Ransom (McKenzie River Boys #3)

Chapter One

Ransom

AJA FOXX

~ Ransom ~

Every small town claims to have a heart, but McKenzie River's pumped diluted blood at best. I watched it circulate through Main Street every morning, the flow no different from the day before: same people, same errands, same bullshit.

If anything changed, it was only in the details—whose dog pissed on the war memorial first, which local retired from hating their neighbor and started in on city hall, who at Rosie's Bakery finally snapped and poisoned the scones.

Still waiting on that one.

I propped myself up against the front counter of Inked Rebellion, boots crossed on the bottom rail, mug in hand. I liked the vantage. The hand-painted gold logo on the Victorian window—my art, so of course immaculate—gave me just enough privacy to scrutinize the sidewalk parade undetected.

Not that anyone in this town believed in glass being one-way. Small-town secrets were always see-through, especially when they involved the local tattoo degenerate.

The scent of antiseptic still lingered from my morning deep-clean, waging a cold war with the diffuser’s essential oil blend.

This week’s flavor was patchouli and mint, a combination offensive enough to keep the real housewives of McKenzie River clutching their pearls if they dared come in for a gift certificate.

The buzz of my coil machine hummed in the background, promising more rebellion for the masses, and the Stones were crooning out of the rebuilt 70s speakers I’d liberated from a junkyard.

I kept the volume a hair past “comfortably loud,” just enough to annoy the park committee meeting across the street in the Founder's Park pavilion. Never let it be said I didn’t contribute to the local culture.

By eight-thirty I’d already reorganized my entire workstation. Needles, tubes, inks, paper towels—everything had to be just so, or I got twitchy. My ex said it was OCD; I called it professionalism.

You don’t get best in county—three years running—by letting pigment splatter your liner caps or by treating your tips like dollar store Q-tips. And you sure as hell don’t get to keep your street cred by letting the law think you’re slipping.

Right on cue, the sheriff’s department’s parade float—a battered Ford Explorer with more antennae than a cockroach—glided to a halt in the yellow zone across from my storefront. I clocked the silhouette immediately.

Floyd Hardesty, Sheriff, McKenzie River’s answer to John Wayne if John Wayne had a subscription to Men's Health and unresolved issues about authority.

He didn’t get out right away. Instead, he sat in the cab and stared through my window, mirrored sunglasses catching the sun, arms folded across his broad chest. The tension radiated from him even from fifty yards away.

He wasn’t even pretending to read the clipboard in his lap; this was all for my benefit, a little dance we’d been perfecting for years.

I set down my mug with deliberate slowness and took a sip from the bottle of water I kept under the counter, keeping my eyes locked with his. The first move was always his.

Old man Jenkins shuffled past on his way to Rosie's, cane tapping out a slow tattoo. He gave my window the ritual side-eye, probably still trying to decide if I was a threat to his granddaughter or the next mayoral candidate. He’d been using the same joke about “colorful characters” for a decade.

If I ever got arrested, I planned to request him as my sole juror.

I could tell by the way the morning light hit Main Street who would come next—Mrs. Ballinger with her sweater sets and the little dog in the bicycle basket, then a wave of high schoolers late for first period, then Rosie's delivery guy huffing pastry boxes.

The town was nothing if not consistent.

I’d mapped every predictable habit in a spiral-bound notebook before I was legally old enough to drink. There was comfort in the repetition, I guess, or at least a certain predictability. If McKenzie River was a watch, I knew which gears to jiggle to make it run off-kilter for fun.

What the town didn’t know was that I liked being its problem child. Every time some old biddy gossiped about “that McKenzie boy with the face art,” my reputation gained another coat of lacquer.

Even when I did good—pro bono cover-ups for domestic violence scars, free tattooing for local veterans—the town chalked it up to ulterior motives. Fine. At least no one expected me to show up at the Founder's Day picnic with a pie and a candidate's handshake.

I let the Stones play out “Gimme Shelter,” then killed the music and the buzz of the tattoo machine both.

Silence, thick enough to taste, settled in.

