Raid (Unfinished Hero #3)(28)

I nodded. “Apparently lots of it. Though, they didn’t share how much.”

“And Joe was cool with you?”

Joe was Sherriff Joe who had been Sherriff Joe since I was about twelve.

I nodded again. “He asked me not to leave town, but he told me he knows I’m not involved.”

“Did he explain the operation?” Raiden went on.

Another nod from me.

“He said the dogs found little baggies of crystal meth at both the bike shop and my place, most of it at my place hidden under the floorboards, but apparently they bagged the drugs at the bike shop. Evidently, Heather packed it with my afghans and shipped it to drug people that were around my boutiques. They got their drugs and hand delivered my shipments to the local shops so no one would be the wiser. Though if the USPS sniffed it out, which thank God they didn’t, they’d trace it back to me and I’d have uncomfortable questions to answer, but Heather and Bodhi would be long gone. Sherriff Joe said Bodhi told the police all this when they interrogated him. They shipped it everywhere, all over the country. Some of my shipments were drug free because they didn’t have a dealer to ship to in that area, but a lot of them were tainted. ”

None of this made me happy, most especially my friends duping me and putting me in danger of being arrested for a felony I had no knowledge of, but also me being such an idiot. Heck, I actually paid Heather to do it. But there was nothing I could do about it except feel relief it was over.

The other part of my day was spent calling the boutique owners that were in the areas the police suspected the drugs were shipped to and, luckily, Bodhi was right. None of them were the wiser. They had no idea and Sherriff Joe advised me not to tell them.

“What’s done is done and unless they read the Willow Chronicle, they’ll never know and don’t need to know.”

I decided to take him up on his advice.

For some reason, Bodhi had used his one phone call to call me, and when I picked up he said, “Banana.” Banana was his what I once thought was sweet, now I thought was unoriginal and grating, nickname for me. “Please don’t hang up. Heather and I wanna ex—”

I’d hung up.

I also told Raiden about this call.

He seemed less happy about it than I was.

“Any more attempts at contact, honey, you disconnect and call me immediately. I’ll shut that shit down,” he’d ordered and the way he did, in his rough and commanding voice edged with more than a hint of anger, I just nodded.

Close to the end of the meal, Raiden had asked, “How’s Miss Mildred about all this shit?”

This was another part of my day I didn’t like, and it was the part I didn’t like it most of all.

“She was shocked,” I answered, a quaver in my voice. I cleared my throat to wash it away. “Upset for me. Worried in general about the state of the world. Rocked that something like this could happen in Willow. Shaken that it happened, and that it happened to me.” I locked eyes with him and concluded, “Not good.”

“Church tomorrow?” he asked, and I nodded again. “She got someone with her tonight?”

“Eunice, her widowed neighbor, is over. They’re watching movies.”

“Good,” he muttered.

“I’m going to keep a closer eye on her for a while,” I told him. “She acts eighty, which everyone knows is the new sixty-five, but she’s not and I can’t forget that. I did manage to talk her into not calling my folks or Jeremy.”

At that, Raiden’s brows shot together before he asked, “Why the f**k did you do that?”

“Uh, sweetheart, Grams freaked. You think I want my parents to freak?” His chin weirdly jolted back when I said the word “sweetheart”, but I ignored that and kept going. “Like Sherriff Joe said, it’s over and they don’t need to know, which, for them, means they don’t need to worry.”

“Baby, not sure that’s a good plan,” Raiden noted gently.

“Sat with Grams and saw her face, Raiden, her hands shaking,” I replied and finished firmly. “It might not be good, but it’s my plan.”

He let it go for which I was grateful.

Now we were at the Deluxe after he’d paid for dinner and tipped his sister. He paid for the tickets and paid for movie refreshments we did not need after a big sandwich and Rachelle’s Colorado-wide famous seasoned shoestring fries.

I knew without worrying even a second about it that this date, without a doubt, was going well, and after our two kisses I was nervous, but excited, about what came after the movies.

But first, I got two movies.

I slid down the aisle and did it babbling, “Film noir night. My favorite night of the year at the Deluxe. And best of all, this year, Sunset Boulevard and Chinatown.”

I sat, immediately tossed my purse in the empty seat beside me and shifted up the armrest—after a huge fundraising drive, the Deluxe had updated their seats two years before. They rocked. They reclined. You could lift up the armrests. They had cupholders. They were awesome.

I reached up to Raiden and divested him of my drink and slid it in my cupholder. As he folded into his seat I relieved him of the popcorn and plonked it down in the area between us that was freed by the raised armrest.

Perfect for both of us to get to.

I also kept blabbing.