Chapter 22
Santiago was still at the sheriff’s department fifteen minutes after Lauren left instead of ten.
What Anderson, Dave Flemming, and Bailey Joe had done was irrefutable with all the evidence Lauren had provided.
The mayor initially tried to deny the truth but in the end, he’d agreed to write a statement detailing his involvement with the revitalization project.
Mostly out of fear that Dave Flemming would make a deal and throw him under the bus first.
No honor among thieves and all of that. And the two men were thieves, but he didn’t believe they were his killers. In his gut, that possibility didn’t feel right.
“Alright, I’m clocking out,” he said. “If answers are gonna be found, they’ll be found in the morning when our brains have had time to rest.” He ordered everyone off duty to go home.
He rubbed his eyes. They felt like they been blasted with fine grains of sand. He’d barely gotten any sleep last night, the one night he hadn’t slept with Lauren, who’d stayed with her mother and prepared all this evidence. He didn’t like that she probably hadn’t slept as well.
His body felt restored at the thought of her. Gathering his things, he looked up at Sonny who elbowed Roan out of his way. Roan shoved him back, but Sonny barely moved.
“Hey League, can I catch a ride up to the lake with you?”
“I’m not accepting guests tonight, Te Awa.”
“Not unless your name is Lauren,” Roan added.
And it was not.
“I’m renting out the ADU on St. James’s property.”
“Of course you are, two American psychos doing psycho shit,” Roan muttered.
Santiago locked up his files.
“Be at the cruiser in two.”
“Copy that,” Sonny said, stiff-arming Roan out of the way.
“There’s no way you two aren’t long lost siblings,” Santiago muttered, shrugging into his department-issued jacket.
“Thank God I’m an only child. I would’ve smothered him in the cradle.”
“You tried to drown him when he joined the team, remember that?”
She smiled. “Good times!”
“Yet he’s the psycho.”
“Absolutely. Night, League.”
“Night Roan.”
Sonny sat tensely in the passenger seat as they headed out of town. “I don’t like this.”
“You were raised in South San Francisco; you should be used to it.”
“Nah man, we had fog and city lights. Not this shit that creeps like lost souls.”
“You’re a seal.”
“I’m Māori brother, I don’t give a damn about any of that.”
“Make sure you don’t let St. James talk you into going in the lake. He’s got a strange sense of humor.”
“Copy that,” Sonny said, clenching as Santiago turned a curve. “Hey League, brother, slow down on the turns. I know you want to get to Ms. Cakes, but let’s get us there in one piece, eh?”
Sonny was right. Rushing up Old Lotty Road at night could end his plans with Lauren, and their lives. It was ironic how a crash brought Lauren into his life, and with the discovery of corruption, the drugs, the murdered and missing people, the jail break…Shrouded Lake had been crashing out since.
“Hopefully things’ll get better now,” he said, mostly to himself. Unease slithered through his gut.
He slowed his cruiser down as he passed the location of Veronica Archer’s crash.
“Something wrong, League?” Sonny asked. His hand reached for his gun as he looked out the passenger window.
“It all seems to start with Lauren coming to Shrouded Lake,” he said, contemplating. “Her presence here set off a chain of events; and things continue to escalate. I’m missing something, Sonny. I know I told Roan that I’d let it go for the night, but this nagging feeling won’t go away.”
His phone rang as he turned onto the road leading to his house. Santiago answered immediately, believing it was Lauren.
“Hey Sheriff, this is Beatrice.” She was working dispatch tonight. “We got an anonymous call here saying that Andy’s truck was spotted on the outskirts near Wild Ridge Bar.”
“Is Roan still there?”
“Just left.”
“Radio her and have her check it out on her way home. Tell her I’ll owe her.” Lately Roan’s days had been as long as his.
“Ten-four.”
Santiago pulled up to the front of his house and knew, just by looking at it, that Lauren wasn’t here. He walked toward the lake, Sonny silent at his side.
“Mist is freaking me out,” Sonny restated as they drew closer to the water.
The mist wasn’t as thick as it could get, but it was moving strange. Drifting unnaturally toward the Moor house. He moved in that direction with it. Sonny continued to walk alongside him instead of heading over to—
There was movement at the side of Lauren’s house, a man climbing through the laundry room window.
“That looked like St. James,” Sonny muttered.
Lake water rolled over Santi’s booted feet, and like tumblers clicking into place, the evidence, the hypotheticals and ruminations coalesced, creating a narrative that felt plausible. Right.
