve approaching her. Or entering the building at all. “Can I help you ladies with something?”
Jenna felt her lips lifting in a reflexive smile, the same as she would offer to any customer no matter how badly she wanted to get them out the door, and she fought it down. “You absolutely can. I need to do two separate things, in fact, but the most important is to file a missing person’s report.” She did make the effort to hold the snarky comments inside, at least at the beginning.
Deputy Bitch scowled at her. “Do I know you?”
“We’ve talked on the phone a few times,” Jenna replied smoothly. “That’ll be the other thing. Can we focus on the missing person first?” She held off the ‘please’. She hadn’t yet met a person at the department who deserved the courtesy.
The woman in the uniform leaned back in her seat and drummed her manicured nails on her desk, never removing her eyes from Jenna. “Filing a false police report is a crime.”
Jenna felt herself bristle.
Lynnette leaned forward and rested her elbow on the high-top side of the separation between them, as if they were having a girly chat. “And refusing to do your sworn duty as licensed officers of the law isalsoa crime. So go ahead, slap us with a fine, try to stamp our records with your baseless anduninvestigated accusations.” She raised her phone into view and held it outward for Deputy Bitch to see. “See that name? Lilia Rodriguez is a Civil Rights Attorney right here in our humble county. She’s also a good friend of mine, because I work wild hours and I made a genuinely questionable call December before last that ended up saving her niece’s life. Now I get cards and chocolate every Christmas, flowers on my birthday, all that.” She lowered her phone. “Lilia isachingto earn herself a promotion, by the way. So, by all means, dismiss us without due cause. Let another innocent young woman disappear right under your goddamn nose because you might break one of those perfect nails if you have to join a search party, and obviously that would be the true crime.”
Deputy Bitch’s nostrils flared with Lynnette’s every word until she finally shoved to her feet. “You havesomenerve, coming in here and threatening a deputy of the—”
“Actually,” Jenna cut in, this time plastering on her sweetest smile, “we came in asking for help.Youjumped straight to the threats, Deputy. But, if there’s somewhere else we’re supposed to go to report missing people and in general get help when there are crimes being committed,please, point me in that direction and I will be out of your hair forever.”
A door closed somewhere close by and the voice Jenna had really hoped to avoid replied, “Oh, that would be the dream, Hodge.” Drew Parker stepped into view and leaned his hip against the side of Deputy Bitch’s desk, his sneer aimed straight at Jenna. “Unfortunately, you chose to come back to Misty Glades and here we are. Stuck with each other again.”
“Hodge?” Deputy Bitch repeated. She straightened and pursed her lips. “Oh, I see. It’syou. Calling every day hasn’t been enough?”
Drew snickered. “Harassing law enforcement has got to be a new level of stupid. I admit I didn’t see that coming from you.”
Jenna balled her hands into fists but kept her head held high. “It’s not harassment. I have the right to want access to my legal property—or at least some idea of a timeline on when I might get it back. And more than that,everycitizen has a right to report when their neighbors disappear.”
“I think I know your rights better than you do.”
Lynnette shifted her weight at Jenna’s shoulder. “I’d be surprised if you knew your way around your own house without a nightlight, Parker. There really ought to be a law against giving bullies badges and guns.”
Drew’s glare snapped away from Jenna and his lip curled. “Well, I’ll admit you’re not the shadow I expected.” Then his glare was back, darker than before. “But it’s no surprise you couldn’t muster up the courage to come without one.”
Lynnette drew a breath and Jenna put up a hand to proverbially hold her off, just for a moment. She wasn’t about to be the one who blinked first. “You have that backwards, Drew. Jon was chomping at the bit to come with me, but he has some other time-sensitive matters to deal with, so I talked him down. You’re fucking welcome. Now are you or are you not going to pretend like you give a damn about another missing woman?”
Drew straightened to his full, unimpressive height and hooked his thumbs into his weighted-down belt. “How about some advice? Either of you whores bothers me or my department again, we’ll arrest you on the spot.” He jerked his chin toward the door. “Now get out and get going. And don’t call tomorrow, we’ll relinquish your precious bakery when we’ve finished with it and not a minute sooner.”
Cold horror washed through her and Jenna’s mouth dropped open. He wasn’t just refusing, he was openly—arrogantly—threatening to baselessly arrest themboth. He was on a damn power trip. And he was determined to use that power to run her out of business while he had the opportunity.
Lynnette hooked her by the elbow. “C’mon, babe,” she said, “we have all we’re going to get from these jackwads. Let’s go.”
“The fuck did you just call us?” Drew demanded.
