Travis(11)

He moved to go inside, and I stepped in his way again, causing him to have to move around the other side. Immature yet satisfying.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” he said, dipping around and glancing back repeatedly as he almost ran to the diner door, ducking inside.

As if he were safe there.

Those were my people. And unlike Phoebe, they were loyal.

Still, I’d bide my time.

Spencer followed as I walked toward our cruiser.

I pulled out of the lot, heading toward the station. “We could have him roughed up,” Spencer offered.

My brows came down and I gave him a glare. “We’re not going to rough anyone up, Spencer. Jesus.” I was many things, but a crooked cop wasn’t one of them.

He looked chastised. “Sorry, boss.”

I sighed. “This is a personal issue. I’ll know when the right opportunity comes along.” I glanced at him. “And listen, Spencer…”

The guy was staring at me so intently, as though I was about to impart the sagest advice he’d ever been given. I was surprised he hadn’t taken out a piece of paper to make notes. “Just…dial it down a notch, okay?”

His shoulders sagged and he nodded dejectedly. “I just want you to know I got your back, boss.”

I sighed. “I know that. I appreciate it.” He was a decent guy. He was even a good cop so far, though he hadn’t been on long. His main downfall was that his regular ass-kissing got on my nerves.

“She cheated on you,” Spencer said. “Phoebe cheated on you.” He looked personally outraged, and though it was overkill—an example of him not dialing it down—I still appreciated the concern on my behalf.

“And you walked in on it,” he said, letting out one long whistle. “Man. That sucks.” He dragged out the word, enunciating the u with a seemingly unending number of head bounces, until it was about fifty-seven syllables long and a headache had started at the base of my spine.

As if the word sucks needed to be so dramatically enunciated when discussing my cheating girlfriend. I had no doubt plenty of that had gone on before I walked in the room. I didn’t appreciate the sudden visual. “I’d want revenge too,” Spencer offered. “I mean, you walked right in on it!” he repeated.

God, why did I tell him about it? Why?

Temporary emotional insanity, it had to have been.

“Yes, Spencer, I’m aware that I walked right in on it. I haven’t forgotten the moment.”

Spencer shook his head, staring through the windshield as the sunshine-drenched streets of Pelion streaked by, the blue of the lake sparkling in the distance. “What that guy did?” Spencer went on. “Humiliating you like that? Seducing your girl? Getting under the sheets with her, naked! Sticking his—”

“Spencer,” I barked. He looked at me, startled. “Thank you so much for spelling the situation out for me, step by step, as it likely occurred. I was looking forward to considering all the possibilities and reliving the experience all over again.”

“Not a problem, boss.”

Okay, so he wasn’t the most perceptive person. If he was a good cop, it was likely only a result of luck and the fact that the most serious calls we tended to get in Pelion—barring what had happened between my father and uncles decades ago, and what happened to Archer more recently—were for lost dogs and the occasional drunk and disorderly.

And once in a while, a reckless driver.

Haven Torres from California. That’s where I’d heard that name before. Could they be related?

“You can do me a favor, though,” I said thoughtfully.

“Anything, boss. Just name it. Anything. No matter what it is.”

I glanced at him, thinning my lips. “This is a place where you might dial it down, Spencer.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah. Yes, sir. Um…” He screwed up his face, looking lost.

The headache moved up my neck and settled at the base of my skull. I looked back at the road, turning into the station parking lot. “I’m going to find out exactly where Easton Torres is from and where he’s been. Then I want you to dig up everything you can about him. Traffic tickets…arrest warrants, illegal activities posted to his social media, anything and everything we might want to know about.”

“What are we going to do with it?” Spencer asked, leaning in conspiratorially as though I was about to impart some evil master plan.

“Make flyers. Write it across the sky, of course,” I murmured, not able to roll my eyes for the pounding behind my left eye. I sighed, rubbing my temples again. I wouldn’t do anything in an official capacity unless it was warranted. But even if melodramatic, Spencer had been right in one respect: this was my town. And though I wanted revenge, I also wanted to protect what was mine.





Chapter Six


Travis

“Goddamn it!” I yelled, holding my hands in front of me to shield my face from the geyser of water that was bursting from the pipe. How the fuck had this happened? I turned my head as I yanked my T-shirt off, attempting to wrap it around the place where the pipe had busted, but instead, the entire piece of piping came loose, breaking off entirely and falling into the pond of water on the floor of my upstairs bathroom.

I stood, splashing my way toward the door, almost slipping once and catching myself. I made my way to the shut-off valve as quickly as possible, twisting the knob with a yank. And though I’d shut off the water, the sounds of drips and flowing barely diminished. The pipe had to have burst sometime that morning. It’d filled the upstairs of my home and was leaking through the ceiling to the floor below.