Free Idyll Threats by Stephanie Gayle Page A

unfairly. Got a quarter of a million dollars. Bankrupted the town and moved his family away.”
    â€œSo he's not popular?”
    â€œNot here. But it's best to stay on his good side. Assuming he's got one.”
    â€œHmm. Any word on when the carpenter is coming?”
    â€œCarpenter? What carpenter?” she asked.
    â€œThe one who's supposed to swap the nameplate on my door.” When I'd arrived in mid-January, I was informed that changing the nameplate required the town carpenter. Forms to be filed, work orders to be placed. Mrs. Dunsmore filled out the forms and orders. I wondered if she'd even obtained the forms.
    â€œHe's working at Town Hall this week.” She didn't miss a beat.
    Unlike the rest of us. God, if Revere hadn't pounded the pavement, we'd still be wondering where Cecilia went between the time she left her parents’ house and wound up dead. And they still didn't know about the cabin. I bit my cheek. Ouch.
    In my office, tilted back in my chair, I contemplated options. How to get them to the cabin. Call in a tip? Or cut out the middleman?Leave a pink slip on Wright's desk, saying Cecilia had been seen at the cabin. He wouldn't check who took the tip call until he'd swept the cabin. My gut rumbled. Manufacturing evidence. Did I want to start down that path?
    â€œNeeds must,” my gran used to say when I'd complain about chores.
    I used the phrase on rookies, years later, when they'd moan about having to interview a drunk whose pants stank of his own filth. “Needs must,” I'd say, and the men would laugh and say, “Ah, lay a little more of that Irish wisdom on us.”
    I missed that camaraderie, the quick laughter at jokes heard a hundred times. Idyll wasn't friendly despite the locals’ insistence to the contrary. Newcomers were subject to suspicion. And I had secrets to guard. I didn't trust my men here to keep them. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
    I could put the pink slip on a desk before any of them arrived tomorrow.
    Needs must.

I breathed hard and sharp through my nose as I crunched up, turned to the right, punched fast. Back down to the floor, inhaling through my mouth. Crunch up and to the left. Two more punches in sync to a sharp exhale. Sometimes, when my brain got stuck in a revolving door, I'd work it loose with exercise. My gut was feeling it. My brain remained mired, like those animals that got trapped in tar pits and turned to fossils. I crunched down and up. I wasn't a fossil yet. I sat up and shook my head. A drop of sweat spun off my hair to the carpet. Time for push-ups.
    Rick had challenged me to a push-up contest two weeks into our partnership. I laughed, sure he wasn't serious. “What you afraid of, Sasquatch? Losing?” he'd asked. I'd checked the room to see if there was some joke I didn't get. Nearby, Detective Lee shrugged. So, after more taunts from Rick, I'd agreed to set my hands on the less-than-clean linoleum and complete a set of push-ups until one of us gave out. The son of a bitch had surprised me. His arms were wiry and he fought for it, but eventually he'd collapsed, cheek to the floor, and had said, “Christ, were you a Marine?” And I'd kept doing reps, just to show what a good sport I was. When I'd stopped, he'd given me his hand and helped pull me up. “Guess that makes you the muscle,” he'd said, his smile revealing a chipped tooth. “That makes me the brains.” And he'd insisted on buying me a soda, which was the traditional prize awarded in the station. The prize for closing a stone-cold case or for winning the March Madness pool. Always a goddam can of soda from the wheezy, tilted vending machine.
    I stopped, my elbows bent, stomach quaking. A soda can. I'd seen soda cans inside the cabin the night I'd tried to hook up with Leo Wilton, where I'd met Cecilia North. She'd bought a soda that night. One of the cans could be hers. Could have prints. Could put her at the scene. I pushed myself up