Page 74 of Rest In Pink

“Weare gonna find out tomorrow because you have to bring me, too. After violin.”

“Okay.” I was too tired to fight.

God, I needed sleep.

Peri kept talking. “And now we’ll go get ice cream and then pick up some bears.”

Normally I do not take orders from seven-year-olds, but our interests in this case aligned.

“Fine,” I said, and headed for Dairy Queen.

Chapter Thirty-Three

I could tell Rain was impressed by Will. He’d driven down the road and backed the tow truck where his big spotlights could illuminate the Mercedes in the gathering darkness. Then he got out and walked all around, getting down on his belly a couple of times to check things out.

“I could have winched it out,” I noted as Will joined Rain and me at the tow truck.

“Fuck, no,” Rain muttered.

Will took her side. “You’d probably have ripped off the front bumper on the lip of the road, Vince. There’s more to this than just brute strength.”

“You tell him, brother,” Rain said.

“Give me a break,” I said to no one in particular because that was the only person listening to me.

Will then got to work with chains and thick nylon tow straps and a spanner. He attached them to a couple of places under the Mercedes. Then he spent a few minutes adjusting the length of the chains using pins through links.

“I’d have been done by now,” I said to my friend, no one.

Will seemed satisfied with his rigging. There were a bunch of knobbed levers on the control panel on the side of the tow truck. Will took off his heavy gloves and cracked his knuckles, which I’d never seen him do before, which meant he was showing off for Rain. Then he began to work the levers and I honestly had no idea how complicated it was controlling the winch and the big tow arm, but it was impressive. My winch has two modes: in and out.

Less than ten seconds later, the Mercedes was on the road, unscathed.

“You are my hero,” Rain said to him.

“It’s my pleasure to serve,” Will said with a slight bow and then I realized he might be flirting with Rain, which meant he hadn’t yet heard what she’d told Belinda in the Red Box this morning. Which meant he must have been locked in a soundproof box all day. Then again, Will had never been one for the rumor mill.

But it also threw me because I’d never looked at Rain that way, even before I learned she was gay. From the first time I met her getting on the Chinook in Afghanistan she’d been a fellow Ranger, then a friend, and then I’d found out she was gay and, well, I’d just neverlookedat her. And I realized now she was gorgeous, her face all high cheekbones and dark eyes, her body tall and lean, and then I wondered for the first time if Liz had a problem with me hanging out with her, even though we were doing work, because, yeah, I’d had a problem when I saw her old flame, Cash, and Anemone had said he was handsome.

Will went to the car and removed all the chains and straps.

“What do I owe you?” Rain asked.

Will smiled at her. “Were you up here on official police business? The city will pay.”

“It was official,” I said. “We were chasing Mickey Pitts.”

Will’s flirtatious mood disappeared in an instant. “He’s out?”

He really was not in the Burney gossip loop. “Three months now.”

“Oh, geez,” Will said. “That’s not good.” His eyes widened. “He burned the factory and the museum, didn’t he?”

“Why do you say that?” Rain asked.

“Mickey burned down the old church when he was twelve,” Will said. “Word is he burned places in Cincinnati before George sent him to prison for drugs.”

“Why did he burn the church?” Rain asked. Which I had not thought to ask Hen at the park.

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