Chapter 19
After yesterday’s storm, the weather today was unseasonably hot and humid. The department’s air conditioning had gone down in response to working this hard during its off season and Santiago very much understood its rebellion.
He’d dropped a warm bodied woman—strong thighs, soft hands, pliable mouth, a heart that seemed to be expelling pain in bouts and intervals—at his aunt’s this morning.
She’d been standing at the front door with Lina, Saige, and Audrey as he’d drove off.
They’d all watched him like a bunch of vultures.
When he’d looked in his rearview mirror, they were bent over laughing. At him no doubt.
“Uh... Sheriff, you…you alright in there?”
It had been thirty minutes since he’d entered the sheriff’s department, and he was still grumbling and muttering because of his preoccupation with that woman.
Santiago’s office door was open and his blinds up giving both day and night shift a clear view of him as they waited for shift exchange.
Everyone’s eyes were on him: trepidation in Derry’s gaze, Roan’s and Audrey’s ranged from smug to real fucking smug, and the others simply looked at him with curiosity.
“I’m good Derry,” he said, stepping out of his office.
“Just got a lot on my mind.” And that was the truth.
His time with Lauren was a much-needed respite, but every problem in this town felt like it compounded in his absence.
His deputies didn’t have any leads or additional evidence regarding the bodies in the morgue.
His jail cells were crowded when they were usually empty for days on end, and to top it all off he had to make an appearance at court today.
He looked at his watch.
“I got an hour before I need to be in Meadow Glen, let’s get to it.”
Derry was going to follow up with the security company that installed both Lauren’s and Bailey Joe’s systems, before joining Sonny and Jessie on patrol.
Cutter would be pulling extra hours, overseeing prisoner transport to court with Deputy Evans, another part-timer.
“The council meeting has been moved to tomorrow, Sheriff,” Audrey informed him. “The mayor will suddenly be out of town for a week, and he wanted to push it up for sooner than later.”
Santiago gritted his teeth. Time constrictions were squeezing him from all directions; but he wouldn’t regret taking his day off and spending it with Lauren.
The change in the meeting though, likely meant Lauren wouldn’t have the time she needed to prepare and present her findings to the community and the council.
It wasn’t really a secret, but he had to wonder if the mayor found out he’d hired Lauren to do a forensic audit; wondered if that was the real reason the meeting was changed.
He took a breath, rolled his shoulders, and donned his sunglasses.
“Roan and I will be meeting with the prosecuting and defense attorneys before appearing in court.
“Copy that,” everyone said, standing or gathering their belongings.
The front door opened, and Lauren walked into the space looking shifty and scratching her arms and neck like she’d developed a virulent rash.
She walked toward him in twitchy jerky movements, sidling up to him and leaning in like she was gonna tell him a secret, eyes darting around at every one in his staff as they watched her.
“Say man say,” she whispered loudly, scratching at the skin of her inner elbow. She sniffed and pretended to wipe her nose. “Talk on the mountain is you got that 3x’s—S’s. I’m in a bad way, man, I need a fix. I’ll do anything, man.”
Santiago frowned at her; then understanding dawned.
He threw back his head, laughing from deep in his gut. Lauren started laughing alongside him, doubling over and pressing her weight against him as he wiped tears from his eyes.
“Get your crazy ass out of my station! Better yet, you’re coming with me and Roan. It’s the only way I can make sure you stay out of trouble,” he said kissing her quickly, then smacking her ass.
“What the hell has been going on up there on that lake?” Cutter frowned.
“If you gotta ask, your decades in this department have been wasted,” Roan said with derision.
“He’s been eating cake,” Sonny added.
“Looks like he’s been eating more than that,” Audrey muttered.
“Audrey!” Lauren gasped. It was fake. So fake.
“Yeah.” Derry snorted. “Even I can see what’s been brewing between them.”
“I know damn well I’m not the only one who didn’t see this coming.” Cutter frowned.
“Roan, pull your car around, we’ll meet you out there.”
Roan nodded at Lauren and exited the building as Cutter moved toward the holding cells. “I’ll get the prisoners ready for transport and meet y’all over there,” Cutter stated. “Don’t you harm our fearless leader. We’ll need him in one piece after you leave our beautiful mountain.”