The only noise was the ticking of the old telegraph clock on the wall (still works, try me), and the faint hiss from the diffuser as it spat defiance at the cleaning chemicals.

With nothing left to rearrange, I decided to clean the front glass.

Again. The act itself was mindless, but it put me right in Floyd’s line of sight.

I made a show of squeegeeing the corners, flexing my sleeve up so the river valley half-sleeve popped against the navy of my shirt.

If he was going to make a spectacle of his watchfulness, so was I.

His window rolled down, and the sound of classic country floated across the street. Floyd's mouth moved, probably muttering some sheriffly observation about “criminals keeping business hours.” He knew I could lip-read, and I knew he hated that I could.

I gave him a salute with my rag and grinned, white teeth and all. He gave nothing back but more sunglasses and the clench of his jaw. The world’s least interactive mating ritual.

I wondered, not for the first time, what he’d do if I ever just walked over and introduced myself like a normal citizen.

Call for backup? Slam me against the hood and recite the Miranda out of spite?

The possibilities were almost entertaining enough to risk it.

But then the town would have a new scandal, and the last one—Rosie’s nephew caught naked in the bakery kitchen—was still holding strong in the local hierarchy of shame.

I finished the glass, stepped back, and surveyed the result. Not a single streak. Satisfied, I let myself stand for a minute, just breathing. There was something about the combination of antiseptic, ink, and the faintest tinge of ozone from the machines that always grounded me.

The light coming through the window made the whole shop glow like a cathedral—if cathedrals were painted deep navy and decorated in vintage flash and concert posters.

I took the sight in, as I did every morning. There was pride in it, and ownership, and more than a little bit of challenge: Come at me, River Town. I’m ready.

The bell over the door—original, from the building’s telegraph days—jangled at precisely nine. First client, right on time, but not before I caught one last look at Sheriff Hardesty. He’d gotten out of his car by then, propping one boot on the curb, arms still folded.

Still watching.

I set my jaw and went to greet the walk-in, already knowing that whatever Floyd had planned for today, I’d be ready. If nothing else, I’d always have the sharper needles.

My nine o’clock was a local farm kid getting his grandpa’s Navy anchor redone, the sort of sentimental work that paid the bills but never made the portfolio.

By nine-thirty, I’d finished the outline, patched him up with a complimentary sticker, and sent him wobbling down Main Street with a fresh bandage and the post-adrenaline shakes.

If I was lucky, he’d post a five-star review by the end of the week. More likely, his family would start a group text about how I was single-handedly infecting the valley youth with my urban decay.

I sanitized my station with a flourish, like the final act of a magic trick, then stood perfectly still, listening. Nothing but the Stones and the faintest creak of the shop settling.

I was expecting the bell over the door to jangle, signaling Floyd’s entry, but it didn’t. Instead, I caught his reflection in the glass, arms folded, still on the curb.

He was waiting for something, maybe trying to decide if he had the energy to outlast me today. Joke’s on him—I’d built my entire personality on waiting for other people to blink first.

The clock clicked over to ten, and right on schedule, Floyd finally crossed the street. He moved with the deliberation of a man who knew exactly how his footsteps would sound on the old boards outside.

I met his entrance with a practiced smirk, leaning both hands on the counter as he filled the doorway. Up close, he looked exactly the way I liked to remember him: tall, solid, that just-back-from-the-range tan, uniform crisp enough to cut glass.

Most lawmen in towns like this aged into their badge like a second skin, but Floyd had kept himself in fighting shape, every movement economic and exact. I wondered, sometimes, what kind of effort that took. What he had to bottle up every night to avoid letting the cracks show.

“Morning, Sheriff,” I said, letting the word draw out. I knew he hated the way I said it, just a shade off “asshole.”

He closed the door with a gentle click, never taking his eyes off me. “McKenzie.”

“Credit for using my actual name,” I said. “What brings the law to my den of iniquity today? Miss Rosie's cookies finally violate state code?”

He didn’t answer right away, just surveyed the shop like he was checking for explosives.

His gaze paused on my display wall, the old time tattoo flash sandwiched between my more aggressive recent work.

