Free Good Side of Sin by K. S. Haigwood

tacky, brown blazer, and a shit-eating grin plastered below his cherry red cheeks. The guy looked like he was one drive-thru stop away from a heart attack. Right away, Ethan knew right away he didn’t like the man. He couldn’t pick out what bothered him the most about the guy, but he knew he didn’t want to stay here long enough to figure it out.
    His eyes cut over to watch Cross stiffen in her chair and assumed this must be Boggs,
the boss
.
    Ethan looked back to his fork and, before taking the bite, he said, “My name is Ethan. Only my friends call me Trick.”
    Boggs lost his smile and slapped the table with his palm, causing the red SOLO cup beside Ethan’s plate to slosh iced tea onto the doily. Boggs moved closer to Ethan and leaned down to talk by his ear. “Listen here,
boy
, from what I hear you are more than capable of holding your own out there with the criminals and punk kids with bad attitudes, but I put little snots like you away every day for thinking they can get one over on me. So I advise you to check your attitude and tell me what I want to know. Otherwise we can take a nice little ride downtown and have this conversation in a room a little smaller and a whole lot less comfortable. What do you say? You feel like talking yet?”
    Ethan blinked down at his spilt drink, and then looked up at the fat man without fear in his eyes. He shrugged. “I never said I wouldn’t talk to you. I was only introducing myself. What should I call you? Captain Panties-in-a-Wad? Or is it Lieutenant Crabby-Pants?”
    There was a short chuckle/cough that came from somebody in the room, but Ethan didn’t look around to see who had done it, nor did Boggs. Ethan guessed Boggs didn’t have any friends at this party.
    Ethan watched as the man stood back upright and moved his blazer out of the way to reveal a six-pointed gold star. “I’m a U.S. Marshal, son. Find your manners, and find ’em quick, or I’ll make sure Bubba knows your first, middle and last name before you even get past intake.”
    Ethan had no interest in ever meeting up with
Bubba
, nor was he particularly keen with the idea of being on a first name basis with the dude, so he decided the puns could wait, at least until after the Marshal left the room.
    Swallowing what was left of his dignity, Ethan nodded in understanding. “Nice to meet you, Marshal. My name is Trick.”
    Boggs grinned, and then looked up to meet the eyes of a very livid Cross. “Right, I knew we could all play nice together. How’ve you been, Cross?” He looked over to Cabrejos, who was leaning against the wall, looking out the window. “I want to thank you nice folks for cleaning up a lot of the drug business in Vegas, but I’ll be taking it from here.”
    Cross shot to her feet. “Like hell you will! This is my case, Marshal! This is not your business—”
    As Boggs’ eyebrows disappeared behind the brim of his hat, he shook his head. “The original case is still yours—by all means go find your drug dealers—but when five of the last ten people a person has come in contact with turns up missing, with two of them being drug enforcement agents, well, that person becomes a suspect for kidnapping and murder real fast around here.” Boggs placed his hands gently on the table and leaned in closer to Cross. “And that, honey, makes it
my
business.”
    Ethan looked at the Marshal, and then over to Cross’ red face and trembling hands.
    Is he talking about me? I haven’t murdered anyone! What the hell is this?
    Ethan jumped to his feet and quickly backed up to the entrance of the dining room, but two guys in slacks and shoulder holsters stopped him from going any farther. “What the hell’s going on?” he shouted, and fought to tear his arms away from the men, but they only tightened their grip on him. Breathing heavily, he looked at Cross. “You know I haven’t killed anyone! You were there with me when that monster killed those guys last night, and you were there when