Page 13 of All You Want
“Can you turn on the siren?” Her finger hovers over the keypad, and my naughty mind imagines them drawing circles over my hot skin. “Wow, you have a lot of sounds. Which one?”
“Try none.” I have the urge to trap her hand and hold it, but since I’m on official business and she’s a civilian, I have to refrain. “There’s no crime in progress. Routine response means no siren.”
“Too bad,” she says. “I love to hear the sounds of police in pursuit. Yelp or wail? Oh… I bet you pulse a lot.”
I don’t have to wonder how much yelping, wailing, and pulsing she’ll emit in bed. I’m sure I’ll need a soundproof room, soft and full blankets, and lots of pillows. If only I can stop getting hard whenever she’s around. It’s torture having her jiggling in such tight quarters. Not that the Chevy Tahoe PPV is small, but I’m a man who likes to spread out my prey.
Better shut it down, Colson. This is official police business. The hot hitchhiker will have to wait.
Fortunately, there’s no traffic today, so we arrive at the former red-light district quickly. I let Tami off to go talk to the ghost hunter while I meet the workers to take a report about the stolen equipment. The dumpster fire is out, thanks to the fire department, and the ambulance is tending to the injured worker.
I interview the foreman who says Juan missed the zipline because he was talking on the phone. To be on the safe side, I give the line a tug, and it’s tight and functioning. Before he leaves in the ambulance, Juan confirms that it was an accident and wonders why anyone would call the police.
I have no answer. This is a small town, and people get bored easily, or they watch too many crime shows on television and imagine conspiracies around every corner.
Construction resumes after I finish questioning the workers, and I can see Tami strutting around the property with that sneaky-looking Evan Graves. He’s carrying a baseball bat and swinging it around to show her how he’ll confront any prowlers out to steal supplies.
It’s a perfectly sunny, although chilly day in the mountains, and he’s skulking around in a trench coat while hiding his face under a wide-brimmed hat that covers his skull-like bald head. The only thing that’s missing is a pipe and a lackey saying, “No shit, Sherlock,” following him around.
I’ve already run a background check on Mr. Graves. He’s squeaky clean. No priors, no arrests, no warrants, not even a speeding ticket.
I’m not buying it, and I’m going to ask Tami where she found him and how she can afford his big fees.
When I return to the station, Molly has her crusty old hiking boots on my desk, and she’s reading a dog-eared paperback. She’s a small woman, petite and peppy like a Yorkshire terrier, but her bark is gruff and booming like that of a St. Bernard. I can easily hear her halfway down the street, and the term library voice means nothing to her.
“Everything okay at the Bee Sting?” she asks, snapping the book shut.
“I need you to look into Evan Graves. I’m betting that’s not his real name.” I give her the stink eye while she lowers her feet and pushes her ergonomic chair from my desk.
“Did you look at his website?” No matter how respectful she pretends to be, she can’t hide the superior snark from her voice. Not sure why, because as far as I’m concerned, she’s a sympathy hire and foisted on me by the town council—something about jobs for local residents to get them off welfare. For that, I’m supposed to ignore her tardiness, calling in sick, and gossiping on the phone. Lucky for us, ninety percent of the calls we get are annoyance calls—complaints about neighbor’s barking dogs, misplaced flowerpots or yard tools, or drive-by requests to question suspicious characters spotted in residential areas.
“That’s what I have you for.” I sweep a pile of paperwork across the desk. “I’ve a meeting with the mayor on the logistics for policing Spooky Fest.”
“Oh, Spooky Fest. I can’t wait. Think I should go as a witch? You will give me the day off, won’t you?”
She’ll take off anytime she feels like it, so I might as well be magnanimous.
“Mark the days you want on the calendar, and I’ll see if I can get one of the volunteers to cover.” I grab a folder with the details of the private security firm Donnelly picked out and fill my thermos with coffee. The back of my neck prickles with a feeling Molly is watching me, but when I glance out the side of my eye, she appears to be clicking through a website.
There’s a mirror mounted on her computer monitor, and I’ve caught her quickly closing websites whenever she thought someone was spying on her.
“Anything yet?” I walk by on my way out.
“Not much. He was on a ghost-hunting reality show, but it didn’t last long, and he’s a graduate of Malibu University—same year as Tami.”
I hook an eyebrow up and lean over to look at the screen. “Do you think she knew him from college?”
Molly shrugs. “Why? Checking out the competition?”
“No.” I keep my face as hard as gray slate. “He’s in charge of the hotel’s haunted exhibits. I’m in charge of keeping Spooky Fest safe.”
“He’s a member of Sigma Epsilon Chi, the fraternity nicknamed SEX, and they’re brother-sister paired with Tami’s Eta Epsilon Chi, or HEX.” Molly says in a woo-woo tone as if it’s the most suspicious thing in the world.
I scratch my chin. “What does that mean?”
She looks over her shoulder at me and rolls her eyes. “You’ve never been outside of Colson’s Corner, I see.”
“Of course, I have,” I sputter, hating to be put on the defensive. “What else do you have on this charlatan?”
