Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
It didn’t take fifteen years in law enforcement to follow the trail of Dern dicking with Lillian’s parents, a clear frame-up happening with the Dietrichs (only for any investigation into that being mysteriously dropped when the Rainiers couldn’t be found), the Rainiers leaving town, and Lillian finding Willie, a good-looking bad guy with a way with the ladies, though he was the least of the trouble that was the mess of the Zowkowers.
But Harry had fifteen years of law enforcement and all of that tracked.
Something else tracked.
Something he didn’t want to think about, but something he couldn’t stop thinking about.
Twenty-five years he’d lived in that town with Lillian Rainier, and he’d never noticed her.
He was five years older than her, so he wouldn’t have run into her at school.
She said she’d come to a town council meeting, which likely meant she regularly attended, as did many residents of Misted Pines, and he couldn’t for the life of him place her there.
How he didn’t notice a beautiful woman with long, thick auburn hair, sparkling green eyes and a fantastic ass, boiled down to two things.
First, from the moment he met her, he saw no woman other than the one he’d made his wife.
Second, a year into their marriage, his wife died, and when she did, he saw nothing and did nothing but take care of his dogs and do his job.
Christ, he knew it at the time, which was the reason he got so damned pissed about it, but now it was crystal clear that his buddy, Doc, who’d gotten up in his face a year ago about this, was right.
For all intents and purposes, Harry had died when Winnie did.
When Lillian opened her door, it felt like someone hit him with a defibrillator.
It got worse after walking into her house, seeing her comfortable living room that shouted Home! And her warm, busy kitchen that stated clearly someone cooked there and liked doing it.
Fuck, it even smelled like cinnamon, rosemary and yeast. Like she’d just made cookies, a roast and bread.
That kitchen was a kitchen any person on the planet would want to come home to.
That kitchen was the kitchen, especially with the woman it belonged to, any cop would sell his soul to call his.
Both the kitchen.
And the woman.
This took him to the next thing that was on his mind.
That being, Willie Zowkower homed in on a young woman who found herself suddenly alone, and very vulnerable. Harry had no doubt he charmed her, took her hand in marriage, and then got his rocks off by fucking with her for fifteen years.
And that pissed Harry off.
It pissed him off so much, it was the years of suffering his loss that eroded the extremes of his emotion, the years of working under Dern that honed his level of patience into a weapon, that made him not blind with rage about it.
Especially coupling Willie targeting Lillian with the fact that Dern had targeted Avery Rainier.
One thing Harry could not abide was a cop abusing his position.
He’d lived under that too, and he’d hated every fucking second of it.
But whatever happened that made Sonny and Avery Rainier run had followed them to Idaho, and Dern was a son of a bitch, but Harry didn’t peg him as a murderer.
He had to get a lock on it.
He had no doubt Rita Zowkower, the matriarch of that clan—and considering the numerous run-ins they’d all had with her, she was known somewhat affectionately by LEOs as Ma Zow—was going to be the one who would open the door.
She was sweet as sugar to your face, lethal as a snake if you threatened one of her boys.
Going up against her, Harry had to have his shit together.
He had no idea if hyena mommas acted like lionesses, but if they did, Rita would be their queen.
She had five boys, Willie being the middle. And all those boys cut their teeth on everything from drag racing to joy riding to mailbox bashing to drunk driving, only to graduate to bar brawls and domestic disturbances, dealing, helping themselves to things that weren’t theirs, and one of them (the only one incarcerated, so far) experimenting with cooking meth.
Although he had occasion to drive up the lane to the Zowkower place dozens of times in his career, as he did it this time, he saw something different.
Lillian didn’t have a lot to work with. Harry had been in many houses like hers, and he knew what he saw was half of what she had. The rest were two bedrooms at the back.
But she’d made every inch of it an alluring safe haven.
Even her little bathroom, with its mix of exposed barn wood and white-painted shiplap on the walls, the claw-footed tub resting on ornate chrome feet under the back window, the droopy, fernlike trees growing out of pots in wicker baskets flanking the tub, the square bowl of a sink resting on top of a long vanity that was designed to make the most of the space, was welcoming and invited you to hang for a while.