Page 25 of Forgotten

“While you were out,” he said. “I saw you stopping at the gas station just past Louisa county line. You seemed like you were having a lot of trouble with your balance.”

“Who cares?” Tamara interrupted. “She wasn’t driving. I was. And I am stone cold sober. You can check.”

“I didn’t say she was driving intoxicated,” Arnold said, frustration creeping deeper and deeper into his voice. “I said public intoxication. She was in public and intoxicated. I am doing a welfare check. As such, I need to speak with her without interference from the peanut gallery.”

“Get a warrant,” Mr. Miller said, standing laboriously from his chair. “Otherwise, get out of my house.”

“Amber,” Arnold said, ignoring him, “we can do this the easy way. You just need to come with me.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Amber, no,” I said.

“Just outside. For a minute. I just want to talk to you.”

“About what?” Amber asked. “About me marrying Luke? Because I’m going to marry him.”

“Amber, you are making a massive mistake,” he said. “You don’t know these people like I do. The Galloways are bad people. Bad.”

“Who was it that got investigated by the FBI again?” I interjected.

Arn turned toward me with an expression so full of rage that I actually backed up a step.

“Stay out of this, Charlotte,” he said. “You should just get on back to Oklahoma.”

“I don’t live in Oklahoma,” I said. “I live in Texas.”

“I don’t give a fuck where you live!”

Silence filled the room as Arnold sagged, knowing he’d let his temper out again in the worst possible situation.

“Amber, please, I just need to say my peace and then you can do what you will.”

“Over my dead body,” Tamara said.

“Don’t tempt me, Tamara,” a voice said from the door.

I turned to see Eugene Anderson standing in the doorway, another car now parked in the yard. I rolled my eyes. Of course, he wasn’t going to be alone. It was always about pressure with the Andersons. They set up the situations so that it was impossible to say no to them, and then when you complained, they were able to say that everything you did had been done willingly. I had experience with it. Bitter experience.

“Take a step in my house, Eugene, and I swear to God I will find a way to trespass you,” Mr. Miller said. “And you, Arn, I think I have given you enough of my time. You have no reason to be here other than my invitation, and I am officially revoking it right now. Unless you are prepared to put someone in handcuffs and charge them with something, then you need to get out.”

“What if I charged you with interference with an investigation, Bill?”

Mr. Miller’s jaw set, and he took a step closer to Arnold.

“Is that a threat, Arnold?”

“I’m just saying,” Arn said, predictably backing down a step. “Everybody in this room is under my jurisdiction. As sheriff, I am the law. So when I am investigating a serious situation, like a woman who may or may not have been inebriated in public and caused a nuisance, then I need cooperation, not resistance. And if I get resistance, I have legal remedies for it.”

“Try it,” Mr. Miller said. “Put me in handcuffs and see how fast I sue the county and get you and your whole crooked family out of Foley forever.”

Arn grinned.

“That’s an awful lot of confidence for a man with a heart condition,” he sneered. “Amber, I am going to go out in this front yard. And I am going to be there for a while. You can either sit here with your friends and look at the pretty blue lights shining through your living room, or you can come out and you and I can have a civil, adult conversation. Alone.”

Arn turned on his heel without waiting for a response and headed for the door. Eugene held it open for him and glared inside before following his brother down the steps. As soon as they were out of eyesight, Amber crumbled to the couch, tears welling up in her eyes. Tamara was on her feet, using her phone to make a call, and Mr. Miller was making his way to his daughter.

“That rat bastard,” Mr. Miller said. “He’s such a loser.”

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