He huffed a sigh. “Fine. I’ll stay here. You guys can go home.”
Tommy and Mac both shook their heads.
“Nope. We’ll stick it out with you,” said Tommy.
Frank noted the light in T.K.’s back yard was dim enough he didn’t have to stare at his friend’s bruised chin any more. “There’s really no point—”
Mac held up a hand to silence him. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Frank shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
They walked to their cars and crawled inside to sleep. From the back seat of his cruiser, Frank called his wife, Darla.
“Turns out I’m not coming home tonight,” he said when she answered. She sounded sleepy.
“Tell her to come get your laundry,” she mumbled.
Frank chuckled. “I’m not cheating on you. I told you, there’s trouble out at T.K.’s farm. I have to be here at the crack of dawn, so there’s no point in coming home and trying to get any sleep. I’m a little worried they might try and sneak in early.”
He heard Darla grunt and he could picture her sitting up in bed.
“Remind me again? T.K.’s your Gopher friend who died?” she asked.
“I told you.”
“I don’t really listen to you.”
Frank sighed. “Yeah. This big company’s trying to take his land. Me, Mac and Tommy are out here to stop them.”
“Why?”
“To help his wife and family—”
“No, I mean why is some company trying to take his land?”
“Oh. I dunno. We’ll get it worked out tomorrow. I’m going to delay them until I can get hold of a judge. Get an injunction or something.”
“Okay. Whatever. What about Bob? Is he still with you?”
“Last I heard he and Herbert were going to Bob’s to watch House Hunters.”
Darla laughed. “Mariska is going to kill those drunken idiots if they show up this late.”
“If you see Bob tomorrow, tell him to come out with as many bodies as he can bring. We might have to block the tractors or something.”
“Recruit people to throw themselves in front of tractors. Got it. I’ll get right on that. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Frank hung up and tried to find a comfortable position in his car. He grunted and rolled from one side to the other.
The back seat of a police cruiser isn’t built for comfort. Who’d have thought.
***
Frank awoke at two, his right knee aching. The backseat wasn’t long enough and he’d been sleeping in a fetal position.
This isn’t going to work.
Unable to find a comfortable alternative, he left the car and wandered to a hammock hanging between two palm trees in the corner of T.K’s back yard. He crawled inside of it and it sagged to within an inch above the ground.
He held his breath waiting for it to collapse.
It didn’t.
Good enough.
He nodded off. In his dreams, he lounged on the tropical sands with a beautiful long-haired girl. She lay beside him and he could feel her dark, furry hair touching his cheek—
Wait a second.
Frank pressed his mental rewind button and replayed. Tropical beach. Beautiful girl. Dark, furry hair against his—
That was it.
Furry.
That’s not right.
He opened his lids and saw a dark eye peering at him so close he could touch it.
He let out a whoop!
On the ground beside him, Mac and Tommy sat straight up and took a token swing at each other, both whiffing by a foot. Their movement scared Frank all over again and he let out another yelp before his mind and T.K.’s back porch light clued him where he was and the pieces began to fall together.
“What? What is it?” asked Tommy panting.
Frank fought to sit up in the low-slung hammock. “What are you two doing out here?”
“We both got up to pee at the same time, saw you over here and decided we’d better setup camp next to you.”
“On the ground?’
Tommy shrugged. “You already had the hammock.”
“Why’re you screaming?” asked Mac.
Frank closed his eyes and thought about the eye he’d seen. One eye, big, dark, on the side of a head...he ran through the possibilities until he’d narrowed them down to one suspect.
“Rabbit. I think. He was goin’ for my earlobe. I woke up just in time.”
Mac shook his head. “Jeeze, Frank, I nearly had a heart attack.”
Frank peered at his watch. It was five-thirty. His hip ached and the early morning dew had added fifteen pounds to his uniform. He shivered in the already eighty-degree heat. His body still pulsed from the adrenaline dumped by the rabbit’s visit.
“Floppy-eared, bloodthirsty sonuva—if I’d had my gun—”
Mac chuckled. “Good thing you didn’t. You probably would have killed us all.”
Frank clambered out of the hammock and stretched before finding a discreet spot behind a tree to relieve his bladder. When he returned to the others, he motioned to Tommy. “You’re up. Why don’t you make yourself useful and get us some breakfast?”
“Good idea.” Tommy headed off in the direction of T.K’s house.
Mac handed Frank the folded piece of dark green plastic on which he’d been sleeping. “Here. Take this to sit on. Ground’s all wet.”
“What is it? A trash bag?”
Mac shook his head. “Used to be a trash bag. My wife sews them into rain slickers. I had a bunch in my trunk. I was supposed to try and sell them to the guys at work.”
“But you gave her the money and just kept them to avoid the embarrassment of letting your co-workers know your wife makes slickers out of trashbags?”
Mac nodded. “Yup. I can see why you’re sheriff.”
They sat on the ground facing each other, arms wrapped around their knees.
“My bones hurt and my clothes are soaked,” muttered Frank.
“Yep. This was a bad idea. We should go talk to
