Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Asher
When I park in front of Scotty’s Diner, a clear realization hits me: this is the first time I’ve stopped here and not braced for combat. Today, I just want to talk to her.
I step out of the cruiser and head in. The overhead bell gives that cheerful chime, and today the place smells like cinnamon and hot coffee. Sarah is at the counter, her name tag shining, and her smile automatic.
“Good afternoon, Officer,” she says.
“Hey, how’s it going?”
“I’ll take this one, Sarah,” Jasmine calls from the swing door. Then she’s there—apron neat, hair in a ponytail, that small, guarded smile that somehow feels like it’s only for me.
“Officer Vaughn,” she says. “I take it your wounds are completely healed?”
“Almost. I’ve been cleared for duty.”
“I see. Back on the field.” She drifts to the display case and pulls out five scones. “You have no choice today, by the way.”
“No choice… what?”
She hands me a warm paper bag. I reach for my wallet.
“Nope,” she says, watching the card between my fingers. “I’m not taking your money.”
“You’re giving me the pity discount again?”
“Yes. And you have no choice. Tell Brick I’ll give him the secret recipe next time he comes by.”
I slide the card away. “Don’t think I’m giving you a pity discount if I catch you committing a misdemeanor.”
Her eyes narrow. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”
“Often,” I say, tucking the bag under my arm. “What else can I do for you?”
She hesitates, swallows, leans closer. “There is something. I think I’m being threatened.”
I straighten. “What are you talking about?”
“Can you spare a few minutes? Not over the counter.”
We take a booth near the register. She talks; I listen. Swanson. The Escalade. The “I know everything about you” routine. The not-quite threat that still managed to feel like one.
“I don’t know, Jasmine,” I say when she’s done. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do right this second. He made a buy offer—that’s not illegal. We’d need overt threats, witnesses, something on paper. Otherwise any judge will say he’s clean.”
“What, I can’t even get a restraining order?” Her hands are up, helpless. “He listed my friends and family.”
“I’m sorry. Without proof—”
“He sent those men to rob my store.”
“We don’t have evidence of that. It could’ve been a random break-in.”
“Wow,” she says softly.
“If you’re right—”
“If I’m right?” She fixes me with that sharp green stare.
“You know what I mean. I’m trying to be rational.”
“Screw rationality—I’m worried about my life.”
“And what, you think I’m not?” The words are out before I can stop them. “Of course, I am. More than you know.”
Her eyes flicker. “What does that mean?”
I open my mouth, and right then the radio on my shoulder crackles to life. Dispatch: disturbance on Baxter Avenue, possible prowler, homeowner afraid to leave the house.
“There’s a call a few blocks from here,” I say, pushing out of the booth. “I’ve got to go.”
I can feel her gaze between my shoulder blades as I hit the door and jog for the cruiser.
What the hell was that, more than you know?
***
Baxter Avenue is one of the posh pockets of Golden Heights—wide lawns, fresh paint, agitated hydrangeas. I pull to the curb outside the address, walk to the porch, and knock.
The door opens to a woman in her early forties, pale and wide-eyed, towel tightened around her like armor.
“Are you Helen Sanders?”
She nods.
“You made the 9-1-1 call.”
“Jared. My ex.” Her voice trembles. She points across the lawn at a tired wood shed sagging by a fence. “He’s in there. He said he’d come back and make me pay. I have a shift at the animal shelter and I haven’t been able to leave the house. Please, officer, get him out—”
“Okay.” I put a hand up, steady. “Go back inside, lock the door. Anyone else home?”
She shakes her head.
“Good. I’ll handle this.”
The shed is made of wood. Disintegrating wood. It creaks when I touch it—like a coffin someone assembled with an Allen wrench and spite. I plant my feet wide, slide the door, and get a full-face blast of eau de wet lumber and old lawnmower.
Great. My abdomen twinges. Not the case to test my “still healing but thinks he’s fine” theory.
There’s a heavy workbench just inside, furred over with dust, cobwebs, and what I pray is sawdust. I sweep the flashlight beam across a wall of rusting tools.
“Jared?” I call, easing my hand to the pistol. “Golden Heights Sheriff’s Office. Let’s make this simple and keep all our bones, yeah?”
Something thuds. Not big—more… skittery. My finger hovers on the trigger.
“Jared,” I try again, lower, firmer. “Hands where I can see them. No surprises.”
Silence. Then another thud. Behind a leaning bookcase shoved into a corner like it wronged someone personally.
My gut does that helpful hey remember you got punched there throb as I brace and shoulder the bookcase aside. It slides with a groan. I sweep the beam into the gap and—
Two little bandit faces stare back.
