our damned friends about the day we got ’em. It’s like you don’t know us at all.”
“Okay, you don’t do this for your best trophy, that’s true,” Casey said, “anymore than you leave your best girl home on a Saturday night.” Reeve doubted Casey knew much about any girl, let alone enough to have a best one. “But you know, for your lesser kills—or maybe a varmint, squirrels, raccoons, whatever—this is perfect. People been bringing me things like cow skulls, a fox—you saw that one out under the counter? I think this is gonna catch on.”
Reeve stared back at the bugs picking over the skull. Looked like what it was—pests devouring whatever meat they could lay pincers on. “If you say so. I just don’t see it, I guess.”
“That’s okay,” Casey said. “I am a man of vision. Pretty soon I’m gonna have a line out the door for these, and I’m gonna have to get me some more beetles. It’s gonna be an empire, Sheriff. A damned empire.”
Reeve cast him a look. “All right then, Ozymandias. Better this than methamphetamine, I guess.” He nodded back toward the door. “I can show myself out, if you need a moment alone with your … bugs.”
“Oh, very funny,” Casey said, shaking his head. “I can see you have doubts about the future success of my endeavors. Well, I can respect that.” He stuck out a hand, which Reeve reluctantly shook. “I will give you a call as soon as I get your bass taken care of. I’ll get started on the skin mount today, but it’ll be weeks.”
“That’s fine. Much obliged,” Reeve said. He paused on the way out the door to look at the beetles crawling all over the skull of something bigger, maybe that cow Casey had mentioned. Hard to believe so many little animals could do that much damage. They hadn’t killed the beast, but they were sure picking over the bones now. It made him feel a little sick, and he hurried out past the curtain and tried not to dwell on it anymore after that.
*
Kitty sat waiting in her rental car while the police officer walked up behind her. She could feel the hint of heat with the window down, knew it wasn’t autumn in New York, for certain. Tennessee felt different to her, and not just hotter. It didn’t even feel like upstate, it felt like a different world entirely. Green hills and mountains were all well and good, but it was the lonely, unoccupied spaces between buildings that grated on her. There was no sense of buzz here, no vibe, just long stretches of peace and quiet.
She hated it already.
The police officer tapped on the window and she looked sideways at him, lowering her shades. He looked Latino; his silver nameplate said Reyes. That had to be unusual in white-bread Tennessee, didn’t it?
“Yes, Officer?” she asked, smiling sweetly at him. “Is there a problem?” Kitty didn’t drive very often, so if she’d been swerving all over the road, it wouldn’t have surprised her much. The problem was likely something simpler, though.
“Ma’am, do you have any idea how fast you were going back there?” Reyes asked. Stern. Serious. She wanted to grab him by his tongue and make him do some serious licking right to her clit, show him his place in the world.
She shrugged indifferently instead. “I don’t.” She smiled guiltily. “Was it bad?” She lowered her voice to a throaty whisper. Men loved that.
“I’m gonna need to see your license and vehicle registration, ma’am,” Reyes said, peering down at her.
“Ooh, okay, let me see here,” she said. She dug through her bag on the passenger seat. She’d been limited by what she could carry through airport security; otherwise she’d already have had a knife in her hand, gouging holes in Officer Reyes’s neck as she pulled him down to straddle his face. Right there on the side of the road, she’d show him who was boss. “Here you go.” She handed her license up to him. “I just flew in from New York and I’ve been on planes all day and driving for
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