“Are you absolutely sure?” she asked again, leading her mother to give her a stern look.

“Harper, I know we’re not exactly super spies, but we’re not stupid, either. The police haven’t asked us any questions about you. Not your phone number, not your whereabouts, nothing.”

“Except for that phone call from the school district,” pointed out her father.

Harper shook her head. “We already established that wasn’t the police.”

“This is ridiculous. Why don’t we just go up to the station and simply ask them what happened?”

“That’s a fantastic idea, Dad. At least it is as long as we assume they don’t want to arrest me too.”

“But why would they want to arrest you?” asked Harper’s mother in the high-pitched voice that Harper simultaneously loved and that could grate on her at the worst times.

“I don’t know why they’d want to arrest me, Mom. But I also don’t know why they arrested my friend, and that didn’t stop them from doing it.”

“So what do you want from us?” asked her father gruffly. He’d never been one to tolerate crazy in his life, and considering what Harper had put him through growing up, it was no wonder all of his hair had fallen out.

At one point, he’d been a fairly attractive man. Her friends on the cheerleading squad had affectionately referred to him as a FILF—Father they’d Like to Fuck. But the years had been catching up to him lately, though his daily mall walking kept him in decent enough shape.

“I just want to know if the police are looking for me.” Harper started to push herself up. If she wasn’t on the department’s radar, then maybe she could bail Lucas out without any trouble. But she wasn’t about to walk right into the station while her wanted poster was hanging on the wall.

“Maybe we should cancel our trip.” Irene wrung her hands in front of her.

Harper stopped in her tracks. “Wait, what trip?”

“You’re not the only one who goes jet-setting around the country without telling anyone,” muttered Russell.

The room suddenly got cold with the amount of shade her father was throwing in her direction. “Hey, I travel for a living. Sometimes it’s just not interesting enough to talk about. You two haven’t left this town in decades.”

“That’s an exaggeration!” said Irene.

“Maybe, but not much of one and you know it. So why now?”

Her parents glanced at each other and made eye contact. Harper immediately tensed. They were about to lie to her. Why the hell would they be lying to her about vacation plans?

“Well,” Irene said carefully, showing just how unnatural lying was to her, “we have been saving up, and don’t we deserve a chance to get out and see the world?”

Yes, they did in fact deserve that, but why would they lie about it?

“That’s really exciting,” said Harper with fake enthusiasm. “Where are you going to go?”

“Bahamas. We’re leaving out of Florida in four days. And we trust you’re not going to do anything between now and then that’s going to make us miss it,” said Russell with a threatening tone.

“I see your concern is really killing you.”

“Sweetie, if I let my concern for you get in the way of my daily life, I’d never get a wink of sleep.”

Well, damn, she couldn’t argue with him on that front. She glanced between her parents and tried to figure out what was going on. But there just wasn’t enough time for her to deal with someone trying to get Wade in prison, Lucas being arrested, and her parents’ sudden deception. “Okay,” she said finally, “I’m going to check on my friend, but we’re going to talk about this some more later.”

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Harper approached the police station carefully. No, carefully wasn’t the right word. She approached it paranoidly—circling the place three times, stopping every other turn to make sure no one was following her.

She had to get a hold of herself. If the cops were looking for her, there’d be no reason that they wouldn’t ask her parents where she was. It wasn’t as if she had a terrible relationship with them. Anyone from town who knew her would tell the cops that her parents were the best way to get a hold of her.

No, whatever was happening had to be Lucas-focused, at least for now. Finally she built up the courage and parked her bike out front. She hung her helmet up and stuck her gloves into the pocket of her leather jacket. She was close enough to the front door that if she had to make a quick exit, she’d be able to just get up on her bike and ride.

She pushed a few loose strands of her hair behind her ears. Her natural curls were pulled into a low ponytail to allow her helmet to fit right, but it always looked a mess after she rode. She might look badass while she was riding it, but as soon as she took the helmet off, she looked a lot more like Miss Frizzle.

She walked into the station and tried to keep her nerves hidden. She flashed a smile at the officer behind the front desk. “Hi, my name is Harper Sloan. One of my friends was arrested this morning, and I was hoping I could speak to somebody about it.”

“Your friend’s name?” said the officer, with no pleasantries included.

Straight to the point. She could respect that. “Lucas Stone.”

“And are you a lawyer?” asked the officer.

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Well, I’m not sure if you know how jails work, but unless you pass the bar exam, you can’t just go say hi to your friend.”

“Aren’t there visiting hours or something?”

The man looked down at his computer and then back up at her. “Your friend is set to be arraigned at two p.m. this afternoon. If you want to head over to the courthouse, you might be able to get a few minutes to talk to your friend.”

“That’s it? What are the charges?”

