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Anger and exasperation vied for supremacy. “Can’t you just answer the question? Your evasions are really irritating.”
“What makes you think I’m dodging?”
She battled an urge to bash her head on the steering wheel. “You answer every question with a question. But the answer you’re seeking is—when you’re with the chief, your body language isn’t that of two men who just met.”
“You’re a body-language expert?”
Cocky bastard. “Let’s just say it’s a hobby. Where did you train?”
“Marine Corps.”
“Mar—” And then it hit her. “You’re Roth’s friend. The one who—” Lost his career over an eye injury. Piper and Madison had mentioned him. But Sam had the sunglasses back in place, so June couldn’t check for visible damage. “You just got out,” she amended when he stiffened.
“Affirmative.” His head turned toward her. There was no reflection in his lenses despite the sun rising behind her back. But then, a sniper wouldn’t want to give away his position with a glint in the sunshine, and Sam, according to the stories she’d heard from Piper, had been a scout sniper like Roth.
“How much visual impairment do you have?”
Tawny brows slammed down behind his shades and those soft lips compressed into a firm line. “Enough to lose my job, but not enough to keep me from doing this one.”
Dear Lord, please keep me from beating this man to death with my baton.
“What made you become a cop?”
“Roth needed help. Do you put everyone through an interrogation or am I special?”
June was the patient one in her family, the peacemaker, the temper soother, the freakin’ Rock of Gibraltar. If her siblings could see how close she was to totally losing her control at this moment, they’d be shocked.
“You’re carrying a loaded weapon and supposed to be watching my back. That makes you pretty darned special—to me. I don’t doubt your skills as a Marine or at handling weapons since you and Roth are still alive, but have you had Basic Law Enforcement Training or worked as an MP?”
“Negative. As the chief knows. But I don’t engage without intel. Roth sent me BLET textbooks and Quincey’s regulations. I’m prepared.”
Textbook trained. No practical experience. Sam must be desperate for a job. And Roth...well, he was a really good friend to Sam. Sympathy battled frustration. Sam might be an obnoxious ass, but his career had been taken from him, and he was struggling to find a new place. The way veterans were treated was shameful. As her godfather had been, Sam would be a fish out of water until he found his footing. That went a long way toward explaining his defensive behavior and bitten-off responses.
She could help him adjust. But to do that she had to accept that he wasn’t going to be an equal partner for a while. He’d be like a rookie, a liability, and she was responsible for making sure nothing happened to the chief’s pal until Sam was ready to work on his own.
The real challenge would be helping him without smacking the inconsiderate, rude jerk upside his handsome head. No small task. But she, the mediator and voice of reason in the Jones clan, was up to it.
She hoped.
* * *
OVER THE PAST three hours Sam had been grilled by what seemed like half the population of Quincey. He felt like a carcass—after the buzzards had finished their meal. Capture and interrogation would have been easier because at least then he wouldn’t have had to be polite.
June checked her mirrors, then pulled the cruiser back onto the road again. Sam spotted yet another citizen a quarter mile away “checking her mail,” and June, predictably, lifted her foot from the gas pedal.
“Are we going to stop every fifty yards?” Sam groused.
“The chief ordered me to introduce you to the people you’ve sworn to protect and serve.”
“My sisters are less nosy.”
The smirk on her face was unmistakable.
“You’re enjoying this,” he accused.
“Oh yeah.” She flashed a blinding white smile. His heart jolted—but only as a result of her driving through a pothole that should have broken the front axle. The irregular rhythm had nothing to do with the mischievous sparkle in her green eyes.
“How old are your sisters?”
He had a feeling she hadn’t missed one thing the citizens of Quincey had tortured out of him. “Forty-four, forty-one and thirty-nine,” he bit out through clenched teeth. He’d managed to avoid answering June’s questions, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell the octogenarian at their last stop to mind her own business.
“And you’re what? Thirty-seven? Thirty-six?”
Did he look that old? He tried not to be insulted. But hell, he was. “Thirty-one.”
