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Sam stood in the center of his living room, which looked like it'd been tossed by a couple of thieves, or a hurricane.

Hurricane Mercy.

He didn't know what to make of the fact that, she'd been caught with the bill wrapper. Nor did he know what to make of her being taken to the station for questioning.

But he did know one thing...Wesson...he refused to think of him as Brody...had rubbed him the wrong way.

Still, this wasn't his problem.

He didn't know Mercedes from Adam. What he did know was that he didn't want to get involved. He was on break from getting involved.

And in spite of what his commander wanted, he had nineteen days left on his leave, and he planned on using every single one of them to do jack shit.

He was looking forward to it.


But for reasons he couldn't explain, he couldn't dispel the image of Mercedes at the station, sitting in an interrogation room, in trouble.

He'd always believed in the system. He'd had to. It was what had made his job so important to him.

Take down the bad guys and let the courts keep them down...that had been his life, his entire reason for being.

But then, that very system had failed him. And he'd failed too. He'd failed the people who believed in the system.

And now, he was taking a break from people so he couldn't fail again.

Which in no way explained why, instead of putting the house back together, or maybe, going back to paddle-boarding, he ended up in front of his laptop.

He'd already done that basic search on Mercedes, but he hadn't gone far.

So he picked up where he'd left off.

Her mother had a record...two arrests for assault and battery. One of them, apparently, for the baseball bat incident Mercedes had told him about.

Both times the charges had been reduced, and Maxine Jones had been let out on time served.

Mercedes' sister, Heather, had a record as well...for indecent exposure.

But there was nothing for Mercedes.

Doesn't surprise him, though going back further, he caught a few additional times where she'd been questioned, for an incident involving her science teacher, who'd allegedly been sexually inappropriate with his students.

His heart squeezed and he hoped to God she hadn't been one of them.


Leaning back in his chair, Sam stared at his screen.

He already knew that Mercedes was protective, loyal, and tough as hell. Now, he also knew that she'd grown up knee-high in shit, and yet somehow, she appeared to come out of it with a sweet kindness, that was to-the-bone genuine.

And she was innocent in regard to the money.

He felt it deep in his gut.


He researched Brody Wesson next.

There'd been the basic search done when he had applied for the lease, but Sam went deeper without remorse, because something wasn't right.

The golden boy had certainly sailed through life so far.

He'd been raised here in town, was captain of the football team, and had gone on to the University of Washington, graduating with a degree in political science.

He hadn't gotten into law school, so he'd come back home and found a job.

He paid his bills on time, golfed, and had a fantasy football team that did pretty well. He'd been pulled over three years ago in Kent with a hooker in his car, but the story had later been amended, to describe the woman as being an exotic dancer.

Brody sat on several charitable committees in North bend, and as the town clerk, no one had a single negative thing to say about him.

He was well known and well liked.

Suddenly, Sam was experiencing bad flashbacks from the whole senator nightmare. Not that Brody was a secret stalker and murderer.

No. Sam suspected he was exactly as he appeared...a guy for whom things either came easy or not at all, because he was just on the wrong side of lazy.

Which also told Sam something else...Brody wasn't the thief either. He didn't have it in him.

So the question was, did Brody really believe Mercedes had taken the money?

This was a tough one, because, there'd been something in the man's eyes, and something in his tone, that hadn't rung true to Sam.

He'd been lying.

But about what exactly?


Sam made a call to Sheriff Luke Thompson. He was only a couple years ahead of Sam, but their paths have crossed professionally on several occasions, most notably, when Sam had helped him track down one of his perps in San Francisco, not too long ago.

The guys bullshitted back and forth for a few minutes, and then Sam asked about Mercedes.

Apparently, she was still being questioned, because having the bill wrapper in her possession looked bad, real bad, Sheriff Luke said, but it wasn't enough evidence for an arrest.

He said that a toe ring had been found in Brody's office couch, and it didn't seem to belong to anyone who had business being in his office.

Or to Mandy Martin.

Sam hung up and chewed on that for a few minutes.

"Not your problem," he told himself. But he was still mulling it over when his cell rang.


"How's the brooding going?" a female voice asked.

Sam frowned at his sister through the phone.

"I'm not brooding."

"Of course you are. You're a professional brooder."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Did you call for something in particular or just to piss me off?"

"Well, fun as it is to piss you off, I did call for a reason."

She hesitated.

'Shit!'

"What?" he asked.

