Page 17 of The Woman By the Lake

After Heidi wrote down their orders and took off, Riggs dove right in.

“What gives?”

“Gonna ask you to keep it down for a while, Riggs,” Harry said.

Riggs sat back and stretched both arms out to rest them on the booth behind him.

With Harry being good at his job, he didn’t miss the body language.

“I know you don’t like I asked that,” Harry noted.

He was going to say more, but someone called, “Hey, Harry. Hey, Doc.”

Riggs looked over his shoulder to see Declan, a kid he’d known since he was in diapers, which he was now not, being married and all, carrying a big white paper bag toward the door.

“Yo, Deck,” Harry called.

Riggs just lifted his chin.

Declan left.

Riggs looked back to Harry.

“No,” Riggs confirmed, low and slow. “I don’t like you asked that. So now I’d like to know why you’d ask that shit.”

“Normally…damn.” Harry pulled a hand through his hair, looked away, none of this making Riggs feel any better, then he returned to Riggs. “This is not mine to give you, but she’s your neighbor, and, brother, I didn’t know you were back in town, but even so, I knew when I found out you were…” He dragged his hand through his hair again before he finished, “I’ve been wrestling with coming to you or not about this so you could keep an eye on her.”

Instantly, Riggs took his arms from the booth and leaned into them on the table. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Your neighbor is Nadia Antonov,” Harry announced, like that’d explain everything.

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Riggs shared it didn’t explain everything.

“Antonov, Riggs. As in the vodka.”

Riggs whistled low before he whispered, “Holy fuck.”

“Yeah. The shit that’s been going down around Misted Pines the last few years, word came to me someone was renting Weaver Cabin, that was news in itself.”

Yeah, it was.

Riggs had lived in Misted Pines his entire life, but he bought his house on that lake three years prior, and he did it thinking no one would rent Weaver Cabin, and if they did, they wouldn’t stay long, which had been the way of it for fifteen years.

He didn’t believe any of the rumors. They were all bullshit. One of the reasons he had no reservations about buying his house on that lake.

But the fact remained, no one stayed long at Weaver Cabin, or his house, even before the Weavers took it over and fixed it up, but also after.

Which gave Riggs the lake, free and clear of the kind of hassle he’d experienced that morning.

Until, well…that morning.

“So, these days, I’m being extra cautious. Rus and I looked into her because I didn’t want more trouble in this town,” Harry explained, and Riggs was down with that too. Misted Pines had seen more of its fair share of trouble the last couple of years, and everyone, including Riggs, was sick of it. Harry, in his job, more than most. “We didn’t have far to look. Her shit is swung way the fuck out there.”

“And that shit is?” Riggs asked.

“So you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

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