Page 18 of Harrison Hyde and the Runaway Bride

“They can’t see us out here,” Maria explained.

Harrison nodded. “I figured.”

Lash pushed a button on the wall, and the sound came on. Then he said he had to take a call and left them.

“I’m tellin’ you, Willow—” Billy Bob slurred. His hair was a mess, and his eyes were bloodshot. Apparently, his buzz was fading, and the aftermath just getting underway.

“That’s Deputy Brand to you from now on,” Willow told him. “You ain’t family.” She pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down. “It’ll serve you well not to forget it. Now, tell me what happened at Manny’s.”

“I’ll tell you for a beer.”

“You’re already drunk.”

“I’ll tell you…” He paused for dramatic effect. “For a beer.”

“I’ll get you a beer. And then you’ll cooperate, or I’ll book you on every charge we can come up with.”

It startled Maria, the deeper, fuller tone of her cousin’s voice. “Wow,” she said. “I’ve never really seen Will on the job before. She’s different.”

“How long’s she been a deputy?” Harry asked.

“Couple of months. Ever since Uncle Garrett decided he plans to retire next year. He’s been sheriff since before I was born. My dad’s been chief deputy most of that time.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Just… that’s a long time for a town to have the same sheriff and chief deputy,” Harry said.

She felt herself bristle. “County,” she corrected. “And yeah, it is a long time, but it’s not like you’re thinking.”

Next door, Willow left Billy Bob alone in the interrogation room, allegedly to get him a beer. Maria did not think for one minute her cousin was going to serve alcohol to a suspect and wondered what she was up to.

“I wasn’t thinking anything,” Harry said.

“Sure you were. You’re an East Coast scientist.”

“You say that like an insult,” he said.

“Not an insult at all. It’s like telling a Martian newly arrived from Mars that he doesn’t yet understand Earth. I’m telling a newly arrived New Yorker that he doesn’t yet understand Texas. No insult intended. But you need to know that my dad and uncle are the most trusted men in Quinn County. Every election was fair, and to be honest, Uncle Garrett’s never had to do more than put his name on the ballot?—”

The interrogation room door opened, and closed hard, making them both come to attention. “Oh, shoot,” Maria muttered, because her dad had entered the room.

“I understand you tracked my daughter illegally,” he said to Billy Bob.

Her dad’s tone was as foreign to Maria as Willow’s had seemed, but in a different way. It wasn’t even the angry-dad tone he’d used when she’d messed up as a kid. This was something bigger. Something quieter and somehow more menacing. “You assaulted a young woman at your bachelor party.”

“Aw, c’mon, you know I wouldn’t?—”

“One of your friends shot a video, Billy Bob. I’ve seen it. It’s bad.”

The jilted groom swore a blue streak. Then he fell silent. At length he said, “Is the bimbo pressing charges?”

Maria clenched her fists and strode out of the small observation room, then through the next door into the interrogation room beside it. “You bet your backside she’s pressin’ charges,” she shouted. “She decided right after I told her I’d carry her to and from every day of your trial on my back, if that’s what it takes, you lowlife son of a— I can’t believe I almost married you.”

“Aw, come on now, Maria Michele, you know it din’t mean nuthin’.”

“Whatdin’t mean nuthin’?” She asked, mocking his lazy grammar. “Tryin’ to force my friend’s head into your lap or punchin’ her in the face when she fought back? Is that whatdin’t mean nuthin’? Or was it beatin’ the hell out of a decent, brilliant man who’s tryin’ to save the whole goldern world, and tried to keep you off me after you shoved me so hard I took out a whole table full of tacos? Is that whatdin’t mean nuthin’Billy Bob?”

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