Stone County encompassed two-hundred square miles of mountain and valley. Xander spent a lot of his time driving from one end to the other, answering calls, working cases. But at least two or three times a week, he liked to do a foot patrol of downtown Eden’s Ridge. To his mind, it was good to be a visible presence—not that the Ridge suffered from much in the way of crime to begin with. Beyond that, he just liked getting out from behind his desk or the wheel of his department cruiser to move.
Today was especially nice, with the weather warming on up to true spring and flowers nodding in the breeze from various pots and planters in front of the shops on Main Street. It was the kind of day worth grabbing take out from Crystal’s Diner and finding a bench somewhere to soak up some sun. That i
