He was starting to think he just couldn’t play the same game over and over.
J. T. arrived at his house, happy to have any opportunity to hammer nails into things, because that might just suit his mood. The uneasy shard in his stomach didn’t go away.
But when he got out of his truck outside of the house, a new sound was mixed in with the river and squirrels and trees.
Somewhere, someone was already hammering.
Not a swift, steadytap tap tapon a nail.
It sounded more like someone was swinging a mallet into a stake or a fence post.
He just listened a moment, as if it was music, and imagined that it was the sound of a spike being driven into the symbolic black heart of paparazzi everywhere.
Or maybe it was the sound of a monumental tack being driven into time itself. So he could hold these past few weeks with Britt in place, to keep them from flying away, to keep them from moving on.
Half wishing he walked around every day like his character in theBlood Brothers, one hand on his gun half the time, he moved on silent feet toward the sound and then stopped. Surprised. He had a gun. He just didn’t always travel with it.
A few yards down the trail he stopped.
There was the sheriff, swinging a big hammer at a wooden sign, pounding it into the ground near the creek next to that narrow path.
And then he stood back and swiped a hand across his brow.
“Morning, Sheriff.”
He got the sense the sheriff had already seen him.
“Morning, McCord.” He stood back and let J. T. read the sign.
Anyone caught in this area with a telephoto lens
might be mistaken for vermin and shot on sight.
J. T. smiled slowly. “Well.”
“I aim to protect and serve,” the sheriff said dryly.
“Much obliged, Sheriff.”
“Call me Eli.”
“You want something cold to drink after that hard labor, Eli?”
“Thanks, but I got some bad guys to catch. Some teenagers were throwing apricots at cars off the overpass.”
“Hooligans. Can’t have that.”
“We caught the guy who took that photo, by the way,” Eli told him, moving back up the trail. “Sprained his ankle trying to climb down to get even closer to you and couldn’t walk himself out of there. Some kids found him hollering up there later and we had to stretcher the fool out. He ended up in the hospital in Black Oak. I think we scared him sufficiently so he won’t be back. And we cited him for trespassing.”
“Thanks for that. At least he made his buck.” J. T. was ironic.
The sheriff paused near him and they both looked back at that sign and listened to the water. “Those photos pissed me off, too, McCord.”
“Yeah,” J. T. said grimly. “I felt like I should be able to protect her from that.”
“You should be able to just be with her without going through hell.”
Something about the way Eli said it made J. T. thinkmaybethere was a little subtext there.
