Page 32 of Brewbies
Darby shuddered. “I’d rather not think about where Roy puts his fingers, if it’s all the same to you.”
Fawkes’ flannel-clad shoulders bunched toward his ears. “Might be worth looking into, is all I’m saying.”
“Any suggestions as to how I might go about that?” Darby asked, picking a brown leaf from a pot of slut-red geraniums.
The table creaked as Fawkes shifted his weight forward. Better the table to bear his considerable mass than the bench, she supposed.
“Seems the people who were chummy with Roy while Caryn was trying to get control of Nevermore haven’t spent much time with him lately.”
“And you know that because…” Darby trailed off.
Anger transformed Fawkes’ already brutal features into something more primal. Lethal, even. “Because they fucked with Cady. Once you fuck with Cady, I will never not have eyes on you.”
A smile creased Darby’s lips despite the graveness of the sentiment. Every heart as sweet and kind as Cady’s should have one as fierce and loyal as Fawkes’ protecting it at all costs. Darby of all people knew how rare and precious such a thing was.
“Any suggestions as to how I might best approach our friend Roy? He doesn’t seem to like anyone very much.”
From the same ether that Fawkes had materialized, he now produced a small plastic-sealed box and held it out to her.
Darby set the hose aside and took it. “Cigars?”
“Cohibas are his favorite. Smokes one every evening in the alley next to his shop.”
She resisted the urge to tease him about liking to watch after a particular memory a pink-cheeked Cady had shared during their discussion of voyeurism in Christina Lauren’sBeautiful Strangercame to mind. A novel Myrtle had pronounced “a first-class snatch soaker,” to Darby’s delight.
“Anything else you can share?” she asked.
“He’s not a local. He moved to town about ten years ago.”
This surprised her. His run-down secondhand shop occupied a primo spot on Water Street. Darby had assumed Roy owned the building since before efforts had been made to double down on Townsend Harbor’s allure as a tourist trap, and had flatly refused to sell.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.
Fawkes pushed himself off the table and turned to leave.
“Wait,” Darby said. “You at least have to let me send you home with some coffee.”
Fawkes only shook his head. “Appreciate the offer, but Cady likes to look at the menu to decide what she wants.”
“But she orders the same thing every day,” Darby pointed out.
“Yep,” he agreed. “But it adds an extra five minutes to our trip.”
“That’s so fucking adorable I think I might actually vomit,” she said, tucking the cigar box next to the envelope. “See you later, then, I guess?”
“See you then.” He turned to go again but paused at the edge of her tulip border, his gaze swiveling back toward her camper. “Where’s your bike?”
Darby glanced at the hitch where she’d secured her mangled bike the night before. Sure enough, it was missing.
The chain was still there, lying in a loop on the ground like a discarded snakeskin. It had been cut cleanly with something sharp and strong enough to slice through the steel chain like butter. She bent down and ran her fingers over the cuts, knowing in an instant who had taken it and why.
A florid string of curses escaped her then, Ethan Townsend’s name strung between the various insults like pearls.
She was panting when she finished, her bathrobe sticking to her with the fine sheen of sweat that had erupted during her tirade.
Fawkes had observed all of this silently, a shadow passing behind his eyes and vanishing just as quickly before he spoke.
“Be careful of Sheriff Townsend. He’s got the nice-guy act down. But he’s a lot more brutal than anybody knows.” Fawkes’ hands tightened into ham-sized fists at his sides as he glanced back at her over his shoulder. “Even himself.”
