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After her conversation with Luke Justice, Haley tamped down her impulse to sneak into the woods and redirected her energy to unpacking instead. Once she’d unboxed her measly possessions, she called the only Internet service provider listed in the Yellow Pages. The operator told her it would be days before they could hook up her Internet, a response Haley interpreted as a lame joke until the woman hung up on her.
Thankfully, Haley’s cell phone signal remained strong, permitting her to dial into her Monday morning departmental meeting.
“How was the move, Haley?” Nexus Warren asked.
“I finished unpacking yesterday,” she informed her boss. She didn’t mention that even with everything unpacked, her house looked empty.
Neither did she mention her marijuana escapades. Nexus might regret allowing her to telecommute from three hundred miles away if he knew about the events of her first weekend in Sobaco.
“Did you have time to work on the MIT account?” he asked.
“Yes, I updated the go-live schedule.” Grateful he had opted not to dig for personal details, she pulled up the project file for Mitchell Independent Trucking on her laptop. “With Stan aiming to have the new system in place by—”
“Never mind that,” Nexus interrupted. “We have too much to cover this hour. Just upload a summary to the group directory, and I’ll review it later.”
“I’ll do that as soon as I locate a business with Wi-Fi,” she promised.
Silence descended. Haley held her breath, imagining the uncomprehending expressions her coworkers must be exchanging in the Seattle conference room. Someone on their team being offline was an unprecedented experience.
Just when she feared her phone had dropped the call, Nexus cleared his throat. “You don’t have access to the group directory from your new place?” He sounded as if she’d just admitted to chopping up a puppy to accommodate a new stroganoff recipe.
“I will,” Haley said in the most confident voice she could muster. “Somebody will be out here soon to wire my house.”
“Your house isn’t wired?”
“I have electricity,” she assured him. “I’m just temporarily lacking an Internet connection. The company promises a technician will be here next Wednesday.”
“Today’s Monday. That’s two days away.”
“Next Wednesday,” Haley corrected.
“Next Wednesday?” Nexus sounded gobsmacked. “You mean Wednesday of next week?”
“That’s the one.” Haley fingered the edge of her laptop. “Don’t worry, I have my computer, and I can accomplish a lot of work offline.”
“If you say so.” Nexus couldn’t sound more skeptical if Haley had promised to time-travel back to the year 2010, before MIT’s database had a chance to evolve into the screwed-up mess of today. “Well,” he said, sounding more upbeat, “since you don’t have access to the group directory, why don’t you email me the file.”
“I’ll do that.” She wondered how he envisioned her sending an email without Internet access but opted not to remind him of her predicament. She didn’t need him rescinding his offer to let her work long-distance on the first day of their new arrangement.
She remembered how Nexus had stared at her when she’d first broached the topic of telecommuting. The look on his face mirrored what she would have expected if she’d ever waltzed into work buck naked.
But he had listened when she went on to explain how torn up Michael’s death had left her and how a fresh start in a new town might help her regain her focus. She kept her true motive of tracking down the marijuana organization a secret, although she’d shed genuine tears when talking about losing the love of her life. Nexus had grudgingly agreed to let her telecommute on a six-month trial basis.
Now, Haley tuned out as another member of her department droned on about his own client account, luxuriating in the fact that none of her colleagues could see her. After only ten minutes, she could already appreciate attending these meetings remotely.
Thankfully, Nexus had no way of knowing how relieved she was simply to have decent cell phone reception. If she ended up getting disconnected from this call, she would wager that Nexus’s next words would be a few blistering expletives followed by a command for her to transport her derrière back to Seattle.
And she refused to leave just yet. Now that she’d found the marijuana responsible for Michael’s death, her desire to see the drug suppliers behind bars raged stronger than ever. Even the prospect of losing her job couldn’t deter her from seeing her mission through till the end.
* * *
Haley clutched the steering wheel, growing increasingly incredulous with every lap through what she figured must be downtown Sobaco but felt more like the ninth circle of hell—literally. The summer heat beat down as if the devil had stoked the sun’s fire himself, and Haley was now intimately familiar with how Sobaco’s Main Street formed a giant loop, evidence that the original founders knew if they provided an exit path their little fiefdom would crumble. But despite all her passes through town, she had yet to spot anything resembling an Internet café—or even a simple coffee shop—anywhere.
