Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“Can I help you?” Baron asked as he came out of his shop with a shovel.
He looked sweaty, like he’d been doing some hard labor. Paired with the dirt on his arms, hands, and face, I figured he was digging a hole.
Hell, I’d never seen him out of his fancy suits.
“I’m looking for my girlfriend,” I lied. “Her name is Holly. She was the vet that came out here and she’s missing.”
He frowned, looking concerned, when we both knew damn well that he’d rather watch me burn. Fictional girlfriend included.
“White-headed woman driving a Ford?” he asked. “Big tits?”
The way he asked that was purposefully done to piss me off.
I remained calm. Barely.
I tried not to flinch as I said, “Yeah. That’s her.”
“I talked to her when she arrived. Told her that I didn’t need her help anymore. The dog died in the night.”
That didn’t track with the phone call the granddaughter had placed this morning. The granddaughter of this man had said that the dog was alive and suffering. That he needed immediate assistance.
My silence made him shift from foot to foot.
“She left hours ago after I told her my dog passed.”
“About what time exactly she leave?” I asked carefully.
This fuck was lying to me.
I could tell.
Baron looked at his watch. “At about ten in the morning, I guess? I can check the cameras.”
“Sure, would you mind?” I asked.
Baron was being accommodating, I’d give him that. But he still gave me a bad vibe.
He pulled up his phone and hit a button, then turned the phone to me.
I watched through the bars as the white Ford pulled into his driveway, the window rolled down, and a delicate hand came out to press a button on the keypad.
The video ended, and then he clicked on another one.
This one was time stamped about twenty minutes later when she finally backed out of the spot and left.
“I had to give her directions out of here because the signal was so bad. She wrote the direction down in that span of time and left,” he continued.
His story was logical. Plausible even.
But I still got the feeling that there was something more going on here.
“Do you mind if I take a look around your property?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
I leaned my elbows against the gas tank of my bike and studied his face.
In his position, I would’ve said the same thing.
I didn’t want people on my property. Not anyone I didn’t trust.
I, however, didn’t like that he was denying me entry.
I knew that there was something more going on here than met the eye.
He was keeping secrets, and I didn’t like secrets in my town.
“Okay.” I nodded once. “If you see her, or have any more information, I want you to call the Dixie Wardens clubhouse, The Mercantile, the mechanic in town, or call Hopps or drop by the laundromat, and let them know anything you think of.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but I continued, “Or, you could run by…”
I’d purposefully started to name off any and all of the business that the Dixie Wardens controlled, knowing that he would get the picture.
Nothing happened in our town that we didn’t know about. And if it did, we took it as our personal mission to find out what and why.
This man in front of me, this so-called man that’d been playing dirty games for years on the city council, knew that I owned this town. That was why he was out of a job.
But I could see the determination on his face. “I hope you find your girlfriend, Mr. Windsor.”
No.
No he did not.
FIFTEEN
There’s nothing like starting your morning off wondering if you can get your pants buttoned.
—Holly to Boone
HOLLY
I was fairly sure that they were going to do the dog fight up big.
They were setting out chairs around a ring.
They were cooking meat on a barbecue. They were setting up kegs.
They were even setting up a couple of tents in preparation for the weather that was set to hit any second.
The rumble of thunder wasn’t distant any longer.
In fact, it was filling the air around us while lightning was lighting up the now-dark night sky every second breath.
Men started arriving at some point, filling the chairs and drinking the beer.
Some of them I knew.
Others I didn’t.
None of them looked like someone I would want to rescue me, though.
The dogs were all barking now. Well, the ones that I figured did the fighting. There were others that were quiet in their pens, looking like they wanted to sink into themselves and disappear out of their skin.
The poor babies.
Anger fueled my every breath as I watched and studied everything that was going on.
I made mental notes of who was there, who was hanging out with whom. Who seemed interested in what was going on, and who seemed uncomfortable.