Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

Holy shit. Drugs? Shootings?

“Is this about that man and woman on the news? The ones who were shot?” I hissed, looking around me again and relieved when I didn’t see anyone.

“Think so, they’re the only shootings I’ve heard about. Anyway, somehow it all leads back to the Kirkwoods, and now they’re saying Ingleston’s been in on it for years, too.”

“How do you know all of this?”

Clearing his throat with a cough, he rasped, “Never you mind—” My betting was that Hurst had told Logan’s grandfather, Bill, who’d then told Dad “—but I’m betting his goal was to distract Logan with you and us with Pops’ grave. Well, we’re too smart for that.”

“What if there were complaints against me?”

“You hear from Teller yet?”

“No?”

Dad sighed impatiently like I was being dense. Maybe I was, but I’d just been thrown into a situation that made no sense to me and scared the ever-loving God out of me.

“If he had complaints about something like that, trust me, you’d know by now. Ain’t no way he’d be letting you near the students tomorrow, and he’d have to tell you that and why. Now, no news is good news, so you get on with what you were doing and leave the rest to us.”

And then he hung up, just like that, leaving me open-mouthed in the middle of the store.

Somehow I managed to get everything else I needed—and a lot I didn’t need and didn’t remember putting in the cart—and got back to my car. My baby had arrived this morning along with the boxes of stuff I’d brought with

me that were now neatly stacked in the last available spaces in the garage.

I’d only just turned the engine on when a shrieking noise sounded, scaring the shit out of me. The Bluetooth connection between my car and phone had synced automatically, meaning that my phone was ringing through it—and the volume on it was all the way at the top.

With my left hand, I hit blindly at the button to answer it on the steering wheel while lunging to lower the volume with my other hand.

“Hello? Hello?”

“Why do you sound like you just got caught doing something?” Logan’s deep voice asked, sounding amused.

Explaining what had happened, I managed to smile for the first time in ages as I listened to him laugh. I was going to have to ruin his day by telling him what else had happened, but just for one minute, I wanted to enjoy this moment of calm before the shit hit the fan.

“I was just calling to—” A voice behind him said something, cutting him off. “One second, baby.”

Backing out of the spot I’d parked in, I went to take the turning that would take me home but decided to go left instead, which would take me past P.V.P.D. where he was. I was using the extra time to figure out how to tell him what’d happened, and maybe if I was in front of him, it would make a difference?

Not once in all of it did I think that in small towns, news traveled quickly. I really should have, though.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Logan’s voice roared into the car, making me squeak. “He threatened you? He threatened Pops?”

I was three minutes away from his building, but I needed to calm him down now. “Only a little?”

“A little?” he snapped, sounding incredulous. “He tried to imply that you’d advocated for everything to be cool and well with rape.” Eh, that was about right. “And then said he was exhuming Pops out of his final resting place, and he couldn’t be buried in the town limits. Are you seriously telling me that’s a little?”

Hitting the indicator to pull into the parking lot in front of the department, I wiggled my head from side to side, like I was thinking about it. He was right, but we couldn’t figure this out if he was heated.

“From what I can tell, he can’t do anything,” I told him as I cut the engine and picked up my phone now that the call wasn’t coming through the speakers. “I know you can’t talk about it, but—”

Another voice called his name. “One second, baby. Mark needs to tell me something.” He was back almost instantly. “You have a Prius?”

I’d just been getting out of the car when he asked it, so I looked up expecting to see him, but he wasn’t there. “Where are you?”

“Please tell me you don’t drive a Prius.”

“It’s good for the environment and drives like a dream,” I said defensively, rubbing the top of the car. “Plus, I got it in black, so it looks badass.”