“Since he got released, I hear,” Rick reminded him as Rachel neared them.
“That’s right, Sheriff, what can I do you for?” Curt asked in a rocky tone. He’d planted his hands on his hips, a classic move reserved for men who were intimidated.
“Is he around?”
“Just missed him, I’m afraid,” said Curt before adding, “headed on over to Angel’s Food to grab I bite, I believe. Why?”
Rick neared the man by a few steps, closing the gap between them, as Rachel hung back and rested her hand on the butt of her holstered Glock.
“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that Swanson pleaded guilty to a double-homicide some years back,” Rick began, eyeing the man tightly to gauge his response.
“Involuntary manslaughter,” Curt dared to correct him. “I’m aware. Peter did his time. The system deemed him fit for society.”
“You believe that?”
“I hired him, didn’t I?”
“Well, as I understand it, Curt, you had a pre-existing relationship with the man before he killed two parents in cold blood.”
The look on Curt’s face told the sheriff that the mechanic didn’t much appreciate his crass choice of words, but Rick didn’t give a rat’s ass about that.
“Look, Sheriff,” the man said, softening a touch to perhaps solicit a little empathy. “Peter ain’t here. You’re welcome to come back tomorrow during business hours, or you can maybe catch him over at the diner.”
“He commutes back and forth every day to Jackson Hole?” Rick questioned.
“Or does he stay here, with you, Curt?” Rachel added, eyeing him with just as much skepticism.
“Alls I know is that he comes every mornin’, on time,” Curt told them, “and leaves at closing every night. Like I said—”
“We’ll catch you later,” Rick told him as he started back for his SUV, that mangy lab barking its head off all the while.
But Rachel wasn’t nearly so satisfied. “The afternoon of the twelth,” she began. “Was Swanson here with you?”
Curt had to reach back in his memory to properly place when the twelfth was. A look of regret washed over him and he frowned. “Peter wasn’t here that day, I’m afraid.”
Rachel cut her excited eyes to Rick, and he told her, “How’s a slice of pie sound?”
“Not as good as throwin’ that son of a bitch back in prison where he belongs.”
“He’s a good kid!” Curt insisted as they climbed back into the SUV. “I never believed he’d done a goddamn thing to those people!”
But the sheriff and his police officer were already driving down the road.
***
Lucy hadn’t taken a Xanax, hadn’t launched into a furious fit, and also hadn’t dared glance over at Kaleb for the entirety of the dinner rush. It was working.
As soon as she clocked out, she would inform Kaleb that she was planning on going her own way from then onward, and he could go his. Period.
Sure, she’d felt a panged twinge of disappointment stab through her heart at the thought. She didn’t want to have to rid Kaleb from her life. But sadly, he didn’t want to officially rid Courtney of his life, so what was she supposed to do? Ignore her instincts, fall prey to his powers of seduction, and turn into one of the dozens of girls who were clinging to the memory of Kaleb Quinn as though if they wished hard enough, he’d magically appear back in their lives, and beds? No, thank you.
Her section had quieted. Other than Kaleb, she only had two other active tables. One of them was occupied by a college-aged couple who were nursing milkshakes and caressing their hands together across their booth table. The other was an off-duty cop who had been suffering a rocky separation, his wife having refused to give up the house. He tended to linger around afterhours with the latest Guns & Ammo magazine and, from time to time, solicit Lucy’s “female perspective” on tactics like bouquets of flowers and apology cards, none of which were going to work in this guy’s case.
She topped off the cop’s mug of coffee, feeling a bit relieved that everyone who had witnessed her otherworldly, invisible leap across the diner had already left.
“Maybe a donut, Lucy?” her customer asked and she obliged him just as another man entered the diner from the street.
“Be with you in a sec!” she told the man as he neared the hostess stand. “Oh, it’s seat yourself. Feel free.”
As she selected a honey glazed donut, knowing the cop’s favorite, and brought it out to him on a plate, the recent walk-in seemed a bit hesitant about which booth to settle into, but then finally chose the one right next to the hostess stand where he could look out the window with the whole of the restaurant at his back.
At first glance, the man looked like a gym rat, like someone who had taken Crossfit to the next level. But it was more than that, Lucy realized as she neared his table. He looked hardened, through and through, perhaps in his early forties. He was short for a man, 5’9” or so, but appeared ten times his size thanks to his overly built-up musculature. His head was shaved clean and as she shot him a big, greeting smile, she noticed a dark tattoo on the side of his head. It was a series of flames, it seemed, and they spanned the length of his neck as well. His face was scarred with pockmarks and his eyes were a hard shade of blue, and when he glanced up at her, returning her gaze, there was a glimmer of recognition in those hard eyes. Or had the recognition occurred in a flash when he’d seen the nametag on her uniform?
“Welcome to Angel’s Food,” she said in her signature friendly, folksy manner. “Have you had a chance to look at the menu? Or do you need more time?”
He didn’t have a menu, she realized, which was probably her fault. When she’d invited him to seat himself, he hadn’t thought to grab one from the hostess stand. She hadn’t recognized him by face, but it was the fact that he’d overlooked snatching himself a menu that confirmed for her he really wasn’t from around here, or if he was, he definitely had never set foot in the diner.