Stacie had come out of prison determined to fix her life. And Sam had done whatever he could...paying for rehab...twice...sending her to school...also twice...and finally, sitting in the crowd with pride and relief, when she'd eventually graduated with her teaching credentials.

She now worked with troubled kids in an alternative high school in the Bay Area, and he couldn't be more proud of her.

But she was still a colossal pain in his ass.


"You okay?" he asked.

"Yes. I just..."

"Whatever you need, Stace. You know that."

She sighed, sounding exasperated.

"Okay, stop expecting me to be in trouble every time I call."

Sam felt a twinge of guilt, but there'd been years when that had been true. Not that he wanted to remind her.

"I don't do that."

"Yes, you do," she said. "But this time, you're the one in trouble."

"Me? I'm fine."

"Really? Is that why you took off for North Bend...North Bend, Sam, where you never go anymore? You ran away from the press. What was that?"

"I needed a vacation," he said.

"Is that it? Really?"

"Yes," he said, trying to assuage the worry he heard in her voice. "I told you, I had three weeks of leave that I was going to lose if I didn't use them."

There was a beat of silence, as if she was trying to assess the truth from two hundred miles away.

"Don't make me come up there," she finally said. "Because I totally will."

"I'm fine," he said, relieved she'd backed down. "I'm just...relaxing. Hanging out."

"Good. Then you can also give grandpa a hug for me."

"Stace..."

"He's old, Sam. And getting older. Do it for me."

The doorbell rang.

'Saved by the bell.'

"Gotta go."

He clicked off and walked through the house, looking out the window at the white Dial-A-Ride van in his driveway.

"Hell!" he softly swore, opening the front door and facing the entire gang of North Bend's biggest troublemakers...Cecil Nelson, Ryle Lester, Jonah Sheldon...and their ringleader, Gary Winters.

Mr. Winters and Sam's grandma had divorced in the '70's, when she had founded the local historical society, to preserve the buildings that made up Commercial Row, and then insisted on running it herself.

Back in the day, he hadn't gotten the memo about women's rights, not to mention, exactly how strong willed and stubborn an Evans could be.

He'd stood firm, and she had dumped him.

Mr. Winters had moved out, eventually buying the house next door, saying he'd done so to spite his ex-wife. But everyone knew it was because he hadn't gotten over her.

Or her death.

Or Sam...seeing as he'd caused it...


Sam leaned against the doorjamb and waited, because whatever this was, it was going to be good.

Or really, really bad.

"Took you long enough to answer the door," Mr. Nelson said, leaning heavily on his cane to peer inside, and then let out a low whistle at the mess. "Holy smokes, boy. You haven't outgrown that party animal stage yet?"

"He didn't do that, you idiot, the cops did," Mr. Sheldon said. "They tossed the joint looking for the dough."

Mr. Winters didn't speak.

He and Sam hadn't been face to face in years, hadn't seen each other since the funeral.

"What's up?" Sam asked.

"We called Gary to drive us over here to see you," Mr. Sheldon said. "On account of, I lost my license last year and these yahoos are blinder than bats."

"Hey," Mr. Lester said, glaring at him. "You're the one who tried to drive down the pier and ended up nose first inside the deli. You smelled like pickles for a month."

"I turned at the wrong place. Big deal, we all make mistakes." Mr. Sheldon waved this off as he turned to Sam. "Mercedes is still at the police station."

"I know."

"Thing is, Brody Wesson's sort of the golden boy around here. Hell, he had the senior center redone last year so we could open up more rooms, and he single-handedly raised the money for the Dial-A-Ride van. He makes sure there's money in the budget for Gary's pay. People love him and trust him. If he says Mercedes stole the money...everyone believes him. You know what I'm saying?"

"No," Sam said. "Just because someone's a good guy, doesn't mean what he says is gold. There's a justice system."

Which he knew better than anyone, didn't always work.

"Listen," Mr. Nelson said, "We watch Law and Order. We know shit happens. And shit's happening."

"Mercedes is our ceramics teacher," Mr. Lester said. "She also gets library books and reads to us. We need to help her. We're all she has."

"And you want me to do what exactly?" Sam asked.

"We figure, since she's been staying here, that makes her yours too."

"It's not like that," Sam said.

"What is it like?" Mr. Lester asked, and every one of them looked at Sam through rheumy, but sharp-as-hell, eyes.

'Yeah, Sam, what is it like?'

She'd come along when he'd wanted to be alone, and she'd gotten his entire house torn up in the search for fifty large.

But the landline hadn't rung in a full twenty-four hours.

