Page 69 of Sirens
“Oh my God, oh my God!” Maggie yelped, slapping at herself as the creatures whizzed by and shot out into the tunnel beyond her. Panting hard, she turned back to her phone and scrambled backward on all fours.
Her impact on the wall behind her wasn’t as hard as she’d expected.
Partly because the wall seemed to fall away the second she hit it.
Her confusion was intense, but brief, as she tumbled blinking into daylight.
In the hallway outside Sirens.
Directly at McGarvey’s feet.
TWELVE
Dirty
A “DIRTY” DRINK WILL HAVE A SLIGHT TWIST IN COLOR AND TASTE BY CHANGING A CORE INGREDIENT
“I knowwhat this looks like, but we’re totally not going to fuck!”
Maggie waved to Cady Bloomquist by way of greeting as McGarvey marched her down the block across the street from Nevermore Bookstore.
The busty blonde bookseller and an alarming number of Water Street’s other shop owners and assorted patrons had spilled out of their respective boutiques to gawk at the sight of Deputy McGarvey marching her down the street with a hand on the back of her neck.
His fingers flexed ever so slightly against her skin every time she got to the wordfuckin the phrase she’d been tossing out to the gawkers like so many Mardi Gras beads. Served the fucker right for refusing to speak to her.
“Uh…okay?” Cady called back, lifting a hand whose index finger was still sandwiched between the pages of the book she’d been selling to the woman beside her, who looked confused, ifnot exactly upset, to have her purchase interrupted for this local spectacle.
“Hey, Maggie!” Parked on the sidewalk in front of Bazaar Girls was Gemma, something with a lot of pink and red unspooling from her rapidly clicking knitting needles.
“Hey, Gemma,” Maggie shouted back. “Just so you know, I’m very aware that since I’m being steered down the street toward Deputy Trent McGarvey’s place of residence by Deputy Trent McGarvey, I’m technically subject to the local ordinance that states that it must be assumed that we’re about to fuck?—”
Flex.
“But I just wanted to clarify that I will not, in fact, be fucking Deputy Trent McGarvey, if that’s something you’d like to incorporate into the city council’s next meeting minutes.”
“Duly noted!” the petite brunette called back, her thumb jutting up from fingerless gloves in the same shade of apple green as her plaid skirt.
So it continued for the remainder of the block, Maggie’s recitation repeated in forms customized to the various Water Street business owners and their patrons, punctuated with the occasional tinkle of storefront bells as more onlookers emerged to gape.
And also to openly discuss Myrtle’s crap-tastic coup and subsequent shituation with Mayor Stewart.
Both of which, Maggie gathered by his air of general cold-blooded contempt, McGarvey had the distinct displeasure of resolving.
“Really, you should be thanking me,” Maggie muttered out the side of her mouth as they approached the entrance to his building. “I’m over preserving your sterling reputation while you march down the block like that menacing, mercury-looking motherfucker fromTerminator 2: Judgment Day.”
McGarvey at last released his grip on her neck, the evening-chilled air cool where his fingers had been as he unlocked the building’s main door and held it open for her.
Maggie hesitated, clutching the purse that Darby had rushed over to give her before McGarvey herded her toward the pub’s exit.
“I could bolt right now, you know,” she pointed out, parking a hand on her hip as she looked up at him. “So technically, the fact that I’mnotbolting right now would make me agood girl, wouldn’t it?”
McGarvey’s gaze remained implacably calm and maddeningly neutral.
“Too soon?” she suggested, giving him a nudge with her elbow.
Apparently so.
With a sigh, Maggie began to climb the stairs, moving aside when she hit the landing so he could unlock his front door.
