Page 27 of Sirens
“She turns Our Lady of Sorrows into Our Lady of Sassy Pants.” Gabe’s mouth remained unhelpful.
“You couldn’t make it stick to me then, and you won’t now, po-po!” Myrtle adopted a stance that Jet Li would have approved of.
“DeputyMcGarvey?” Maggie cut in, one auburn brown raised. “I didn’t realize you moonlighted as hotel security.”
“I don’t. This is what we call a bust.”
“Oh, come on now, McGarvey.” Myrtle turned to face him, fists planted on her tiny—and probably brand-new—hips. “We were just doing a little historical research.”
“At midnight? Without permission?” Trent raised an eyebrow. “That’s calledtrespassingat best, and possibly breaking and entering.”
“Look, I’m really sorry about this.” Maggie brushed back a lock of red hair, her green eyes earnest. “This was all my idea. I’ll confess to you that I’m here in Townsend Harbor on business.”
“What business is predicated on B&E?” Trent challenged.
“Investigative reporting on historical cold cases. Ever heard of Madame Katz?”
“Now you’re just making up names.”
Her brow pinched in an adorable scowl. “She’s a local legend who died under incredibly mysterious circumstances. The story goes that she was involved in shanghaiing sailors from this old brothel-turned-hotel. I’ve been all over the records, and the original blueprints of the building don’t show it, but there’s a hidden passage I wanted to explore to help prove it for my…investigation.”
Trent tapped his fingers against his bicep, wishing he didn’t want to trust her when it was charmingly obvious she was feeding him the kind of bullshit Myrtle slung for a living. “Investigating what, an A&E special or aNew Yorkerarticle or something like that?”
“Somethingexactlylike that,” Maggie said with a coy smile.
Trent’s gaze lingered a moment too long on the confident tilt of her chin, the playful defiance in her stance. And as the cool night pressed against them, he felt the warmth of curiosity blooming in his chest—not just about Madame Katz, but about the woman who planned to bring her story to life.
Did he trust her?
Did he trust anyone?
Gathering each of their IDs, he shook his head at the absurdity of what his job had become. “Am I going to find any warrants when I run these?” he asked, only half joking.
“None from this millennium, bucko!” Myrtle mouthed off. “But I’ve caught charges older than your tight little butt.”
Gabe only lifted his shoulder and ran a surprisingly steady hand through his close-cropped dark hair.
Maggie adopted a faux-innocent look that fooled exactly no one.
Trent ducked into the driver’s seat and squinted at the glowing laptop screen, his fingers flying over the keys as he ran background checks on his midnight marauders.
Gabe’s record popped up first: a mosaic of car theft and youthful defiance splattered with Boston’s grit. “No surprises there,” Trent muttered, eyeing the mechanic whose tattoos told stories darker than the night sky.
Myrtle shocked him with a rap sheet that unfurled like a scroll of ancient parchment. “Myrtle… You were quite the uh, green thumb in your day.”
“Reefer madness! Wait until you get to my civil disobedience decades!” the woman crowed proudly. “In the sixties and seventies, I looped all the holes, stuck it to the man—and a few women if they wanted it—fought for civil rights and women’s rights, and for it all I’ve spent eighty-one total days in the pokey and am banned from the St. Louis airport, most of Russia, Texas, Florida, and all the Offices Depot.” She turned to Gabe. “Don’t ask now, but I’ll show you a cool trick with a hole punch and a rolling chair later.”
“Fuck yeah, Myrtle.” She and Gabe shared a gentle fist bump that made Trent’s eye twitch.
But it was Maggie’s file that had him genuinely taken aback—a blot on an otherwise spotless record. “Breaking and entering, South Temple, Mass?” he said, disbelief shading his tone as he glanced at her. “Resisting arrest? Obstruction of justice? You’re a repeat offender.”
“Only when history calls for it,” Maggie fired back, her shoulders squared. “That arrest was for a similar investigation of mine, and the officer was like the Count of Assholvania, and because I’d broken into a federal building, he reported me to the FB-fucking-I and it was a whole-ass thing.” She threw her arms up as if she couldn’t believe the gall. “I almost caught federal charges. What a crock.”
“Yeah, you snuck into a federal building.”
“It was a library, not the Pentagon.” She rolled her eyes.
Trent felt like a Karen when he muttered, “Still. it wasn’t right. It wasn’t the honorable thing to do.”
