Shoot to thrill, p.23
Shoot to Thrill, page 23
part #5 of Midnight Rider Series
Gabe shifted forward on the seat and I had to put a tight lid on the feeling in my gut when I swung my leg over the seat and gripped his jacket to hold on. We whipped out of the parking lot and when the bike went from being perpendicular to the ground to a forty-five-degree angle, I closed my eyes and didn’t open them again until Gabe was slowing to a stop.
“You can remove your claws,” Gabe chuckled. I glanced down at my hands and saw what he was talking about. Somewhere during the trip, I’d dug my fingers into his abs which, yes, I could feel through the leather coat. My knuckles were white.
“I’m not a huge fan of bikes,” I said.
“Pity,” Gabe said. I swung my leg over the bike and only took one staggering step as I reconnected to solid ground and tugged my helmet off.
“Ok, so the plan,” I said, handing him back the helmet. I wanted to keep the conversation away from the fact that I had just had my arms wrapped around Gabe. Gabe stowed the helmets and looked around. He’d parked in the farthest corner of the municipal parking lot that the library and the senior center shared with the jail and the cop shop. “Convenient,” I said, looking around. “You can play bingo, get the newest John Grisham book and go visit your buddy in the pokey all in one trip.”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what the city planners were thinking,” Gabe said. He turned back to look at me. “Now you’re going to hate this plan, but I needed to get you away from sharp objects before I told you what we were going to have to do.”
“Loving it already,” I said.
“Chances are, there’s a metal detector at the front door,” Gabe said.
“You already told me no guns,” I sighed. I was hating this idea more and more. Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut? Because this town would have become a demon Cancun Spring Break by the time Tags got back here and who knew how many innocents would have been killed or worse.
“Right,” Gabe said. “Also no knives.”
I nodded. “So besides my sword which is technically hanging out in Tir na nOg, we’re going in bare naked.”
“Not quite,” Gabe said, and he dug in one of his saddlebags, coming up with two large brown plastic salt shakers.
“Did you lift those from some roadside diner?” I asked.
Gabe shrugged. “I paid for them.”
I shook my head. “At least they're not the gimmicky kind where the salt comes out of one hole in a piggy’s ass that sometimes gets clogged.”
“Hey, I thought you liked the shakers at my house.”
But I was on a roll now. “I can just see myself beating a demon over the head with a ceramic pig because I can’t get the salt to come out.”
“While you scream, ‘the power of Christ compels you’,” Gabe said. “As this is all the weaponry we can bring with us, besides your not-very-stealthy-once-drawn, big-ass sword, here’s what I propose...”
Five minutes later, we were walking towards the front door. “This is a shit plan,” I said. And then I smiled. “Hey, I never get to be the one who says that. Feels kind of good. Like if this thing goes tits up, it’s not my fault.”
“It’s still going to be if you don’t follow the plan,” Gabe muttered. He held open the glass door for me and I held my breath when I moved through the metal detector. I didn’t have to go through them often, but as I usually wasn’t bare naked in the weapons department, I half expected some forgotten shotgun shell or box cutter at least to set it off in a jeans pocket I forgot to check. No such incidence. Gabe on the other hand…
The high-pitched buzz of the detector going off drew a groan from the female cop sitting behind the front desk. She pushed away from her computer and set down her coffee mug. “Please move over here, sir. I will need to wand you.” I stood to the side as well. She looked at me.
I gave her my best ditzy smile and a finger wave. “I’m with him. I’ll just wait.”
She nodded and flicked on a metal detector wand. When she bent over to run it up Gabe’s legs, I glanced around quickly to make sure that no one else was watching us before dropping a pinch of salt on the back of the female officer’s bare neck. I held my breath. She paused, then she stood and turned to look at me. I smiled again, moving away from her, the salt shaker back in my back pocket now. She glanced up at the ceiling and swiped at the back of her neck before getting back to the business of scanning Gabe. I made eye contact with him and patted the back of my neck. He looked down at the bare skin on the back of the woman’s neck and then looked back at me and shook his head.
No blistering, not a demon.