It made her a tad uneasy that he hadn’t responded, but she paid the feeling no mind as she selected a menu herself from the stand and returned to hand it to him.
“Can’t go wrong with burgers and fries,” she suggested when he continued to just stare up at her despite the laminated options in his thick hand.
“You’re the Cooper girl, right?” he asked her.
Now she really felt uneasy. Her nametag only had her first name, but she kept her smile wide for him—tips mattered—and said, “Sure am. What’ll it be or do you need a minute?”
“Do you know who I am?” he asked, and it gave her queasy pause.
“I can’t say that I do, no. So, a burger then?”
“I’m Peter,” he told her. His eyes flared as though he was poised to read her reaction, but she didn’t have much of one, so he said, “Peter Swanson.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Peter Swanson,” she said. “I’ll give you a minute to make up your mind.”
As she turned on her heel, she heard him say, “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
She really didn’t want to turn back around and have to look at him, continue this strange conversation. If he was hitting on her, she’d know how to come back at him, flirty with a side of sass that conveyed that she was not, and would never be, interested. But if he was interested in her, it had nothing to do with asking her out on a date.
“No, I can’t say that I do,” she admitted as she turned around. “Should I?”
He just stared at her for a long moment then finally he told her, “You will.”
“Ah, okay, mister,” she retorted with a little, uncomfortable laugh. “I’m gonna do you a solid and put in an order for one double-quarter pounder cooked medium-rare. You’ll like it. I guarantee,” she told him with a folksy wink.
He grinned, revealing a silver grill where his front teeth should have been.
“I’m real sorry about your parents,” he said, but it didn’t sound like an apology. It sounded like instigation, like he was tryi
ng to get her riled up. She’d had damn near enough of it for one day thanks to Courtney and Kaleb and the radical insights of a decrepit old woman. “Just wanted to say that to your face.”
“What would you know about it?” she asked defensively, but before he could respond and before she could angle in tighter, brow furrowing, and start demanding what gave him the right and gall to even say that to her, the sheriff rounded into the diner with Officer Clancy in tow and he barked, “Swanson, a word?”
The next thing she knew, Peter let out a heavy sigh and lumbered out of the booth.
“I’m Sheriff Abernathy,” said Rick, but it wasn’t necessary. Peter was acting like he knew the drill and walked clear on out of the diner, as PO Rachel Clancy came up to Lucy.
“You okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked, spying the sheriff and Peter outside on the sidewalk.
Peter had folded his arms and was staring out into the street like a man refusing to engage, while the Sheriff pointed his finger in his face.
“That’s Swanson,” Rachel told her.
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“Lucy,” said Rachel in a gentle, sympathetic tone. “He killed your parents.”
That was it. All it took. The straw that broke the camel’s back.
Lucy felt emotions flood through her that she didn’t even know existed—fury and remorse and terror and soul-murdering sadness and also a will to kill. Her shoulders began vibration with the sudden surge of erupting sobs and her vision blurred with tears.
“Oh Christ,” Rachel breathed, pained to have caused Lucy any grief. “I should’ve been more delicate about it.”
“Why isn’t he in prison,” she blurted. “He just moseyed on in here like it’d be nothing?” she questioned, cutting her raging eyes at the police officer.
“Lucy—”
Rachel’s voice couldn’t stop her from charging around the diner counter and disappearing into the kitchen.
She wasn’t thinking, wasn’t fully in her right mind, and when she reached her locker in the back, at first, she assumed she’d find the prescription bottle she kept in her purse, shake at least two into the palm of her hand, and swallow both, finally succumbing to the fog that she’d been craving for days.
But when she had her purse in her hand, she continued on through the kitchen, brushing past Angel who called out, “Hey, whoa, Lucy?”
“I can’t be here anymore,” she told her without looking back.
She spilled out the rear exit into the crisp night air and immediately turned and stumbled through the police tape that was stretched across the bottom and top of the doorway. The yellow tape tangled around her leg, but she didn’t care. She raced up the stairs, keyed into her apartment, and didn’t stop rushing until she reached her bedroom where she threw herself on the bed, her purse bouncing to the mattress, its contents tumbling out.
What was the world coming to?
How could Peter Swanson have been released from prison?
How could he have dared to set foot in the diner?
He’d sought her out. She knew it. It was no coincidence that he’d set foot in Angel’s Food tonight.
He’d wanted to look her in the eye. Some sick need to see how much he’d destroyed her. And Lucy had crumbled like a crushed cracker under the weight of her sudden shock.
She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t quaking with emotion anymore. She was just splayed out, flat on the bed, as though the will to go on no longer coursed through her veins.
Heaving her heavy body up, she sat cross-legged on the bed with her back to the door and stared at the prescription bottle.
She hated that she wanted to take them, but who could live with the anxiety that stemmed from grief and guilt and anger. There was no control in feeling the darkness that had surged out of her heart, no light at the end of the tunnel.
So, she urgently popped the top of the orange prescription bottle off, turned the bottle upside down over her palm, and watched dozens of little pills fall. Some bounced off her hand, others slipped through her fingers, but a handful stayed in her palm. What was stopping her from taking all of them?
