Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
And with that, Porter left him alone in the lobby.
He looked to his watch then pulled out his phone.
Depending on if they flew commercial, or boarded their super security jet plane, which was how they’d probably do it since they’d need weaponry, it would take between five and seven hours for Eric’s team to gear up, roll out and arrive in Misted Pines.
Even so, he broke a rule and texted, Bon Amie, club and theater on Bonner Mountain, house down the slope and around by the river. I want eyes on it until I can have a few words with one of its inhabitants and get her ass closer to me.
It wasn’t cool to ask a contractor the government would be paying to cover someone you had a personal connection with solely because you had a personal connection with them.
But Rus didn’t give that first fuck.
As Porter said, murder shit was happening.
Unless you knew the person or it was covered in emojis, you couldn’t read humor in a text.
But Rus knew Eric.
So he knew he was killing himself laughing even though the return was two words.
On it.
TWENTY-NINE
Mashup
Rus knew one thing.
Misted Pines Town Council would be in serious trouble if they didn’t have the lady who was a taller, more attractive version of Liz Cheney sitting in the main seat.
He wasn’t sure three of the four other members were even awake.
Though one was on his phone constantly, and Rus didn’t have to follow him on Twitter to know everything that was happening was now in the Twittersphere. How that was more important than listening to his constituents and their concerns, Rus had no clue. But that seemed a general issue with elected officials across the board.
When he’d gotten himself loose of the cult, Rus had caught up on some TV, and one of the things the kids at school talked about most, which was one of the first things he made sure to watch, was Northern Exposure.
And Sabrina was devoted to The Gilmore Girls. So devoted, he couldn’t escape it even though he wanted to.
So, standing next to Moran, holding up a wall in the standing-room-only space, Rus felt caught in a mashup of a town meeting of Cicely, Alaska and Stars Hallow, with most of the residents freaked way the fuck out, and half of them being characters so bizarre, only a writer for a fictional TV show could make them up.
Needless to say, Brad was there, but they’d had no thumbs up.
And Rus had looked at every face in that room more than once, and no one matching Brad’s description, or no one obviously in disguise, or even not obviously, was in that room.
As suspected, CK didn’t show.
Nevertheless, the room was filled with colorful characters.
Case in point, the man currently at the lectern who looked like Mad Jack from Grizzly Adams, including wearing a fringed, Native hide smock.
And he clearly didn’t read newsfeeds because he was on a tear, not about a woman’s murder.
“So I wanna know what you’re gonna do about it. ’Cause last time I stood here, you told me to post more signs, and I did. Before that, you told me to build up my fence, and I did that too, and I’m gonna say, that didn’t cost me nothin’, it cost me a whole lotta somethin’. And they still keep coming. And I know this, next option open to me that I’m takin’ is fillin’ them full of buckshot.”
Explanation: he wasn’t a fan of tourists hiking across his land.
“Siddown!” someone yelled. “We wanna know what’s happening with Brittanie!”
“Ain’t no Brittanie walkin’ cross my land, that’s all I know. It’s a bunch of weekend-wannabe GI Joes!” Mad Jack shot back in the direction where the yell came from.
“Owen,” the Liz Cheney look-alike said with admirable patience (there was a nameplate sitting in front of her that shared she was Megan Nichols, President). “You can’t shoot at tourists.”
“Can and will,” he fired back. “It’s my land. You see a fence, you don’t climb over it, for heaven’s sake!”
Megan looked like she agreed.
Rus definitely agreed.
“How’s this?” Megan asked. “I will personally call every hotel, motel, B&B, inn and rental property company in this town and suggest to them, strongly, that they be sure to advise all their patrons, when in pursuit of their relaxing time in Misted Pines, to stay off private property. In the meantime, we’ll discuss a referendum to reassess trespassing fines and jail sentences. It might not stop it. But I know if I would get fined, say, five thousand dollars, and I’d also sit in a cell at our sheriff’s office for the weekend I was hoping to relax and enjoy the out of doors, and then the next week, and I’d leave Misted Pines with a criminal record, I would probably keep to the public hiking trails.”