One down...I turned to look around the room and counted three other officers. Not a bad sized police force for a two-horse town. One of the officers was on the phone at his desk to the far right. One had his back to us on the other side of the room at the copy machine and the last one was typing away at his computer, pausing every now and then to look at a pink carbon sheet on the table next to him. “Big boy” wasn’t here. That dinner at Rosetta’s was going to be cold at best, non-existent at worst, by the time we cleaned up this mess. I glanced back at the female cop and Gabe. She was taking her sweet time. She had him take his biker jacket off and the a-shirt he was wearing underneath it was enough to make me look away quickly. No time for distractions. I spotted a water cooler on the other side of the female cop’s desk and I strolled over to pour myself a cup of water.
While I was waiting for the cup to fill, I read the names on the placards that hung on the three office doors across from the open area where the four officers were sitting. I scanned my memory trying to find a mental image of the name tag “Big Boy” had been wearing. Nothing came to me. I turned back to look at the room while I fished the shaker out of my back pocket and then turned back to look out the window while I shook as much salt as I could into the cup of water. I glanced back to see the progress being made with Gabe who was now standing with his legs apart while the woman still tried to find the source of metal that had set off the machine. She was professional, not touching him, but I saw her pause when she was behind him, appraising his assets, as it were. I couldn’t blame her, I’d done the same, not that I’d ever admit that to anyone.
While she was preoccupied, I did my best to look like I was just meandering out of boredom. Apparently, I wasn’t as stealthy as I thought.
“Excuse me.” It was the man who had been typing away at his computer. I glanced up at him. He had moved to stand behind a waist-high counter near the water cooler. “You need to sign in. Can we help you with something?”
Perfect. Yes, he could. I smiled and hurried over to him. I faked a stumble as I approached the counter. The saltwater hit him in the face. He staggered back, but besides a shriek of surprise, he didn’t scream, or blister, or start steaming.
“Oh my gosh!” I said, trying to sound like someone off of a sitcom. “I am such a klutz. I’m so sorry.”
He raised an arm and swiped at the water dripping off his eyebrows and nose. “It...happens.” I could see him struggling to remain professional, even though his uniform shirt was half-soaked. The cup had been almost full. He pushed a clipboard on the countertop towards me and said. “You need to sign in. And what brings you here today?”
I picked up the pen that was attached to the clipboard and tried to frame the excuse Gabe and I had worked out. “I live out on Road E and there’s this burned-out car that I passed on my way to town. I mean, I wanted to know if anyone was going to do something about it.” The man looked confused.
“Out on Road E? Where?”
“A couple of miles down from the Bowman place,” I said, quickly. We hadn’t thought to work out an actual address.
The man looked more confused. “The Bowman’s are the only homestead on E.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, I’ve been out there for the last two years. Little white house with a blue roof and trim? I’ve got a dog. A basset hound named, uh, Droopy. Cute dog. Lots of eye problems. Vet says it’s genetic. They breed those purebreds too hot these days. So you get the saggy skin you want, but the eye boogers come along with it.”
The cop held his hand up. “I understand. Well, Sheriff Johnson was out there earlier today. He might have some answers for you.” I’d noticed the middle office had Sheriff Richard Johnson on the door. If there ever was a name for a total dick, that was it.
“Yes,” I said, and then at the raised eyebrow the soggy cop gave me, I tried to tone down my enthusiasm. “Is the Sheriff in?” I asked.
“He’s on a phone call right now,” the officer said, glancing over at a multi-line phone on the desk behind him. There were two red dots, I assumed one for “chatty Cathy” on the other side of the room and one for the Sheriff. I had a fleeting thought that maybe they were just talking to each other, but decided not to share it.
“I’ll wait,” I said, giving him my most winning smile.
The cop nodded over to two folding chairs that had been placed next to the wall under the window. “You can wait there.” I nodded and took a few steps in that direction. I guessed the Sheriff had either canceled his avenging return assault to the Bowman farm after his quick exit, or he’d gotten out there, seen all there was to see and decided to pack it in and find another demonic vice to entertain for the rest of the day.