We blink at each other. A third pops up like a whack-a-mole. Then a fourth. Then a fat one waddles into frame with a plastic peanut butter jar jammed on its head like a space helmet.
Trash pandas. A whole masked crew.
I exhale the breath I was saving for the afterlife. “Dispatch,” I murmur into my radio, keeping my voice neutral. “Be advised: the suspect in the shed on Baxter is a family of… raccoons. Repeat: family of raccoons. Helmeted leader is possibly armed with Skippy.”
“Copy,” Dispatch crackles, absolutely failing to hide the grin in her voice. “Do you require backup, or a photographer?”
“Negative on both,” I say, and the peanut-butter astronaut bonks into my boot. “Stand by.”
I holster the gun and crouch, because apparently this is my job now.
The helmeted one huffs, fogging up the jar.
“Okay, pal.” I grab a screwdriver from the wall in the garden shed and gently wedge the jar.
Little wiggle. Pop. He blinks up at me like I just showed him fire, then trundles indignantly over my foot. I don’t yelp. Much.
“No one saw that,” I inform the shed.
The biggest raccoon stands on a paint can and just… studies me. I hold up both hands. “We’re good here? We done menacing the woodworking section?”
He chitters something that sounds like a verdict. I back out, slide the door mostly shut, and text the number the department uses for animal control: Raccoons in shed, Baxter Ave. Family of 5. One peanut-butter enthusiast. They’ll relocate them somewhere without towel-wrapped homeowners.
Across the lawn, a set of blinds snap closed in the neighbor’s window. Ms. Rhonda Tillman, card-carrying Chair of the Neighborhood Watch, is already live blogging this to her bridge group.
I knock at the front door again. It swings open and Helen appears, still in a towel, hair wrapped like a croissant, eyes enormous. I school my face into Professional and Not At All Startled.
“Did you get him?” she whispers. “Is he—did he break anything?”
“That depends,” I say. “Are you missing a five-member, highly organized masked gang?”
Her hand flies to her mouth. “Oh my God. There were… multiple?”
“Raccoons,” I clarify. “A family. One was wearing a peanut-butter jar like a helmet. They’re the ones making the noise. No sign of Jared.”
She blinks. Twice. “So, I don’t have a stalker… I have… raccoons?”
“Correct. A stalk of raccoons.” I give it a beat. “That’s not the word. But yes.”
She exhales so hard her towel does a risky dip. I aim my gaze at the doorframe like it owes me money. “I—wow. Okay. Um. Can you arrest them?”
“Tempting,” I say. “But outside my jurisdiction. I put in a call to animal control. They’ll relocate them to the Sanders Street Trash-Panda Syndicate.”
From next door, Rhonda’s voice floats through her screen window at full stage whisper: “Helen, ask him to sign my Neighborhood Watch clipboard! And to tell Gary to bring the orange cones back!”
“Will do, Ms. Tillman,” I call, because this is not my first Rhonda rodeo.
Helen clutches the towel tighter. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. I really thought it was Jared. He said he’d come back and make me pay.”
“You did the right thing,” I say. “Call when something feels wrong. Even if it’s… cute wrong.” I hand her a card. “If Jared actually shows, this is the number. Also—keep the shed closed, lock your doors, and don’t leave pet food outside. That’s basically a raccoon rave invitation.”
She nods, mortified and relieved in equal parts. “Should I, like… file a restraining order against the raccoons?”
I keep a straight face. “We can try, but they’re notorious for ignoring paperwork.”
From the neighbor’s yard: “Ask him if he wants banana bread! It’s low-sugar!”
“Another time, Ms. Tillman!”
I step off the porch, radio crackling to life again. “Unit Twelve, status?”
“Ten-seventy-eight resolved,” I say, heading back to the cruiser. “Suspects released on their own recognizance. Advise citizens to secure snacks.”
“Copy, Sheriff,” Dispatch says, and I can hear Gary and Dave laughing in the background. “We’ll mark it as… community outreach.”
I slide into the driver’s seat, the ache in my ribs reminding me I am not, in fact, invincible. I glance at the diner listed as the next patrol pass on my route.
Raccoons, I can handle.
Jasmine? Jury’s out.
I pull away from the curb and point the cruiser back toward Brime Street. The scones on the seat slide in their bag at the turn, and I steady them with one hand.
Brick first, I remind myself. Then paperwork. Then I figure out what “more than you know” actually meant before I see Jasmine again.
Because I’m going to see her again. And probably sooner than is good for either of us.