Chapter 9 Cosi
Cosi
This goddamn bar. Ninety percent of the calls that came into the station dragged me to Trick and Sully’s. There was always some sort of trouble.
And Ilsa was standing in the middle of it.
Why was I not surprised?
I’d deal with her after I handled Jackie.
About ten minutes ago, Archie Lee had radioed the station. He’d been at the bar playing pool after work. He and a buddy were talking in the parking lot outside before heading home when Chris and a few of the railroad guys pulled up.
Jackie included. The dumb shit.
I’d told Jackie after the last bar fight he’d started that the next time I saw him in Dalton, he’d be spending more than one night in jail. But had he steered clear? Of course not. The son of a bitch never listened.
Larry and Alan were already on their way over with a cruiser. I hadn’t waited for Trick to call about a fight. I’d just assumed it would happen. And I was right.
Well, Jackie had picked the wrong day to come to my town. I was in a shit mood and my patience was gone.
Trick walked over and killed the jukebox. Without the music, the bar became so quiet I heard the faint sizzle of burning cigarette paper as Leon, one of Trick’s regulars, took an inhale from his Marlboro.
Jackie had shaved his head since the last time he’d been in town. But those blue eyes were the same. Always too mean. Always too angry.
“I’m done with this, Jackie.” I pointed a finger at his nose as I kept my voice low. Steady. Shouting wasn’t really my style and it usually only made things worse. “Third strike. You’re done.”
He’d be a fool if he didn’t heed the warning in my tone.
His answer was to spit on the floor.
Fool.
I crossed the room, my steps measured and deliberate, letting the thud of my boots fill the silence. My gaze stayed locked on Jackie even as Chris lifted up his hands in surrender and inched away.
Chris was a decent guy, but we’d have words later about why the fuck he’d thought it would be a good idea to bring this asshole to Trick’s.
I stopped in front of Jackie, holding his gaze.
It would make my life a hell of a lot easier if he came quietly and didn’t make a scene, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
He was at least five inches shorter than me with a stocky frame. As I stared down at him, he began shifting his weight from foot to foot. His jaw locked and his face started to turn pink. So did his head. It was like watching a pot of water begin to boil.
Definitely not going quietly. Fine.
I’d let him make a big fucking mess. We’d lock him up. I’d get the county attorney involved. Jackie would probably face a felony charge and likely lose his job at the railroad station.
His choice. I’d warned him the last time I’d been called to deal with his bullshit.
It was at the café. He’d tipped over a table when a waitress dumped a glass of water on his head after he grabbed her ass.
Jackie seemed to lose his cool whenever there was a beautiful woman around. And Ilsa put beautiful to shame.
I wasn’t sure what I’d missed in the moments before I’d walked through the door, but I’d find out. After he was behind bars. If he’d touched her, well . . . I might enjoy this a little bit.
“You’re spending the night in jail.” My tone brooked no argument, but I knew he was going to argue anyway.
“The fuck I am.” He puffed up his chest, stepping close enough to almost touch me.
“Outside,” I ordered. “Don’t make me drag you.”
The pink in his face turned to red. Rage sparked in his eyes.
Here we go.
He was quick. He stepped back, and a moment later, his fist slammed into my gut.
It was a strong punch but not exactly a surprise. My muscles were locked, my abs contracted. Other than curling my lip, I didn’t so much as move.
A flicker of panic filled his blue eyes. He probably would have hit me again, but he was too damn slow.
As his other fist flew toward my face, I sidestepped, catching his wrist with my hand. I spun him around, using his own momentum against him, and with a quick stomp on the back of his knee, he buckled, slamming into the floor on his belly.
He let out a pained oof.
I kept hold of his wrist, twisting his arm behind his back as I dropped to my knee at his side. With my other hand, I took out my handcuffs. “You have the right to remain silent.”
“Fuck you!” Jackie bucked and flopped, shouting at me as my grip only tightened.
I ignored him, snapping on the cuffs while I recited the rest of his rights. By the time Larry and Alan burst through the front door, I had Jackie on his feet and was pushing him across the room.
“He’s all yours.” I transferred him to Larry, letting my deputies take a still cussing and spitting Jackie to the parking lot.
My heart was pounding, adrenaline coursing through my veins, when the door closed behind them.
