“Sheriff—”

“Even if I was inclined to take you up on that offer—and I’m not inclined in the least—it’s not my call to make. I’ve already turned my case over to the DA, and they’re moving forward with the prosecution.”

“Sherrif, you are going to ruin my son’s life.”

“No, your son ruined his life,” Spenser snapped back. “And letting him skate by without suffering the consequences of his actions is only guaranteeing that he’ll do it again. Maybe next time, instead of assaulting somebody, he kills them. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I looked the other way while your son runs roughshod over other people. While he hurt other people.”

“My son made a mistake—”

“Your son made a choice. He chose to hurt those two boys,” she said. “If he doesn’t know it’s wrong to hurt people the way he did, I’d say that’s a reflection of your parenting.”

“Wow. Going to make things personal already, huh?”

“It’s an observation, Mr. Johansen,” Spenser replied. “There’s nothing personal about it.”

He glared at her for a long, tense moment. “You really are as cold as everybody says.”

“Have a good day, Mr. Johansen.”

“I’m going to bury you,” he said. “Between my money and my connections, you cannot win the election. You won’t win the election.”

“Are you trying to manifest that into reality?”

“I don’t need to manifest anything. I’m simply telling you the way things stand.”

“If you say so.”

“You don’t have kids, do you?”

“I’m sure you know I don’t.”

“You will never understand why I do the things I do,” he continued. “See, when you’re a parent, you will do whatever it takes to protect your children—”

“Perhaps you should have protected JJ from himself,” she said. “By arresting him, I’m doing something you should have done while you were raising him… teaching him to be accountable to take responsibility for his actions.”

“I promise you that you are going to regret crossing my path, Sheriff.”

“I promise you that I already do.”

Johansen stepped forward, putting himself scant inches from Spenser’s face. His blue eyes bored into hers and his lips curled back in a grim sneer.

“You really are going to regret this. I am coming for your job, Sheriff Song,” he hissed. “And I always get what I want.”

A corner of Spenser’s mouth quirked upward. “Well, good luck to you.”

Before he could reply, Spenser turned and walked away, her mood, which had been happy and upbeat such a short time ago grew dark as the storm clouds of reality gathered over her head. Thunder rumbled in her mind and the storm she was facing began to gather strength. Spenser hoped she’d be able to get out from under it before the storm broke.

Letting Johansen get under her skin was her first problem. Qualified to be sheriff or not—and he wasn’t—the man was running against her in the next election. It was his right and she couldn’t stop him. She thought it was ridiculous the town sheriff didn’t have to be a member of law enforcement, but changing the town’s charter and bylaws was above her pay grade. Most of the time, she was happy to stay out of the political side of things, but occasionally, she lamented the fact that she was bound by somebody else’s rules.

And Johansen’s wealth, status, and popularity meant he had a pretty good chance of winning. It seemed like style was more important than substance, and that popularity was more important than competence these days. A cult of personality carried more weight than knowing the job and being able to do it well. As long as a person said something loud enough and projected enough conviction and confidence, they could say anything, no matter how abhorrent. It was a sad state of affairs.

Spenser knew nothing about running a campaign. When she took the job, she knew that, eventually, she’d have to run to retain her office. It was an elected position. But back then, it had been a totally abstract concept. It was something she hadn’t used a lot of bandwidth thinking about. Now she wondered how many people could actually relate to her.

“You seem deep in thought.”

The woman’s voice shook Spenser out of her thoughts and pulled her back to the present. A woman about four inches shorter than her five-nine frame stood in front of her. She had jet-black hair, black lipstick, black nail polish, milky white skin, and a silver ring in her left nostril that glinted in the sunlight. She wore a black and white babydoll dress, black leather Mary Janes, and a pair of black tights beneath her dress.

“Kyra Foster,” she chirped brightly, belying her dark and brooding appearance.

“Sheriff Song,” Spenser replied.

“I know.”

Spenser bit her tongue, doing her best to keep from making the obvious Wednesday Addams joke that sat on her lips, not sure how well it would be received. The girl had probably heard the same joke a thousand times before, anyway.

“So, what can I do for you, Ms. Foster?”

“Call me Kyra,” she said. “May I call you Spenser?”

“Sure,” Spenser replied slowly.

“Great. I like to keep things informal.”

Spenser raised her eyebrows, hoping to prompt the girl to tell her what she wanted. As if only realizing she was responsible for the awkward silence around them, Kyra laughed. It was a bright, high-pitched sound that seemed giggly and girlish, completely out of place, coming from somebody who looked like Kyra.

“So… what can I do for you, Kyra?” Spenser asked, trying to move things along.

“Right, well, I’m a reporter for the Dispatch,” she began.

“Aren’t you a little young to be a reporter?” Spenser asked skeptically.

“I’m twenty-six,” she replied, her tone dripping with offense.

“Sorry. You just look… younger.”

Kyra laughed and waved her off. “I get that a lot.”

Spenser resisted the urge to slap her own forehead for not recognizing the name. The Sweetwater Dispatch had been the town’s paper of record for decades, owned and operated by the Foster family since its inception back in the fifties. Although all the major papers were available in town, the Dispatch, with its local news and salacious bits of gossip, outsold them all.

Kyra was obviously the next generation looking to make her mark and carry on the family tradition of running a thinly disguised tabloid masquerading as a legitimate news source. That she was there looking at Spenser didn’t seem to bode well. Spenser had never liked dealing with the media when she’d been with the Bureau, and she liked dealing with pseudo-tabloids with their obvious bias, slants, and alternative facts even less.

“Listen, I’ve got some things I need to attend to. It was nice meeting you, though, Kyra—”

“I promise I won’t take up much of your time.”