Desperate, Haley embarked upon the Main Street circle again. Incomprehensibly, the largest Sobaco business seemed to be a garden store, as evidenced by the signs she spotted pointing to its location on the outskirts of town. She hoped its popularity didn’t mean that people here were expected to grow their own food. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a vegetable in a state other than cooked or prepackaged.
For the fourth time she passed what appeared to be a place selling wooden wheels or carts using said wheels. At any rate, the massive wagon wheel propped outside the structure seemed positioned to taunt, as though to remind anyone stuck on Main Street that they were doomed to keep spinning their wheels.
“One business around here must have Wi-Fi,” Haley mumbled, gripping the steering wheel tighter. She refused to believe that Sobaco residents valued wooden wheels more than Internet access.
Maybe she would be better off looking for a library or FedEx store instead. Surely even FedEx delivered to Sobaco, Oregon. But the only familiar big-business name she saw was Subway.
She groaned when police sirens sounded behind her and a black-and-white cruiser pulled up to her bumper.
She eased toward the curb. A ticket actually struck her as the perfect accompaniment to this frustrating, pointless mission. She only hoped Nexus hadn’t been sitting by his computer for the past hour waiting for the updated MIT file to appear in his inbox. What she had expected to be a five-minute errand was usurping her entire afternoon.
Haley shoved the car in park and rolled down the driver’s side window. She squeezed the steering wheel and looked straight ahead as she tried to figure out what traffic law she had violated. Had she executed an illegal U-turn when she’d decided to take another pass through town the first time, before she realized Main Street formed one big circle? Or maybe Sobaco lacked progressive city rules such as allowing right turns on red.
“You again.”
The familiar voice caused her to spin toward the window. Luke Justice regarded her, his face dark.
“You perform traffic stops?” she asked, surprised his superiors allowed him to interact with the public. His personality seemed better suited for that of a homicide investigator, where he’d be serving people beyond taking offense.
He didn’t seem amused by her question. “At times.”
Haley waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t offer any more information. “So that makes you the town’s animal trapper, drug officer, and traffic cop,” she summarized. “Is there anything you don’t do?”
Luke stared at her. So much for attempting to engage the man in some friendly banter to avoid a traffic ticket. He obviously didn’t have any sense of humor.
“I suppose you need my license and registration,” Haley commented, making no move to reach for the documents. She refused to lift her hands from the steering wheel until she received his explicit permission. He would likely relish any excuse to shoot her in cold blood.
“What are you doing on this street?” he asked.
“Looking for a place with Internet access.”
“You’re driving around downtown looking for Internet access.”
His incredulous tone set her teeth on edge. “My home Internet won’t be hooked up until next week, and I need to get online for work.” She inclined her head toward her laptop on the passenger seat.
Luke turned his frown toward the laptop, as though its corroboration of her story disappointed him. She suspected he would frown at a kitten if she’d just rescued one from the animal shelter.
“What did I do wrong?” she asked.
“You tell me.”
Haley blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you did wrong.”
“I didn’t think I did anything wrong.”
“You’ve been circling this block over and over.”
Her brow furrowed. “The street forms an endless loop.”
“You must be up to something.”
“You mean, that’s why you stopped me? Because I’ve driven through downtown too many times?”
Luke didn’t say anything. He just continued to watch her with that unnerving gaze.
Haley tilted her chin up. “I didn’t realize you had an ordinance prohibiting people from spending too much time downtown.”
“We’re not against tourists, but we do frown on drivers terrorizing the residents.”
Haley let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Terrorizing the residents? Did someone tell you that’s what I was doing?”
Luke continued to stare at her.
“Who phoned you?” she asked, surveying the storefronts surrounding them as she tried to spot someone spying from one of the windows. She’d be damned if she supported whatever business owner had called in the complaint. It was no wonder the street looked so deserted. Anyone would be crazy to visit this place.
