A/N: How about some absurdness to begin Part Two with? I don't own anything but the mistakes made. If you are still along for this ride, know that by March 17th, I have to be finished with this saga. We will see if I am able to do it.

Part Two

It's been four months since Part One. New Characters and still some unsolved mysteries left for Mercedes and Regina Porter to solve.

26

If books are your drug of choice and you refer to your librarian as your source, this is definitely the place for you.

—SIGN AT THE LIMA SPRINGS PUBLIC LIBRARY

Cedes stared into her cup of coffee trying to avoid thinking of all the ways she could accidentally kill her parents. Their deaths would be well thought out and of course very painful. As painful as the date she was on now.

She looked at her date—the fifth one her parents had set her up with in three weeks—and she pretended to be interested in every word the guy was saying.

"There's a lot more to being the Orkin Man than people realize."

She'd tried to listen to his voice, but he was putting her to sleep while she was drinking caffeine.

"It is a very dangerous line of work."

Oh boy, he knows she is the sheriff and is trying to seem like he's a tough guy.

"Last year I was attacked by a bunch of bats who were living in Lima Springs High."

Unfortunately the bat guano didn't take him out or make him too ill to ever go on dates.

"Another time, I thought I'd been bitten by a snake and fell down four flights of stairs."

Yet, he is still alive to tell this story.

"Turns out it was a boa constrictor and they don't bite."

If Cedes were totally honest with herself, he was not her worst date.

"Then there was the time I tried to tame a piranha."

His smile alone was enough to turn heads.

"I named him Biggie Teeth."

And he'd been blessed with beautiful chocolate skin.

"He would let me feed him by hand."

Chocolate brown eyes.

"Not that Biggie Teeth had anything to do with my job."

And a handsome face as well as a nice body.

"It's just, in case you've ever wondered—"

On a scale of one to Porsche, Tank was a solid Chevy Suburban.

"—Biggie Teeth liked me rapping all of Biggie's songs."

He'd make some girl a fine ex-husband one day.

"One day while I was rapping, I should be a rap star—"

Still, there was something off about him willing to be called Tank at his age.

"I have sent out plenty of demos, so I decided to do a video—"

Surely his mother didn't name him that or give him that nickname.

"While I was rapping, Biggie Teeth bit me for the first—"

He was everything a girl could want if they wanted an attractive man with all his teeth.

"I had to get several stitches and reshoot the video a month later."

He was not the brightest bulb in the ceiling.

"Did you know I have a hundred views on YouTube and a thousand on TikTok?"

Hopefully, he wouldn't ask her if she wanted to listen to him rap.

"If you want, I can play the video for you."

Please don't. He was probably good. She was just being judgmental because he was not Sam Evans.

"I don't plan on working in pest control my entire life. I plan to be discovered by Kendrick Lamar. Even though my rap is more East Coast, I love West Coast rap, but I identify with Biggie, may the original Big Poppa rest in peace."

But so few men were Sam Evans. Sam did in fact rap once at a high school talent show. He wasn't good, but he wasn't bad either. Must have been his Native American blood that gave him a touch of a soul.

"So, you haven't answered me, do you want to hear me spitting some bars live instead?"

Tank wasn't the only man who failed in comparison to Sam, every other man Cedes had ever met did. The fact that she'd been in love with him since she was a teenager didn't help. No one stood a chance against the bad boy from a crime and poverty ridden family who'd done good.

And now, instead of being with the man of her dreams, she was stuck with the Orkin Man. She could only hope her parents had the foresight to buy side-by-side burial plots before setting her up on this date.

"Is that your phone ringing?"

Mercedes snapped out of her internal monologue and dug through her purse for her phone like it was a life preserver on the Titanic. "Yes?" she said, sounding more desperate than she'd intended. She cleared her throat and began again. "Sheriff Porter."

"You told me to call if he came back."

Cedes froze. Her BFF since kindergarten, who also happened to be her chief deputy, sounded scared.

"Ralphie," he added.

"No, he didn't."

"Yes, he did too," he said.

"Okay, I need you to stay calm, Hunt."

Hunter Clarington had been her bestie since she'd kneed Josh Coleman in the balls for throwing him down on the playground when they were six. Hunt had grown since then. Now he was tall and fine as hell with a grin that could melt the panties off a Mother Teresa clone.

Josh Coleman eventually got testicular cancer, but Cedes liked to think it had less to do with her kneeing him in the balls and more to do with his two-pack-a-day habit smoking habit.

"Stay calm, have you seen the size of him?"

"Hunt, you've got this." She grabbed her bag and stood. "I need you to call for backup. Get Jay and McCarthy there ASAP. I'll be there as quickly as I can. By the way, who is Ralphie?"

He sighed. "That raccoon."