I let him have the silence. Some people needed to fill it, but I was a pro at letting it grow roots.

Finally, he spoke. “You hear about the break-ins on the south end?”

“I read the local gossip, sure. I especially liked the part where the so-called suspect left no prints, no DNA, and only stole shit no one would actually miss.” I pushed my sleeve up to check the time, making sure he noticed the fresh blackwork on my forearm.

“If you’re here to ask about my whereabouts, you could’ve just called.

My phone’s working, unless the county finally cut off my number. ”

Floyd’s lips twitched, almost a smile, but he killed it before it could take. “Official business. I like to do things face to face.”

“Old fashioned,” I said. “Or maybe you just like the view.” I caught his gaze and held it, daring him to acknowledge the crackle in the air. He didn’t, but he didn’t look away either.

“I have to check every angle,” he said, voice so low I felt it more than heard it. “Your name came up.”

“My name always comes up. It’s the McKenzie River way.” I leaned back, crossing my arms, giving him the full canvas of my tattoos and the six inches I had on him in height. “You want to tell me who fingered me, or do we skip to the part where you ask what I was doing between midnight and two?”

He stepped closer, just enough to make it obvious he didn’t like the power differential.

I had to respect that, honestly. Most men would’ve just puffed up; Floyd recalibrated.

It put him within a foot of my counter, the clean citrus of his aftershave cutting through the patchouli fog.

My pulse spiked, but I kept my face slack.

“Where were you,” he said, “between midnight and two?”

“In my apartment. You can check the security camera footage, if you want. Might get a show, depending what time you fast forward to.” I kept my tone just shy of disrespectful, but only just.

His jaw worked. “Not funny, McKenzie.”

I shrugged. “Depends on your sense of humor. Listen, Sheriff—” I let the word linger, softer this time. “Why am I always your prime suspect? There’s a whole world of troublemakers out there. What about Levi Hardesty and his band of brain-cell-challenged juveniles?”

His eyes narrowed. “You have a problem with Levi?”

“No more than anyone else with a locked tool shed. I’m just saying, you know as well as I do that if anyone’s going to go full Ocean’s Eleven on the Feed Store, it’s not going to be the guy with a record for stubbornness, not theft.

” I let my arms drop to the counter and leaned in, lowering my voice. “What’s really going on here, Floyd?”

The use of his first name made him flinch, just a fraction, but he recovered. “Just doing my job.”

“Bullshit,” I said, quietly. “You’re fishing.”

He looked away, out the window, then back at me. “Can you blame me?”

“Depends. You want to arrest me, or just keep me on a leash?”

His breath caught. I could hear it, the little hitch, before he shut it down and forced his voice into neutral. “If you hear anything, you let me know. No more vigilante heroics, no more trying to out-sheriff the sheriff. Understand?”

I grinned, sharp and white. “Crystal.”

He lingered, gaze dropping to my hands. Not the ink this time, but the way I’d unconsciously gripped the counter. He noticed everything, and I knew it. My knuckles were white, betraying more than I liked.

“You got something to say, Sheriff?” I asked.

For a moment, the whole town outside blurred to static. There was only the space between us, and whatever was crammed into it. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Instead, he pulled a card from his shirt pocket and placed it on the counter. “My number. In case you remember something.”

“I have your number,” I said.

He didn’t answer, just stepped back toward the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. “Stay out of trouble, McKenzie.”

“Can’t make any promises,” I said. “But I’ll try real hard.”

He nodded once, then left. I let the bell’s echo ring in the silence after him, and only when I was sure he was back across the street did I pick up the card. It was blank except for his cell number and the words: “Next time, talk to me first.”

I stared at it for a long time, then flipped it over and traced the ridge of the paper with my thumb. Some people called it obsession, the way Floyd and I orbited each other. I called it gravity. The town could call it whatever the hell it wanted.

I tucked the card in my pocket, already rehearsing the next round. Floyd Hardesty could glare all he wanted from across the street; eventually, one of us would have to cross over for good.

I was already planning how to make him do it.