Page 30 of A Reaper's Secret

Daniel looked over the security footagewith Billy and George as they tried to find who would break thewindows of the café. The problem was, someone had decided to leave their post andas they did, turn off the security cameras at exactly the righttime that Amy’s café had been targeted. At first, the tape had beenlost, but Billy had been able to locate the tape.

“Who was on duty during this time?” Daniel asked.

Billy got to his feet and made his waytoward the log book. They had security officers watching the town at all times. There wereseveral people taking the position. He scanned the log book andlifted his head.

“Ray Tistleton,” Billy said, snapping thebook closed. “And he’s on the cameras today.”

Daniel looked from Billy to George, and thenturned on his heel and left. The security cameras were secured in asmall facility near the town hall. He left the sheriff’s office andmade his way toward the town hall. The building was locked, andonly a few people had the access codes.

He, George, Billy, and several of the olderguys had the codes. Typing in the code, he let himself into thebuilding. George and Billy would give him a few minutes with Ray.He didn’t want the other guy panicking and trying to make a run forit.

Ray Tistleton had never been able to makeit as a Reaper. The little shit couldn’t handle pain, and hecertainly didn’t handle the hard work. Unlike his older brother, Cyrus, who was amember, and had been since his early twenties. Cyrus was nowthirty-five years old, and had been an active Reaper for nearlyfifteen years.

Opening the door to the security room, hesaw Ray eating a chocolate bar, the security cameras playing, buton his desk was a small laptop with several porn videos playing.One of his hands was down his pants, playing with his dick.

“Shit!” Ray pulled his hand out of his pantsand quickly slammed the laptop shut.

“How are you doing, Ray?” Daniel asked.

“Ugh … Mr. Long, uh, Daniel, I’m doing okay.You?”

Daniel looked at Ray, and he glared but thenturned his attention toward the screens. “How is everything lookingtoday?”

“Good, good. The … uh … the tourists are allbehaving themselves.”

“That’s good.”

Daniel turned his attention back to Ray. Hetook a few seconds to decide how he was going to play this, andthen he got straight to it.

“Why did you turn the cameras off on Amy’scafé?”

Ray got to his feet looking to make hisescape, but Daniel already had him by the scruff of his neck andforced him to sit back down. He gave a little tut. “Running away isnot the answer.”

“I don’t know what you’re talkingabout.”

“Ray, Ray, Ray,” he said, sighing out thename. “You and I both know it’s not good to mess with me. I don’t like being lied to.Now, you’re a local. You know who I am. You know Amy belongs to me.You know I take care of anyone who belongs to me. My woman’s caféhad her windows smashed in, and you were on duty during that time.Now, I need to know why you turned off the cameras and thenconveniently turned them back on.”

Daniel heard the door open and seeing therelief on Ray’s face, he had a feeling Cyrus had arrived. Billy andGeorge had also entered the room.

“Cyrus, dude, come on, you know I have …issues.”

“Tell them, Ray,” Cyrus said.

Daniel didn’t avert his gaze.

Ray frowned. “What?”

“You heard me. I got you this job becauseyou said all you ever wanted to do was protect the town. Amy’s alocal. Everyone loves her. She takes care of all of us, and hercafé was attacked. Now, you tell me you didn’t fucking let medown.” Cyrus was known to have a very long fuse. He had dealt witha lot of shit his brother had caused.

Daniel waited. He wouldn’t need to deal withRay, because Cyrus had that responsibility.

Ray was sweating. When Daniel firstentered, the beads hadjust started to form across his brow, but now they were practicallydripping all the way down his face. It was not a pretty picture.The man was a quivering wreck.

“But … uh … it was only supposed to be aprank,” Ray said.

Cyrus took a step closer andwithout warning, he hitRay hard across the face with the back of his hand. There wasnothing gentle about it. Ray fell back from his chair and cuppedhis face. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I … I…” Ray tried to crawl away, but Cyruswas there, hauling him back into the chair and then getting intohis face.

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