Bands set up in different rooms throughout the school fill the brightly lit hallways with music, and tables weighed down with food from what seems like every restaurant in town create a party atmosphere inside. Members of the committee, as well as prominent members of the community who provided support for the center, roam around looking at displays presenting the activities and features the center will offer.
"Sheriff Johnson, good to see you," Mayor Tuttweiler says in his cheerful, booming voice as he walks up and gives Sam a hard handshake.
This is a man who is always on. An old school politician with snow-white hair and cheeks that glow red when he laughs, he's got a Santa vibe that just misses out on working because all six feet five inches of him is taut muscle. It never left after years in the military. He always speaks like he's at a podium but manages to come across as genuine rather than slimy. That's a feat these days.
"Hello, Mayor. Nice to see you, too. Glad you were able to come out and see the center," Sam says.
"Absolutely. It's a wonderful thing. A wonderful thing." He looks at me and offers a gentler hand. "And Emma. Oh, Agent Griffin. I'm sorry. I still have to get used to that."
I shake my head. "It's alright, Mayor. You taught my middle school civics class about local government and helped enough people do well on the test that we didn't have to do an extra project for that unit. I think you can call me Emma."
Sam and the mayor laugh, but he's distracted by another man walking up beside him. He swings his arm behind his back and gives him a pat.
"This is Judge Dermott Melville. He's an old friend. He wanted to come tonight and see what Sherwood made of this place."
"Nice to meet you," I say to the judge.
He gives me a wide grin. "You, too. I've heard a lot about you. Didn't know the Bureau had agents so pretty."
"Oh," I say, taken aback by the comment. "Well, thank you."
"Just like the military now. Wish they had some girls who look like the ones in uniform now when we were serving. Jimmy and I could tell you some stories about the girls we had to find out at the bars during the war, couldn't we?"
He nudges the mayor, and they laugh. I hope we're not about to hear any of those stories, but I'm not so lucky. Sam and I finally manage to extricate ourselves ten minutes later and head for the food.
"Wow," I say as we load up our plates and find a quiet corner.
"Yeah," Sam says. "I didn't know Mayor Tuttweiler had it in him."
"You mean good ol' Jimmy? It doesn't really shock me. It kind of fits in with his personality. Big and loud and boisterous, just all polished and prettied up for politics. I just didn't necessarily need to hear about it."
Sam laughs, and I reach for a tiny cup of pastry filled with mushrooms and onions. Just as I'm about to put it in my mouth, my phone alerts in the pocket of my dress. I have a soft place in my heart for whoever decided to start putting pockets in dresses, but they are only really effective when I have a hand to reach into them. Sam takes my plate, and I pull out my phone. It's an email from Eric.
There's an attachment and a one-line message.
"Who is she?"
Chapter Twenty-Nine Dragon
Six years ago…
All around them, people tried to pretend they weren't watching. But there were more eyes on him now than there ever had been.
They weren't just curious now. Envy and bitterness joined the questions all those eyes silently asked. He had no need to answer them. No compulsion to satisfy that curiosity.
Every one of them noticed the days ticking past with her still sitting on the platform, her chair pulled close to his at the table. No one else had been invited again. Not since he saw her. Not that the women didn't still wait and hope. They saw her sitting there. They saw the way his arm draped casually across in the back of her chair or around her waist. They saw his lips brush against the side of her neck and the way she laughed and curled against him.
But they still waited. They still hoped for the moment when he would lose interest in her the way he always had with everyone else before. And hoped even more to be the ones to fall into the place she would leave empty.
He had never done this before. There had never been this long a time when the same woman occupied the space beside him. They were ethereal and changing. They fit his mood and the way his day had gone. They were as much like ordering from the menu as the drink in his hand.
But not anymore. Not since he saw her.
None of them could understand what she had done. She was beautiful. But that wasn't enough. They couldn't figure out what it was that kept her sitting there.
Neither could he. There was just something about her, something intangible he had never seen before. And he couldn't get enough of her.
Ariella slid closer to him; her thigh pressed against his. He slid his hand between her knees, feeling the warmth of her skin through her sheer black pantyhose. She nuzzled her face against the side of his neck.
"It's getting late," she whispered.
He knew what that meant. It was what she said before she stepped down from the platform and disappeared into the night. She never let him go with her. She never offered to stay.
"Let me drive you home tonight," he said.
Ariella shook her head. Her hair sent up the smell of citrus and sugar.
"I don't need you to," she said.
"But do you want me to?" he asked, a smile curving his lips just enough for her to