Nothing.
But she’d never been that dramatic and knew that getting her stomach pumped over in Jackson Hole would not be the perfect end to a perfect day.
She pinched only two pills between her fingers, placed them on her tongue, and dry-swallowed them down, pinching her eyes shut and promising herself she wouldn’t open them until she felt the familiar wash of her world righting itself relaxing through her.
It happened sooner than she thought it would. Avoiding the prescription for the few days that she had, had cleared out her system, made her more sensitive to their strength. Soon her limbs felt floaty and her neck was so relaxed that the weight of her head seemed to make her whole body sway.
She sloppily returned the loose pill into the bottle, but her hands were so relaxed that twisting the cap back on became effortful.
“Lucy?”
She groaned, recognizing Kaleb’s voice.
She should’ve locked the door behind her.
As the sounds of his boots padding across the living room floor increased, she called out in a dead tone, “Go away.”
She could feel him filling the open doorway behind her. She didn’t want to turn around and she really didn’t want any crap from him for having given in and taken her much needed prescription.
“Why’d you take off like that?”
“Why’d you follow after me?” she countered in a hollow tone. He was rounding the bed now and came to the edge of it near her nightstand so that he could look down at her. “I want to be alone.”
“What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “I just want to be alone.”
He collected the spilled contents of her purse, pushing loose change, bills, chapstick, candy-sized tampons, and a compact mirror back into her purse so he’d have room to sit. She was still clutching the pill bottle in her hand and he took it from her, asking, “Did you?”
“I almost served the man who killed my parents a burger,” she told him.
She couldn’t even lift her gaze, she felt so down about it.
He returned the pill bottle to her purse and then took both of her hands in his. She didn’t have the energy to reciprocate and grip his hands. She also didn’t have the energy to pull back and demand that he leave. There was just nothing left.
She didn’t want to exist anymore. She didn’t want to go on being. If anything, she wanted to be consumed. Replaced. Filled up by something that wasn’t her, something that would make her forget she was even here…
… or someone.
Finally, she lifted her gaze and looked into his dark eyes.
Without thinking—Xanax was great for that, stripping her mind of all thought, swiping her into a mentally blank state—she took hold of his muscular shoulders and pulled him towards her, on top of her, as she eased her shoulders onto the bed.
Kaleb’s eyes were wide and trusting, and he understood and angled over her.
Her blue button-down uniform wasn’t exactly giving at the skirt so she jerked one side of it up, Kaleb following her lead and hiking up the other side of it, so that she could spread her legs and urge him to comfortably fit himself in-between.
Consume me, she thought as she wrapped her limp arms around his muscular shoulders, pulling him in.
Her eyes drifted shut just as their lips brushed into a soft kiss.
He pulled back by barely an inch to breathe, “You’re going to start glowing.”
“I won’t,” she promised. “I’m high.”
The information gave him pause, but this was no time for Kaleb to be a gentleman as far as she was concerned. She roughly pulled him back down, lifting her hips to better feel his shape in-between her legs, and crushed a sloppy kiss over his mouth.
But he hesitated and stared down at her.
“If you want
to be here right now,” she warned, “then you’re going to have to be here on my terms.”
She watched a slight grin spread across his sexy face. That’s how he looked to her—sexy as all hell. He always had of course, but there was something about the haze of her medication, the way it had raked away all doubt and worry and anguish, leaving only a warm feeling inside—the best kind of numbness—that made Kaleb Quinn especially arousing.
She studied his face as he looked down at her, searching her eyes. She grazed her fingertips across his strong jawline, memorizing the shape of his lips, then ran her fingers through his dark hair, savoring the weight of his hard body over her.
They were perfectly aligned. She could feel his stiff shape beneath his jeans, his hardness pressing against the apex of her core. He’d wrapped one large hand gently around her throat and his strong, domineering grip sent a heatwave of arousal through her entire body. She could imagine him overpowering her. That’s what she really wanted. To let go. To let someone else have all the control. She’d been fighting for control so hard her entire life, never getting it, that she wanted nothing more than to surrender to someone who could and would take care of her.
Urgently, she began tugging the hem of his tee-shirt up his abs and torso. She wanted to see that hard, chiseled body of his, run her fingers over the firm wall of his chest and around his hard biceps.
He pulled his shirt the rest of the way off and as soon as he was free of it, she felt heat rolling off of him. She cupped his pecs and felt his tight, hard nipples, as she drank in the sight of his sexy face. She wasn’t sure he’d ever looked at her like this. There was lust in his eyes, a slight grin fixed on his face, like he was already looking forward to taking his time with exploring every inch of her sensitive body.
She got hit with a sudden, painful jab of remembering the staggering volume of women he’d been with, but she pushed it aside and jerked his head, forcing his lips to press against hers as she strained her neck, lifting up to meet him.
She felt hot in her uniform. Too hot. She undid the top button, urging him to deepen the kiss, and he did, following the urgency of her lead. But soon, when her lips loosened, he rose up onto his knees, straddling her, and unbuttoned the length of the front of her dress, as she watched him with hungry eyes.
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