Page 34 of A Dead End Wedding

Jack perked up one ear. Seconds afterward, I heard the unique siren on Susan’s patrol car. It had a kind of asthmatic duck sound to it. Every time she threatened to get it fixed, everybody urged her not to.

We always knew when she was coming.

“We’re going. But we’ll be back.” With that last threat, Twyla grabbed her colleague by the arm and stormed out of the shop.

I went to the door and watched them skid out of the parking lot. “I hope it’s a rental, the way she’s throwing up gravel.”

“What was that about?” Jack, human again, asked from behind me.

When I turned around, he was leaning against the counter, ridiculously handsome in jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. After he’d caught me one day admiring his tanned, muscled forearms, I’d been seeing that white shirt a lot.

“I have no idea. They knew at least something about the Fae issue we’ve got going on, but I don’t know how much. That woman was really unpleasant.”

Shelley raced out of the back room at the same time Susan walked in the front door.

“I was ready, Tess!” Shelley said, clutching a softball bat.

“It’s not like you need that, magic girl,” Susan said dryly.

Shelley blinked. “Oh! Right!” She tossed the bat up in the air, and it flew through the room and landed on a display of sports equipment.

I was glad her first instinct wasn’t to use magic, but I also wondered how long that would last.

“So, what’s up?” Susan asked.

I filled them in on my encounter, but it didn’t amount to much in the end. They hadn’t overtly threatened me, and Susan couldn’t arrest somebody just because I didn’t like the way she’d sneered at me.

“I have sandwiches,” Jack offered.

“I got the license plate,” Susan said. “And I’ll take you up on that food. And maybe a soda with lots of caffeine, if you have any? I was up all night worrying about Carlos.”

“You’re not the only one,” Jack said. “Tess tossed and turned all night.”

I scoffed. “Like you’re not concerned. I know you two are friends, no matter how much you trash talk each other.”

“We call it Bro talk,” Shelley said, giggling. “The high school guys do it a lot.”

“Speaking of high school, did you hear the swamp troll got the science teacher job?” Susan shook her head. “They’ll hire anybody for that gig.”

“He might be great at science,” I pointed out.

“Sure. Well, Rick Peabody has his work cut out for him keeping that classroom from smelling as bad as the troll does,” the sheriff said. “Where’s that lunch?”

“He took a bath!” I called after her when she headed into the back room to wash up.

“I’ll get the food out of the truck,” Jack said. He pulled me close and kissed me. “Thanks for asking Shelley to call me. I know you can handle yourself and protect her, too, but I’m a little overprotective with everything going on.”

I leaned against him and laughed. “Jack. Calling yourself a little overprotective is like calling a hurricane a bit of a drizzle.”

“Guilty.”

“Get the lunch, already,” Susan said, walking back into the shop with cans of sodas and bottles of water in her arms. “We have strategizing to do.”

“Right,” I said. “No matter what it takes, we’re not going to let Carlos be hurt … or worse.”

“No matter what? What does that mean?” Shelley asked, looking puzzled but enthusiastic to help.

“It means I’m going to touch him. If seeing his death can help, I will not be too much of a chicken to do it.” I said it with far more conviction than I felt, because the idea scared me.

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