I looked at the card. I gazed at it, the black lettering on the white, thick paper that read Deputy Jackson James. I still loved his name.
“I don’t want to bother him.”
I glanced up and found Deputy Boone inspecting me, like he was working really hard to figure out what to say, or how to say it.
“Do you think I should call him?” I asked. “Do you think he wants to hear from me?”
His expression unreadable, he tucked away his notepad and pen. “If you have a reason to call Deputy James, then you should. If you don’t, then don’t.” The words sounded a bit like a warning, and they were definitely a riddle. “Have a nice day, ma’am.”
He turned. He left.
And I don’t think he heard my belated, “You too,” as he drove away.
Chapter 17
*Jackson*
“It is better to be looked over than overlooked.”
Mae West
I saw Rae and Charlotte together everywhere. I saw them at the park, playing with Charlotte’s kids. I saw them downtown, grabbing lunch at The Sandwich, Soup, and Salad Stop. I saw them in the Piggly Wiggly, grocery shopping. I even saw them at the station, bringing in treats from the Donner Bakery for all the deputies and staff.
I’m sure they would’ve said hi if I’d given either of them the chance. I hadn’t. This was for four reasons:
First, the paparazzi. Green Valley had some experience putting up with the paparazzi. Sienna Diaz being a big movie star meant we usually had a photographer lurking about in town at least three or four times a year. When Sienna first arrived in town, things had been pretty bad. But not like this.
This time they’d descended like a swarm of locusts. All the restaurants ran out of food. They didn’t just want photos of Rae, they wanted photos of Rae with me. I lacked the motivation to provide any of these antagonistic scavengers with a meal ticket.
Luckily, pictures of me on my own had lost their allure after the first week post-ATM-gate, but several photographers continued following me around anyway, taunting me, perhaps hoping I’d forget I was being followed or hoping to make me lose my temper.
Being followed meant the sheriff had pulled me from the field and placed me on desk duty until further notice. I wasn’t much use to the community as a deputy, being trailed by paparazzi all day, making citizens nervous every time I answered a complaint or call.
Second, seeing Rae and Charlotte all around town together would’ve been disconcerting enough—especially now that I knew Raquel had told Charlotte about us—but in addition to the paparazzi, Rae’s newly arrived bodyguards followed them constantly, two hulking shadows trailing their every move and keeping everyone else—and I do mean everyone—at bay.
According to Flo McClure, Karen Smith had tried to walk over while they were at the playground and the guards wouldn’t let her within a ten-foot radius. I imagine this made Charlotte happy. Karen Smith was widely recognized as one of the town’s main gossips and had perpetuated the idea after Charlotte’s divorce from Kevin that Charlotte was someone to be pitied.
Cletus had told me in passing that most of Rae’s entourage had been sent packing to LA after three crazy days, everyone except the two guards and her PA. I hadn’t seen the PA, and I didn’t know why the sight of the two men grated, but it did. Did they sleep at the carriage house with Rae? Was she ever alone? I wanted her to be safe, protected, looked after, but how could she live like that? Being followed everywhere she went sounded terrible. Didn’t she have any privacy?
But then, I’d broken my own rule for the first time in over five years and Googled Raquel Ezra, searching for articles on when she’d started using bodyguards. A whole slew of truly disturbing stories popped up—like one about an intruder who’d brought rope into her house and she’d burned him with a curling iron, and another guy who’d followed her around Sunset Boulevard, flashing her, and another guy who’d tried to climb the gates of her current residence—and suddenly I didn’t mind the guards’ presence anymore.
If anything, I felt a bit angry with her that she hadn’t seen fit to bring them with her to Green Valley from the get-go.
“Bad day, Jackson?” Flo asked, tossing a file on my clean desk, it landed with a smack.
“No. Day’s been fine. How’s yours?”
“Okay, I guess. This is the paperwork for that overdose two days ago, the one at the hotel, not the one at the residential address. The family is asking for a more detailed report.”
I picked up the folder and issued her a tight smile. “I’ll ask Boone if he has anything to add, go back over what I wrote, see if I can provide more detail.”
Third reason I’d kept my distance, a random string of opiate overdoses, a kidnapping victim found dead in the park, and a slew of domestic abuse calls during the last week and a half. Since I was stuck in the station, I’d been the one typing up the reports, acting as the secretary for everyone else. I didn’t mind the assignment, given what my thoughtless (and yet worth it) actions had brought me, and I wanted to help, but there was a reason I hadn’t become a coroner.
Each of the deaths struck me as more depressing than the last. Being the conduit through which needless, seemingly endless death was described for official purposes and consumption hadn’t done much for my state of mind.
Flo nodded, studying me. “Seriously, you doing all right, Jackson?”
“Just fine, thanks.” I flipped open the folder and pretended to scan the intake form.
“You—uh—had a chance to catch up with your Ms. Ezra yet? How is she holding up? Did she and that Harrison fella finally call it quits?”
I gathered a deep, silent inhale through my nose and forced a bored, even tone as I replied, “I haven’t spoken to Ms. Ezra. I imagine she’s fine. Maybe call Charlotte, she would know.”
Which brings me to my fourth and final reason for avoiding Rae—Ms. Ezra—I was determined to think of her as Ms. Ezra from now on.
I could not be trusted around her without losing every stitch of my good sense. Let me clarify that: I did not trust myself around Ms. Ezra. She wasn’t the problem. I was the problem.
Taking her on that drive had been a mistake. Kissing her, touching her, making her come in my arms had all been grievous errors in judgment, and I didn’t like myself much afterward. I’d been pushy. When she put my hand on her body, it was like I’d lost my mind.
Point was, being around Ms. Ezra made me someone else, someone thoughtless, reckless, someone who cared only about feeling good in the moment rather than staying focused on my worthwhile goals for the long term. Being with her was as easy as breathing. Her presence made my head swim and my heart light, but it did not make me a better person.
For example, being with Ms. Ezra had me considering absurd ideas, like quitting my job here and looking for a position with the LA County Sheriff’s Department, moving out to California so we might be able to . . .
What? What exactly do you think a movie star wants with someone like you?
She wanted a fun time. Following her to Los Angeles just to be her fun time would be crazy. And foolish. And a waste of all the hard work I’d been putting in here. I wanted to be sheriff of this county, but more than that, I wanted to deserve the job.