“Cosi,” Chris said, taking a step closer.
I held up my hand, palm out. “Any damage Trick finds, you’re on the hook.”
“Yeah.” He gulped. “I didn’t think . . . We were finishing up a shift. He’s only here for one night and staying at my place. He offered to buy me a beer. I told him not to cause any problems. He swore he’d keep his cool.”
“The next time I see him, you’ll be right beside him in a cell. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Chris’s frame slumped as he dropped his gaze to his boots.
“Go home.”
He didn’t need to be told twice.
A nice kid, but he’d always been gullible, especially when it came to the influence of his friends.
His senior year in high school, I’d busted a party in the mountains.
When I’d pulled up, all the kids had taken off to hide, but they’d left Chris behind with a case of beer because he was the only one who’d been nineteen at the time and of legal age to drink.
When I’d told him that he could be charged with giving alcohol to minors, he’d started to cry and begged me not to take him to jail. Apparently, he still needed to find better friends.
The other guys at the table stood, pulling on coats as Chris collected his jacket. Then the three of them streamed out the door.
Leon and the other old timers at the bar swiveled their stools forward, returning to their smoldering cigarettes and beer bottles.
I exhaled, the air hot in my nostrils, as I faced Ilsa.
We stared at each other for a long moment, neither of us moving.
She didn’t look frightened or upset or on the verge of tears. She actually looked calm, like this little display of testosterone had barely ruffled her feathers. If anything, she looked mildly irritated and slightly pissed off.
I liked that. A lot. She’d been more visibly rattled after calling the station about a masked figure outside her house.
Which made me wonder if maybe I’d missed something. Damn. The idea that I’d failed didn’t sit right and my stomach knotted.
Trick appeared at her side, still holding his baseball bat. He put his free hand on her elbow, leaning too close. “You okay?”
Why was he touching her? That, I didn’t like. Not a fucking bit.
“Fine.” Ilsa shifted to face him, gently freeing her elbow as she stepped away. “I guess I had that coming, didn’t I?”
He let out a dry laugh. “Guess so.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
She forced a tight smile, then with a small wave, walked away. The sharp click of her heels filled the bar as she brushed past me for the door.
I turned and followed, like there was a damn leash around my neck.
The magnetic pull when she was around was as unsettling as the notion I’d spent weeks not believing her about a stalker.
“Ilsa,” I called as she reached Ike’s truck.
Chris and his coworkers hadn’t wasted any time and their vehicles were pulling out of the snow-covered parking lot. Larry and Alan were already rolling down Main in the cruiser.
Ilsa opened the driver’s-side door and tossed her purse inside before turning to face me. “Yes, Sheriff Raynes? Here to give me a warning like the others?”
“Cosi,” I corrected. Again.
She’d only said my first name once, and I’d liked it. Wouldn’t mind hearing it more often.
“Yes, Cosi?” She crossed her arms over her chest. Definitely pissed off. And I still liked it.
“Trick’s attracts a certain crowd.”
“The kind of crowd that likes an occasional drink and a burger for dinner?” She arched her eyebrows. “Is this the part where you tell me to be careful? Because as I see it, Cosi, I’m in just as much danger at my own home as I am here, so I might as well live my life.”
That attitude shouldn’t be attractive, but damn if it didn’t make her that much more intriguing. “Trouble seems to follow you around.”
She huffed. “Apparently only when I’m in Montana. Can I go home now?”
“Why’d you really come to Trick’s?”
Ilsa didn’t seem like the bar-going type. Maybe I was wrong, but my intuition said there was more to her Thursday evening visit than a burger and fries.
She dropped her gaze to the snow beneath her heeled boots. When she sighed, her entire body seemed to sag against the truck’s door, like the weight of a thousand bricks settled on her shoulders. “My dad came here.”
“Most people in Dalton come to the bar from time to time.”
“It was more than time to time, wasn’t it?” When she met my gaze, there was a sadness in her chocolate irises. “Trick called him Bluebird.”
“Most around town called him Bluebird.”
“You don’t.”
I shook my head. “I don’t spend a lot of time at Trick and Sully’s.”
“Ah.” She turned to stare down the street. “It’s been a long time since I heard that nickname. Not since I was a kid.”
