Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
I’d been in Hostel for a little over a year and during that time I hadn’t had one second of free time.
Maybe that’s why I said yes.
I needed some me time—not more Hostel Police Department time. The Hostel PD had been getting a lot of my time and attention and honestly, I was starting to feel stressed. The sheer amount of work that still needed to be done there was staggering.
Before me, Hostel PD had been run by a corrupt chief of police and a bunch of cops who weren’t exactly dirty but weren’t clean either. When the FBI and the Texas Rangers came in and cleaned house, nothing was left. Not even a secretary.
Which led to me getting the job as chief of police at the fairly young age of thirty-five.
I was one of the youngest police chiefs in Texas.
I’d applied for a detective position and was hired shortly after the intense clean-up of the department had gone down. I expected to get the job, but what I hadn’t anticipated was that I’d get this job after being hired. A position where I had complete authority over everything—from all administrative matters including the hiring of all my officers, crime scene techs, secretaries and dispatchers to casework in the field. I was the person in charge of it all.
“Glad you could come,” Coke said, with an odd look on his face for some reason.
I shrugged. “I had to eat anyway. I’ll stay for a bit and visit.”
Coke grimaced.
Before I could ask him if there was something wrong, the hostess gestured for us to follow her.
Why she needed to show us to our seats, I wouldn’t know. I could see them from the front door, but I wasn’t going to argue.
She was cute and she was just trying to help.
But she was way too young. Twenty at most.
I’d learned my lesson with the young ones—one that would burn for a while.
Tara, my former girlfriend, had not only fucked me over, but she had also stomped on my heart by running off with another man while I was busy investigating a murder.
The worst of it was that this betrayal was perpetrated by my best friend, Rome, by stealing my woman.
Though, to be honest, I wasn’t sure that Rome knew that Tara and I were together—but he sure did now. He was a player for the Longview Legends and football season was always busy and stressful for him.
“Yo,” Janie, the girl who had set this whole thing up, cried out. “I’m glad you could come!”
I shrugged. “Coke invited me.”
Rafe Luis, Janie’s husband, offered me his hand. I took it, shook it once, then offered it to the man at his other side, Parker Penn. Parker was married to the other girl—Janie’s best friend—who was heavily pregnant and looking at the chips like she was trying to decide if she could have another without anyone saying anything.
Once I’d said hello to everyone, I sat across from the empty seat that was next to Janie.
Reaching for the menu, I busied myself trying to find something to eat instead of jumping in on the conversation that Janie, Kayla, and Rafe were having about what kind of pepper was the hottest.
“Tyler, this is my neighbor, Cora Maldonado,” Coke said, breaking up my perusal of the menu.
I nodded my head at her. “Nice to meet you. You own the property that butts up against my acreage at your back.”
Cora’s eyes went wide. “Cool.”
I moved my eyes back to the menu.
I’d just decided on what I wanted when the phone in my pocket rang.
I sighed and pulled it out, unsurprised to find dispatch calling me.
Standing up, I stopped at the waitress who was at the counter filling drinks and said, “I want to order eight tacos and a sweet tea. I’m going outside to take a call.”
She gave me a chin jerk and I went back outside before calling dispatch back.
“Yo, boss,” Trevor answered the moment he picked up. “We got a problem. Brown isn’t going to make it into his shift today. He has the stomach flu. Says he hasn’t been able to get off the pot long enough to even get his pants on in the last two hours.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Can you see if Mackenzie or Alfredo can cover him?”
“Already done. Johnny just came off a double shift. Alfredo’s having his baby tonight, remember?” Trevor asked.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“I’ll be in to take the patrol. I just have to finish dinner,” I said. “I’ll be an hour. Ask one of the on-shift people to cover for me. Make sure that you tell them I’ll buy them dinner if they do. Tell them I’ll be at the Taco Shop for the next hour and if they want something, to call it in and I’ll get it on my way to the station.”