I didn’t blame Dylan Griggs for being nervous. Hawk was the only one who’d grown up in Blackwell Falls, but we’d gotten into more than a few scrapes with the locals in the years Vigo and I had been living here and Griggs had been on the receiving end of one of them at the Dive, a shitty little bar outside of town.
It didn’t help that Vigo was carrying the fucking bat, that we were all inked to within an inch of our lives and wearing the kind of boots that could put a guy like Griggs in the trauma unit.
Not that I cared. The one time we’d fucked up Griggs it had been because he’d ben playing the nice guy with girls at the bar while getting them wasted, then trying to get them to his car to fuck around.
He’d been half-carrying one of them when we’d stepped in.
“Crazy shit,” I said, pacing in front of the candy bars near the register.
“How’s it going?” Vigo asked.
Griggs shifted on his stool behind the counter. I had to hand it to him: some part of him — survival instinct probably — knew this was a game even though nothing in Vigo’s demeanor made it clear.
“It’s good man,” Griggs said. “You know, just working, keeping it going.”
“Cool, cool, cool,” Vigo said.
“Who was working Thursday the 12th?” Hawk asked.
Jesus christ. For all his recklessness, Hawk could still sound like a fucking fed at the drop of a hat.
“The…12th?” Griggs looked understandably confused.
Cassie’s accident had been almost two weeks earlier.
“Yeah, the fucking 12th,” Hawk said. “Were you here that day? Between, say, nine a.m. and 2 p.m.?”
“Uh… I don’t remember.”
“Thing is,” Vigo said, “we really need you to remember. Andyoureally need you to remember, if you get my meaning.”
The threat was subtle but Griggs se emed to get it, and he reached for his phone, sitting next to the register. “Sure thing, man.” He was definitely nervous now. “Let me check.”
He scrolled for a minute, then shook his head. “Nah man, sorry. I was off that day.”
“That’s a shame,” Vigo said.
“Yeah, sorry I can’t help.” He sounded sorry, although probably not for the reasons he should have been. “Anything else I can do for you?”
Vigo snapped and pointed at him with a grin. “Actually, yeah! Super cool of you to ask. You can let us look at your security footage from that day.”
Griggs looked surprised. “I can’t do that. I’m not allowed.”
Hawk folded his arms over his chest. “We’re allowing you.”
“My boss?— ”
“Doesn’t have to know,” I said. “It’ll be our little secret.”
“Yeah, I don’t think?— ”
The smash of Vigo’s bat crashing onto a rack of potato chips came out of nowhere.
Bags of chips scattered across the floor as the metal rack teetered, bent in the middle.
“What the fuck?!” Griggs shouted, jumping to his feet behind the counter.
I moved fast, caught him just as he was reaching for the alarm.
