Page 61 of Hideaway Whirlwind
“Open this goddamn door, Russell, before I blow this here fancy handle off!” Sheriff Gibson yells from the porch.
“Layla, hide them upstairs,” Russell says, and as soon as my family is out of sight—much as I hate that—Russell jogs to the front door, stopping first to stow his shotgun in the hall bathroom. “I’ll handle this.”
“Wewill handle this,” I say. We’ve always made a good team, and maybe now, after Birdie stuck up for me,choseme, he’ll see that he never should have lost any trust in me—though I’ve certainly lost some in him. With a nod to each other, we collectively shutter our expressions before Russell swings open one side of the double doors.
Sheriff Gibson pauses mid-knock. “‘Bout damn time. You didn’t hear me pull up?”
Deputy Zoey Cooke is with him, her almost-white-blonde hair pulled back in a slick, low bun as she eyes Russell and me suspiciously. Since that’s her go-to expression, I don’t pay her much mind.
“Nope. Can’t say that I did,” Russell responds in a casual voice.
“Bullshit.” Sheriff lifts his boot to step inside, but Russell blocks the doorway with me standing as backup a pace behind him.
“I’ll remind you not to curse where my wife can hear you,” Russell says. When Sheriff sniffs and nods, my brotherasks, “Now, how can we help you?”
Sheriff sucks his teeth. “You know we got a call from Mckinley.”
“And she told you it was an accident. Butt dial, I think she said,” Russell says, both of us silently relieved—only by a hair—that it wasn’t another call placed by someone else, like Birdie’s mother, if she is in fact the lurker, that brought Sheriff and his deputies out here.
Sheriff pushes his cowboy hat up to scratch his lined forehead beneath his gray hair, more than a few of those due to my brother and me, both of us having been arrested by him at some point or another.“Well, seeing as how you boys have been nothing but trouble and put me through the wringer over the past few years, I thought it best to check things out.”Boys. As if he isn’t only a few years older than us.
Russell inches the door closed. “Everything’s fine. Y’all have a good night.”
Sheriff slaps a meaty hand against the door and sweeps his eyes across the vehicles parked in the driveway that splits off into a U in front of the house. “Y’all having a party, or something?”
“Yup. Celebrating the end of the freeze. Best get back to it,” Russell says dismissively, still trying to force the door closed.
“Now, how come I didn’t get an invite? Lord knows Sheila and I froze our hinies off, same as the rest of you,” Sheriff says jovially with a tilt of his head, changing tactics that we see right through. “My wife’s been itching to get out of the house, and she sure would have loved to catch up with Layla. Been too quiet around here.”
Deputy Cooke tsks. “You shouldn’t have said that.”
“Right, right.” Sheriff knocks twice on the wooden doorframe,superstitious as he is that they’ll suddenly be inundated with calls in our normally quiet county—when he’s not up to his neck in trouble from usboys. “Well.” Sheriff stalls, his gaze catching on my brown Bronco parked behind Goldie’s Explorer. He takes a small flashlight from his duty belt, stepping off the porch to shine his light through my windows into the back seat. “Huh.” He thumbs his nose, looking past my brother at me. “You wanna tell me why you have three car seats in the back here?”
I grunt. That meansno.
Sheriff grouses and takes his cowboy hat off, throwing it sideways like a Frisbee toward his cruiser parked in the grass, his tires having chewed up Russell’s dead lawn. “I knew it,” he says, pointing at me and hustling up the porch. “Step aside.”
“You’re not coming in here without a warrant,” Russell says, feet braced wide.
“Here’s your warrant.” Sheriff gives my brother the middle finger before he muscles his way inside.
I reach for my shotgun, but Russell stops me with a quick, discreet shake of his head.
Sheriff points to the back of the house. “Someone let Green in before he breaks the da–ang glass.” He waves to the side door. “Lopez, too.”
Harold hurries to flip the back door’s lock, letting in Cooke’s fiancé, Deputy Joshua Green, whom she became engaged to shortly after Layla and Russell got hitched. Green gives his bride-to-be a waggle of his brows, lifting them toward his tightly coiled black hair, when Cooke follows Sheriff deeper into the living room, keeping me within sight at all times—until she invariably scowls with annoyance at her fiancé.
Paul opens the side door for the new Deputy Daniela Lopez,whom I haven’t officially met. I’d guess she hadn’t heard about my reputation just yet, but the way she immediately narrows her focus on me tells me I’m wrong in my assumption.
“Aww, who’s this little puppy?” Green asks in a baby voice, distracted by Storm when she lifts her blocky head off the floor. He squats to pet Storm’s side, and thankfully for him, she’s too exhausted to give so much as a snort of warning.
“Are the kids upstairs or with a sitter?” Sheriff asks Layla with a huff, who is sitting on the bottom step of the staircase. An ill-timed thump and ensuing cry from upstairs answers him before any of us can. “Bring ‘em on down,” he says.
Layla looks to Trace at the top of the stairs, who turns and asks Cora and the kids to come out—all except for mine, of course.
“Line ‘em up.” Sheriff shoos them with his hands until the kids are with their respective parents, none of whom have made a peep. “Seems we’re missing a few, ain’t that right, Elliott?”
I fist my hands, my heart rate spiking as the dial is turned up on the static in my head, red blooming at the edges. If he doesn’t want any moretrouble, then he shouldn’t come looking for it, because trouble is exactly what he’ll find if he tries to cart my woman and daughter off.
