Shut Up and Kiss Me Read Free

and told her she’d best kiss the camera good-bye for at least a week. Was the entire town in cahoots?
    At almost ten, after failing miserably to get someone—anyone—in this godforsaken freckle to tell her where she could find the man, she turned to desperate measures. She drove her Honda Accord down Highway 301 to the last place she wanted to go: the town’s only bar.
    And what a fine establishment it appeared to be. The watering hole looked like a cross between a biker bar and a dilapidated barn. Of course, the huge demented chicken painted on the metal roof, beer in claw, gave it that real touch of class. But then, the drunken, crazy-eyed fowl did reflect the establishment’s name: the Funky Chicken. Of course, someone had painted over the N with a C . Shala was about to walk into the Fucky Chicken.
    She’d passed the establishment several times during the day and put it first on her gotta-do-something-about-it list for the mayor. Hey, she appreciated unique hangouts. Tourists loved them, but this place’s appearance wasn’t “quirky.” Instead, it had that you-take-your-life-in-your-hands-when-entering air. And she was about to enter.
    It was for a good cause, she reminded herself: her Nikon. She’d used her inheritance from Nana to buy that camera, and Shala wanted it back. It might sound stupid, but she viewed the Nikon as her grandmother’s way of still looking out for her. Yeah, it was sad for a twenty-eight-year-old to still want to be looked after, but everyone had a few flaws, right?
    As she pulled into the parking lot, a pair of headlights appeared in her rearview mirror. She turned to see a dark-colored sedan that she’d seen earlier. The car pulled to the side of the lot and stopped. Could it be Sky Gomez? Now, wouldn’t that be funny. Not.
    Getting out of her car, she approached her stalker. Two steps closer, the car sped off. But as it passed under the streetlight, Shala got a glimpse of the driver—a big guy with short light-colored hair. Not her camera thief.
    So who was it? The mayor’s warning rang in her ears: Some people in town, especially the Natives, don’t want us turning to tourism. Don’t be surprised if you run into some unfriendly folks. But just how unfriendly could they get?
    “Unfriendly enough to steal my camera,” she muttered. Then, armed with fake courage and determinedto get back her Nikon, she hotfooted it into the Fucky Chicken.
    Shala pulled up in front of Sky Gomez’s log cabin a short while later. The moon hung eerily low. If she hadn’t been so downright pissed, she’d have found the place quaint. Instead, the cabin, nestled between live-oak trees, had creepy music playing in her head.
    Leaning against her steering wheel, Shala noticed golden light leaking from the window on the left side of the porch. A truck was parked beside the cabin. Someone was home. He was home. An image of the scowling, loincloth-wearing man flashed through her mind. A shiver climbed her spine.
    She glanced up and down the dirt road, seeking another light from a nearby home. Nope. Sheer darkness. It was just her and her camera thief, her gorgeous camera thief whom she knew nothing about. He could be a serial killer. He didn’t look like a serial killer, but it had been a while since she’d run across one—a while, as in never—so she might have missed the resemblance. She checked her rearview mirror. At least the sedan hadn’t shown back up.
    She could leave, she told herself, but she hadn’t endured that visit to the Funky Chicken to back out now. The bartender had laughed at her twenty-dollar bribe. Honey, it would take about fifty of those to warrant pissing off Sky. And if she’d known what she’d end up paying to Bo Eagle, the bar’s owner, she might have considered the bartender’s offer a better deal.
    It had taken two beers before Bo even admitted knowing Sky. Another to sort of recall where Sky lived. But the ultimate price of the exact address had brought her down