“Big age gap. I would never have guessed you’re the baby.”
Something in her tone stiffened his spine. “Why?”
“Youngest children are usually charming people pleasers, and you are definitely not, Deputy Rivers. Were you a surprise baby?”
She was just full of joy today, wasn’t she? “My mother’s second marriage.”
“Ah.”
“What in the hell is that supposed to mea—” The squawk of their radios cut him off.
“Jones. Report.”
Sam ID’d Roth’s voice.
“On Deer Trail, Chief,” June responded. “Still making the rounds.”
“Someone’s egging cars over on Oak Hill. Check it out.”
“Will do.” She flipped on the blue lights, accelerated and waved as they passed a senior citizen waiting by her mailbox. Despite the woman’s obvious disappointment, June didn’t stop. Sam said a silent thank-you. He’d been grilled enough today.
“Eggers are usually kids, aren’t they?” he speculated. “And kids should be in school.”
“Speaking from experience?”
He refrained from answering. A few miles later she rounded a bend, slowed and turned off the lights simultaneously. He spotted two heads rising from the ragweed in the ditch, arms reared back. Boys. In their early teens. They dropped their ammo and took off.
“We have runners,” she said into her radio. June threw the car into Park, flung open her door and raced after the kids. Sam followed, a beat behind, logging details as he sprinted through the waist-high weeds. Deputy Jones was fast and agile. The boys split up.
“Take right,” June called over her shoulder, then veered after the one on the left.
Sam thundered across the unfamiliar terrain. He was used to creeping undetected, not trampling plants, careless of the noise he made. Adrenaline pumping, he went down into a shallow creek bed and back up the other side, gaining on his target and ignoring the briars ripping at his clothes. “The farther you run, the more you’ll piss me off,” he shouted, but his quarry didn’t slow.
Sam could take down and incapacitate an insurgent in seconds, but he had no clue how to deal with a troublemaking kid not wearing explosives. This one showed no signs of surrendering. Sam made a running tackle, banded his arms around the brat and hit the dirt. He rolled to take as much of the impact as he could and skidded across the leafy forest floor holding on to the bucking boy. When they stopped, he pinned the kid to the ground and scrambled for the cuffs on his belt. It took a couple of tries with the unfamiliar equipment before he had the subject hog-tied. Now what?
He rose and yanked the redheaded, freckle-faced youth to his feet. They were both breathing hard.
“I didn’t do anything,” Freckles shouted.
“Then why’d you run? Running from cops can get you shot.”
“It was Joey’s idea.”
No loyalty. A Marine would never give up his man. “Let’s go.”
Grabbing the narrow biceps, he frog-marched the teen back to the patrol car and met June and her quarry strolling side by side out of the woods. No cuffs. She took one look at Sam and though she said nothing, her disapproval was clear in the hiking of those golden eyebrows and her down-turned lips.
“Suspects apprehended,” she said into her shoulder radio. “It’s Joey and Tyler.”
“Affirmative,” Roth responded.
“What were you thinking?” she asked the boys as they approached the patrol car.
“Aw, c’mon, June, it’s not like we were hurting anything.”
“Eggs damage paint. Get in the back, Joey.”
“But, June—”
“Save it.”
Sam circled to the opposite side of the cruiser and opened the door. That was when he noticed neither June nor her kid were covered in leaves, twigs and debris the way Sam and his prisoner were.
“Deputy Rivers, please remove the cuffs before putting Tyler in the back.”
The kids referred to her by name, and she knew theirs. Frequent fliers? She returned to the ditch, grabbed a basket, which she put in the trunk, then climbed back behind the wheel. She acted as calm as if they’d taken their guests on a picnic. His blood was pumping. This was probably routine for her. Not so for him.
“That’s Miss Letty’s basket, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” she repeated when they ducked their heads and didn’t answer. “You know she and her son live off what she grows. She’s poor, and Jim Bob isn’t like the rest of us. And you took their food. Shame on you.” The boys shrank into their seats.