Mercedes, whose damn life was circling the drain, had amazingly managed to scare everyone off and give him a chance at his peace and quiet.

And in spite of himself, he wanted to help her in return.

Not that she wanted his help.

The envelope of cash she'd tried to give him was still on the table. Broke as shit, she'd still given it to him, because that was the right thing to do.

It'd been the pride flaring in her eyes that had slain him.

She needed to pay her way.

He was an ass, but not that big an ass to squelch the life that she projected with every single breath.

He might be standing in the darkness, wallowing, weighed down by the things he saw on his job, but she wasn't like that. She was light.

And yet she was at the police station right now being questioned.

Alone.

He told himself that she was used to shitty circumstances. Hell, it appeared, she was used to shitty men too...her father, the pincher...him.

She was used to taking care of herself and others.

And he had no idea why that got to him.

But it did.

She did.


"You still with us, boy?" Mr. Lester asked. "Now's not the time to go all silent and cranky on us."

Sam hadn't been called 'boy' in a damn long time. And few other than Stacie, dared to call him on the silent and cranky.

"Mercedes is just being questioned," he said.

"What if she needs bailing out?"

"She doesn't."

"But if she does?"

"You could do it," Sam said.

"Yes, and we would," Mr. Sheldon said. "But..." He glanced at Mr. Winters, who still hadn't said nothing or given away nothing.

At seventy-two, he looked as fit and healthy as Stacie and Jake had reported and pretty much the same as always...as if he'd just swallowed a lemon.

"We don't have very much," Mr. Nelson said. "We pooled our available cash together, from what was left of our social security for the month, but it's not much. We had a poker game a few nights back, see, and normally I'd have taken the pot..."

Mr. Lester coughed and muttered 'bullshit' at the same time.

And Mr. Nelson glared at him. "...but, I had a little bad luck."

"That's not what happened," Mr. Lester said.

"Yes, it is," Mr. Nelson said.

"No." Mr. Lester shook his head. "Eileen Walton knew she had a losing hand, so she flashed you her tits to distract you into folding, and you lost. We all lost."

"Okay, look," Sam said, rubbing his temples where he was getting a stress headache. "Mercedes isn't a thief. I'm sure it's all a misunderstanding that will get worked out."

"But you can't just let her sit in jail while it does," Mr. Sheldon said, horrified.

"She's not in a jail cell. She's being questioned. Big difference. And unless she's charged and arrested...which they won't do without just cause...she won't need bailing out."

"See," Mr. Lester said, "That's good information. I didn't know that. It's why you need to be in charge of this situation."

"I'm not in charge..." Sam said. "...of anything."

"But she's down there with hardened criminals," Mr. Nelson said. "You can't let her sit there with them."

Sam sincerely doubted there were any hardened criminals in this little town.

The daily police reports read like something right out of Mayberry...an elk walking down Main Street, a drunken and disorderly at two a.m., high school punks running over mailboxes...

"This isn't up to me," he said. "You know that, right? They're just following procedure."

They all looked deeply disappointed in him. And then Mr. Winters spoke for the first time, uttering only two words.

"Get it."

Mr. Nelson nodded and used his cane to navigate back to the van.

And Mr. Winters just stood there looking at Sam.


Sam ignored them all and thought about Mercedes.

He'd meant what he'd said, she was no thief.

She'd probably give a stranger the shirt off her own back.

The thought reminded him of what she'd looked like without a shirt in his kitchen, yelling at Brody's voice mail...vibrant...fierce...and sexy as hell.

But she was also sweet and warm. And vulnerable.

And she was sitting in the police station. Shit.

His cell vibrated and he looked at the screen.

It was his commander. With a long, slow inhale, he connected.

"Evans."

"Got a death threat this morning." Commander Clark O'Malley's voice was gruff and just as commanding as his title. "Aimed at all of us. Just wanted you to know."

"Great," Sam said. "I'll start working my way down my bucket list."

"How about you just get your ass back here instead."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement. Actually, more like a direct demand.

"I'm on vacation," Sam reminded him.

"You're not. You're working a fucking case. Sheriff Thompson called me to make sure I didn't mind sharing you. What the hell, Sam?"

'Thanks, Luke.'

"What did the threat say?"

"It said 'die pigs.' But he misspelled die. He used a Y. Dye pigs just doesn't have the same impact. But watch your back just in case."

"Will do."

"How long are you really going to be?"

"Didn't we just do this? Three weeks."

"Goddammit Evans!" The commander went quiet for a moment. "How about one?"

"I'll get back to you," Sam said and disconnected.

