Free Operation Power Play by Justine Davis

pointedly shut the door without saying another word.
    “I’ll just get this entered right away,” the beleaguered clerk said, taking the application. “We don’t want another mix-up.”
    “Thank you, dear,” Aunt Connie said. “I’m sure it wasn’t
your
fault.”
    Sloan didn’t think she’d mistaken the look of gratitude in the other woman’s eyes or the spark of pleasure she’d seen when Connie had been chewing her boss out as if he were a fourth grader.
    Still, she was glad to get out of there. As, apparently, was her aunt.
    “What a smarmy little man,” she said as they walked to the car, hurrying through the rain and holding their jackets closed against the wind. “‘Because you can’t.’” She mimicked his tone perfectly, and Sloan laughed.
    “The typical nonreasoning answer of a despot, no matter how tiny his...domain,” she said with a purposeful leer.
    Connie burst out laughing. “You are so bad, Sloan Burke. And I love you for it.”
    “Where do you think I learned it?” she said, slipping her arm around the older woman’s shoulders, so delighted to see her spirit returning that she put everything else out of her mind for now. “Come along, and let me buy you lunch. The tea shop, maybe? Surely you wouldn’t turn down a nice hot cup of tea on a day like this? Then we can sneak down to the candy store in town and buy something evil.”
    Sloan saw her aunt’s forehead crease slightly. “I should—”
    “Ah-ah. Remember what Uncle Chuck said. You’re not to worry about him and take some time for yourself.”
    “But—”
    “He worries about you. This will make him feel better.”
    There couldn’t have been a more persuasive argument, and her aunt surrendered graciously. They went off to the local tea shop, and once they were seated, Sloan allowed herself a mental pat on the back. She had been standing within mere yards of the sheriff’s office building for nearly an hour and had thought of Detective Brett Dunbar only maybe three times.
    * * *
    The sergeant was out, so Brett walked over to Lieutenant Carter’s office. She was on the phone and held up a finger to indicate it would be only a moment. He propped a shoulder on the doorjamb and waited standing up, indicating in turn he didn’t expect this to take long.
    From what she was saying, the conversation was about a prisoner over in the county lockup involved in some kind of scuffle. She was mostly listening. She looked more annoyed than concerned, so he deduced it wasn’t anything serious.
    He glanced at the three photos on the credenza behind her. To the left was the requisite formal family shot, she and her husband and the two kids, in the middle was her academy portrait, and on the right, rather whimsically, an amazingly detailed and ornate snow castle. He assumed her husband, an architect, was behind that one.
    A happy family. He didn’t begrudge her that; she was good people, just tough enough but not hardened. But he still felt a pang whenever he saw that array.
    “Be glad you didn’t take this job,” she said as she hung up the phone.
    “I was never in the running.”
    “Only because you didn’t want to be. You could have had it easily.”
    “Too much desk time.”
    “Amen to that,” she said rather fervently. “What’s up?”
    “Just wondering if you know anything about Al Franklin.”
    Her brow creased. “County guy?” At his nod her mouth quirked. “Honest opinion?”
    Uh-oh. “Please.”
    “He’s a bit of an ass,” she said. “Full of himself. Match what you thought?”
    “Yes.”
    “You run afoul of him?”
    “He just wasn’t much help on a query I made. But it was personal, so I didn’t push too hard.”
    “Problem?”
    “Don’t know yet. Just wanted to know if my feel on him was right.”
    “Well, tread carefully. He’s an ass, but he’s an ass with connections. He’s in tight with Harcourt Mead. And you know where that string leads.”
    He did know. Straight from Mead’s county