The half-soaked cop turned and called to the guy who had just finished up at the copy machine. “I’m going to change. Watch the front desk?” The second cop gave a non-committal head nod, not looking up from the copies he’d just made. I felt movement beside me and saw Gabe, red-faced as he hurried over to me, putting his jacket back on. He opened his mouth, about to mutter something to me, but I saw the female cop still watching him, and then her glance slid to me.
“I signed us in,” I said to her, brightly. “We’re waiting to talk to the Sheriff.”
I moved back to the water cooler and filled my cup. Gabe grabbed one as well and stood close behind me. Probably much closer than absolutely necessary. “Two down,” I muttered. “I haven’t checked ‘copy guy’ or Mr. Mouth on the phone over there. But it sounds like the Sheriff might be our “Big Boy”. Come to think of it, he did have a different hat than the others. Maybe that’s how they show rank. With funny hats. Isn’t that what the military does too?”
Gabe sighed behind me. “Focus Bane. Where’s the Sheriff?”
“On a phone call,” I said. “Apparently.”
“Well, gives us time to check the other two.”
I nodded. “Do you want phone guy or copy guy?”
“I can’t think of a legitimate reason to approach either one of them,” Gabe muttered.
“What? You don’t want to just leap the counter and dump half a shaker of salt on their heads?” I asked.
“I don’t want to get shot or arrested for ‘a-salting an officer’,” Gabe said, snorting to himself.
“Oh man, your dad jokes are awful,” I said. There was a stillness between us for a moment. An old pain for both of us was trying to rear its head. I did my best to shove it back down.
“I’m surprised you even know what ‘dad jokes’ are,” Gabe said.
I shrugged. “I hear things.”
“Copy guy” had just set his papers down and picked up a coffee mug, moving towards a little alcove just around the counter where there was a coffee pot. “I’m going in,” I said. “Phone Guy is yours.”
I did my best to swing my hips. I glanced down at myself. My a-shirt was dirty and scorched, but still not nearly as bad as usual. I was hoping I could pull off “flirty”. I stopped close to the cop and gave a soft moan. The cop jumped slightly and turned to look at me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “That coffee just smells really good. It’s been one of those mornings.”
He gave me an appraising eye and I tried not to tense up. “You out on a farm?”
I nodded. “Yeah, you know how it is, clean when you go to bed, dirty before the sun comes up.” I hoped that had come out right. I remembered when it was dad and me at the house, getting up at dawn to clean pens and gather eggs. I had a suspicion that when flirting, the phrase might take on an entirely different meaning.
He nodded, his gaze resting on my cleavage. I had to stifle a laugh. I didn’t have much for him to rest a gaze on, but if it was working, it was working. “Would you like some coffee?” He asked.
I nodded vigorously. “I would love some.” He pulled out a second paper coffee cup from the dispenser and I glanced back at Gabe who was sipping water, watching me. When I met his gaze, he turned his attention back to “phone guy”.
“Here you go,” the cop in front of me said and I turned back to take the coffee cup from him.
“Thank you so much,” I said. And then an idea struck me, “Do you have any lids? I’m such a klutz. I’m sure you saw what happened with that poor other officer. I completely soaked him.”
The cop smiled and nodded. “I didn’t see it, but I wish I had.” He turned, but not far enough for me to be able to sneak the salt shaker over his cup. Damn. He held out a plastic cup lid and I met his gaze, letting our fingers touch and with my thumb, I knocked the lid out of his hand and it rolled away behind him. “Shoot! I’m so sorry, see what I mean,” I said, doing my best to sound apologetic.
“Oh, no worries,” the cop said as he turned around to chase the cup lid across the floor. As quickly as I could, I shook the salt shaker over his cup, hard and fast. As soon as he caught the lid and straightened up, the shaker was back in my pocket. I glanced around to see if anyone else had seen what I’d been up to. Gabe had taken some initiative and engaged the female officer in conversation, so she was oblivious. “Soaked-shirt guy” hadn’t returned, and “phone guy” had turned his back to us, standing now as if he was wrapping up his phone call. “There you go,” the cop said, handing me the lid again. I carefully took it from him and set the cup of coffee on the counter so that I could put the lid on it.