She stopped, turned away from her date when she spoke softly so Tank the bad at his job pest control man wouldn't hear her. "I can't believe you called me about a raccoon?"

"Yes, I am doing what you told me to do. He's wreaking havoc all over town."

"All over town as in your house."

"Especially there."

"I'm so sorry. I've been called in." She told Tank, grateful for an excuse to not hear him rap.

He got out of his chair. "I understand, you are the sheriff."

The way he said the word sheriff sent off a warning bell in her being. Maybe he was being chauvinistic and thought she wasn't suitable for the job. It didn't matter that she had a master's degree in criminal justice or her ten years in law enforcement or her recent history serving as a detective in the Eureka police department. To him, she was probably just a curvy woman with a big butt that rap guys' girlfriends should have according to Sir Mix-a-Lot.

She could tell how his eyes had lingered on her body. Mostly her behind if she walked away and her breasts if she was walking forward.

She wished she didn't have the ability to read people so well. Most people, except for Sam Menkins. She was unable to read him at all.

When she started to leave, Tank asked her. "Do you want me to pay for your coffee?"

She stopped again, stunned that he would ask her to pay for her drink. "No, not at all." She walked back and left a ten dollar bill on the table.

"Oh, your part was only a couple of bucks."

She knew exactly how much her cup of coffee was. It was a freaking basic cup of coffee. With a nod, she gestured toward his drink as well and said, "It's on me."

He smiled at her, liking that she paid for his drink as well. "Thank you, for doing that, Cedes. Most women don't usually pay for the man's drink even if she makes more than him."

And she'd worn heels that hurt her feet for this.

"We should do this again very soon."

Faking a smile was hard because she wanted to turn around and read him for filth, instead, she turned and left. She hadn't even expected him to pay for her coffee. Splitting the tab or paying for your half was always best in these situations. But, seriously, her drink was less than three dollars.

She unlocked the door on her county vehicle which was now a Dodge Charger and settled inside the cruiser, looking down at her outfit and wondering if it was racoon wrangling safe. Her heels probably were not the best shoes to wear in chasing or trapping wildlife.

She headed toward Hunt's house. She almost felt bad about abandoning Tank, who was new in town, the manager and sole operator of their local Orkin Pest Control.

Cedes had to drive out of the city to get to Hunter's cabin which was just fifteen minutes away; while she was driving, she glanced over at a couple of the locals as she passed, Melva, the owner of Cut, Curl, and Color, and Imelda, the owner of Cedes' favorite restaurant, Imelda's, were talking outside of the neighboring businesses.

The two women were Lima Springs natives, born and raised, so Cedes' mind immediately went to the question that had been plaguing her since moving back. She'd been encouraged—a.k.a. blackmailed—into looking into a local folklore that had been around for decades about the Dangerous Damsels, a group of women who, according to legend, secretly ran the town. She was told she had to figure out who was a part of this group. And she had no leads.

Because of that, she looked at every woman who'd been born and raised in the small town as a potential Daughter. But she just couldn't see Melva running a town. A bingo parlor maybe, or a speakeasy, but not a town.

Imelda, however, was another story. That woman could run a nation.

Cedes was heading out the town when she spotted Gunther, Lima Spring's resident flasher, walking toward the park. Wearing his usual trench coat, glasses, and a headband with a brown feather in it, he made a U-turn when he saw her Charger and headed down a dark alley instead. She'd clearly ruined his plans for the evening. Served his nasty tail right. That man was a menace to their society.

Feeling good about the fact that she'd saved an innocent pedestrian from a flashing that could never be unseen, Cedes drove out to Lima Springs Lake and parked down the street from Hunter's cabin. Mostly because she had no choice. He'd apparently called everyone he knew.

There were two deputies' vehicles sitting on one side of the narrow road leading to his house along with several vehicles whose owners Cedes could only speculate. Though three did look very familiar. She always sees them parked near each other whenever her mother had a book club meeting.

Cedes was just about to turn around and go home when a hand shot out of a bush and pulled her behind it. Thankfully, the hand was attached to a body. A body belonging to Hunter Clarington.

Wearing a pair of night-vision goggles that covered the upper half of his face, he almost carried her around the cabin and then he was dragging her behind yet another bush, before shushing her with an index finger over his mouth and pointing to his back porch.

"I wasn't going to leave," she lied, slapping at his hand, annoyed at being dragged while wearing her favorite heels.

"He's there," Hunt said, his whisper much softer than hers. It was then that Cedes realized he was wearing full tactical gear to go with the goggles and communication set. It took everything in her not to curse him out.

She looked where he was pointing instead and saw nothing. "I don't see him."

"He's right there." He pointed to his back porch. "Or somewhere near there. I heard him, but the coward is too afraid to show his face when I'm around."

Stakeouts were not her favorite thing, and who knew how long it would be before the raccoon came out of the home he'd entered. The same home he'd been entering repeatedly for weeks, according to the idiot beside her.

