City of the Lost (Rockton 1)

"Never had tequila?" I ask.

"Nope."

"It's not going to taste good," I say.

"Then what's the point?"

I shake my head and down my shot. It burns all the way, that delicious heat that muffles my brain on contact.

He eyes me and then takes his shot. He only gets about two-thirds in before sputtering and coughing. He squeezes his eyes shut, hands resting on the table. A moment's pause. He opens his eyes. "Not my way, but I get it." He finishes the shot, slower now.

"Long day, huh?" I say.

"Yeah." He pauses, glass in hand, before carefully setting it on the table and looking over, meeting my gaze as if preparing some earth-shaking pronouncement.

"It's not usually like this," he says. "In Rockton."

I laugh. I can't help it. I burst out laughing and he looks at me, as startled as if I'd broken into song. He watches me, that look on his face, the one I've come to think of as his dissection look. Like I'm an alien life form he's trying to understand.

After a moment, he says, "Yeah, I guess that's obvious. At least, you'd hope so," and he smiles, and when he does, all I can think is, Goddamn, sheriff, you should do that more often. It's the tequila, of course, and the long night and the long day and feeling like I've been walking through a minefield on tiptoes. When he smiles, it is--in an odd way--reassuring, like the ground finally steadies under my feet. Things aren't so foreign here. Even Sheriff Dalton can smile.

It only lasts a moment. He doesn't wipe it away, as if remembering he's supposed to be a jerk. It simply fades, and I realize that the "jerk" mode isn't an act. We all have our different aspects. That's one of his. So is the quiet, reflective guy who sat on the back deck with me and stared into the forest for two hours. There's a lot going on in that head, little of it simple or uncomplicated, and most of it weighed down by the responsibility of keeping the lid on this powder keg of a town. Which doesn't mean Eric Dalton is a nice guy. I don't think he can be. Not here. This is as nice as he gets, and I appreciate this glimpse, the way I appreciate the smile, and I also appreciate that he doesn't backtrack to cover it up, to be the asshole again.

I fill our shot glasses halfway. He takes his. We drink them. Not a word exchanged for at least two minutes afterward, until he says, "I'll come by at ten. Yeah, not a lot of time to sleep..."

"But we have a manhunt to launch. I know."

He nods and leaves without another word. I lock the door behind him, settle on the couch in front of the blazing fire, and soon fall asleep.

TWENTY-ONE

I only get a few hours' sleep after our manhunt, and I'm awake by the time the sun's up. I make breakfast before I head out. It's simple fare: toast and a hard-boiled egg. Well, actually, the toast is just bread with peanut butter after I burned two slices trying to brown them on the wood stove. I planned to have a fried egg, but that seemed to be pushing my luck. Figuring out the French press coffee maker had been tough enough, so I just used the leftover water for boiling my egg.

Fortunately, between what Anders has said and what Dalton explained on the drive, my poor camp-cook skills wouldn't be a serious drawback in Rockton. There are three restaurants plus a place that does takeout only. That's not so much a matter of convenience as conservation of resources--you'll waste less buying a precooked meal for one than cooking for one. The chefs are also more flexible and more skilled at making the substitutions necessary under these conditions.

Anders says the restaurant food is reasonably priced. Just don't expect the menu to be vast. Or to find the same thing on it from one day to the next. Again, it's a matter of availability and conservation. Right now, blueberries are just ending their local season, so I have a box on my counter, but in another week the only way I'll be able to get them is in jam, which the local cooks are madly bottling as the picking expeditions clear all nearby patches.

I finish my breakfast, and I'm at the office before nine. I figure Dalton will put some time in before he picks me up at ten, and I'm like the little girl who chases after her big brothers to prove she can do anything they can. I spent my youth refusing to live up to the standards set by my parents and my sister, and ironically, I spend my

adult life chasing my colleagues. At least here I have a chance, so I pursue my goals with a childhood of repressed ambition fuelling my fire.

I'm making coffee when Dalton walks in just past nine. I get a "Fuck" for my efforts.

"I was awake," I say, "and I figured you'd stop by here and get some work done before you picked me up."

"When'd you arrive?"

"Ten minutes ago."

He grunts at that, and maybe he just doesn't want me overdoing it ... or maybe I'm not the only one with a competitive streak. Either way, he carries his coffee out onto the back deck. I pour the rest of the pot into a thermos--there's no hot plate here to keep it warm. Then I take my mug and follow.

"Can I talk to you?" I ask as he settles into his chair.

"What's stopping you?"

"When you come out here, you seem to want quiet."

He shrugs. "You can talk. If I don't want to listen, I'll tell you to go away."