Page 4 of Moody as a Minotaur

She pressed her lips in a tight line, a clear sign of her disappointment. “Don’t ignore your intuition, Parker. I taught you better.”

Yeah. I guess she had, which is probably why I’d talked to her about it when I was sleepy last night. I truly believed nothing heinous was going on in Willow Lake, butsomethingwasn’t quite right.

I wasn’t imagining how the back of my neck itched sometimes, like predators surrounded me, and I was the prey. The weird feeling didn’t bother me exactly, but it wasn’t easily dismissed either. I mostly noticed it at the pub. Some days, I swore my skin tingled with apprehension. Of what, I didn’t know. And, if it wasn’t nefarious or illegal, why did people regularly stop talking when I approached?

“I don’t know what you mean,” I hedged. Although I knew the gate had been broken open and whatever horses I had in that stable had bolted and were on the other side of the country by now.

She pierced me with her gaze, letting me know without words that she wasn’t buying my weak attempt todissuade her. “What happens at that pub you always talk about?”

Oh God. She wouldn’t try to stake out the pub, would she? My heart picked up its pace. These people were my friends. They might laugh off her behavior as a funny little quirk in the beginning, but if she caught the scent of anything hinky, as she called it, she could be unrelenting.

I had to reroute her line of questioning.Distract, distract, distract.

“Why is Finley here?”

“He’s useful.”

My fingers tightened on my mug. “Why aren’t you answering my question?”

She stared at me for a moment. “He and his university friends have dubbed themselves paranormal investigators. The whole thing is all a bunch of hogwash, but that’s the brilliance of having them here. No one will take them seriously. They own some surprisingly decent surveillance equipment and when people find out about the couple hundred thousand yahoos who follow their YouTube channel, Finley and his wannabe spiritualist friends can usually gain access to places others can’t. I wished I’d thought of a cover like that…” Her eyes widened slightly, like she realized she had been about to say something she shouldn’t in front of me. Rather than finish her sentence, like I wished she would, she took a sip of her tea.

“What do you mean? Does he really try to find ghosts and things? Or is it a ruse?”

“Oh, they think they’re going to find ghosts. Foolish kids. These ones he’s with today look like they have moresense than the last ones he went out investigating with, but they’re all still determined to prove ghosts exist. I don’t know what is wrong with people these days, letting themselves believe such hocus-pocus baloney. But that doesn’t mean Finley and his friends aren’t useful. They’re usually so busy looking for orbs and listening for disembodied voices that they ignore what’s right in front of them.”

“Have you joined them in their investigations before?” It sounded like she had. How had my mother missed this?

“They can be useful, but they aren’t my only options.” She lifted her eyebrow as she stared me down. “Now it’s your turn to answer my questions. Tell me about the pub. And quit stalling.”

I pursed my lips. There had to be something else I could ask her to redirect her questions.

“Parker Llewellyn Girard, I said quit stalling.”

God. She’d pulled out my middle name. She was serious. I huffed out a breath and stared at my tea. “There’s nothing to talk about. I go there. I play pool. I have a few drinks. That’s it.”

She hummed and narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you telling me the truth? You don’t have to sugarcoat things for me like you do your mother. I’ve seen a lot in my years on this earth.”

“Huh?”

“I looked the place up online. It’s the pub that’s attached to the old inn with the same name, right? Willow Lake Inn and Willow Lake Pub.” She shook her head in disappointment. “Terrible names. But that’sbeside the point. Neither place has much of an internet presence and what is there isn’t good. A rudimentary webpage and nothing more. It looks like someone put it together in 2001 using duct tape, a pencil, and a beginner’s guide to HTML.”

I was about to explain that Ryley, a new guy in town, was redesigning the websites for a bunch of businesses in town, mine included, but she kept on talking.

“And the reviews for the inn are horrible. They talk about strange sounds and other dodgy things. Seems like it could be a front for something else. Human trafficking? Drug running? It could be anything. And there’s an article online about an explosion there earlier this summer. Was it a meth lab?”

“A front? A meth lab?” When did my life become a police drama? “No way. The chief of police and one of his deputies hang out there all the time. I think he would have noticed something.”

“Right. So, he’s on the take.” Nana nodded and tapped her chin. “It makes sense. They’d need the local LEOs to be in on it. The town is too small to let something that big go on without detection otherwise. Unless the police are completely incompetent. Which is possible…” she mused. I got the sense she was talking to herself more than to me, but I was compelled to speak, to defend my friends.

“Van is a good cop. There was a problem this past summer with one of the deputies, but it was investigated, and the person was taken into custody. I don’t think they’d do that if the place was corrupt. And he’s recently hired a new guy, who seems good too,” I insisted.Although I didn’t know Dillon, his newest deputy, as well as Van, I had a good feeling about him.

She pursed her lips in a way that suggested she pitied me. If we were sitting closer, she probably would have patted my head in that condescending manner adults use on small children. “Now tell me, is the pub one of those BDSM clubs?”

I choked on my tea and spewed it across the table. “What? Oh my God…” I wiped my hand across my mouth. “Did you say BDSM? There isn’t a… a… place like that here,” I sputtered as I mopped up my tea with a quilted place mat my mother had made for me a few years ago. I hated the things, but they were useful in situations like this. “Do you even know what BDSM is?”

I regretted the question as soon as it flew out of my mouth.

“Yes, of course I do. How old do you think I am? Do you think I wore a chastity belt when I was young?” She shook her head. “I lived through the sexual revolution. And I know very well BDSM doesn’t stand for Boobies, Ding-dongs, Sex, and Marriage.” Grandmother lifted one eyebrow and eyed me. “Although, in your case, it’d be more like Berries, Ding-Dongs, Sex, and Marriage.”