She watched as he continued through the casino doors. She had to admit she didn’t mind watching that cute rear end of his, either.
Or maybe you’ve been seeing things and you need to get a grip.
She passed through the doors and into a jackpot bell to her senses. Smoke choked the air, invading her lungs. Bells, whistles, screeches, whines, cartoon barking, and all manner of digital sounds, both from this planet and fictional ones, flooded her ears. People of all shapes, colors, and sizes sat on stools, feeding their money into the machines in front of them.
It was so disorienting she had to slow down to find Wolf. It didn’t take much, he was a good head taller than anybody else in the place, except for a security pit boss who was standing next to him now, pointing in the direction of the lounge.
She followed him into a sunken area filled with cocktail tables doubling as electronic poker money ingesting machines. Only a few of the tables were occupied. Two middle-aged men stared at her, smirking and talking to one another. She felt her facial skin flushing under the bandages. She got the overwhelming urge to go to them and give them a closer look, maybe a smack upside the skull, but she ignored them instead.
When a cocktail waitress wearing high heels and short shorts walked by, Wolf stopped her and spoke into her ear.
"What was that, honey?" she asked.
"Does Mary Ellen Dimitri work here?”
The woman’s face soured. “Well, she should be working here. In fact, she should be working right under this tray, but I'm covering for her ass because she never showed up tonight."
Wolf's head swiveled. "Can you please point me to her boss?”
The woman tipped her chin toward the corner of the lounge, where a neon pink flamingo glowed on the wall above a bar. “See that guy with the blue shirt on? That's Jed. He's our boss.” She looked at Piper and then back to Wolf, something clicking in her brain. “What are you two doing in here, anyway, asking about Mary Ellen?”
Wolf said nothing. "Thank you, ma'am. We're going to go talk to your boss now."
"Wait a minute. What happened to Mary Ellen? Is something wrong? Is that why she’s not answering her phone?"
A drink slid off of the tray, crashed to the floor, and then five more drinks followed, splashing all three of them in the legs with liquid and shattered glass.
Piper backed up, feeling the liquid seep through to her shins and into her socks and shoes. She watched in mute fascination as Wolf, even more soaked than she was, act as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He simply bent over, put the tray on the ground, and began putting the glasses back on top. Then he plucked the sharp shards of glass off the carpet, putting them on top of the tray. Before she realized she was standing there like a doofus doing nothing, it was all over.
The woman picked up the tray in both hands, holding it to her belly.
Wolf nodded toward the bar. "Back there, you said?"
She nodded, saying nothing.
"Thank you, ma'am."
Wolf led the way again, Piper following closely. The way he dove into action like that, and pretty much every other Wolf interaction she’d seen today, suggested this man was thoughtful and kind.
So how did her resume get overlooked without a single word? It must have been a disconnect somewhere in the department that Wolf was unaware of. He would have mentioned something by now if he’d remembered her. But that woman, the receptionist and dispatcher named Tammy, had told her the sheriff would get back to her personally. That she’d personally delivered her resume to his desk.
Maybe she was lying. Maybe he was lying.
Whatever was happening, it all started from the top and trickled down. She’d seen men acting like perfect gentleman until the going got tough, and it was tough to straight up tell somebody they didn’t get the job, or that they were fired. She suspected Sheriff David Wolf had somebody who did his dirty work for him. Maybe Tammy was tasked to do his dirty work but she was too scared to go through with it. Two cowards ducking and jumping over responsibility, passing it back and forth, like a shitty game of dodge ball.
Wolf arrived at the bar and leaned on an elbow. “Are you okay?” he asked her.
“What? Good. I’m fine.”
He studied her for a second, then turned to the passing bartender. “Excuse me, sir?”
The bartender, a skin and bones man with thinning hair, avoided eye contact as he picked up a soda gun and filled a glass with dark liquid. "Yes, sir. What can I help you with?"
"I’m Sheriff Wolf, this is Deputy Cain. We'd like to speak to you in private, please, about one of your employees.”
"I’m a little busy right now. It’s the rush."
The man re-holstered the soda gun and walk to the far end of the bar, placing the soda on a tray and then filling a beer in one fluid motion. With expert precision, he angled the glass, filled it with urine-yellow liquid topped with no head and placed it on the tray, spilling some in the process. He picked up a piece of paper, read it impatiently, and dove into a stack of cocktail glasses, filled them with ice and poured two cocktails.
She eyed Wolf, wondering what his play would be. The sheriff seemed unfazed. Had he moved since they'd gotten there? His eyes tracked the bartender.
"The rush," she said.
Wolf said nothing.
The bartender walked past, not looking at them. He filled up another soda. "Look, I'm one server
