Chapter 25 Jagg
JAGG
It had been another nonstop day and when the clock on my office wall clicked to eight-thirty, I decided to take a break.
I rolled to a stop next to a browning pine tree and cut the engine, a blanket of humidity replacing the breeze from the drive.
The air was still, stifling. Heavy. The flickering neon light of Frank’s Bar flashed off the trees.
Laughter followed by a fiddle from a country song floated through the air.
A million stars twinkled around an almost-full moon.
Damn full moons.
It felt like everything was aligning for something big.
I could feel it in my bones.
My aching, creaking, popping bones.
Halfway across the parking lot, I decided on a whiskey instead of that beer.
I pushed through the front door. There was a different scent lingering in the air that night—Aqua-Net and cheap perfume.
It was Karaoke night at Frank’s Bar. Less known as Berry Springs’s Single’s Night. The place was packed. Funny how quickly people forgot about a slain cop.
I ignored a few cat calls as I made my way through the Stetsons and Old Spice, beelining it to the only open seat at the end of the bar—my seat.
“Howdy do, Detective?” Frank called out from behind the taps, a sweat of sheen across his brow, a fresh tattoo down his forearm. “The usual?”
“A double.”
“You got it. Be just a minute. Damn full moon.”
Good to know I wasn’t the only one who believed in ill decisions at the turn of the tides.
As if on cue, the juke box switched to an old Bobby Bare song called Marie Laveau.
Took me a second to realize the song was about an ugly witch from the Louisiana bayous.
Took me even less than that to register the giggles and chiding at the other end of the bar.
Something piqued in me, a sixth sense if you will.
I leaned back on my stool, zeroing in on the notorious Aldridge twins.
Two wild, twenty-something southern spitfires who thought they ran the town and every man in it.
Their blonde, over-teased hair sat like helmets over pointy shoulders, barely-there tank tops, and wranglers that gave new meaning to the word camel toe.
As quickly as I noticed them, my gaze shifted to the strands of dark curly hair peeking out from the center of a group of big-bellied cowboys next to the twins.
Sunny.
The volume on the jukebox was turned up…
Down in Louisiana, where the black trees grow, lives a voodoo lady named Marie Laveau with a black cat’s tooth and Mojo bone…
… followed by the bullies’ pitched voices like nails on a chalkboard…
“Never knew skin could be that pale or rip that easy. Bitch is a walking commercial for vaccines.”
“Didn’t know herpes could spread to your arms.”
“Gross. Probably fell off her broom on her way to hospice. Bitch has got stage-five something fo sho.”
“Careful, she’ll turn us into a frog.”
“No, this one’ll shoot you through the eye…”
Fire popped through my veins like an explosion. I surged to my feet, knocking the bar stool behind me onto the ground. I crossed the room with tunnel vision.
Sunny Harper stood facing the bar top, that strong, straight back as she was bullied from behind. Her slitted eyes remained forward, her jaw locked in a way that almost contorted her face. Flush covered her cheeks, her hands curled to fists at her side. Restraint.
Shocking restraint.
No, practiced restraint.
The cowboys to her right were leaning inches from her, sensing blood, their anger fed from a day of gossip about the death of the pastor’s son. The Aldridge twins were chiding her from the back. A pack of dogs around the injured deer.
My entire body lit with rage.
“You like to target Christians, Voodoo Bitch?” The fat redneck to her right leaned forward. “Why don’t you come to my house next time? I’ve got a stake in my back yard I’d like to show you…”
His buddy picked up a strand of Sunny’s curls. “Bet these kinky, black pubes light up real quick.”
The redneck grinned a nasty, yellow-stained grin. “Bet it smells about the same, too. Let’s see…”
My hand clamped down on the fat bastard’s forearm as his hand reached for the switchblade on his belt.
My other hand grabbed his buddy’s wrist, twisting it until he dropped the curl and his head slammed onto the bar top.
A pitcher of beer toppled over, a handful of bottles shattered on the hardwood floors.
Chaos erupted.
I flipped open the knife I’d swiped from fat boy’s belt and leaned into his buddy’s ear. “You ever touch one strand of hair on that woman’s head again and your fingers won’t be the only nubs I’ll cut from your body. You understand me, cowboy?”
I dipped as a fist whizzed through the air next to me—less than three inches from Sunny’s face.
That was it.
I snapped.
I spun Sunny’s body away from the center of the chaos and slammed my fist into the redneck’s face.
The two-hundred-fifty pound bastard locked up like a plank, flipping a table on its side as his body hit the floor. The crowd scattered like ants. I grabbed Sunny’s hand and addressed the blonde bitches now gaping at the carnage on the floor.
“Bite your tongues next time, ladies, or I’ll make sure every person in Berry Springs knows about all the dicks you two dirty cunts have sucked in that bathroom.
” I nodded to the camera above the bathrooms. “Now, unless you want to spend the rest of the evening in a cage for the dime bag you’ve got in your purses, I suggest you begin your walk home.
” I held out the hand that wasn’t gripping Sunny’s.
Freshly manicured nails trembled as they set their glittery keychains in my palm.
“You can pick these up at the station after signing up for community service. I can promise you the dick is just as accommodating in the jailhouse bathroom.”
Then, behind me—
“Shit. Sorry about that Detective, I didn’t realize what was going—”
I turned to Frank, his eyes wide, broken glass in his hands.
“If you don’t get a better handle on your bar, Frank, I’ll make sure the doors get closed up and you never see this place again.”
Frank blinked.
“Let’s go.” I pulled Sunny away from the bar top and yanked her close to me. If someone—anyone—else laid a finger on her, I was going to murder someone.
Hand in hand, I led Sunny through the now-silent bar, every pair of bloodshot eyes locked on us. Not a single word was spoken, not a single drop drunk, not a muscle moved as we maneuvered through the tables.
Sunny didn’t jerk away, didn’t try to push me away. Good thing because I didn’t know how I’d react if she did at that moment. She knew, in that moment, to shut her mouth, mind me, and leave me the fuck alone.
Good girl.
The whispers started the moment we pushed out the front door.
It was only then that I released the breath I’d been holding and realized the magnitude of the moment.
I’d just gone to bat for Sunny. Publicly. Nothing else mattered to me the moment I saw her get bullied. Not my friends, not my reputation, not my badge. It was as if a switch had flipped in me, with Sunny’s finger on the trigger.
That was the first time a little warning bell ticked off in my head.
Evil witch or not, Sunny Harper had some sort of spell over me.
And I needed to be careful.