Free Stone Cold Crazy (Lil & Boris #4) (Lil and Boris Mysteries) by Shannon Hill Page B

offended silence. “It’s business, Lil. Could you meet me at the Grenville site?”
    “Sure, fine, no problem, not like I have a job or anything,” I huffed, and hung up on him. I had feds doing God knows what, because they had yet to tell me a damn thing. My best friend was completely irrational. And I couldn’t even talk to Aunt Marge because I’d already heard the feds had paid her a call. If I had a tail, it would’ve been lashing hard enough to snap clean off.
    My mind cleared a bit when I saw the windshield of a little backhoe. The glass had spider-webbed around a small round mark. “Oh hell,” I said, and met Steve with a scowl. “You could’ve just called in that you got shot at, you know.”
    “I’m trying to be discreet, since we don’t know who did the shooting. Not exactly, anyway.”
    I squinted behind my sunglasses. I could feel a headache coming on. “Could you tell me, exactly , what you do know?”
    “Joey there,” Steve said, pointing to a guy in a chambray shirt and jeans, “he was up at the far end of this cove or hollow or whatever you call it.”
    I turned my back on Steve and asked Joey, “What happened, sir?”
    Joey’s jaw shifted back and forth, and he looked at Steve and the foreman before he answered. “I was supposed to be making a path. Y’know. For the trucks. Clear out brush and all. And ping, there’s this hole in my windshield. Didn’t hear a sound, but the engine runs pretty loud.”
    “When did this happen?”
    “About half an hour ago.”
    First a pipe bomb, then feds, now a shooting. My week was deteriorating fast. “Up the far end?” I repeated.
    Joey nodded.
    I walked to the foreman. “Got a map?”
    He seemed startled, then pulled the surveyor’s map out of its cylinder and spread it on the tailgate of his pickup. I studied it to get my bearings, and frowned at a name. Oh boy.
    “I need to run back to the office,” I told Steve, “then I’ll deal with it.”
    “Deal with it now.”
    “I can’t leave my cat in the car for however long this takes,” I said coldly. “It’s a hot day, and I won’t waste gas leaving the engine running.”
    “This is more important than a cat!”
    A few of the construction boys live around here. They stepped back carefully.
    I summoned up my iciest Littlepage Glare. “If you want,” I said in a very low voice, “I can decide this isn’t important at all and you can get the county boys in here. They might even write up a report.”
    Face hard, Steve drew a deep breath, then released it in a curse. “Fine. Never knew you were so soft.”
    I lost my temper. If he’d been a stranger, I probably wouldn’t have, but then, a stranger wouldn’t taunt me. Not and get to me, anyway.
    Next thing Steve knew, he was face-down in the grass with one hand up between his shoulder blades and my knee by his kidney. “I may be soft, but you’ve gotten slow,” I hissed into his ear, and got up with maybe more weight on that knee than was completely necessary.
    Steve rolled over, and got to his feet wearing an expression I see right before someone takes a swing at me.
    “C’mon,” I invited. “Take a shot. Show the boys how fast and sharp you are.”
    The color finally drained from his face. He smiled a tight thin smile that promised retribution. “Your jurisdiction.”
    When I came back, having left a sleepy Boris in his condo, Steve was not to be seen. I took a quart of water with me, spiked with some electrolyte powder. Our uniforms are not designed to keep us cool, and I knew I’d sweat a bucket or two.
    I followed the backhoe’s trail, grateful for the shade, and stopped to consult my mental map of the county. I turned off at a tiny streamlet, and walked up its narrow cut in the mountainside, with an itch between my eyebrows that had nothing to do with sweat. I was wearing my sheriff’s hat, the Smokey-the-Bear hat, and I knew if I was spotted, I’d be in someone’s sights.
    Once I got up on higher ground, I