“When was the last time you were in Dalton?”
“Ten years ago. I was sixteen. Dad and I didn’t, um . . . talk. Often.”
So she’d come to the bar hoping to get to know her father. That made more sense. “Trick knew him pretty well.”
Trick knew most people in town pretty well. Part of the reason people loved this bar was because he was a constant. A friend to anyone who came in the door. A confidant for those needing a listening ear. When it came to secrets, he was a collector.
Chances were, he had some of Ike’s.
“I’m sure he’ll tell you whatever you’d like to know,” I told her. Maybe he already had.
“Have a good evening, Sheriff.”
“Cosi.”
She gave me the same tight, dismissive smile she’d given Trick before climbing in her truck. Her sad, pretty brown eyes met mine before she drove away.
Something pinched in my chest. I watched until her taillights disappeared, then let go of the breath I’d been holding.
Shit. That woman was on my mind, and I couldn’t seem to shake her loose.
The right thing to do would be to head to the station, make sure Jackie was booked, then write up a report.
We’d be adding assault of a peace officer to his list of charges today.
But first, I wanted to know more about what Trick had told Ilsa.
I wanted to know if this was the first time she’d visited his bar. And why he was touching her damn elbow.
I marched inside, giving my eyes a moment to adjust to the light. Then I went to stand at the corner of the bar, waiting for Trick to come over.
“How’d you know Jackie was here?” he asked.
“Archie Lee.”
“Ah.” He nodded, his gaze flicking to the pool table. “I owe him a beer next time he’s in. I owe you one too. What do you want?”
“I’m good.” I waved it off. I’d stopped drinking at Trick’s a long time ago. Not that I didn’t want to share a beer with my friend. But it was best that when we had that beer, it was in my living room.
Though it had been a long time since Trick and I had hung out. Over the years, our lives had just gone in different directions.
We’d gone to high school together. When I’d left for the police academy, he’d used the money he’d gotten from his grandmother’s inheritance to go in with Sully on the bar.
It had been a dive in those days. At first, all they’d been able to do was change the name. But over the years, they’d fixed it up. The building no longer looked like it might collapse on a windy day.
The door opened and a couple of guys who worked at the hardware store came in, waving at Trick. He’d be busy soon, so it was time for me to ask a few questions and leave.
“What did Ilsa want?” I asked.
Trick’s eyes narrowed, not by much, but enough I caught it.
He liked her, didn’t he? Not a surprise. Trick always had a thing for brunettes. “She asked a few questions about Bluebird. I got the impression they weren’t close.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really.” He shrugged. “I heard she called in a couple of times about someone poking around her place.”
He was fishing for information, but he’d have to get that from someone else.
The corner of his mouth turned up and he chuckled, shaking his head. “You never change. Always tight-lipped.”
“Something like that.” I rapped my knuckles on the bar. “I’d better head to the station. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Sure you don’t want to stay for a burger?” he asked.
“Next time. Promised Spencer I’d make him dinner.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s fourteen. So he’s pissed at me at least half the time.”
Every day was a gamble. I’d go home to a son itching to pick a fight or a kid who wanted to talk to me for hours about basketball practice.
“How’s your mom?” he asked.
“Also pissed at me.” Yesterday, she’d found out about Gwen’s letter and was furious that I hadn’t told her about it a month ago.
“Anyone not pissed at you?”
“Are you?”
“Not today.” He stretched his hand across the bar.
I shook it, then left him to his customers.
After stopping at the station to ensure Jackie was locked up for the night, I went home to find Spencer’s bedroom door shut.
“Hey.” I knocked. “How about some dinner?”
“Not hungry.”
I hung my head. Guess tonight wouldn’t be a good night. “Can I come in?”
“I’m changing.”
Was he really? He changed clothes a hell of a lot. Mostly, it had become his way of getting rid of me because I didn’t want to invade his privacy.
So I ate dinner alone. I watched a game on TV alone. And when I finally went to bed, I should have slept until morning. Except every time I drifted off to sleep, a pair of sad, chocolate-brown eyes would haunt my dreams. Would snap me awake.
What was really going on at Cotters Lake? How far downhill had Ike gone before his death?
And what the hell would it take to get Ilsa out of my damn head?