Page 18 of Code Violation

Cautiously, Nero moved to the door and slowly turned the handle. He felt like a bit player in a horror movie, but he’d rather feel stupid than dead. It wasn’t a basement door, and he wasn’t a virgin. He’d be fine. Unfortunately, the image of Ned Barker’s lifeless body, his neck crooked all wrong, popped into his head.

He pulled the door open with a jerk, revealing nothing but rain coming down in sheets. No one was there. His pulse raced, his body readying for flight.

Nero called out another cautious, “Hello?”

Again, there was no answer, but by then he didn’t expect one.

As he started to shut the door, Nero glanced down. Maybe someone had been making the rounds and stuck a flyer under the welcome mat or something. He didn’t see a brochure but on top of the weatherworn rubberized mat lay a wrist-sized loop made from some kind of grass.

Tentatively, he bent down and picked it up, then studied the strange thing as he held it between his thumb and index finger. It hadn’t been there when he’d come home, had it? Had he been so oblivious when he’d returned to the cabin that he hadn’t seen it? Or had someone left it more recently?

Nero couldn’t shake the feeling that he hadn’t missed it, but he also couldn’t be sure. Had persons unknown crept to his front door, knocked, then left the weird bracelet for him to find?

If so, why? What could it mean? After the break-in last night, this… offering seemed odd. Was it related to everything else going on, or was Nero just paranoid? He was going to go with paranoid.

Glancing around and still not seeing anything that seemed off—the town looked just like it always did, fairly quiet at this time of night—Nero was tempted to toss the loop back to the ground. Instead, he brought it inside, setting it on the kitchenette counter next to his cell phone while he contemplated his next steps.

He wasn’t leaving town but he wanted to get away from the four walls of the cabin; the small house felt claustrophobic and the strange knocking had thrown him off more than he wanted to admit. He decided to take himself for a drive, maybe grab a bite to eat in Aberdeen.

When he arrived at his car, Nero saw Cooper’s truck pass by on the highway. As he watched, it slowed down and turned into the resort’s parking lot. Assuming Cooper was there for Nick or Martin, Nero climbed behind the steering wheel of his beat-up SUV.

Right when Nero pulled his door shut, the asshole blared his horn and indicated with a jam of his finger that Nero should stay put.

Nero was easygoing, but he wasn’t a damn dog to be ordered to sit and stay.

Yes, he wanted to talk to Cooper, but not when the guy was obviously feeling the need to be an asshole. Ignoring the gesture, Nero started the engine and put his car in reverse.

He could be an asshole too.

Except fucking Forrest Cooper blocked him in.

“What the fuck?” After weeks of pretending Nero either didn’t exist or giving him the cold shoulder, Cooper was going to stop him from driving away? He’d had a shit day, as one does after discovering a dead body, and an unhinged Forrest Cooper was the last person he wanted to deal with. And, he realized, he was hangry.

NINE

Forrest – Thursday

“Ned Barker is dead, murdered,” Nick stated baldly.

“Ned Barker?” Forrest repeated his friend’s words, wondering if he’d heard right. His voice rose in shock, but Nick made a shushing sound at him as if there was someone close by who might hear them. “What the hell?”

This was not what he’d expected after Nick called and asked if he could come by because there was something Forrest needed to know sooner rather than later. Since Forrest had been doing nothing but staring at paperwork, he’d agreed.

After learning that the mansion had burned the night before, he’d expected it to be something like a mummified body had been discovered in the basement. That wouldn’t have surprised him. Ned Barker being murdered did.

“I didn’t want you to hear it from some rando. I know you guys were close.”

His arms crossed over his chest, Nick nodded and shook his head at the same time, as if he also couldn’t believe what he was saying, and his lips were pressed into a grim line. They were in Forrest’s living room, Forrest sitting on the red velvet couch that was his favorite piece of furniture and Nick standing next to a wing chair covered in a flowery upholstery.

“Should you be telling me this?” Forrest asked. “Aren’t there rules about police investigations?”

Nick had only recently inherited the office manager job at Cooper Spring PD. There were lots of things he likely shouldn’t have been talking about to regular citizens, including active murder investigations. Unfortunately, neither Nick nor Forrest were very good rule-followers. Breaking rules was like falling off a log, easy and sometimes fun.

“Would you sit the fuck down so you’re not looming?”

He could not process with Nick being all twitchy.

Nick conceded by perching on the arm of the chair. “I can’t stay long. I’m not telling you anything that isn’t already confirmed. Besides, you know as well as I do that the entire town already has a pretty good idea what happened. And what people don’t know for sure, they’re speculating about. You, my friend, are late to the party. Since he was found near the high school, the whole county probably knows already. Those kids have some kind of underground information highway. You should check out what’s on the Facebook page.” Nick shook his head in disgust.

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