“Listen, I’m not Google. I can’t tell you that. The fastest way you’ll be able to see him is if you go to court. Then he’ll either get out on bail and you can talk to him all you want, or he’ll be booked for a longer stay, in which case you can find out more during our normal visiting hours.”

Harper gritted her teeth in frustration but knew the officer was just doing his job. She glanced at the name tag. Officer Jenkins. The name was unfamiliar, but he looked pretty young. Probably too young to be in her high school class. It wasn’t as if she knew everybody in this town. Just most everybody.

“Thanks for your help.” Harper picked up her phone to use her last resort, but stopped herself. Wade had plenty of power and resources to help, but Lucas wasn’t one of his friends. This was a hired hand. She knew there was a chance that his being arrested had to do with whoever was framing Wade, but she doubted it. It wasn’t as though they were far enough along in their investigation to scare anybody into drastic measures. Would Wade really want to devote time and resources into some guy he barely knew?

He had a new wife and just found out he had a baby on the way. His priority right now would be staying out of jail, and she couldn’t necessarily argue with that. Instead, she decided to go for another tactic. Turning back around to Officer Jenkins, she planted a sweet smile on her face. “I’m sorry to bother you again, but I figured while I’m here, I might as well take a long shot. Is Josh Patterson working today?”

Jenkins’s brows rose in interest. “You know Patterson?”

“Oh, I don’t know him know him. He’s a high school friend of mine, though. We go way back. If I’m going to be sitting around waiting for court, I might as well kill time by saying hello. Would you mind giving him a call letting him know I’m here?”

“What’s your name again?”

“Harper Sloan. Trust me, he’ll remember me.”

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Harper was pretty sure her lungs were rapidly becoming irreparably damaged. Josh’s arms were wrapped around her so tightly. From the feel of it, he hadn’t lost an ounce of strength from his football days. “Nice to see you too,” she croaked out.

“Don’t act like you can’t take it.” Patterson put her down. “I saw you take harder hits than anybody else on the team.”

He wasn’t wrong. The school district hadn’t been the only one to think girls couldn’t play football. A lot of the opposing teams had singled her out for some of the worst tackles of the season. Luckily, they didn’t know they were actually helping her. Seeing her get that beat up and keep on getting back up made her own team have all that much more respect for her. And nothing brought people together like a common enemy. Whenever one of the opposing players seemed to go extra hard on her, the entire team would make sure they felt that pain tenfold. “That was then. I’m old now.”

Patterson shook his head. “Don’t pull that card. I’m older than you.”

“By fifteen months. That hardly counts.”

“Oh, trust me, every month counts.” He glanced around them, and he must’ve realized that his coworkers were all staring. “Come on in. I’ll show you my office.”

Harper followed him as he led her deeper into the station. “Your office? Look who’s fancy now.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. If it were up to me, I’d stay a detective forever, but the kids are getting older each year, and each grade they climb brings them closer to college tuition.”

Kids? Right, of course, he had kids. He was a normal, well-adjusted person working a normal job with a normal life with a normal number of children. Sometimes she forgot that not everyone was like her. “How are Susie and the kids doing?” She crossed her fingers and hoped like hell that he and Susie were still together.

“Susie is doing great. She was even featured on one of those fancy home magazines a few months back.”

Fancy home magazines? Oh God.... What the hell did Susie do for a living? She should know this.... Got it! “It’s so inspiring that she can make a living off interior design. It’s like a dream come true.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it a living,” he admitted. “But the extra money is nice, and she is flexible enough so we don’t need daycare.”

“That’s basically a salary in itself.”

Patterson chuckled. “You’re telling me.”

Harper chuckled and tried to hide her awkwardness. God, was it really so hard for her to talk to normal people these days? She thought back to the conversation with her parents. She couldn’t even go three minutes with them without feeling as if they were lying to her.

Why hadn’t it been this hard with Lucas? The entire time she’d been with him, she didn’t remember once trying to search for something to talk about.

Although, with him, it was usually trading insults back and forth. Insults were her happy place. What a depressing thought.

“So did you just come here to talk about old times, or is something wrong?”

“Wrong? Why would you think that?”

“I’m a cop, Harper. People don’t normally come to a police station when they’re bored.”

“Josh, you know I’m not like that.”

“Cut the shit, Harper. You’re a friend. If I can do something to help you, I will.”

Were they really friends? She hadn’t spoken to the guy in ages and barely remembered what his wife did for a living.

But nonetheless, she did need help from him. “All right, I’ll keep it brief. A guy I know was arrested today and I want to know why.”

“The Stone guy?”

“How did you know his name?”

“It’s Birdsville. How many people do you think we’ve arrested so far today?”

Fair point. “I’m worried about him. What has he gotten himself into?”