Santiago wrestled down the spark of anger; not at his deputy, but at the thought of Lauren leaving anytime soon.
“Deputy I don’t really know you, and you may not have heard this through the Shrouded Lake grapevine, but when people tell me what to do, I tend to get a bit—”
“Violent?” Derry offered.
Lauren’s eyes widened. “Where did my sweet Derry go?”
Derry’s brown faced flushed.
“Violent is a strong word,” Audrey stepped in. “Though somewhat accurate. I would use stubbornly resistant. She’s only become violent on a few occasions, but that stubbornness…her mama said she’s had it her whole life.”
“That’s colluding with the enemy.”
“Well, you said the sheriff was the enemy but look at you two now, coming in here addicted to his—”
“Ms. Audrey,” Santiago stepped in, though he liked the idea of her being addicted
to him.
“Plus, your mama is a perfectly delightful woman, she’s just conflicted and angry like a certain other Green that happened upon this mountain.”
“You’re right,” Lauren said. “People change for better or for worse. But I choose my own better and worse, and Ma Mable ain’t who I’m choosing right now. I’m choosing me.”
“And so you should. All I’m saying is that your mama is changing too, and it might be something you could benefit from being present for.”
The lift in Lauren’s right brow, the pursing of her lips made Santiago doubt that she would be.
“Me and Ma Mable aren’t there yet, and right now I’m only focusing on the here and now,” Lauren capitulated. Slightly.
“Y’all be safe out there,” Santiago said, as he walked to the exit feeling that being around Lauren was an inherently unsafe activity.
They arrived at the courthouse in under fifteen minutes, which was ten minutes longer than Lauren anticipated.
She’d believed the courthouse would be close to the station but learned that court took place in a larger town in Olympus County, closer to the highway she’d driven along before deciding to take the scenic route into Shrouded Lake.
It was another small town, and whether true or not, looked more prosperous than Shrouded Lake.
There were more people out strolling and shopping, no vacant and abandon buildings.
“Shrouded Lake could be better than this,” Lauren muttered to herself. “The landscape is better and…I don’t know, with its lore and heritage, Shrouded Lake just has something special.”
She looked up at Santiago. “You’re right to fight for its future.”
“Well you just hold on to that energy during court, you may be called to the stand now that you’re here,” Santiago said.
Lauren wondered if he was gonna follow through with the charges he’d threatened her with that first day.
Maybe this whole getting her in his bed was a ruse to make her more vulnerable before pulling the rug out from under her.
She didn’t like having the thought, didn’t like the feeling that followed it, but after the betrayal, and how her and Santiago’s relationship started, she was more than a little justified in thinking it.
He and Roan left her alone in the hall, then he came back to guide her to two solid wooden doors.
Santiago led her inside to the small courtroom.
A thin gray-haired White man was standing near where the judge presided, talking to a woman seated behind a stenotype.
A bailiff was also present, and a few people were already sitting in the rows of benches for the public.
The mayor and his mother were at the front of the courtroom with another man, and across the aisle, an Asian man stood reviewing paperwork.
Court was called to order and the judge, a olive-skinned woman who didn’t look too much older than Lauren, entered.
“Are we ready to proceed?” the judge asked.
“I am, Your Honor,” the Asian man said.
“We are, Your Honor,” the lawyer with the Archers said. “And we ask that this case be dismissed.”
“On what grounds?”
“Mrs. Archer has plainly stated that the crash was caused by a deer in the road. We have testimony from a number of witnesses who heard her say this repeatedly but the sheriff chose to dismiss this. In addition to that there was no victim in the crash other than Mrs. Archer.”
The lawyer, Mr. Tao, she learned, succinctly presented evidence that the Shrouded Lake Sheriff’s Department had collected.
He clarified that the witnesses only heard secondhand that there was a deer, that they had not witnessed the accident or anything leading up to it. He also presented the physical evidence collected at the hospital.
Lauren leaned to the side and looked at Santi with a raised brow, impressed. Justice might actually be served against that lying assed woman.
“My apologies, Santiago. I never should have doubted your dedication to justice,” she whispered humbly. For his ears only.
Santi side-eyed her, arching his brow. The gesture made him appear both smug and dangerously sexy. How had she not realized this man was fuckable as hell sooner.
Grief. Grief and pain.