Page 90 of Open Season

Nolan stepped back, but Hill and the patrol officer smoothly flanked him and grasped his arms, forcing them behind his back. Handcuffs were quickly snapped around his wrists.

Outraged, he stared at the two men. “Get these cuffs off me! What do you think you’re doing? I’m not a criminal, and I refuse to be treated like one.”

“It’s procedure, sir, for your safety and ours. They’ll be removed at the station.” They physically shepherded him from the house, their grasps on his arms propelling him forward.

“You’re fired!” he ground out, his face turning dark red. “Both of you. There’s no excuse for this kind of treatment.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hill as they put him in the backseat of the car and closed the door.

Nolan could barely breathe, he was so furious. Jack Russo had to have instigated this, to get back at him for . . . surely not because he’d asked him to run Daisy’s tag number; that was ludicrous. But what else could it be? Maybe Russo was the insanely jealous type who went off the deep end at the least attention anyone paid to his girlfriend.

The only other explanation was that they believed Jennifer.

He began hyperventilating and forced himself to slow his breathing. He could handle this; all he had to do was stay calm. No matter what Jennifer said, he could put a spin on it that threw everything she said into doubt. After all, she was a drunk, and the whole town knew it. She had no proof, just one side of a telephone conversation that she’d overheard, and she was bound to have garbled it.

When they reached the police department, he was astonished at the number of cars there. Something was going on, something more than the city council meeting. Then he saw three of the city councilmen standing outside the glass doors leading into the station, and his stomach knotted. The sun was going down and the fierce heat had abated, but sweat adhered his shirt to his back as Hill opened the car door and assisted him from the backseat.

The city councilmen looked at him, but they didn’t make eye contact. It was as if they were watching an animal in a zoo, nothing more than a matter of curiosity.

“Take these cuffs off!” he said to Hill in a fierce undertone. “Goddamn it, the city council is watching.”

“I’ll take them off when we’re inside, sir,” said Hill, catching his arm.

Meaning when they had him where he couldn’t get away. Dizzily he looked around, and a familiar-looking car caught his eye. It was a gray Dodge, and it was parked in one of the slots reserved for the patrol cars, but no one seemed to care.

Sykes drove a gray Dodge, an ordinary car that he said no one ever noticed. This car had a Madison County tag on it; Sykes lived in Madison County, just outside Huntsville.

Why was Sykes here? If they had arrested him, they wouldn’t have let him drive here any more than they’d let Nolan. How had they even located him? There was no reason for Sykes to be here, unless—

Unless Sykes had turned on them.

He was hyperventilating again, colors running together in his vision. “Sykes!” he roared, lowering his shoulder and ramming it into Investigator Hill, breaking his hold. “Sykes!” He began running toward the station. “You bastard, Sykes! You motherfucking bastard, I’ll kill you!”

Investigator Hill and the patrol officer chased him, and the patrol officer made a diving tackle, wrapping both arms around the mayor’s knees and bringing him down. With his hands cuffed behind him, Nolan couldn’t catch himself, and he skidded face-first along the rough asphalt of the parking lot, leaving skin and blood behind. Mucus and blood poured from his broken nose as they hauled him to his feet. “Sykes,” he said again, but his mouth was full of blood and the word was unintelligible.

The city councilmen stepped to the side as they half-carried him through the doors, the councilmen’s expressions disgusted, as if they’d seen something nasty. Temple Nolan tried to think of something to say that would reassure them, some pat answer he’d rehearsed and used a hundred times before and which never failed to elicit the response he wanted, but nothing came to mind.

Nothing came to mind at all.

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