Hunter's cabin that he built himself after watching YouTube videos sat on the banks of one of the many lakes that sprang from Lima River, and she let the sound of water calm her. She could even smell the lake from where she was hiding. Fresh and clear. This area had been set a part for tourist cabins, but Hunter's grandfather had purchased the land for a place that he could camp, hunt, and fish. His dream had been to build a little cabin, and Hunter had realized the dream when inheriting it and had build himself a home on the beautiful property.

When he handed her a comm set and a pair of night vision goggles, Cedes tried to see the humor in all this. He'd really gone all out. For a raccoon. She took the equipment and pretended that she shouldn't be asking him to take a psychiatric evaluation to make sure he was fit to serve as her chief deputy.

He read her but ignored her incredulous stares at him and her attempt to hide laughter when she put the headset onto her head.

"Hunt," she said, letting her eyes adjust to the glow behind the goggles to focus on figure after figure stalking through the area, "when I told you to call Jay and McCarthy, those were the only two people I told you to call thinking it was human perp."

"Well before I called you, I called your dad, he was in the military so I knew he would be able to help me out, but he wasn't home and your mom volunteered to come in his place along with her besties."

She put the ear piece in her ear, and then asked where were Jay and McCarthy.

"Jay is on top of my nearest neighbor's barn."

Jay was the first to speak into her earpiece. "You look amazing, boss."

Then she heard another voice. Deputy Mason McCarthy, was learning to be Jay's spotter. "I totally agree. You should wear those clothes more often, boss."

"Thank you, guys." She tossed her braided hair over a shoulder. "I am glad someone noticed."

"Oh, yeah," Hunter said, keeping an eye on his back porch. "How did your coffee date go?"

"So well that I am able to plead temporary insanity when I kill my parents. Why are you risking my deputies' lives for a raccoon?"

"They'll be fine. Even if they fall off, it's not a tall barn. They'll be able to walk it off."

"Like when you fell off your grandfather's barn and cried for two hours?"

"I was seven. What did this guy do for a living?"

"You mean after my last blind date, the blind goat yoga instructor?"

"Yep, I wouldn't have figured your mother as one to set you up with a man living with Australian micro goats in a barn. Clearly, you're too difficult to set up with a teacher, accountant, dentist, or farmer."

"Apparently. Mom said Walter was still finding himself."

"How old was that man?"

"Early seventies. Thankfully, tonight's date was more age-appropriate. And he had a real job! Pest control. Or future rapper." When he ripped off the goggles and turned to gape at her, his eyes glowing green through her lenses, she asked, "What?"

"Let me get this straight," he said, "you were on a date with a pest control guy when I called with a pest issue, and you left him at the Lima Bean?"

"Of course I left him at there. Can you imagine what he would've charged for an after-hours emergency?"

"Please. You know I could set up my Only Fans page to afford it."

"What to show off your deformed toes."

"Don't talk about my toes."

"I want to see them," Jay said.

"Never, sis. My toes are very private."

Cedes scanned the area, now littered with women who'd run out of fucks to give decades ago, and focused on two in particular. They carried butterfly nets, one as though it were an assault rifle, the other as though it were a missile launcher.

"Why the hell do the members of my mother's book club have butterfly nets and where did they get them on such short notice?"

He chuckled and pointed toward a five-foot firecracker in full camouflage regalia and neon pink crocs that were so bright they almost blinded Cedes through the night vision goggles.

"I think every time the men in white coats come for April, she steals their nets and evades capture."

The deputies laughed softly through the comm.

"That wouldn't surprise me," Cedes said, wondering in the back of her mind if any of her mother's book club mates could be associated with the Dangerous Damsels. If it were even real. "It would also not surprise me if she brought the butterfly net more for you than for the raccoon."

He laughed again, but quickly changed his mind. Concern flashed across the part of his boyishly handsome face that she could see. "You're joking, right?"

Cedes shrugged. April had always had a thing for Hunter. Sadly, he had always had a thing for Cedes' mother, which would explain his allowing her to come with her book club to assist him.

She used to think Hunter's crush was just a schoolboy thing, but since she'd moved back to Lima Springs four months ago, Hunt constantly asked about her mom, the lovely Minnie Jones. How was she? What she was up to? Had she ever had an affair with a younger, freakishly sexy man?

It was weird. And getting weirder every day. She now knew he was deflecting. He was in love with someone else, and he didn't want her to know. Her. Mercedes Love Jones Porter. His best friend forever.

Cedes vowed to find out who he was secretly seeing. She'd narrowed it down to thirty-six women (and two men, just in case). She was so close she could taste victory. Or wishful thinking.

Her phone dinged with a text from her date asking if everything was okay. Why had her mother given this man her number.

