Jed Had to Die(24)

“Payton Lambert, this is one of my deputies, Buddy Lloyd. He just moved to Bald Knob a few months ago. I thought it would be a good idea to bring him out here with me this morning since he’ll probably be coming here quite a bit when more neighbors start complaining about you,” Leo says with a soft chuckle.

“It’s nice to meet you, Deputy Lloyd. Pay no attention to Sheriff Hudson, he was dropped on his head a lot as a baby,” I inform the man, still standing at the bottom of the steps, wringing his hands together nervously.

“It’s nice to meet you too, ma’am,” he says, his eyes darting behind me and his hands quickly coming up to smooth down his hair. “G-good morning, Mrs. Jackson. H-how have you been?”

I look back and forth between Emma Jo, who came up behind me, and Deputy Lloyd, who is suddenly nervous for a whole new reason and I can’t hide my smile when he trips over his words and keeps trying to make sure his hair looks good as she moves up next to me in the doorway.

“Payton…” Emma Jo whispers, completely ignoring poor lovesick Buddy Lloyd and saying my name in the same, worried voice as before when she came back into the living room.

“What’s going on?” Leo asks, suddenly noticing the look on Emma Jo’s face and remembering what Buddy said when he first walked up to the porch, turning away from Emma Jo to look back at him. “What’s in the backyard?”

Buddy looks at me and Emma Jo, then motions for Leo to come down off the porch with his hand. As soon as Leo walks down the steps and he and Buddy start speaking in hushed voices, Emma Jo’s hand wraps around my arm and she squeezes so tightly that I let out a little yelp of pain.

“We killed him!” Emma Jo whispers frantically, her eyes wider than they were before in the living room.

“What the hell are you talking about? Killed who?” I ask in a soft voice, glancing down at the two men to see that they’re still deep in conversation and not paying any attention to us.

“I went to the laundry room at the back of the house and looked out the window to see what Bo Jangles was barking at, and…oh, my God, we killed him,” Emma Jo whimpers.

I can still hear the damn dog barking up a storm at the back of Starla’s house, and I take another sip of the shitty coffee Leo brought me. I need the caffeine right now more than something that tastes good if I want to be able to make sense of anything that is coming out of Emma Jo’s mouth right now.

“Sheriff, did you get a look at what’s in the backyard? Is it a deer?”

Emma Jo whimpers again when Starla comes waltzing over from her house, walking much faster with her cane than I thought humanly possible.

“Hey, Mrs. Godfrey! Hello Sheriff, Deputy Lloyd,” a teenage boy shouts in greeting, walking across the street and into Emma Jo’s yard to join the party. “My mom sent me over to see if everything is okay with Bo Jangles. We’ve been hearing him barking all morning.”

I squint to get a good look at the kid and smile when I recognize who it is.

“Caden Jefferson? I used to babysit you! Holy shit, you’re all grown up now. It’s me, Payton Lambert. Do you remember me?” I yell to him with a smile and a wave of my coffee cup, even though Emma Jo is now clutching onto my other arm with both of her hands now.

Caden’s happy-go-lucky smile dies when he sees me, and he stops in the middle of the yard before quickly starting to take a few steps back toward the street.

“Sorry, Miss Lambert!” he shouts. “My mom heard you were back in town, and she said I’m not allowed to talk to you because you’re a bad influence.”

“Oh, for the love of God,” I mutter as I watch him turn and flee, running across the street and into his house like the devil is on his heels.

I realize Leo and Buddy have stopped talking and are both staring at me.

“Honestly, it’s not my fault that kid was a parrot and wouldn’t stop calling his mother a whore after I watched a movie with him one night. It was years ago. Don’t people ever forget anything around here?” I complain.

“Plenty of people around here forget things. Like the guy who helped you pass Geometry and gave you the name for your coffee shop,” Leo informs me with a cocky smile.

Son of a bitch. SON OF A BITCH! Leo used to always call coffee Liquid Crack and teased me about how I couldn’t survive without it back when he was tutoring me. I can’t believe I forgot about that. When it came time for me to pick a name for the shop, it was the first thing that popped into my head. I can’t believe I forgot that it came from Leo. No wonder he’s taking such great pleasure in torturing me since I got back here. Great, now I owe the guy TWO apologies. This is officially the worst week ever.