When You Were Mine (Stone Lake 2)

“What’s this about?” Larry wonders, his eyes narrowing.

“Just a friendly question. Surely, you don’t have a problem answering it, do you? You have nothing to hide after all.”

“I don’t have anything to hide,” Larry says.

“Then, where were you?” Kingston grills him.

Larry stays silent and suddenly he looks very nervous. I’m smelling weakness here, and I have to say I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m not liking where this conversation is going. Maybe you two should be talking to my lawyer.”

“All we’re asking is where you were at this morning. Surely that’s a question you can answer without a lawyer, Larry,” I taunt.

“I was home, with my wife,” he answers. “You’re welcome to check with her.”

“We may just do that,” I respond and something about his demeanor and the nervousness that shows on his face tells me he’s lying.

“Whatever. Are we done here?”

“For now,” I tell him while Kingston and I stand up and walk to the door. Just as I’m about to leave Larry’s office I turn to look at him. “Just one more thing, Larry.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t make any plans to leave town right now,” I respond, and I don’t explain any farther, I just let my words hang between us.

They at least serve one purpose.

They take that self-important-full-of-himself look off his face.

Gavin

“Do you really think Oakes was out job hunting today?” Kingston probes, as I turn my signal on and merge into the traffic on the interstate.

“Who knows anything is possible, he does have a parole officer to report to.”

“True enough. So we haven’t really accomplished shit today. You going to go talk to Larry’s wife?”

“Not today. I’m going to head back and have Sam run some checks on Larry.”

“Now that would be handy,” Kingston mutters.

I spare him a glance and see him doing something on his phone. He’s probably texting Luna. My hands tighten up on the steering wheel—mostly to resist the urge to rip the phone out of his hand.

How did life get so fucking complicated?

More importantly, how many times am I going to ask myself that and feel trapped by all the shit that’s happened up to this point and not do something about it? I’m going to have to try and fix shit. I have no idea how or where to start first, but it needs done, that much I do know.

“What would be handy?” I ask him, counting down the minutes until Kingston is out of my car.

“Having a tech guy to do research. Here, it’s pretty much us and the way we run checks is going out and rattling cages.”

“I still do a fuck of a lot of that. If I didn’t, I sure as hell wouldn’t have forced myself to go see Larry Richards.”

“You should have let me hit that son of a bitch.”

“He would have sued you and/or the department. Probably the city, which would have brought Luna into it.”

“So you were protecting her,” he laughs dryly.

“Well, mostly I wanted to push Larry and see what tells he had. Determine what I could learn from him. I couldn’t do that if you two were beating the shit out of each other.”

“Fair enough. But I could have handled ole’ Larry.”

“He’s got a pretty mean left if I remember correctly.”

“You’ve fought?”

“Back in high school. He put his hands on Luna, said some shit to her.” I shrug it off, wondering why memories from all that time ago have to be so damn easy to recall.

“You think he has a history of violence against women?”

“I think the urge to do that kind of thing doesn’t just disappear, so it’s possible. I never saw him hit another girl in those days. But he was a dick back then and he definitely is still a dick today.”

“You can say that again,” he says finally putting away his phone. “I’ve never had domestic calls against him, but sadly that doesn’t mean shit. Too often women don’t report creeps like that.”

“You sound like you’ve had firsthand experience with that shit.”

“My father was a bastard,” he says simply, and I know there’s a bigger story, but I let it go. Kingston is not my concern. “So, are we saying Larry Richards is our prime suspect?” he asks.

“He is until we rule him out, I suppose. Something isn’t hitting right though. He had a connection with Skylar sure, but from everything my office has dug up there’s nothing linking him with Elaine.”

“She was a bartender at the only watering hole in Stone Lake. Maybe that’s the only link we need.”

“Maybe,” I mutter, still not convinced.

We drive in silence for a little longer. I don’t really want to talk to Kingston, and I’m sure he probably feels the same. I’m about to reach over and turn the radio on when he speaks up.

“I don’t want to like you, Lodge.”