SSS 2 - Suspicious

“Um,” you say since no one else is speaking up. “Yeah? I guess,” you go on hesitantly. “There’s a gas station up the road and there was nobody there. Like nobody behind the counter. You know?”

“But nothing here?”

“A couple girls just left,” you say, glancing at the parking look. “A tall, skinny girl. And a cute one. They left together.”

“Was one of them blonde?”

“No, they had red hair. Darkish. Almost auburn,” you say, and Taytum is giving you this look.

The deputy takes all that in, her face giving nothing away.

“But nothing in here?” she asks finally. “Her?” Her eyes flick toward the kitchen.

“No. I mean. She,” you begin, trailing off as the waitress, Jenny, approaches with coffee for the deputy.

“Thanks,” the deputy grunts, taking the mug from her.

“Of course,” Jenny replies with a twinkle and a smile. Her little skirt swishes alluringly as she heads back to the counter.

You lower your voice, embarrassed.

“I mean, um. She seems really cool,” you say. She does. You were going to say that she seems a little too cool to be working at a diner, but isn’t that the judgiest thing that anyone could ever say? If you heard someone else say it, you would want that person to be executed. So you will not say it. You wish you could go back and not think it.

But the deputy is reading your mind. Somehow, you know that she agrees with you. She takes a long drink of coffee, then turns her vague scowl on Taytum. She stares. Taytum stares back, defiantly.

The deputy finally looks back at you.

“Don’t even think about letting this one drive,” she says.

“I wasn’t going to,” Taytum says, indignant.

“Shut up, kid. Or I’ll check your ID.”

Taytum is, of course, not 21. She holds her But her breath smells like a spilled barrel of cheap hand sanitizer. You clap a hand over your mouth at Taytum’s reaction: a slight blink. You’ve never seen anyone out-alpha her except for one person: Yuki, an older CCL girl.

“Ooh,” Bian says as the deputy walks back toward the counter. “**** me, Mommy.”

“Shut up,” Taytum mutters, embarrassed.

You watch the deputy return to the counter and calm down a little. That wasn’t so bad. In retrospect, talking to a cop when you’re here to literally, not figuratively commit a crime probably wasn’t the best decision. But the crime hasn’t happened yet. So you’re good.

The deputy waits for a moment, but Jenny doesn’t return. She must not be the patient type; the deputy lets herself behind the counter and vanishes into the kitchen. You come to your senses and focus on the others, then look at your phone. You start to hear the heavy rain on the windows again and the faint creaking of the building as the wind shoves it.

The lights flicker but don’t go out.

You have no bars on your phone. Does that mean that a tower is down? Or is it just the location? You can’t be sure. You put the phone down and sigh, looking across the table at your partners. It’s twenty minutes past. Bian has eaten her pie. You’re ready for a refill. This isn’t looking good.

“Are we going to talk about Monday?” Taytum asks finally.

“That didn’t happen,” Bian replies automatically. A moment later she throws an elbow, which Taytum doesn’t acknowledge. “Real talk for a second, Lyna. Is it normal for the President to ask us to cover for her like that?”

“Not more or less normal than asking us to go buy a ton of sex toys,” you reply.

“What if there’s something sketchy up?”

“Sketchier than a spicy affair?” you ask.

“I’m telling you, I’ve seen that girl with a bunch of CGH officers.”

“She’s not in CGH,” you insist. “I know what every CGH girl looks like. She is not one of them. I mean, I would remember,” you add. The girl that the president met with is insanely beautiful and put together. If CGH had someone like that, everyone in CCL would know. Besides, Andy—the pledge who stays in the room three doors down from you—has some kind of thing going on with a CGH girl. You checked with her and she didn’t know anything.

“Our president is not like… scheming with CGH,” you assure Taytum.

“Then why did she ask us to lie?”

“Enough,” Bian snaps. “Don’t slander my Onee-sama. You two aren’t fit to lick her toes.”

“Shut up,” Taytum says, leaning over as though to put Bian in a headlock. Bian squeals and pushes her off. The sketch factor in what happened isn’t in question, but Taytum is off-base. The president asked the three of you to lie about what you saw because it could too easily be misunderstood. Some of the other girls are on edge because Officer Stark almost busted a shipment recently, but they don’t get to complain. Every CCL girl gets a cut of the profits and no one can deny that the improvements to the house are great. If only the officers would stop hogging the hot tub all the time.

Taytum just doesn’t trust anyone.

You sigh and check your phone again. Still nothing.

“We aren’t going back tonight, are we?” Bian asks, reading your face.

“No,” you reply. “Not happening.”

“Zero percent chance that Willows isn’t underwater right now,” Taytum says, sounding surprisingly sober. She’s referring to the main road at the county line, which has a noticeable dip in it. If those backroads had deep water on them, Willows is basically a lake at this point.

“Should we get out of here or wait?” Bian asks nervously.

Giving more time for your contact to show up? You make a face and look out at the storm.

Wait?

Or go?