Page 40 of Script Swap (The Last Picks #11)

I still got in trouble.

Can you believe that? The injustice.

“But I didn’t do anything!” I protested to Bobby. “I did exactly what you said.”

Bobby, face grim, chose not to answer.

“I caught Tinny,” I told the sheriff. “I stopped her from destroying evidence.”

The sheriff did not appear convinced.

“I solved a murder,” I informed Salk. “I solved two murders. And somehow I’m the bad guy.”

Salk nodded understandingly. And then he said, “I’ve got a cousin like you. My aunt makes him wear a leash.”

I honestly didn’t know how to respond to that—for one thing, I had so many questions. I settled for an outraged squawk that made Salk grin, and a few moments later, I caught him saying something to Bobby, and for this one, treacherous second, Bobby looked like he was going to crack up.

After Nora (who was fine, albeit slightly concussed) and a tearful Betty were taken away in separate cruisers, Tinny and Fox and I all had to give our statements at the theater. The sheriff let Fox go first.

“Tell people my story,” I said as they passed me. “Don’t let them make me disappear.”

“Is he always like this after one of these things?” Fox asked Bobby.

“He made himself a badge after that thing with Millie’s brother.”

My jaw dropped. “Bobby!”

Fox cackled.

“I didn’t make myself a badge. Paul gave it to me, and it’s for being awesome at laser tag.”

Hands on hips is a good look on Bobby; he’s got this natural way of standing hipshot, and I don’t know if I’ve used the words perfect man too many times yet. But it’s less cute when he adds, “You’re still in trouble. Excuse me. Where are you going?”

That last bit was for Tinny, who at that moment was trying to waltz past us.

“Back to my apartment,” Tinny said. “I’ve got the worst headache—”

Bobby steered her right back to where she’d been sitting.

Big surprise: Tinny did not get released to go home, mostly because the sheriff arrested her. I mean, she had stolen all that money, after all. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise. But to hear Tinny protest, it was the outrage of the century.

To my surprise, the sheriff kept me waiting.

To talk to me again, I decided. But she didn’t call me back.

Minutes crawled past. Was she going to arrest me too?

For what? I wasn’t even trespassing, not really.

Was I going to get a lecture about interfering with an investigation?

One of the best things about Sheriff Acosta was that she didn’t buy into all that macho posturing.

She wasn’t afraid of getting a little help now and then.

And she was a good sheriff because she cared about her people and her community, and that included me.

And still nothing.

When Bobby appeared, his face was unreadable, and his tone was even as he said, “I’m going to take you home, and then I need to come back.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “I can drive myself.”

Bobby had his hands on his hips again.

“What I meant to say,” I said, “was ‘That sounds great. Thank you.’”

What might have been a smile crinkled the corners of Bobby’s eyes. He held out his hand, and I gave him the keys.

We drove slowly out of Hastings Rock, navigating the tourists (there were two twentysomething girls, obviously sisters, trying to do what I suspected was a TikTok challenge in the middle of the street; I swear to God, Bobby almost stopped the car).

Once we were out of town, the forest of spruce and pine and hemlock closed around us.

The shadows were deep, like something you could fall into, and the sweetness of resin warmed by the sun whipped in through the open windows.

“Bobby, I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have gone in there without Fox, but it was an emergency—”

“I’m not mad at you. I’m scared. Or I was scared.” He leaned back, pushing on the steering wheel with both hands to press himself against the seat.

I let a few hundred yards flick past. And then I said, “Past tense?”

He cocked his head. Something was different about his expression.

I knew what Bobby looked like when he’d been pushed to the brink.

I knew what he looked like when that big, red panic button in his brain made it impossible for him to keep control of himself—and it terrified Bobby not to be in control.

And this, right now, this wasn’t that. This was something else.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Yes. Yes, something is definitely going on. Something is up . What happened? Oh my God, is the sheriff going to give me a medal?”

“No,” Bobby said—and with a tone . I mean, a rude one. Like this was the most unbelievable thing he’d ever heard.

“Is she going to make me stand in front of a firing squad?”

“That’s your second guess?”

“What is going on today? You’re so salty!”

He gave me that goofy grin.

“Bobby, what?” I asked. “This is killing me.”

“You’re the great detective.”

“Are you for real right now?”

“I’m saying, you could use your powers of observation and intuition to figure out what’s going on, if you wanted.”

“Robert Mai, I am going to—to spank you!”

The goofy grin got even bigger for a second, and then it was gone, poof, and Bobby was serious. “You told the sheriff about the connection to the first robbery.”

“Yes.”

“And the fingerprints they never matched in the safe.”

“Right. The fingerprints you noticed. The one you said you would have run through AFIS.”

For a moment, Bobby was silent. And then he said, “She told me that was good detective work.”

The sound of the tires filled the Pilot.

“She said,” Bobby continued, “that was the kind of thing she wanted to see from her detectives. The ability to look at a scene, determine key pieces of evidence, and make the kind of connections that could be used to build a case.”

“Bobby, what—” But I stopped myself.

“I told her I didn’t make the connection myself,” he said. “I told her you were the one who figured out everything with Nora.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

“Shut up?” he murmured.

“Is she making you a detective? Did she say she wanted you to be a detective? Oh my God, Bobby, are you going to be a detective?”

Bobby said slowly, “She said she didn’t think the test was necessary—”

“Pull over.”

My voice was sharp and wobbly all at the same time, and something about it—the pitchiness, maybe—must have convinced Bobby this wasn’t a joke, because he eased the Pilot onto the shoulder.

“Are you okay? What—”

I took his face in my hands and kissed him. “I am so proud of you.”

And then, because I am perpetually, forever and always, indisputably Dashiell Dawson Dane, I started to cry.

Thank God for Bobby, because he didn’t ask any questions or try to get answers out of me.

He held me and ran his hand up and down my back and did that thing I like where he scruffed his fingers through the hair on the back of my head.

It was all soothing and lovely and textbook handling for an overstimulated toddler.

“I’m sorry,” I finally said when I got myself under control. “I think it all caught up to me, the gun, and Betty, and—God, I feel like I ate way too much sugar and I’m crashing now.”

Bobby cleaned my glasses for me. He found tissues in the glove box, and I dried my cheeks.

“God, Bobby, I am so proud of you.”

He gave a funny laugh. “Are you? Because it kind of feels like I cheated.”

“You didn’t cheat.”

“I didn’t have to take the test.”

“I swear to God, I will pull your pants down and spank you right now.”

He smiled, but it was rundown, not the goofy grin I loved.

“Please think about it,” I said. “Sheriff Acosta wouldn’t have offered you the position if she didn’t think you’d do a great job.

God, Bobby, she’s wanted you to do it for months now.

She believes in you. I believe in you. Everyone believes in you.

Please, please, please don’t let a stupid thing like your male ego get in the way—”

“Okay,” he said, laughing. “I’ll think about it.”

“—your macho pride, your swollen masculinity—er, no, that sounds like a romance novel—oh! Toxic masculinity—”

He kissed me, and I forgot what I was going to say.

Come to think of it, maybe that was the whole point.