Page 74 of The Woman By the Lake

“Riggs, that wine from your friend is gone.”

Riggs stood completely still.

Except his lips.

Those he used to growl, “Motherfucking Bubbles.”

SIXTEEN

It Takes One to Know One

Riggs

Riggs’d had a shitty afternoon.

Part of it was, he was, right then, standing outside Bubbles’s hospital room with Harry after hearing the doctor say that they’d brought Bubbles out of the coma, but he hadn’t regained consciousness yet.

Before that, he’d gone with Harry to The Hole to have a look in the storeroom, and he was able to report that the other bottles of wine he’d seen in the locked cabinet were gone. Though he couldn’t say exactly the number that had been there, or report if anything else was missing, because he hadn’t paid that close of attention.

He’d also given Harry Bubbles’s story about tasting it in Sonoma a couple of years ago and buying a case. However, he didn’t share his suspicions that his friend had been lying about where he got that wine. Mostly because he didn’t have to, Harry figured that out on his own.

And he felt like a dick, and a snitch (but not too much of one since Nadia had been dragged into this crap), when he shared that Bubbles had mentioned women named Candy and Barbie. Two women Riggs didn’t know, nor did Harry, and between the two of them, Riggs reckoned they knew five sixths of the population of Misted Pines, though a bit less of the entirety of Fret County.

He’d gone to the hospital with Harry to interrogate Bubbles if he’d regained consciousness, not only because he wanted to hear what that fucker had to say, but also because he could tell Harry if the man was lying.

Unfortunately, they didn’t get to do that part.

In the midst of this, Harry reported to Riggs that Rus and Karen Wilkins, another FC deputy, had been looking around outside Nadia’s cabin while they were inside, and apparently whoever this was didn’t take the time to cover their tracks like the “ghosts” did.

Therefore, with all the rain from the day before making the dirt wet, they had tons of tracks leading from the road to and all around the cabin, including Nadia’s back door, and back to the road, where they also found tire tracks that suggested a truck or an SUV had pulled off to the side and parked.

They were canvassing the people who lived on the road to see if they’d noted a vehicle parked there, and Harry had asked Riggs to call Nadia to ask the same.

She hadn’t.

The canvass wasn’t done. With Bubbles’s security system at the bar being out of action, so no camera footage, and nothing pinging so far with prints and blood and other samples they collected from the bar, except Bubbles’s own blood and prints, and prints of staff (although they’d identified some blood from another source, they just had yet to identify that source), until Bubbles woke up, they had nothing.

Except now they had the fact that someone really wanted to get that wine back.

If it cost five hundred bucks a pop, times twelve (if there had been a case of it), Riggs could almost see that.

But to expend that effort for one of twelve bottles, when they’d already recovered ten, it was clear something else was up.

Harry felt the same. And since it was Riggs who bought two bottles, and whoever was behind it knew Nadia was going to get one of them (something only Bubbles could tell them, which gave indication of what he gave up during his beating), and they only recovered one, this meant his house could be on their radar. Therefore, Harry had parked a deputy in his driveway after Riggs left Nadia there.

His mom was picking Ledger up from school and taking him home, which was where Riggs wanted to be, because he’d had a bottled smoothie for breakfast, no lunch, he was fucking hungry, and he wanted to see his kid…and Nadia.

Harry got close and Riggs shook off his thoughts to focus on him.

“I’m gonna tell you something that’s only for you to know. My team knows, but if you get a shot to have a chat with Bubbles, with or without me, I want you to bear it in mind.”

“So I can tell you what he says,” Riggs filled in what he left out.

“You don’t want this shit sorted?”

“I know he’s a fuckup, but Bubbles is a friend,” Riggs replied.

“A friend, who Nadia is lucky she didn’t come home earlier and catch this?—”

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