The Devil Wears Tank Tops

by Destiny Ford

  “Maybe you should sit on my front porch tonight so people who come over and try to burn my house down might reconsider.”

  He smiled. “I can do that.”

  I started to feel a little sleepy. “I’m tired all of a sudden.”

  “I know,” Hawke said, helping me stand up. “The pill will help you sleep. I knew you’d be up worrying all night. That won’t help anything, and I need you alert tomorrow to deal with all of these people, and whoever the email threat is coming from.”

  I was vaguely aware that the news didn’t make me particularly happy, but Hawke was right. I needed to sleep or I’d make bad decisions. I fell into bed. The last thing I remembered was being tucked in by my hero.

  “I heard Hawke tore through the crowd like an avengin’ angel,” Ella said, awestruck.

  Ella had accosted me as soon as I walked into the office that morning. It wasn’t a surprise considering the things that were being said about me on the town social media pages. There was now a “Hate Kate” Twitter account. I’d avoided it—and all other social media—after reading some rather unkind comments about my nosy butt.

  I wasn’t going to argue Ella’s comparison regarding Hawke, however. “He probably kept me out of the hospital. Everyone was acting completely insane—way more insane than usual.”

  “Greta Simpson said she thought he’d killed a few people tryin’ to save you.”

  That I hadn’t heard. Good hell. Hawke had stayed mostly out of the rumor mills and limelight in Branson because people were terrified of him. Now they’d be even more scared, but he wouldn’t be immune to the gossips like he had been in the past. “Greta needs to get her eyes checked. He might have hurt some people trying to get to me, but they probably would have beat me into a coma without him.” I’d heard about groupthink and studied it a bit in my college psych classes. People do a lot of insane things when they think they have support. It’s too bad that energy couldn’t be channeled elsewhere.

  Spence had texted me early in the morning to say an emergency town meeting regarding the cookies had been called for six PM. Thanks to Hawke staying at my house all night, nothing was vandalized, and I wasn’t injured even further. He left early, though, for his own job, and I wasn’t comfortable being home alone, so I’d come to work instead. Spence still wasn’t in the office because he’d been out late covering the cookie riots.

  Ella had come in about an hour after me, and was telling me all of the gossip about the previous night.

  “Bishops are being overrun with phone calls and meetin’ requests from members,” Ella said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because everybody ate the cookies and they think they need to repent!”

  When Mormons do something wrong, they have to confess to their ward bishop. The bishop then tells them what needs to be done for the person to atone for their mistakes. Doing drugs is on the sin list, but I didn’t think this qualified. “Is it really a sin when they had no idea they were doing it?”

  Ella shrugged. “Best to check just in case. You don’t wanna get to the other side and find out that’s the thing knockin’ ya out of the celestial kingdom.” She stood up and stretched. “Just a piece of advice” she said. “Be careful. You’re number one on people’s poop list for exposin’ the cookies, and getting’ ‘em banned. They were great cookies, even if they were evil.”

  I exhaled deeply. “I was on those lists a long time ago. I don’t imagine another reason will affect me much.”

  “Yeah, but the Ladies’ Facebook Group about you got a lot of new members in the last twelve hours. The cookies have already been added to the document about your sins in the group.”

  My mouth gaped. “There’s a document?”

  She gave me a look like she thought I was crazy. “Course there is! Gotta keep things organized. Amber Kane blames you for her takin’ the job sellin’ the cookies.”

  My mouth fell open and I couldn’t even form words. She blamed me? I swallowed, and picked up my stress ball, squeezing it repeatedly. It was the only alternative to punching my desk. “How in the hell did I get blamed for that? I didn’t make her take the job!”

  “She said you were askin’ about the cookies at the school. Figures you knew about the pot in them for weeks, and just kept it a secret so everyone in town would be as sinful as you. Says if you’d told people about it earlier, she would have quit the job immediately.”

  Her logic was astounding. And the fact that she was blaming me for something I had nothing to do with at all irked me to no end. One of my biggest pet peeves was when people didn’t take responsibility for their actions. People like Amber were great at not accepting blame.

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I published the article as soon as I knew about the marijuana because I wanted people to be aware of it. I don’t care whether people are pot users or not, I just wanted them to have all the information before they ate a bag and got sick, or worse, had a heart attack like Opie.”

  “I know,” she said. “Amber just doesn’t like bein’ wrong.”

  I muttered a string of swears under my breath, totally annoyed.

  Ella got up from her chair and started down the hall. “I’m gonna go work in the archives. See ya in a little bit.”

  I shook my head in disbelief and stared blankly at my laptop screen, wondering why I’d ever thought it was good idea to come back to Branson Falls. I was having my love life dissected by the entire town, people were being added to the Ladies’ Hate Kate Facebook group left and right, and now I was being blamed for things I had absolutely nothing to do with. The more I thought about it, the more agitated I got. I decided I needed to stop thinking, and distract myself with something productive—like work.

  My email inbox was full, and getting fuller. About half were threats, the rest were people either on the fence about my investigation, or thanking me for exposing the cookie drugs. Most of the threats were from Branson residents who had no problem identifying themselves. Some called me a liar, others said I should have left well-enough alone. Still no word from the original email threat makers, however. Maybe now that the cookies had been exposed, they’d decided there was no reason to try to hurt me. The damage was already done.

