Bang by Ruby McNally

Author:Ruby McNally
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: erotic romance;contemporary;the Berkshires;Western Massachusetts;cops;second chances;interracial;police
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2015-03-03T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

With their one viable witness still in a coma the following morning, the best plan Mari can think of is almost embarrassingly old school—literally. She thinks there’s a good chance their shooter might be in one of the last five yearbooks from Great Barrington High. Which is how they wind up hunched over a study carrel in the public library in between a middle-aged Somali guy searching the want ads and a greasy-looking thirty-something Mari thinks might be looking at porn on his phone.

“He’s what, nineteen or twenty?” she murmurs, flipping through the glossy pages past the volleyball team and drama club. Mari did the lit mag when she was in high school. “So he should have been a junior or a senior.”

“If he even went to GBH,” Jack points out. He’s surly again this morning, sulking out the window the whole ride over here. As they were leaving the station lot one of the cruisers backfired and he jumped about a mile in his seat. She needs to watch that, Mari knows, that day at the call center and how spooked he seems to get without warning. She wonders if this library has books about PTSD.

“Let’s assume he did,” she says now, running her finger down the rows of pimply faces, searching. “And if we don’t find him here, we’ll try the Catholic schools.”

“Thou shalt not shoot at law enforcement,” Jackson mutters. “Nice.”

Mari picks up the 2012 book and shoves it at him, hard enough that Jackson oofs and she feels bad for half a second. Then he scowls at her, and she smiles sweetly in reply. “Write down the ones whose photos weren’t available,” she instructs.

They scan pictures for a whole hour in silence, the sound of pages turning and the occasional burst of chatter over the radio. Twice Mari thinks she’s found the kid before realizing something is off, ears in one picture, hairline in the other. Each time, something stops her from telling Jackson, her normal instinct to share everything tamped down by his sour expression. He’s as wiggly as Sonya in the chair beside her, full of pen-clicking and knee-tapping energy, long fingers plucking impatiently at the glossy yearbook pages.

“This is fucking dumb,” he announces finally. “We’re gonna be on grunt duty again if Leo finds us shirking.”

Mari looks up from perusing a two-page prom spread. They’re supposed to be out by the highway, making ticket quota for the municipality, but she thought they were on the same page about that being a waste of time. “What’s your problem?” she asks. “No one gives two craps about traffic.”

“Well, maybe I do,” Jackson says, shoving his chair back from the carrel hard enough that it knocks Mari’s sideways. Her mouth drops open in shock. “Maybe I have a vested interest in flying under the radar three weeks after finally getting reinstated, did that ever occur to you?”

Mari blinks. “Okay,” she says slowly, using her pen as a bookmark and turning to face him fully. “I’m sorry.

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