Chapter 2 #2
“I saw your cousin’s truck driving away, Silas. Cut the bullshit, and go pick his ass up!” he said.
“But did you see my cousin?” Silas shot back.
Silas Barnes was a first-class asshole, Quentin thought.
But there was no way to answer that question to their benefit without lying.
His fists clenched at his side, Quentin kept his tone cool.
“No, only the vehicle. But I imagine it would be easy enough to ask around town and see if anyone else saw Joey driving it in the last half hour or so.”
Silas wasn’t smiling. He looked like he was choking on something. “Don’t you tell me how to do police work, Quentin. The Darcys might have the run of everything else in this town, but they don’t own the law…not yet anyway.”
Quentin knew better. Samuel had been paying Silas off for a decade, ever since he took office.
He’d overlooked, covered up, blatantly ignored, and pinned shit on other people to benefit Samuel for years.
But pointing that out wouldn’t help Lowey.
So Quentin did something he hated more than he hated the bastard in front of him.
He swallowed his pride. “Just a thought, Sheriff. No offense meant.”
“Well, there was plenty taken,” Barnes replied. “Make a list of the damages and get it to me, along with a written statement of what happened. I don’t need to tell you that naming a suspect without any proof would not go well for you, do I?”
Lowey sighed. “No. You don’t have to tell us anything, Silas. You’ve made yourself very clear. I’ll have the list and the statement to you tomorrow morning.”
“You too, Darcy,” Silas added. “Being local gentry doesn’t get you out of your civic duty.” The last was uttered with a smirk and a tip of his hat as Silas turned and headed for what was left of the door.
When the man had left, Quentin looked straight at Lowey and said, “I hate that fucker.”
“Yeah, well, find me someone who doesn’t.”
Quentin shook his head with dismay. “It’s an elected position, for fuck’s sake. How does he keep winning?”
She looked at him then like he’d grown a second head. “Really? Your daddy is Samuel Darcy, and you have to ask how underhanded shit happens in this town?”
There was no refuting the logic in that.
Every dirty deal, rigged election, and plot that had taken place in Fontaine could be practically be traced back to Samuel in one form or other.
The man was like a goddamn parasite, a poison vine choking the life out of everything around him.
He took root and spread. Deciding to focus on more immediate concerns, Quentin asked, “Where are you staying tonight?”
“Here,” she said. “I’m not letting that son of a bitch run me out of my own home.”
Her “home” was a tiny little apartment above the bar. Looking up at the holes in the ceiling, he shook his head. “Hell, you don’t even know if it’s structurally sound! Not to mention, there’s no way in hell you’re staying here alone so that he can come back and finish the job!”
“If he wanted me dead, I’d be dead,” she said. “He’s just trying to make me pay for sending him to jail.”
He wanted to choke her, or shake her, or do something to make her see reason. Instead, he said the one thing neither of them had ever thought he would utter. “You’re coming home with me.”
Lowey gaped at him for a second before laughing, though there was no mistaking it for a sound of amusement. “Oh no. Hell no. I’d rather take my chances with the dumbass I married!”
“Goddammit, Lowey! He could have killed you today! And maybe, as you say, he wouldn’t have meant to, maybe scaring you was all he had on his worthless mind, but he’s not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he? Everything that fucker has ever done in his life has gone wrong!”
All of that was true. But going to Quentin’s house now, when they were well and truly over, when he’d never seen fit to take her there before, was too much.
Every night they’d spent together—no, she corrected.
He’d never spent the night with her. He’d always left after he’d gotten what he wanted…
well, wh at they wanted. She wasn’t going to pretend that she hadn’t wanted him, too.
Every encounter between them had occurred in her tiny apartment, surrounded by the pink frills and white painted furniture he’d found so amusing.
Not many people had ever seen the softer side of her. They expected her to be the same tough chick who worked the bar every night with a baseball bat and a sawed-off tucked under the counter. He’d thought it was hilarious, calling her little apartment The Dollhouse.
“I’m not going to your house, Quentin. Not now. Not after everything that’s happened.” Her tone was soft, and her words were perfectly civil, but there was steel in her voice. They both knew she meant it.
“What the hell is your problem, Lowey? I’m trying to keep you safe!”
The fact that he was so infuriatingly oblivious made her want to choke him. “Do you have to ask? Really? I was your little fuck buddy for months and never made it past the front door…and now, because you’ve crooked your finger, I’m just supposed to go pack my bags?”
He’d never meant to hurt her. Keeping his distance, especially while Samuel was still in town stirring shit up, had been necessary for her protection, but it had also been a convenient excuse to keep her at arm’s length.
Not that it mattered, she’d still snuck under his skin, and there she was still.
She’d gotten in his head and now he had to find a way to get back into hers.
“Then we’ll go somewhere else, but you’re sure as hell not staying here, and you’re not staying anywhere alone. ”