“I heard down at the Snort and Curl she still has a voice like an angel.” The voice of Esther Vaughn, administrative assistant and dispatch for the Stone County Sheriff’s Office—definitely not an angel—echoed through the air duct to where Xander was just shutting the back door of the building.
At the sound of it, the nagging headache throbbing behind his eyes ratcheted up a notch. If the beauty shop was already talking about Kennedy’s return, it was only a matter of time before he started getting harassed about it. He wasn’t in the mood. His sleep had been interrupted to take a call about a prowler skulking around Elvira’s Tavern at two in the morning. The prowler had turned out to be a bear digging through the dumpster out back. By the time Xander had made it home again, he couldn’t go b