“We had an anonymous tip this morning that he had brought drugs in town. Since he was staying at a motel, we got permission from the owner to search his room and found about ten pounds of heroin hidden in his luggage.”

“No....”

“Are you doubting me?”

“I mean, I believe you found it. There has to be more to it than that. The guy I met isn’t a drug dealer.”

“What exactly makes somebody seem like a drug dealer to you?”

“I’m serious. He came to town to work. It’s not like he was heading up to areas where he could sell dope.”

“What kind of work was he in town for?”

Harper shoved her hands into her pockets. “I can’t exactly say.”

Josh groaned and tossed his head back. “Are you serious?”

“Hey, if it just involved me, I would tell you. He’s working for somebody else.”

“Wade?”

“You know I have more people in my life than just Wade, right?”

“Yeah, but Shane probably wouldn’t send anybody to do his dirty work, and I don’t think Leo ever wants anything to do with this place again. So, with the process of elimination, Wade is probably the one he’s working with. Especially since Wade’s here right now.”

“Not anymore. He and the wife flew back to New York today.”

“Good.”

Harper frowned. “You don’t want Wade here?”

“Hey, he’s a cool guy, but you have to admit things got a lot more interesting when he was around. And for me, interesting means paperwork.”

“Okay, forget about Wade. Can you help Lucas out?”

“Hell, Harper. I thought you were going to ask me to take care of a parking ticket or something. I can’t do much about your friend.”

“What if someone’s framing him? Can’t you look into that?”

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll look over all the evidence with an extra skeptical eye, but it was in his room in his bag. There were no signs of someone breaking in, so unless there’s motive for one of the hotel staff to frame him, I don’t see what I can really do.”

“What if his prints aren’t on the drugs?”

“Nobody wants their prints on drugs. Hell, you wouldn’t even want your bare hands touching some of this toxic shit. I’d be surprised if we found any fingerprints on them, let alone your boy’s.”

She thought about reminding him that Lucas wasn’t her boy at all but figured that wouldn’t be productive. “Fine. I’m not asking you to get him off of anything.” That was a lie. She was totally hoping that Josh would be able to hook her up, but now that she knew the full nature of the charges, she could understand that wasn’t realistic. “Can I talk to him?”

“I mean, he’s probably going to be at court soon. That would be the best time to talk to him.”

“Josh.... You know I’m not that patient.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold on. I’m sure I can make time to give an old friend a tour of the station, including the jail cells.”

“If you happen to have to go take a call while we’re looking at those jail cells, that would be great,” added Harper.

“Why the hell do you need to talk to him without anybody around?”

“You know I was never a fan of Big Brother listening in on me.”

“Usually criminals are the only people who have something to hide.”

“That’s just what Big Brother would say.”

“Big Brother my ass. Give me five minutes.”

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Lucas wasn’t used to boredom. There was a time in his life that he could stare at the same blank wall for hours and find ways to amuse himself, but that was a long time ago. He’d lost all of his ability to cope with the monotony of being locked up in hopes that he would never have to deal with something like that again, but here he was. Once again behind bars and angrily contemplating what his next action was going to be.

Stack of drugs in his luggage. What bullshit. If he was going to sneak drugs into this small, useless town, he wouldn’t just carry it around in his goddamn duffel bag. He stood up to start pacing but stopped himself. No pacing. He promised himself he would never pace back and forth in a cell ever again. He wasn’t about to start now. He was just sitting down when the door to his unit opened. He figured he was about to be hauled off to court, but to his shock, Harper was there, a suited-up cop next to her.

The suit looked between him and Harper, a concerned look firmly on his face. “You sure about this?” he asked Harper.

“I’ll be fine. Thanks for the tour.”

“I’d say any time, but....” He trailed off, and Lucas knew he was missing some subtext here. “Oh, look at that. My phone’s ringing.”

Interesting, considering Lucas didn’t hear a thing, not even the steady vibration of a cell phone. But half a second later, the officer walked out, leaving him alone with Harper.

“What the hell was that? What are you doing here? Wait a minute. Did you have something to do with this?”

Harper immediately put her hands on her hips, and her look told him everything he needed to know about how she felt about that little accusation. “Sure. I’ve had so much free time that I decided to drive by your motel, convince somebody to give me a keycard, plant a whole bunch of heroin on you, and then head over to meet you to take a nature hike. For fuck’s sake, Lucas....”

“I’m not crazy for asking. It’s not like you’ve been rolling out the welcome mat for me. This would be one way to get me out of your hair.”

“It would be much easier for me to just break an arm.”

“What?”

“It’s true. It would take me a good thirty seconds to do it, maybe ten minutes of setting up so I can get you in a situation to break your arm and claim it was self-defense.”

“Please don’t tell me you thought about this.”

“Like you said, our relationship hasn’t been all peaches and cream.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a violent woman?”