Before she could answer, Hunter whispered so loudly he probably scared off the masked bandit. "There he is!"

Cedes glanced at the porch and, sure enough, the little guy was climbing out of a tiny hole in the ceiling of Hunter's porch as though being poured out of it, his fur fluffing up to three times his actual size.

Hunt slid his goggles down and raised his dart gun, a non-lethal tranquilizer launcher.

"Please don't tranquilize my mother," Cedes told him wondering if she should include herself.

Before he could get a clear shot, however, April ran forward, her net at the ready. "I'll get him for you Hunter, baby!"

"Shit," Hunt said. Abandoning his cover, he vaulted around the bush toward the women.

Cedes ran after him trying not to twist her ankle. She watched as April, her mother, and Roz Washington, another member of the infamous Lit Chicks, ascended the stairs to the porch and rushed the panicked, screeching creature.

Poor little guy. Cedes would've screeched, too. Those older women were fast.

"Don't get near it!" Hunter shouted.

"It's okay, handsome." April took a swipe at the ball of fur. "I was vaccinated for rabies when I was a kid. I'm immune."

Cedes' heart jumped into her throat as April got closer. The rabies angle had yet to occur to her. "I don't think it works that way, April!"

"I can't see anything," Minnie Jones said, now watching from a distance on the porch as her friends advanced. She spun in a complete circle, searching the shadows of the porch. "Where'd it go?"

Roz Washington followed behind her. April was busy swinging wildly as the raccoon scurried about trying to escape. April was either going to kill the raccoon or hurt someone else.

Hunter took up position about ten feet out and raised the rifle again.

Cedes glared at him as she ran past April to get to her mother before the raccoon, April, or Hunter got her.

"He got away." Hunter said mad as a hatter.

"And whose fault would that be?" she asked him over her shoulder. She turned back to the crazy lady who'd birthed her. "Mom, it's okay. You all need to go home. We've got this." When Minnie didn't move, Cedes put a hand on her arm. "Mom?"

Her mother was frozen, staring up into a darkened corner of the porch. Cedes slowly turned and came face-to-face with a very angry raccoon, their noses only inches apart.

It was perched on a high windowsill, a slow hiss leaking from between its exposed teeth, as it gazed at her with wide, feral eyes. Eyes that glowed like they belonged to a creature possessed by Satan.

Then she realized she was still wearing the goggles. Much like Cedes' hopes to go her entire life without wrestling a raccoon in the dark with a trio of bookworms cheering her on. But stranger things had happened.

Before she could react, she heard the thud of compressed air. Hunter had taken a shot with her barely inches from the terrified animal. What the actual hell?

He'd just moved up a notch on her hit list, overtaking Scoot Cooper, a boy who'd claimed she'd given him a hand job under the bleachers in high school, when she realized it was a misfire. The gun. Not the hand job. She'd never touched Scott's penis, much to his chagrin.

Hunter announced meekly, "Misfire."

She wanted to roll her eyes but didn't dare take them off the raccoon. They were locked in a stare-down of legendary proportions. "Jay," she said softly into her comm set, staying as still as she possibly could, "you wanna help me out here?"

Jay's smooth voice came back to her. "I got you, boss." Her calm tone spoke volumes. She was already in the zone and probably had the creature in her cross-hairs. "One inch to the right."

Cedes moved right a microsecond before a dart whizzed past her ear.

It hit home just as the raccoon leapt off the sill and onto her goggle-covered face. She screamed and grabbed its fur to rip it off, but it held on for dear life, anchoring its razor-sharp claws in her scalp. She stumbled back in pain and tripped on something hard and short.

Her mother screamed but it barely registered before Cedes found herself falling. No. Not just falling. Tumbling, suddenly weightless. She'd done a backflip over the wooden porch railing and seemed to be plummeting headfirst toward certain death.

A familiar set of arms caught her in midair before all three—the owner of said arms, the racoon, and Cedes herself—slammed onto the rocky earth beneath them. Air whooshed out of her lungs and, even landing on top of her rescuer, a jolt of pain ran through body parts that, until that moment, she didn't know existed.

It also dislodged the raccoon. The furball shot into the darkness and landed a few feet away with a soft thud.

She rolled off her rescuer and lay on her back, gazing up at the stars and gasping to force air into lungs that had seized up, when her mother's head popped into her line of sight.

"Honey, are you okay?" she asked, concern lining her pretty, upside-down face.

"Excellent, Mom," Cedes said, her voice strained. "Thanks for asking." Her gaze slid past the woman who birthed her and back up to the stars again, hoping for a glimpse of the Big Dipper, wishing she could retrieve it and beat her chief deputy with it. "Deputy Clarington?"

"Yeah, boss?" he replied, panting close by.

"Are you conscious?"

"Yes."

"Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn't beat you to death with a dust mop?"

"I made you breakfast the other day."