Page 118 of The Coppersmith Farmhouse (Jamison Valley 1)
I was paranoid.
I shrugged it off and finished my chores so I could go see what Rowen and Jess were doing.
It was a mistake to ignore it. I should have said something to Jess. But by the time I realized it was a mistake, it was too late. Way too late.
Jess
“Georgia,” I rumbled into my phone.
“Hi, Sheriff,” she said. “Have you thrown anyone in the slammer yet today?”
I chuckled. She always found some new joke or way to tease me about being a cop. I loved it. I loved that she was smart and had a quick wit. That she kept me on my toes.
“Not yet,” I said. “But it’s looking like it’s gonna be a good day.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s happening?”
“Got a tip. Couple of guys were up snowmobiling in the mountains and ran across an old shack. Had a real strong chemical smell so they didn’t get too close but thought it was worth reporting. I’m thinking they stumbled onto Wes’s cookhouse.”
“Seriously?” she asked.
“Yep. Driving up now. Milo and Beau are behind me.”
“That’s so great, honey. I hope you find it. But why is Beau going with you? It doesn’t seem like a real Searchy and Rescuey thing to do,” she said.
I chuckled again. “Searchy and Rescuey.” Not as funny as “garagey” but it still made me laugh.
“Beau is Forest Service, Freckles. Snowmobilers reported the shack was on national park land.”
“Gotcha,” she said. “Aren’t meth houses extremely dangerous? Should you be going near it?”
“We’re just checking it out. If it is the cookhouse, we’ll call in the state authorities. Then we’ll have a specialized team come in for cleanup.”
“Okay. Be careful,” she said.
“I won’t be able to meet for lunch today.”
This morning, I’d fucked her in the shower before Rowen had woken up. Then I’d watched her get ready for work, something I tried to do every day. I loved watching her bend over the sink as she put on her makeup, her ass sticking up as she leaned in toward the mirror. But my favorite part was watching her fix her hair. She’d blow it dry and when she was done, it would be full and soft. Within the hour, it would settle and take on its normal volume. But right then in our bathroom, with her long hair all big and her body wrapped in a towel, she stopped my heart.
And gave me a hard-on. It usually took me the entire drive to work to get it back under control.
This morning while I’d been watching her, we’d made plans to eat lunch together at the deli downtown. Now that I was heading up into the mountains, I’d be lucky if I made it back home before dinner.
But missing lunch was worth it if I found the cookhouse. I needed this break. I needed to make some progress on all of these fucking open cases. The unanswered questions were plaguing my mind and I was starting to have trouble sleeping.
It had been over two weeks since Wes’s murder, and both the killer and Wes’s truck had vanished off the face of the earth.
On top of having a murderer at large, I had made no progress in finding the prescription pain pill dealer. I’d had deputies in plain clothes walking all around town for a month. They’d wander around, searching for suspicious packages stashed in strange places and watching for people hanging around odd areas of town. But nothing had come up.
And then there was Silas’s trespassing case. I had marked it unsolved but it was still bothering me. I hated unsolved cases, especially ones involving a friend. We’d probably never find who killed Silas’s calf. No witnesses had come forward and unless they did, it would be impossible to make any arrests.
So finding Wes’s cookhouse, even after Wes was dead, would be a good day. A really fucking good day. I wouldn’t have to worry about someone stepping up and taking over Wes’s production location.
“I think destroying the source for an unknown but likely large quantity of illegal crystal meth trumps a lunch date with your roommate,” Georgia said.
“Roommate?” I asked.