“On the contrary. Usually people underestimate me, and then I have to inform them of my violent tendencies. And then they still don’t believe me, and I have to prove it. By then they’re just screaming in pain.”

“And you wonder why I suspect you of planting heroin on me.”

She shuddered a little bit. “Something about that seems so... dishonorable. If I’m going to hurt you, you’re going to know that I’m the one who did it. Besides, you have to have more enemies besides me.”

“What? Do you think I’m unlikable?”

“Discounting all of the information I know about you, let’s consider the fact that Wade hired you to investigate something very close to him. He wouldn’t hire a goody-two-shoes who was afraid to get his hands dirty. Also, I know you’ve been in the cell long enough to consider other people besides me who might have put you here. The fact that you accused me as soon as I walked in lets me know that you’re not a hundred percent certain on anybody. But I’m sure if we work together we can narrow down the list pretty quickly.”

He shook his head. “Hold up. What do you mean we?”

“I mean, I’m going to help you.”

“And why would you do that?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I saw you get arrested. It was the police force in my hometown that did it. I’m kind of involved in this now.”

“None of that is a good enough reason to insert yourself in the middle of some police investigation for some guy you barely know and definitely don’t like.”

“All right, you’re not my favorite person in the world. But I think these charges against you are totally bullshit, and I definitely don’t like bullshit. Besides, are you really in a position to turn down help?”

She had him there. He definitely wasn’t in any sort of position to turn down anything right now. Whoever had done this knew enough about his past to hit him where it hurt and obviously had a fair bit of resources. Harper, as frustrating as she could be, had friends in high places, mainly Wade, though Lucas had an idea that was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to her connections. She also probably had more money at her disposal than he did, though pretty much everybody had more money than he did at the moment. “All right, if you help me, what do you want in return?”

Her eyes widened. “I don’t want anything.”

“Now that’s bull. Even if you don’t want something now, you’re going to end up asking me for some sort of favor eventually. I’ve been around long enough to know how this works. So let’s set the terms of this very clearly so I know what I’m getting into.”

“You’re not getting into anything. If you help me, I’m going to get you out of jail. Isn’t that good enough?”

“I don’t like making deals with the devil without knowing all the terms.”

“I can’t believe I’m trying to help you and you’re accusing me of being the devil.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never been called that before.”

Harper pursed her lips and looked at him up and down. “All right, it’s not the first time. But this will be the last time you ever call me that. In exchange for helping me for letting me assist you, I want to take point in the Wade investigation.”

“That’s it?”

“Lucas, I don’t exactly know what you have to offer. I don’t have a lot of use for a private investigator in my life. And you might be pretty, but I’m not about to ask you to do....” Her cheeks turned pink.

He figured that considering the circumstances, he’d let that go. “I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t have people banging down my door with death threats.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t a death threat. And that’s much more telling.”

“How is it more telling?”

“Death is easy. Planting drugs in somebody’s room and hoping they get convicted for a crime? That’s a little bit more complicated. Not to mention risky. A lot of things have to go right for this little revenge plot to work.”

“All right, so I have a super villain after me instead of a run-of-the-mill murderer. What help does that give me?”

“Maybe none. I have a theory about what might happen from here, but I don’t know if I’m right.”

“Care to share with the rest of us?”

“Not really. First we need to get you through court and figure out what the bail is set at. Once we know if you’re going to be helping from behind bars or as a free man, we can make a more strategic plan.”

“What are we supposed to do until then?”

“Well, you sit here and think about who might want to do this to you. I’m going to do what we set out to do this morning and scour the woods for more of those boxes.”

“You’re kidding. You’re using this as an excuse to keep on going without me?”

“Hey, you said I could take point on the Wade investigation. Besides, I’m sure that once I’m helping you, I won’t have as much time to help Wade. I might as well get in a few more hours of searching before I switch gears. Can you handle a few more hours behind bars?”

“I’ll make it work,” he muttered.

“Good. I’m going to get going then.”

“Wait! Why don’t we do a little bit more brainstorming?”

“I can’t exactly stay down here long. My friend went out on a limb to even let me speak to you for a few minutes.”

“Yeah, but he hasn’t come back for you yet. Why don’t we just take advantage of the time we have?”

Harper tilted her head and considered him for a moment. “You don’t want to be alone, do you?”

Lucas clenched his fists. Dammit, he’d given himself away. “I’m fine.”

The officer pushed the door open and poked his head inside. “Sorry about that phone call. I’m all set to continue the tour if you are.”

Harper’s lips tightened, and she looked over at Lucas. A flash of pity shot through her features. “Can I—”

“Just go,” spat out Lucas. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

She seemed to debate her next move but eventually nodded in agreement. “I’ll be back soon, Lucas. I promise.”