The mist seemed to congregate between Lauren’s back porch and the water’s edge as if holding vigil.
Santiago ran. Tossing Sonny Lauren’s keys, he motioned for Sonny to go around to the front of the house and to hold there.
On the back porch he slipped his phone back into his pant pocket after pressing record, then banged on the back door. “Hey woman, you decent?” he called out before turning the door handle. It was locked.
The back porch light, which had always been on, turned off. A moment later, Lauren opened the door just enough to poke her head through.
She looked heartbroken over him being there.
“Hey Santi, tonight’s not a good time. I was just heading to bed. Maybe we can have breakfast in the morning instead.”
“I know it’s been a long day, but you promised me cake. Put it in a to-go container.” He smiled. “You know me, Ms. Green, I’m not leaving this house until I get what I want. I’ll tell you about my interrogation with the mayor as a thank you. He’ll be going to prison no doubt about it.”
She looked at something to her right, more like someone.
Sighing in frustration she opened the door wide enough for him to see the gun pointed toward her temple.
Entering the house, Santiago nodded in greeting at the man he had an all-points bulletin out on.
“Tommy, I thought you’d be long gone by now,” he said casually.
“We had to tie up loose ends, Sheriff. Couldn’t leave before my job was done. If I do that, I don’t get paid.”
“Where is she?” Santiago asked looking down the hall where St. James lay on the floor, unconscious, blood pooling around his head. He hadn’t made it fully out of the laundry room. “He dead?”
Tommy took a step closer to Lauren and pressed the gun firmly against her temple before looking over his shoulder.
A familiar scent floated through the air.
Footsteps echoed from the top of the stairs and Santiago looked up.
I said it was a deer...dear.
“You were always too observant; too smart for your own good. I told Alden this,” Veronica Archer said as she slowly descended the stairs.
“But in a rare moment of self-determination, he made you interim sheriff when Benedict retired. That was one of Alden’s last independent actions before his stroke.
My recommendation was that he promote Loyd Peters. ”
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and motioned her hand toward St. James’s body. That’s when Santiago saw the pistol she held.
“What’s this?” she asked Tommy.
“He came in through the open window in the laundry room. I busted his head wide open. City boys have no idea how hard it is to sneak up on a natural hunter.”
Veronica shrugged, dismissing St. James to his fate.
“I knew my husband’s decision to hire you would bite me in the behind one day, I just didn’t imagine you’d take such a large chunk, Stillwater,” she chuckled.
“Bitch, you don’t have an ass to bite,” Lauren huffed. “What you have is bone and gristle.”
Veronica’s face flushed, her grip on the pistol tightened.
Damn this woman’s mouth, Santiago thought. If they both survived this, he was going to give Lauren some very real and very physical consequences for her fucking recklessness.
“Why are you here, Veronica?” Santiago asked, drawing Veronica’s attention back toward him. “Being upset you and your son were arrested is understandable, but Lauren isn’t responsible for your actions or the consequences.”
He knew the arrests weren’t the real reason Veronica was here, but he wanted her talking instead of shooting.
“Well, since neither of you will live to tell the tale, it only seems fair you know the reason you have to die.”
“Oh, I know the reason—” Lauren began.
“Shut. Up,” he snarled and thank fucking Jesus she did.
“She does actually know the reason, Sheriff. Which is why I’m here.
I’m not meant to live a basic life. I was born to power.
I thought I married a man who coveted it as much as I did.
When Alden and I moved to Shrouded Lake, I thought we were going to build our own personal empire.
I didn’t understand that he had a true devotion to this place.
To these people. He was willing to lose a little so they could have a better future, as if anyone born in Shrouded Lake could know what it means to live more than a few steps above squalor,” she snapped.
“Because of some of his altruistic decisions, our funds slowly began to deteriorate. I was able to influence him where I could, especially once he became mayor, but I couldn’t completely cull him from the tendency to zig after I told him to zag.”
“They were on the brink of bankruptcy,” Lauren informed Santiago. Then turned to Mrs. Veronica. “She knew that if she didn’t take the reins into her own hands, she would lose everything that made her…her. Meaning money.”
“You are surprisingly intelligent,” Veronica said, lips contorted into a malicious smile.
Then she shrugged. “If my Alden had hired Loyd Peters—who is very easy to influence—over a decorated Melungeon veteran, this never would have happened. Your grandfather really built up your achievements, Sheriff. But the moment you put a certain segment of people in power, it weakens the natural order of things.”