"Work problems?" Mr. Sheldon asked.

But Sam didn't answer.

Mr. Sheldon was a nice guy, but he was close friends with Millie Jackson, which was a lot like being close friends with a PA system.

Whatever Sam told him, he had to be willing for the entire county to hear.

So if he mentioned the threat, it'd be all over social media and the grapevine in five minutes flat.


Mr. Nelson made his way slowly back up the driveway, cane in one hand and in the other...an apple pie.

"Homemade," he said, waving it back and forth beneath Sam's nose. "We got it off of Betty Moreno, who made it for her granddaughter. We have to let her in on the next poker game now, but anything for Mercedes."

"You can't bribe me with pie..." Sam started. But before he could finish the sentence, his stomach grumbled loudly in a plea for the pie.

The men grinned.

"We all know you're a pie ho," Mr. Lester said.

Mr. Nelson had two plastic forks tucked neatly into his breast pocket. He took one out and scooped up a bite of the apple pie.

"Oh yeah," he murmured, licking the fork. "Good stuff."

Just the thought of it was making Sam's damn mouth water.

Mr. Winters was still looking at him steadily and intensely. And Sam had no idea what his grandfather's angle was on this, but one thing he did know...there was an angle.

"If I agree to step in here, you nosy-bodies have to agree to something too."

"What?" Mr. Nelson asked.

"Mercedes needs a place to stay until she gets an apartment. And I know you all have lady friends." Again he met Mr. Winters' gaze. "Surely, one of you know someone who's looking for a roommate. She cooks. She does her own dishes. She's.."

'Not quiet. Not easy to ignore.'

"Cheerful," he finally said, hoping that sounded like a compliment. "She'd be a good roommate for anyone."

Except for him.

"She can stay with me," Mr. Lester said, and waggled his brow.

Sam wrestled with his conscience and lost.

"No. Never mind. I'll find her a damn place myself." He reached for the pie, but Mr. Nelson held it close.

"Almost forgot, I need another favor," Mr. Nelson said.

And Sam gave him a look.

"I'm a little busy working on the first one right now," he said.

"This one can wait until you get Mercedes home safe and sound. Randy Barker needs to hire you. He's got a problem. He misplaced his '67 GTO."

"He didn't misplace it," Mr. Sheldon said. "He lost it in a poker game to Patrick Sawyer two years ago, remember?"

"Yes," Mr. Nelson said, "With the caveat, that when the old geezer died, he had to give it back to Randy. Patrick's been six feet under for six months now, and his grandson Mickey 'The Doper' Sawyer, still says he hasn't 'located' the GTO, which is bull-pucky. He's just not done driving the piss out of it."

"You realize that car's no longer PC," Mr. Lester said, disapprovingly. "It's a gas guzzler."

"Gas guzzler, smuzzler," Mr. Nelson said. "It's a beaut. They don't make cars like that anymore. God rest Pontiac's soul."

Sam shook his head.

"And the GTO is my problem why?"

"Because, you're the problem-solving guy," Mr. Nelson said.

"Says who?" Sam asked.

"Your grandpa says that's what you do best."


Sam met Gary's gaze, but he still didn't speak.

"So you're going to help Mercedes right?" Mr. Nelson asked.

Sam could smell the brown sugar and baked apples. He needed that pie.

'The hell with it.'

He snatched it.

"Yeah. I'm going to help her." He snagged the other fork out of Mr. Nelson's pocket, took a big bite and nearly died and went to heaven. "Sheriff Luke said the cops aren't done talking to her yet, not until around two."

Mr. Nelson blinked.

"You were already going to help her," he said all accusingly.

Sam took another big bite.

"Yep. I was. "

Mr. Nelson narrowed his eyes.

"And Randy? You'll help him too?"

"Yeah, but only because Patrick was the idiot who built that monstrosity on northeast bluffs. It blocks access to the beach from that side of the harbor, so he calls the cops on the kids that have to trespass to get to the water."

Mr. Nelson smiled proudly.

"You're a good boy," he said. "You're going to be good for Mercedes. I take her classes, you know, both the ceramics and her floral-design class. They help with my arthritis. She deserves better than to be treated like a common criminal."


Sam turned to his grandfather.

"So what's your interest in this?" he asked.

"Oh, he takes her classes too," Mr. Lester answered for him. "We all do." He smiled. "We love her."

Sam was having some trouble with the image of his tough, stoic, impenetrable grandfather, taking ceramics and floral design.

Not to mention...what the hell was floral design?


Stay safe!