  My phone rang. It was Officer Bob. “You need to come up to the B.F. sign on the hill.”

  “Why?” I asked. The last time I’d been up there it was to change the B and F to the last two numbers of the year of my graduating high school class. It was a tradition for all seniors. I’d ridden in the back of the truck of some drunk cowboys—who I didn’t know were drunk at the time—and sincerely believed I might not live long enough to ever see the fruit of our labors.

  “Someone changed the sign on the mountain to say POT.”

  “What?” I asked, my voice thick with disbelief. “How?” There were only two letters. Did they create their own?

  “With garbage sacks. Black ones to block out areas of the B and F they didn’t want seen, and white ones to make new lines and the letter T.”

  “Oh, geez.”

  “I thought you might want to get some pictures before they start takin’ it all down.”

  “Thanks, Bobby. I’ll be there soon.”

  On my way to witness the POT sign, I drove by the old abandoned steel factory that was frequently painted with welcome home signs for Mormon missionaries, and notes asking people to prom. Today, it was covered in pictures of pot leaves. I shook my head, wondering who had done that. A bunch of hilarious teenagers with some extra paint, I was sure.

  When I got to the mountain, it did indeed spell the word POT. I had a feeling this was also the work of some teenage pranksters. “At least they’re creative,” I said to Bobby.

  He snorted. “Yeah, they could’ve been far more destructive.”

  I noticed his cheek was a little red from the night before. The macaroon must have hit him hard.

  “Have you recovered from the riot last night?”

  “Have you?�
� he asked.

  I blew out a breath. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting that reaction.”

  “Us either. Next time you publish somethin’ like that, do me a favor and give us a heads-up. We didn’t even have time to get our riot gear outta storage.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said sincerely.

  He lifted a shoulder. “It could’ve been worse.”

  I snapped some photos.

  “I was gonna call you about this, but since you’re here, I’ll just tell ya,” Bobby said.

  I paused and looked over at him.

  “We got an identity on the sugar factory body.”

  I froze. I’d been waiting to hear on that. “You did?”

  “Guy named Juan Carlotta. He was an illegal immigrant and had no ties to the sugar factory. We think he was just tryin’ to rob the place, and did somethin’ to set off a spark.”

  “You’re sure Kory Greer didn’t know him?” I asked. The whole situation still felt off.

  Bobby nodded. “We got photos from Juan’s family, and Kory had never seen him before.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Yeah. We questioned Kory and he didn’t act strange at all. He showed no recognition of Juan.”

  I nodded, and scribbled Juan’s name down in my notebook to check on later. I went down the hill to get some more photos at a distance before going back to the office.

  The people who changed the sign worked fast. When we’d done it in high school, it had taken half the senior class and about four hours. The paper was delivered to the grocery store around eight PM. The POT sign makers must have heard about the article, and gone immediately to the hill and started their work.

  It was a fast turnaround, I thought, as I parked my Jeep and went in the office. When I walked in, a brown paper bag was sitting on my desk.

  Ella poked her head out of the back office. “That came while you were gone. Some kid dropped it off.”

  I picked the bag up and pulled a note off of it before setting it back down on my desk. I opened the note.

  You were warned.

  It took me about two seconds to make the connection…just long enough for the bag to explode.

  “Holy fudge!” Ella yelled.

  Not the choice of words I would have used, and in fact, the ones I’d said in my head had been much more representative of the situation. I’d jumped back when the explosion happened and rolled on the floor, covering my head with my arms. Now I stood slowly, looking around at the damage. There was a black mark about the size of my palm on my desk, but other than that, nothing else seemed hurt. I looked at Ella. She’d been standing on the other side of the room, so aside from the scare, she seemed fine. “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  She nodded slowly, a little dazed. “Are you?”

  I checked myself. I was covered in what appeared to be Saints and Sinners cookie crumbles, but I still seemed to have all my fingers, toes, and both my eyeballs. “I think so.”

  I picked up the phone and called Spence to tell him what had happened then I called Bobby. “Are you still on duty?” I asked him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you come to the Tribune office? Someone just tried to explode me.”

  Complete silence came from the other end of the phone.

  “Bobby?”

  “I’m here.” More pausing. “I used to think your mom kept us busy, but things sure have gotten a lot more interestin’ around here since you came back to town. I’ll be there soon.”

  Bobby was there in about ten minutes, followed by Spence.

  “What in the world?” Spence said, walking in and surveying my desk. Even though I’d been so scared I’d almost peed my pants, the explosion had been relatively contained to an area less than a foot wide. It was clearly meant to scare me, not do serious damage.

  Bobby looked over the desk, took photos, and wrote some notes. “You said a kid dropped it off?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Ella saw him.”

  She looked up from where she was sitting in her chair, a glass of water in her hands. She was still a bit shaken. “He had dark brown hair, a ball cap, and sunglasses. Weird marks on his arm and face like scars. I didn’t recognize him, though.”

