Page 26 of Coach
And there was possibly some sick bastard on the loose.
She had her dog, I reminded myself. One who hated men. Who was hopefully the type to bite first, ask questions later.
I should have sent her home with a gun along with the flashlight. Or, better yet, insisted she stay. I could have gone with her to her place to get her dog.
I didn’t want to scare her off, though.
I could already sense her awkwardness as we said goodbye at her car. Not regret necessarily, but something akin to uncertainty.
Maybe I shouldn’t have let it go as far as it did. But when a woman was moaning my name and begging for what she wanted, it felt wrong to deny her.
In retrospect, she might have been vulnerable after her panic attack. She may not have been thinking as straight as usual.
Oh, well.
What was done was done.
Even if she didn’t happen by at some point, this was a small town; I was bound to bump into her sometime. If not, I could always head to the pool hall to see her.
“Should we be texting Slash about it?” Colter asked.
“I’ll let him know. Get the news spreading. Not a lot of places for someone to hide in town. Don’t want to take a chance of him showing up at one of our doors.”
“Should we drive the girls home?”
“They’re probably all here for the night. Go on back in and enjoy the party. I will keep an eye on the grounds.”
I needed some time away from the conversation and music to think anyway.
“If you’re sure.”
“I am. Maybe don’t get too wasted, though. Just in case.”
To that, he gave me a nod before heading back inside.
I reached for my phone, dialing my boss’s number and listening to the ring.
“This something to do with the blackout?” he answered.
“Yeah. And no. You hear the sirens?”
“There’ve been a lot of sirens.”
“Yeah. But I’m talking about the prison sirens.”
In the background, I could hear Slash moving through the house. Then, likely, opening a window because I could hear the sirens from his end of the phone.
“Dunno if I’ve ever heard those go off before.”
“Once. When someone attempted to escape.”
“Now I see why you’re calling.”
“The dogs are out too. And someone mobilized the SVPD.”
“So someone’soutout. I’ll see what Rook can dig up. If he can dig anything up. Dunno if their computer systems are up and running during an outage.”
“It would be good to know who we’re dealing with. We both know the kind of crimes some of those men went away for.”
