Long Shadow (Veiled Intentions #2) - Elle Keaton Page 0,23

Then he and Fenrir walked to the station.

“Really?” Mat asked in an exasperated tone once he’d opened the cruiser door and climbed out.

“What?”

Niall and Fenrir had been waiting next to a rockery planted with rhododendrons that looked as if they were thinking about blooming soon.

Mat shook his head; before replying, he reached inside and grabbed a messenger bag from his back seat, looping it over his shoulder. “Seriously? ‘What’?” Mat repeated, squinting at Niall as if Niall was missing something important. He also looked slightly amused, which Niall had no explanation for.

“What?” What was Mat so worked up about?

Mat stopped moving, closed his eyes for a moment, and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. Niall had noticed Mat did that when he was feeling irritated, or frustrated. “You’re obsessing about this RV, enough so that you… you text me at seven in the morning?”

“Well, yeah. I told you I only saw it in the mornings, and I texted you when I saw it again.”

He did not understand what Mat’s issue was.

Mat shook his head and started walking again, passing Niall and Fenrir, who fell in step behind him. Mat let them inside. “Might as well bring the dog, no one else is here.”

At his desk, he slung the messenger bag over the back of his chair before taking his jacket off and tossing it across the chair as well.

“Make yourself comfortable.” He gestured at the same chair Niall had sat in on Wednesday. “Do you need a cup of coffee? I need another one.”

Niall eyed the chair with suspicion before carefully sitting down. “Coffee sounds great. Thanks.”

A few minutes later, Mat returned from the station break room carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. One had the words “Property of Area 51” stenciled on it. The mug he handed Niall read, “K9 Handler: Go ahead and run, my partner loves fast food.” Niall chuckled. He’d never seen that one before.

Niall watched Mat while he made himself comfortable at his desk and took a sip of his coffee, wondering what he was missing.

After a minute or two of pressing buttons on his desktop, moving his chair around, and pushing paperwork around, Mat turned his chair to face Niall. “Hear me out, okay?”

Niall narrowed his eyes but nodded, waiting.

“I eventually came around when you offered to assist with the Reynolds case. Fresh from Seattle, you’d injured yourself, you had time on your hands—hand.” Mat laughed at his own terrible joke. “It’s hard to stop being a cop. Even when I’m at home, I’m a cop. You’re the same way—we’re hardwired to be aware of our surroundings, to notice things that are maybe out of place.”

Mat stopped speaking to take another big sip of coffee. After setting the mug back down on his desk, he continued.

“The department is shorthanded right now. I didn’t get out of here last night until after midnight; we’ve got somebody setting fire to empty garages and buildings. Thankfully nothing happened last night, but Devon thinks it’s just a matter of time before they strike again.”

Niall grimaced, nodding. He’d heard about the big fire last weekend.

Mat steamrolled on. “The department already fields regular calls from a few of the older residents. Sandy Johnson, for example. She’s alone, lives out past Marshal Soper, and calls about once a week to report a suspicious noise. I, we, don’t need you adding to the list. No one else has reported this RV. No one. I haven’t seen it, Birdy hasn’t said anything, and—okay, so the other two deputies might not notice right away, but—you get my point?”

Niall got it. He was half embarrassed for texting Mat and obviously waking him up and half furious because he knew there was something up with that vehicle.

“I think I mentioned before there are a handful of residents who’ve hit hard times. I haven’t checked around, but maybe someone’s lost their job? We have drug problems on the island too, just like so many small communities—meth is here, and it’s not going away. I don’t have enough deputies to investigate all the calls we receive.”

Mat’s words brought up memories of his own history, when his mother had flitted from friend to friend or dealer to dealer. Sometimes they’d lived in apartments or single rooms, but as her drug habit worsened, so did their living situations. At one point they’d squatted in a rotting camper with several other users. Because he’d been small, Niall had been forced to sleep on the grimy black floor underneath