Chapter 12
of Strange Moon Rising
Previously: Riley meets conflictingly described Luke, who wasn’t aware she’s his new neighbor.
Ross exited the station as Riley pulled into the parking lot. “Pop the hood for me. I’ve got your power steering fluid.” He unscrewed a cap from somewhere in her engine’s innards, poured a bit of the stuff in, checked the level, and twisted the cap back on. “Nothing to it,” he assured, closing the hood. “I’ll be in late tomorrow morning. Kellen’s agreed to take care of patrol.” He headed for his cruiser. “Keep an eye out for evidence reports coming in.”
“Thank you!” she called out, but he’d already gunned his engine. Riley exchanged bemused hellos with Ann over the booming laughter echoing out of the bullpen. She reached her desk as Andy collapsed back into his chair, wiping his eyes.
Greg waved her over and held out his phone. “That’s Tony, our fire chief.” He pointed out a brawny man in the background of the photo with salt-and-pepper hair. “And that’s Daniel.” Greg hovered his finger over a sticky-looking man sprawled on a concrete floor. “Dan was goofing off, prancing down the steps from the kitchen, right. Three full plates of pancakes in his arms just loaded with maple syrup. And he,” Greg broke off, laughing, “he’s singing along with the radio, and he decides he’s gonna’ try a pirouette on the stairs. So the idiot makes it about halfway through the turn before losing his balance, toppling down the last three steps, and crashing onto the floor. Of course, the plates go flying, most of the food ends up on him, and just… this guy. Tony runs out of the back room, right—I mean it would’ve been hard not to hear Dan and those plates hitting the floor. Dan’s like, ‘who wants pancakes,’ and that’s when I lost it. I know he’s alright if he’s making jokes. I could move past the concern that my friend might’ve just broken his back, you know. Yeah, Tony didn’t find it funny.”
Riley squinted at the steep stairs in the corner of the photo. “He’s okay?”
“Uh-huh. Bruised up good and probably gonna’ be sore for a week. He was still getting his head chewed off by Tony when I left. I sent that photo to Tristian and our other volunteer, Victor. Vic made it his lock-screen wallpaper.” His grin went up a few watts. “I love those guys.”
Riley chuckled with him as they scrolled through the three other shots he’d taken. Tony’s face reddened progressively in each image. “How’s Tristian doing? Still staying at the motel?” she segued.
“Yeah, said he’d be back home tomorrow afternoon.”
Riley dropped into her chair and woke her computer. She’d mentally prepped a list of everything she’d need for the Sunday night stakeout. Riley would park in the driveway of a home for sale across the street, one down from Tristian’s. His backyard adjoined acres of fields before merging into the National Forrest that wrapped around the town, so she had no view of the back door and no easy way to get it. Riley likely wouldn’t see anything until the fire glowed between the blinds in the kitchen window. The man who’d killed their motel Doe would be lying in wait by then.
Riley’s old partner would’ve sat his happy ass in her car for nights on end without questions or second guesses. Dergby’d never gotten weird about the ‘woo-woo stuff,’ as he’d called it the single time he’d alluded to her abilities. She’d been too green to hide them from someone stuck to her hip and lucked out with a partner who couldn’t care less. Riley needed a Dergby in Woodrun. She couldn’t apprehend a murderer and drag an unconscious Tristian out the patio doors before smoke inhalation killed him. Who would be the better fit? Andy or Greg? Not that she had the time—
“—Luke.”
Riley’d tuned out all the noise in the bullpen, but that name falling out of Greg’s mouth pulled her from her thoughts. She glanced between the Logan brothers. “Luke Singer?”
Greg titled his head. “Yeah?”
“I met him today outside of the post office.” She caught a wince from Andy.
“Oh.” Greg said, tone a touch too high. “How did that go?”
She shrugged. “Fine. He seemed nice.”
Greg’s wide-eyed nodding made him look like a bobble-head.
Riley crossed her legs and tipped her chair back as far as it would go, keeping tabs on both their expressions. “Any reason you didn’t mention I was Old Mooney’s granddaughter? He seemed a little surprised I was his new neighbor, but he told me you’d mentioned me.”
The Logans shared a resigned look. Oh, yeah, they’d purposefully tried to keep it from him.
Andy scrubbed a hand through his hair. “You know how you have to slowly mix water in a tank so the fish don’t go into shock and die? It’s best to introduce new complications to Luke over time.”
Her laugh was short and sharp.
Greg’s added, “He’s a little anxious,” warbled like a half-truth, which could imply he thought Luke was actually neurotic or had another reason altogether for holding back certain things.
“I can’t be that much of a complication.”
“He likes his privacy.” Andy lifted his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.
His words came across cleanly, marking a truth, but Riley narrowed her eyes and pushed. “Right, yeah. His property line is hundreds of acres away from my house. Try again.”
The beep of a new email on Andy’s computer interrupted his next excuse. “Oh, good, a case update.” He clicked around for thirty seconds. “There’s an ATM outside of Clark’s office. I called over to see if I could get the footage from around the time of the murder—the company sent over the twelve hours before, the day of, and twelve hours after. The camera’s not facing in a good direction, but maybe we’ll get lucky. If we split it between the three of us, it shouldn’t take all that long.”
Riley bit her tongue as Andy and Greg redirected their conversation to the case. She would let it go, for now, but Riley kept a tally—there were too many strange and intriguing lies to ignore.
Obligatory Legal Stuff:
This chapter is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidences are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, locals, and events are coincidental.
No generative AI used. No AI training or scraping allowed.
All rights reserved.
Chapter Title Image created in Canva. Background image from Canva Pro.