Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 480(@200wpm)___ 384(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 480(@200wpm)___ 384(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
I pushed down my natural inclination to avoid the spotlight.
The way I always did.
3
Declan
The brash squawk of my radio woke me out of a dead sleep. If dispatch was trying to raise me on the radio, it meant they’d tried my phone already with no success.
“Sheriff Stone,” I mumbled, getting up and grabbing my clothes out of habit.
“10-101 at Merry’s Roadhouse,” Janine said. “Sorry to bother you, Sheriff, but Matt Jancer asked for you specifically. Said he won’t take no for an answer.”
I sighed and told Janine to tell the bar owner I’d be there in less than ten minutes. After a quick visit to the bathroom and a shot of bottled iced coffee down my throat, I was off. The clock in the dash said it was almost three in the morning. Matt tried to close up the bar by half past one most nights, so if he was still having trouble with some drunk patrons, he’d most likely tried all his usual tricks.
When a few of my brain cells kicked into gear, I called back to Janine and asked which deputy was supposed to be on duty right now.
“Well, that’s just it, you see.” Our evening dispatcher was young and a bit too into local gossip for my taste, but since her mother was on the county council, I’d decided not to rock the boat by reassigning her to something a little less sensitive. “I sent Rolly over there, but you know how he is.”
Yes. I knew how he was. Rollins Kepplow was a well-meaning doofus, a leftover hire from the old regime. Had we been in any other town than Aster Valley, I probably would have insisted on letting him go straightaway. But, like with Janine, I’d decided caution was the better part of valor in making big personnel changes in my first few months. Hearing the young deputy hadn’t been able to manage helping Matt close out the bar made me rethink my stance.
Sure enough, when I pulled into the parking lot of the Roadhouse, the place was filled with vehicles including a sheriff’s patrol vehicle. I strode through the front door of the bar in time to catch Deputy Kepplow taking a selfie with one of the actors from the movie.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. Of course this disturbance was caused by those assholes from California. Leave it to the film people to wake me from a dead sleep.
After a few friendly hellos from patrons leaving, I stood on a nearby chair and slipped my thumb and middle finger between my lips. My shrill whistle split the air, bringing the happy chitchat to a sudden stop. “Everybody, out. Last call was more than two hours ago. Unless you want to see poor Matt get shut down for serving violations, I recommend you save your thirst for another night.”
The bar owner met my eye from across the crowd. His expression was full of exhaustion and gratitude. I wasn’t fool enough to think he’d tried too hard to get everyone out as long as the money and fun were still flowing due to the notoriety the actors had brought to his place. Penny had mentioned the new social media hashtags popping up all over Instagram, and Matt had been the source for at least a few of them.
I caught a few teenaged girls begging the actors for body autographs, so I hopped down from the table and cut through the crowd to put a stop to it.
“Melanie and Samantha, right?” I lifted an imperious eyebrow at the girls. “Don’t you have Mr. Reyes for summer school tomorrow?”
The girls both dropped their jaws in shock. “H-how did you know that, Sheriff?” one of them asked.
“It’s my job to know where everyone is supposed to be at any given time,” I lied. “And if I’m not mistaken, at no time are you two supposed to be at a bar after hours. Do your parents know where you are?”
The truth was, I’d helped Daniel Reyes track down his lost wallet a couple of weeks ago, and for the first hour, he’d insisted he’d most likely been pickpocketed by a couple of girls in his summer school class.
But I wasn’t about to tell them that. Especially since the wallet was later found in Dan’s own gym bag in the faculty lounge locker behind his own combination lock.
The girls panicked and bolted, leaving one of the actor twerps drooling in their wake. I didn’t recognize the drooler or the two women sitting at the table, but I definitely recognized two of the other men as the brats who’d asked me to park their car at Rockley Lodge the night before.
“Let’s go,” I said, placing my hand on the shoulder of the man closest to me. The body under my hand stiffened. I looked down to see my hand on Finn Heller’s shoulder. The Finn Heller. The famous actor who’d played Chip Clover in the long-running sitcom Cast in Clover. The kid America had watched grow up from their living rooms. The asshole who’d treated me like the help the night before.