  Bobby turned to me. “Have ya pissed anyone off lately?”

  I gave him a disbelieving look. “You were at the cookie riot last night, right?”

  “I mean anyone ya know about? Were you bein’ threatened?”

  “Actually, yes.” I pulled up the email I’d gotten before the pot cookie story came out, and showed it to Bobby.

  He pursed his lips, displeased. “Why didn’t you come to us with this earlier, Kate?”

  I shrugged. “Because it’s not the first time I’ve been threatened. They usually don’t turn into anything, and I didn’t want to waste your time.”

  “In the future, we’d rather be kept informed.” He shook his head and blew out a long-suffering sigh. “You’re going to be as big of a problem as your mom.”

  I took offense to that, but considering the black marks I now had decorating my desk, I didn’t really have a lot of room to argue.

  Bobby asked some more questions about the situation, and I showed him the bag the cookies had come in. “Be careful, Kate,” Bobby said. “Until we know who these people are, I think you’re probably going to be in danger. I’ll put a patrol on your house so you have someone drivin’ by at all times. And we’ll probably have more questions for you as we investigate.”

  I nodded, thankful for the extra protection, and annoyed I had to deal with it at all. Considering the threats I was now getting from Branson residents, too, though, I thought it might not be a bad idea to have the police on my side.

  Bobby took the bag and cookie pieces for testing, and left. Spence echoed the same thing as Bobby. “I don’t like this at all, Kate. I don’t want you to get hurt, and things just seem to be escalating.”

  I shrugged. “They’re escalating because I’m on the right trail.”

  Spence shook his head. “You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these times.”

  I smiled. “I’ll get you a hot nurse.”

  He tried to force it back, but his lips lifted in amusement, undoubtedly imagining the man of his dreams in a doctor’s jacket, and nothing else.

  I was still covered in cookie dust so I went into the bathroom to attempt cleaning up. There were even cookie crumbles in my hair. When I came back out, Drake’s familiar build was occupying my office chair. He was staring at the burn marks on my desk with an unhappy expression on his face.

  “Hey,” I said, tentatively.

  He looked me up and down, his eyes sticking on the cookie pieces still embedded in parts of my clothes and hair. I’d tried to get them all off, but there was only so much I could do with the sticky sugar. The heat had turned it to glue. “You look good enough to eat,” Drake said, the innuendo clear.

  I flushed. I was surprised he hadn’t started with a tirade against the dangers of my job.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I was in Salt Lake for some legislature meetings when I heard about the riot. I left as soon as I could this morning to come back and check on you.”

  That was nice of him. “Thanks.”

  A muscle moved at his jaw. “Then I got here and found out you’d been sent a bomb.”

  I scrunched up my face. “I wouldn’t classify it as a bomb, exactly. More like a mini firework that shot out sugar.”

  His eyes widened and his expression turned to disbelief. “Did it explode on your desk after you were given a warning to stop your investigation?”

  I narrowed my eyes and glared at Ella and Spence, who were standing in the corner eating cupcakes that looked like they’d come from out of town. Clearly, they’d been bribed by Drake’s treats, and he’d had time to summarize the entire situation while I was cleaning up. “It was a little explosion,” I said with a wince.

  “Then it was a bomb,” Drake said
, taking a deep breath like it would calm him down. “Are you okay?”

  I sighed. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  His eyes scanned me, searching for wounds. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”

  I looked down. “I don’t think you can be injured with sugar shrapnel.” After all, it wasn’t as lethal as sugar dust.

  When Drake was convinced I seemed okay, he asked, “Did you go to the hospital last night?”

  “No,” I said, instinctively touching my arms. I’d had a few bright bruises bloom on my arms and legs overnight. I’d worn jeans and a three-quarter length shirt to cover them up. “They didn’t get many punches in before Hawke showed up.”

  The line of Drake’s jaw hardened and the room fell into silence for several seconds. Whether he was mad that I’d been saved by Hawke, or upset he wasn’t the one to do the saving, I wasn’t sure. Drake’s voice was soft when he spoke, “I wish I’d been there.”

  I gave a short laugh. “I wish I hadn’t.”

  His lips lifted in a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “You’re pretty infamous at the moment.”

  “I know. The entire town either thinks I’m a hero for singlehandedly bringing the evil pot cookies down, or they hate me for getting rid of their fun treat.”

  “It’s a bad place to be in.”

  I nodded. “You’re not kidding.”

  He studied me for a moment. “Maybe I could help take your mind off of it?”

  I lifted a brow in interest. I couldn’t wait to see what this proposal would be.

  “I believe you owe me a date,” he said.

  Ah. I’d almost forgotten. “I wondered when you were going to collect.”

  “Tomorrow night at six?”

  “If no one’s killed me by then.”

  He gave a forced smile, like he didn’t want to even entertain the thought. “I’ll make sure of it.” He stood up and met my eyes. His gaze was soft with what looked like concern. “I’m glad you’re okay. Be careful, Katie, and call me if you need me.”

  The request surprised me. In the past, he’d just storm over and take charge. A request wasn’t like Drake. He usually dealt in commands. “I always am,” I answered.