“You’re not gonna call our parents, are you?” the one Sam had nailed wailed.
“Oh, I’ll talk to your parents, but first I have something else in mind.”
Sam glanced through the grate and saw worry and dread in the faces too young to shave. “Vandalism is a crime. Do you want a criminal record to ruin your futures?” He used his sternest voice, trying to scare the piss out of them. Their pale faces and wide eyes told him it had worked.
“Guys, this is Deputy Rivers. Sorry you had to meet this way.” June put the car in motion, heading away from the station instead of toward it. Was she going to torture her passengers with the same parade through town Sam had endured?
Two klicks down the road she turned up a dirt driveway flanked by overgrown grass and weeds. A small, old, formerly white clapboard house smaller than his rental came into view. She tooted the horn. A tiny woman as weathered as the peeling building came out the front door. The teens sunk even deeper into the seat with a chorus of Oh man’s.
June got out and released her passenger. Following her lead, Sam did the same. Then she retrieved the basket from the trunk. Sam kept an eye on the boys, expecting them to bolt.
“Miss Letty, this is Deputy Rivers. He helped me catch these rascals. They’ve been in your henhouse.”
June cut a razor-sharp glance at the boys, who shuffled their feet and tucked their chins, then mumbled, “Sorry, Miss Letty.”
“Ya stole my eggs?”
Heads bobbed. “Yes, ma’am.”
June passed her the basket. “There are a few left. After school tomorrow Tyler and Joey will each bring you two dollars.”
They boys eyed June, then each other in dismay.
“Well, I...” the old lady started to protest.
“It’s the least they can do, Miss Letty.”
The old woman nodded. “I’d appreciate that.”
June snapped her fingers. “Back in the car, boys.”
Sam was more than a little surprised when they docilely did as ordered. June crossed to the old woman and gave her a hug. “Have a nice afternoon, Miss Letty. Tell Jim Bob I said hello. I’ll be back on Thursday with banana bread. If these boys don’t show tomorrow, you let me know.”
“What was that about?” Sam asked her over the car’s roof after the boys were back in the car and before she opened her door.
“Around here we don’t steal, and we take care of our own.”
Take Care of Your Own was a motto Marines lived by and could be iffy if abused. Was June overstepping her authority by forcing the boys to pay the woman? Seemed like it.
Again June steered away from the station. Approximately ten klicks down the road she turned the cruiser into a church parking lot, and the boys groaned. “C’mon, June. We’re sorry.”
“You will be.”
The building was old enough to have a historic marker out front. Founded in 1898 by Ezekiel Jones, it proclaimed. Signs along the road and driveway advertised a barbecue fund-raiser being held this Saturday.
“Just call our parents, please,” Carrottop pleaded.
“I did that last time. It didn’t work, did it? ’Cause here you are, hitching a ride with me again,” June replied. “This is the second time I’ve picked you two up for malicious mischief.”
She stopped the cruiser in front of the stone house beside the church, exited the car and then released their prisoners. The boys exchanged panicked glances.
“Don’t even think about running,” June warned, and the boys’ shoulders sagged. “I’m faster than both of you and I know where you live.”
They obediently followed her up the walk with scuffing feet and bowed heads. No cuffs. No use of force. What in the hell? Each one outweighed her but they made no attempt to escape. Sam took rear guard just in case. June knocked on the arched wooden door and a few moments later it opened, revealing an older man in a suit.
“Hi, Daddy.”
The words floored Sam. June was a preacher’s daughter? Then he noticed the lack of welcome in the man’s eyes—the same green as June’s—and the absence of a hug. His father would have crushed him with one if he’d shown up on the doorstep. That thought drove a bayonet of guilt into Sam’s ribs. He wanted to talk to his father, to get his advice, and yet he didn’t want to admit failure. Being separated from the corps was definitely a failure. Unless he could fix it.
“Justice.”
“Joey and Tyler have come to volunteer their services to the church this Saturday. They’d like to wash cars during your barbecue. They won’t charge the church, but they’ll accept donations for the youth mission fund.”