“Nobody phoned me. I happened to notice a strange vehicle cruising the area and took it upon myself to investigate.”
“Cruising the area?” Haley repeated through gritted teeth. Her rising temper combined with the hot air rushing through the open window set her dangerously close to losing it.
“What else would you call it when somebody repeatedly drives past the same businesses, assessing the level of downtown activity?” Luke asked. “Casing the joint?”
She gaped at him. “Are you kidding me? I was looking for a Wi-Fi connection!”
Luke pursed his lips. She wondered if he even knew what “Wi-Fi” meant. Doubtful, she thought, if he’d lived his whole life in this backwoods town.
Haley threw her hands up. “This place is ridiculous. There’s some drug lord running around free, and all you care ab—”
“We’re working on that,” Luke interrupted, his tone short.
Haley bit her lip to keep from pointing out that if the police had time to stop people for driving through town then they couldn’t be working very hard.
“Drug cases take time,” Luke continued. “Coming from a metropolitan area, you’re undoubtedly used to long police investigations.”
Haley felt her blood pressure rising as heat crept up her neck. Luke waited, likely wanting to give her every opportunity to utter something abusive that would provide him with enough grounds to take her into custody.
She mentally counted the seconds as their impasse continued, biting down on her tongue so hard she could taste blood. If Luke wanted to test her willpower, she could face off until he fainted from heatstroke. Thankfully, she’d had the foresight to leave the air conditioner running, giving her a distinct advantage in this standoff.
She felt a burst of triumph when Luke was the first to cave.
“If it’s Internet you’re looking for, the Wheelbarrow Café installed wireless a few months ago,” he said.
“The Wheelbarrow Café?”
Luke crouched lower so his face lined up with the car window. “You see that giant wheel?” He aimed his finger down the road. “That’s the Wheelbarrow Café. It’s really a sit-down restaurant, but everyone has called it a café since it opened.”
Haley was surprised to learn the business she’d passed four times in the past hour was really a restaurant and not a farming-equipment store. She feared any wireless service offered by an eatery sporting a humongous wagon wheel out front like a tribute to the 1820s would disappoint in terms of speed and reliability, but her options were limited.
“You don’t need to order anything to use their wireless,” Luke informed her.
Haley bristled, wondering whether he’d pegged her as exceedingly cheap or too elitist to order from a small-town diner. Either way, the insinuation stung. “Of course I’ll order something. I don’t intend to just mooch off their service.”
“They do have great food. It’s a bit greasy though.” Luke eyed her through the open window, his assessing gaze traveling down her torso. “I don’t know how your refined city palate would adjust.”
Haley folded her arms across her chest but just as quickly unfolded them, belatedly realizing the gesture would only press her blouse against her sweat-soaked skin like a wet T-shirt. “I’m getting rather hungry anyway.”
“Driving around in circles will do that to a person.”
Haley’s temper spiked until she spied a whisper of a smile traveling over Luke’s face. So the man did possess a sense of humor.
But the smile passed as quickly as it appeared. She wondered if within the past second Luke Justice had reached his limit on being personable.
“If you do visit the Wheelbarrow, I should warn you that people tend to talk in this town,” he said. “A marijuana bust will be big news, and some people might pump you for information on what you saw.”
Haley let his underlying meaning sink in. “You want me to not say anything about Saturday.”
“If you don’t mind.” He offered her a slight smile. His facial muscles must have been aching from overuse by now. “Mindy Larkin, one of the Wheelbarrow waitresses, tends to talk too much.”
“I won’t say anything about the marijuana.”
“I appreciate that. I don’t want anything to jeopardize this investigation.”
That was the last thing Haley wanted too, although she didn’t admit this to Luke. “How is the investigation going anyway?”
“It’s ongoing.”
She tried not to show her disappointment in his non-answer. After all, she couldn’t expect the police to treat her like their equal.
Luke straightened. “Well, I’ll let you go then.”
“Thank you.” She wasn’t sure whether she meant the statement in relation to him not issuing her a ticket or for sharing his Wi-Fi lead.
Luke had already traveled halfway to his patrol car before she heard his distant reply. “You’re welcome.”
