Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
As any good Christian woman whose virtue was threatened should do.
“Reckon so.”
They talked longer. Lucinda telling him stories, Rus listening, sipping bourbon, gazing at a fire.
When he let her go, he took the final finger he had in his glass and walked out onto the balcony for the first time.
The chill of the night was now deep, the lake covered in fog so thick you couldn’t see it, the mist creeping up the mountain and clinging to the pines like shrouds.
Pearl Buckle made it in those woods. As did Lucinda’s granny.
And after what she’d lost, Lana was still standing, buying coffees and frosting anyone who looked at her, hiding the loving and considerate woman she was inside.
Prosper and Obadiah and Lazarus and Cornelius might have made their marks on the town, but these woods were there for the women.
Rus tossed back the last of his drink, then returned into the room, checked the locks on the door, turned off the fire, undressed, brushed his teeth, got under the duvet and arranged his pillows behind his head.
He then took his cock in hand, closed his eyes and called up Lucinda’s sultry voice telling him stories.
It wasn’t her voice that made him come, it was other thoughts about her.
But they were good thoughts.
So when he came, he did it hard.
TWENTY-TWO
On My Way
The next morning, after his workout and shower, Rus was dressed and sitting at the table, finishing breakfast, his laptop opened in front of him.
He’d called in to headquarters and his superiors knew of Bohannan’s take on things, the mystery man asking questions of a witness, and they, too, felt Rus should take Bohannan’s read on the situation seriously.
With the real CK possibly in the mix, they wanted to send more men.
Rus pushed back on that.
He had a friend he could call who the FBI would be okay being brought on as a consultant, and he and his colleagues would blend in.
That way, CK wouldn’t feel like Misted Pines suddenly was filled with G-men, get spooked and take off.
So he asked for approval, was told to wait for the sign off, and then he texted Moran to arrange a meet up that included Bohannan so they could go over this new situation and make a plan.
He then got back into the case.
During Rus’s busy Saturday and not-as-busy Sunday, McGill’s people had been filling in blanks.
They had Brittanie’s bank records, and McGill had been over them. He summarized what he found, which was nothing, but Rus looked over the statements anyway.
And McGill was right.
It was nothing.
She had a small nest egg, lots of expenditures, and as they knew, Brittanie wasn’t one to sit on her cash.
There wasn’t anything big going out, nothing big going in, or anything weird at all. Bills. Credit card payments. Debit card purchases at the grocery store. Shit like that.
McGill told them her laptop had finally made it to a tech’s desk, he’d cracked the password in about five minutes, and McGill had someone going through it. McGill would send a report and a bulk file with all her email that Rus could look through himself by that afternoon.
They were still waiting for data to be provided from her cell.
Ezra Corbin hadn’t pinged anything, something Rus found surprising. The way he ran was a panicked escape. He had twenty thousand dollars, so he didn’t have to use a credit card for some time, but he also had a BOLO out on him and his car.
Evading the FBI and all known law enforcement in this state and all the others was not a skill Rus thought he’d have.
Moran’s deputies had been out, combing places they knew someone like Ezra might hide, and that had produced zilch, or Rus would have heard about it.
It was too bad Jesse and Jace were out of the picture. They seemed to know what stones to turn in this area.
But even though Jesse might work it and be able to hold his shit, Rus had a feeling they were as successful as they were because they shared a mind. Rus was not a twin so he didn’t know how that worked, but he sensed for them it was their hidden superpower.
So, before he headed into town, he needed to get back with Thea and—
His phone vibrated with a call.
He picked it up, looked at the screen, and it was Moran.
“Lazarus,” he answered.
“Rus, need you at the station right away.”
Rus was already rising from his chair.
“Ezra?”
“No. But I need you here. And fast.”
Rus didn’t ask any further questions.
He said, “On my way.”
And two minutes later, he was.
TWENTY-THREE
Fetish
He was not met by Polly this time when he walked into the station.
Wade Dickerson waylaid him.
“Sheriff’s in with her,” he said.
Her?
“So’s Polly,” Dickerson went on. “I’ll take you back. But quick brief, she came in and she said she heard it going around town we were looking for Corbin. She said she had a story to tell. I don’t know what that is, but Harry wasn’t in with her long before he came back out, told me to tell you what I just told you when you got here, and to bring you back right away.”