“Thank you so much,” I said. I pouted my lips and blew on the coffee through the hole in the lid, still making eye contact with the cop. He cleared his throat and I took a sip, giving another little moan. “That hits the spot.” I smiled at him. “The day’s already looking up.” I hate coffee. I did my best to not choke on it as he continued to smile and keep eye contact with me. The phone rang in surround sound at every desk and “phone guy” picked it up again. After a second, he looked over at us.
“Hey Lance, your wife’s on line one.” The cop in front of me turned the slightest bit of pink in his cheeks and he turned to “phone guy”.
“Thanks, Daryl,” he said, hurrying away to his desk. Now the waiting game to see him drink. Gabe had broken off his conversation with the female officer and gone back to the water cooler to refill his cup. I moved over to set down the coffee on one of the chairs and refill my water cup too.
“Well?” Gabe muttered.
“I put salt in his coffee,” I whispered. “We’ll have to wait and see when he drinks it. What are you going to do about ‘phone guy’?”
“I’m still working on a plan,” Gabe whispered back. I rolled my eyes and dumped more salt into my water cup, just in case. I straightened up and turned my back to the cooler, surreptitiously putting the shaker in my back pocket and pretending to take a sip from my cup. I gazed across the room and I noticed that “phone guy” was watching me now. I had a fleeting thought that I was having to do all the work here. I gave him a little wave and he frowned before moving between the desks back to the front counter.
“Can I help you?” He was not in a good mood.
“I’m, well, we’re waiting to talk to the Sheriff,” I said. “We...I live out on Road E and there’s this burned-out car that’s just sitting there. The other officer told me the Sheriff was out there earlier today and I just wanted to know how long until it would be towed out of there. It’s blocking half the road.”
“Phone guy” frowned. “I don’t know. As far as I know, the investigation isn’t finished on what happened and why it’s there.”
I nodded. “I mean, it didn’t fall from the sky, right?”
The “phone guy” gave me a small smile and I lifted the water cup to my mouth and took a big drink.
“Not likely,” he said. “This isn’t a hotspot for UFOs.” I gave him my best spit-take and sprayed saltwater in his face. He jumped back in shock. No blistering, no screaming, no steaming. Four for four, not possessed.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, “but that was really funny!” I sputtered, swiping at my mouth.
He gave me a tight smile and yanked a tissue from a box on the counter and wiped his face. “Have a seat. The Sheriff shouldn’t be long now.” And then he turned on his heel and moved back to his desk. I took the second folding chair next to Gabe and tried not to gloat.
“Not the most stealthy thing I’ve ever seen,” Gabe said and I could tell he was trying not to laugh, “but effective.”
“Any kind of reaction from ‘copy guy’ and his salty coffee?” I asked, peering over at him.
“Yeah, he made a face when he took a drink and then set it down. Hasn’t tried again,” Gabe said. “But no shrieking or sizzling and I think he had that pimple on his forehead before he tried it.”
I hadn’t seen a pimple, but I hadn’t exactly been looking. Gabe’s tone told me that he didn’t like the guy, so I moved on. “Four for four then,” I said. “These must be the lucky ones that either are stable enough to not be possessed or the Sheriff hasn’t gotten around to bringing in more of the red-eyed calvary yet.”
The middle office door banged open and there was “Big Boy”, Sheriff Johnson. He still had on his cowboy hat and sunglasses.
“Sheriff, there’s someone here to see you…” “Phone guy” started.
The Sheriff barked at him, “Not now.” He moved around the corner and pushed open the men’s room door which was a straight shot from where we were sitting. Gabe and I both stood and I saw the female officer’s head come up, her gaze fixed on us.
“Too much water and coffee,” I said to her with a smile, “just realized y’all have a public restroom.”
Gabe just nodded. A lot of help in the believable story department. Thanks a lot, bucko. Luckily, the female cop was more interested in watching Gabe walk away down the hallway, so I waited until he’d pushed into the men’s room and she had gone back to work before I followed him.
