Page 21 of Jolene's Justice

He looked down at the wet spots on his shirt. “Oh yeah. Give me a sec.” He dashed out of the kitchen and ascended the stairs two at a time, her lighthearted chuckle spurring him on.

Chapter 10

“Whatareyoustaringat?” Jolene asked after finding Finch in the bread aisle.

“It’s just not right,” he muttered. Jolene had no idea what he was talking about, but he appeared troubled by whatever was bothering him. She wondered briefly if he had found out about the disturbing texts she’d been getting. Another one had come in while she was visiting her father. She ignored it until she could excuse herself to the bathroom to check it.

ARE YOU SCARED YET? YOU SHOULD BE.

The vagueness and highly disturbing nature of the threats unsettled her, especially since she didn’t know who they were from. She wanted to turn her phone off and ignore them but worried she’d miss a call from the hospital. Each time one came in, she told herself she wasn’t going to read it, yet she couldn’t stop herself.

The messages were coming more frequently. She had no trouble ignoring the first few that had trickled in, thinking they were to a wrong number. Despite the fact that the threats may not have been directed at her, the thought of someone else being in danger weighed heavily on her mind. But what could she have done about it?

As the messages continued to pour in the last couple of days, she became increasingly convinced that she was the intended target. She should probably ask Emma to look into it. Her friend’s skills with a computer were mindboggling, and yet she was reluctant to ask for help. Emma was with her fiancé on his movie release tour. Jolene hesitated to bring it up, not wanting to trouble her with what was likely trivial.

Watching Finch struggle with some inner conflict in the grocery store disturbed her. She knew if he found out about the messages, he wouldn’t rest until the sender was unmasked and stopped. She didn’t want to involve the other Nighthawks, but he’d do so without hesitation. Her Nighthawk friends had been through so much over the last couple of years. She didn’t want to cause unnecessary worry about a few threatening anonymous texts.

“Look at it sitting there all innocent-like,” Finch said to bring her attention back to the moment.

If he’d found out about the texts, she thought he would be angry and overprotective, but he didn’t sound like that at all. His words were baffling.

“Innocent?” she asked.

“Yeah, look at it,” he said, waving his hand toward the towering wall of bread loaves.

“Look at what?” Now she was really confused. What the hell was he talking about?

“That one. Right there in the middle.” She looked where he was pointing, but the lack of any visible indication of his agitation made her doubt its severity. And his sanity, if she were being honest.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s unnatural,” he repeated. “Look at it there in that bag. It’s upside down. All its brothers and sisters are perfectly aligned in their wrapping. But not this one. The poor thing is breech.”

Jolene looked closer at the row of bread he was indicating. That’s when she saw that one was different from all the others. One loaf was indeed wrapped upside down in its packaging. Amid the sea of loaves, this one was the only one that looked different, almost like it was from a different batch. An oddball among the others, as if it didn’t quite belong. The melody of “One of These Things Is Not Like the Others” triggered a fit of giggles that she just couldn’t suppress.

She couldn’t stop laughing, and it caused her to bend over, holding her stomach. Tears streamed down her face as her mirth became even more uncontrollable when Finch patted the loaf as if to comfort it.

“You are such a loon,” she said between fits of laughter. The surrounding customers were edging away from them, shooting odd looks in their direction. She didn’t care if she looked just as loony as he did. She had to hand it to him—the man had a knack for making her laugh, and she couldn’t help but appreciate it.

Once she had herself under control, she wiped away the tears from under her eyes, hoping her mascara hadn’t run. “If it bothers you that much, then pick another loaf,” she suggested.

He went to do just that, then hesitated. “But what if nobody else picks him? He’s the runt. The other loaves probably bully him. What if he becomes like that kid on the playground who’s the last one picked for the game because nobody wants him on his team? If we don’t take him home, we’ll be just as bad as all the other playground bullies.” He glared over his shoulder at a little old lady who chose a perfectly packaged loaf of bread.

Jolene bit her lip to suppress her laughter as he glared daggers at the old lady. In the end, he decided to take the challenged loaf home. He also grabbed the two on either side of it, claiming they were probably “friends.” The man was crazy, but he’d kept her in stitches, which in turn kept her mind off all the things going wrong in her life at the moment.

Until her phone rang as she walked through the front door of her dad’s house.

“Hey, Jolene. Sorry to bother you,” Ox began after she answered.

“That’s okay. What’s up?”

“Well . . .” He hesitated, which wasn’t a good sign. It had her blood pressure rising as she anticipated the bad news he had to share with her. Ox was a beast of a man. Former military, muscles for days, and a big ole teddy bear. He’d started working behind her bar years ago and had quickly made himself at home. Ever since, he’d become indispensable to her. It was a no brainer to leave him in charge while she was in Georgia. “A couple of our vendors didn’t deliver today.”

“What? Why not?”

“It’s weird. They claim they got a call saying you were closing the doors, filing for bankruptcy, and would no longer need their services.”

“What?” she shouted with an unnaturally high-pitched voice. Thankfully, Finch was still out at the car and couldn’t hear her losing her shit.

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