Page 31 of Take a Hike
She was rewarded with yet another laugh from him, this oneslightly less choked than the last one.I’ll get a belly laugh out of him before we leave this crazy town, she thought, but the thought brought her up short.
“What’s wrong?” Kieran barked.
“Nothing.” She shook off the sense of loss that’d settled over her at the thought of leaving Simpson in her rearview mirror—or, more accurately, the thought of leavingKieranbehind in just a few short days. “Just a weird thought.”
“Please don’t share it.”
A laugh burst out of her, dissolving the last of her melancholy. “You know that just makes me want to share every random thought that passes through my very active brain, right?”
His mutter sounded something like, “Oh, sweet Jesus, no.”
She let the quiet tick by for a solid eight seconds before saying, “My butt itches.”
His agonized groan made her laugh out loud.
***
Since Rory had a customer when she and Kieran walked in, Charlie took the opportunity to explore the store. She wasn’t a huge gun fan, but Rory had the place set up as a sort of mix between a store and museum, with all sorts of weapons, old and new, lining the glass cases.
“Come over here,” Rory called from her stool behind the counter. “Kevin’s the one.”
“I’m the one? What one?” The customer—Kevin, apparently—asked suspiciously. He was a nondescript blond guy in his thirties.Looks like a very Kevin-like Kevin.Charlie made amental note to share that random thought with Kieran later.
“You’re efficient,” Charlie said approvingly to Rory as she crossed the store to stand in front of Kevin, who took a wary step back.
Kieran took up a position behind and a little to the side of her, and she felt a warm feeling spread through her middle. She’d expected that having someone else—other than her sisters—with her while investigating would feel claustrophobic and unnecessary, but it wasn’t like that at all. In fact, if this was what it felt like to have a hot guy at her back, then no wonder her sisters had gone all gaga over their respective men. She could already tell that having Kieran around could be addictive.
That cozy glow in her middle made her smile extra wide, and Kevin turned an unhealthy shade of greenish pale. “Kevin! So good of you to help us out like this.”
“I’m not…” His eyes darted toward the door, and in her peripheral vision, Charlie saw Kieran shift to block the other man’s escape route. “I–I didn’t… What?”
Ignoring his stammered mumbling, Charlie turned up the wattage on her grin. Surprisingly, Kevin didn’t seem to be reassured. Instead, he looked positively hunted. “So tell us…what’d you think of Cobra?”
Kevin blinked. “Cobra?”
“The former militia leader?” Charlie prompted. “Was he a good guy? Did you like him?”
“Well…yeah, I guess? I mean, I didn’t know him that well?” From the way all his statements were curling up at the end, turning them into questions, Kevin had been taken off guard bythe direction her interrogation was going.
“Not that well?” Charlie repeated, keeping a close eye on his sweating face. “Did you just recently join the Freedom Survivors?”
Rory let out a quiet sound that was close enough to a gag to make Charlie glance at her.
“Sorry,” Rory said, looking a little shamefaced. “That name… Lou’s been rubbing off on me.”
“Don’t worry—I’m sure the murder club will get it changed soon enough.” Turning back to Kevin, who looked very confused by that sidebar, Charlie gave him an encouraging nod.
“Yeah, no. Not very recently, I mean. Maybe five years ago.”
Cocking her head, Charlie allowed a small frown to draw her eyebrows together. “But you didn’t know Cobra well? Is the militia that big?”
“We don’t really call ourselves a militia.”
Holding back an eye roll, Charlie limited herself to circling her hand in a let’s-get-on-with-it gesture. “I’m trying to keep Rory from losing her lunch all over that sparkling-clean counter, so let’s just go with ‘militia,’ but your objection is noted. Now, why didn’t you know Cobra well?”
“We weren’t… I mean, I wasn’t really in the inner circle. I only lived out there for six months before I moved to Liverton, so I just saw Cobra at training sessions and potlucks, things like that.”
“I love that the militia has potlucks,” Charlie said, and Kieran cough-choked behind her, a sound she was beginning to recognize as a stifled laugh. “So from your limited encounterswith Cobra—and living in the same compound as him for six months—did he seem like a likable guy?”
