No Ordinary Sheriff

“Not good. That’s why I’m calling.”

“Just a minute. The kids are watching a Disney movie. I can’t hear.”

A second later, it went quiet on the other end and Janey said, “What were you saying?”

“Where are you?”

“In the bathroom of the hotel room with the door locked.” She laughed. “It’s the only way I can have peace and quiet. About Tom?”

“He overdosed. He’s in the hospital. In a coma.”

She heard Janey gasp. “Oh my God. We’ll come home right now.”

“Oh, no, you won’t. I almost didn’t call because I knew you’d say that, but I had to tell you.”

“But—”

“No buts. Honestly, there’s nothing you can do.”

“Poor Tom. Life has been too hard on him.”

“It sure has.” Shannon changed the phone to her other ear and took a sweater out of a drawer Janey kept packed for her. “I’m staying at your place, okay?”

“Of course, but why are you there?”

“Tom got the drugs in Ordinary. I’m taking a look around.”

“Ordinary?” Janey’s voice held disbelief.

“Apparently the town isn’t the source. It isn’t being made here, but he definitely got it here.”

Shannon’s next bet was on the biker bar Janey used to complain about.

“I’m going to check out the biker bar in Ordinary first.”

“Biker bar? That’s gone. The Sheriff chased them out of town. They’re all over in Monroe now at a place called Sassy’s.”

“Okay, I’ll scope it out.”

“Shannon, be careful,” Janey warned in her big-sister voice.

“I will. I’m good at my job.”

“I know. I worry anyway.”

“I’ll see you when you get home Sunday.”

No matter what her sister said about being careful, Shannon was going to check out that bar. The distance between bikers and drugs was no big leap for imagination.

She hung up and spread her favorite lotion over her skin, then dressed in panties, a bra and a pair of jeans. She had just picked up the sweater when she heard something downstairs.

She stopped and held her breath.

Another noise. A creak on the stairs. Damn.

There was definitely someone in the house.

She finished pulling on her sweater and took her gun out of her purse. Hiding behind the bedroom door, she waited.

CHAPTER TWO

NAVIGATING A MINEFIELD of children’s toys, Cash crept across the veranda to the front door of the Wright house. With the toe of his cowboy boot, he nudged aside the cop car he’d bought for Ben’s third birthday.

Cash’s buddy, C.J., was married to Janey and crazy about his wife. They had a bunch of great kids C.J. adored. Cash was still single—children a daydream—and nothing but an honorary uncle to his friend’s children.

Now Dad was dying and Cash might be the end of the Kavenagh line. He wanted what C.J. had with Janey, a family life instead of the horror show his childhood had been.

‘I was a rotten role model. You never got married and had kids.’ Was it Dad’s fault?

Yeah. Maybe. He didn’t know.

The crisp wind that had arisen with nightfall spoke of autumn running into winter. He inhaled the scent of leaves breaking down on damp earth then exhaled on a sigh. If he had a bunch of kids, he might be in California visiting Disneyland, too, like the Wrights.

Instead he was here, investigating a light on in the upstairs window of what was supposed to be an empty house.

Hailey Hall babysat Janey’s kids sometimes. She would have a key to the house. Cash had caught her and her boyfriend, Jeff, in the weirdest nooks and crannies around town, making out like, well, teenagers.

He wouldn’t put it past those kids to use the place while it was empty.

He opened the front door and stepped inside. Time to teach them a lesson by scaring the wits out of them.

He looked for anything out of the ordinary, treading carefully in the darkness in case the intruders weren’t Hailey and Jeff. His gun sat like a metal backbone, tucked into the waistband of his pants.

This was only Ordinary, but crime touched even small towns. No sense taking chances.

Moonlight poured in through the kitchen window, illuminating groceries on the counter—including a white box from a bakery over in Haven. He lifted the lid and checked inside. Doughnuts.

Damn kids. They had some nerve bringing snacks. A plate, silverware and a mug sat in the drying rack along with one small pot. An empty tin of canned pasta and sauce had been thrown in the recycle box. They’d made themselves at home. He was going to give them a good piece of his mind.

Only one of them had eaten, though. Probably Jeff. Kid was growing like a weed.

Cash heard a sound from the top floor—a drawer opening and closing, maybe.

He climbed the stairs. In the dark, his hand touched a stuffed animal that one of the children had left on the railing. He rubbed the soft fur between his fingers. Yeah, a bundle of kids and a great wife to wake up to every day would go a long way toward dispelling this feeling he’d had lately of…of…holding his breath, of needing…something to happen, even before Frank showed up this evening.

Another noise, softer this time, pulled him out of his reflections. Snap out of it. Self-pity wasn’t usually Cash’s thing, but at the rate Hailey and Jeff were going, they’d have children long before he ever did.

Crazy teenagers. They were going to curse him from here to Memphis because, really, where were a couple of horny teenagers supposed to go when they still lived with their parents?