Free Resurrection in Mudbug by Jana DeLeon

night? The same boat that had no evidence as to origin or ownership when we searched it this morning?” 
    Colt frowned. “Marty was at the garage yesterday morning. I bought a set of spark plugs from him. He couldn’t have transmitted from the pond and if he’d known about the money, he would have closed the garage and been in the middle of the fray with them.”
    Bill shrugged. “I just know what I heard and that is that word came down the pipe from Marty.”
    “I don’t understand,” Jadyn said.
    “I don’t either,” Colt said. “But I don’t like it.”
    ###
    Colt adjusted his rearview mirror and watched Jadyn cross the street to the hotel. It was a particularly great view, and if he hadn’t been so troubled, he would have enjoyed it a lot more. He waited until Jadyn’s truly impressive form disappeared into the hotel, then backed his truck up and headed for the sheriff’s department.
    What Bill said didn’t make sense, but Colt had no reason to suspect Bill was being untruthful. Except for the time he served in the army, the bar owner had always lived in Mudbug and had never been trouble—at least, not anything outside of the ordinary Mudbug kind. If someone had told Colt they’d seen Bill poaching deer, he would have believed that wholeheartedly, but involved in whatever prompted tons of unmarked bills in Baggies…he just didn’t see it.
    When his cousin Johnny had been killed the year before while attempting to murder Maryse, Bill had been quick to step to Maryse’s defense and disavow his cousin’s actions. He’d been the sole heir to Johnny’s estate, such as it was, and had inherited the bar. Out of respect for Maryse, he’d left it closed for almost six months, and changed the name and facade before reopening. 
    The week before he reopened the bar, Bill sold his shrimp boat and all his equipment, claiming he and his bad knees were officially retiring from all that manual labor. And to the best of Colt’s knowledge, the man didn’t even fish. Colt always assumed he was burned out.
    He pulled in front of the sheriff’s department and glanced back at Junior, who was snoring on his backseat. All that ruminating over Bill hadn’t gotten him one inch closer to a solution to the current problem.
    Nor did it make you forget how Jadyn looked in that dress.
    He gripped the steering wheel and blew out a breath. Sometimes one’s subconscious was a real son of a bitch—letting things out into the consciousness that were better off buried. 
    He’d heard the ruckus before he ever opened the door to the bar and knew right then that the likelihood of sipping a beer in peace and quiet had just flown right out the window. What he hadn’t expected was to see Jadyn in the middle of a brawl, and certainly not looking hotter than any woman had the right to.
    Sure, he’d noticed her looks and her body at the pond and again this morning, going through the boat, but when she enhanced all that natural beauty and stopped hiding her body in jeans and T-shirts, it was a sight to behold. Jadyn St. James was quite frankly the most gorgeous woman he’d ever laid eyes on.
    And he’d bet a year’s salary that she knew it.
    The hair and makeup…that dress…all carefully calculated to get the local population wagging tongues. And it probably would have worked quite well if Junior hadn’t gotten sideways.
    Speaking of which.
    Before his thoughts trailed off into places they never belonged, he jumped out of his truck and hauled Junior out of the backseat. The big man was still drunk and would be sporting a heck of a shiner the next day, but he didn’t protest as Colt led him inside and locked him up in the corner cell. 
    “Problems at the bar?” Eugenia, the night dispatcher, asked as he walked back into the main office area.
    “The male ego sort. When he sobers up, cut him loose. I’m not interested in doing the paperwork.”
    “You got it, boss.”
    He headed into his office at the back of the building