Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

his pinched face, letting her know that he could find her any time he wanted. But she was on her own ground, and he was just a young punk who thought he was tough because he didn’t know the meaning of the word.
    “Get to the point, please.”
    “The point, Mrs. Smith, is that you’ve lost. My contact on the town council tells me that they’ve voted to end the project outright and return the property to O’Reilly’s estate. What happens to it then will make a lot of lawyers rich.”
    She tried not to let her dismay show. Could she believe him? He might have someone on his side in the town council, just as Barry had been anonymously warned about the meeting last night. “We’ll await the formal announcement,” she said.
    He grabbed the front of her shopping cart and leaned forward. Shocked, Lucky stepped back; he moved in tandem. She was aware that the toddler was no longer screaming, that traffic in and out of the parking lot had stopped, that no one was chatting to their friends or talking on cell phones. In all the world, there might only be Lucky Smith and Brian Harris. Facing each other across a cart piled high with a week’s worth of groceries.
    “Now that I’ve got your attention,” he said with a laugh, releasing the cart. “As I said, no one wants trouble. You’ve lost, so give up before someone gets hurt.”
    “
I’m
not about to hurt anyone.”
    “Dangerous job, a cop. Should be left to men and women who look like men. Not pretty girls with delicate bone structure and long blond hair.”
    “Are you threatening my daughter?”
    “Just making an observation. In anticipation of tomorrow’s announcement by the town council, we’ll be gathering tonight to express our support. Better if you and your bunch aren’t there. Because I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Remember this, that uniform is designed to make the wearer stand out in a crowd.” He winked at her, shoved the shopping cart toward her, hard, and walked away.
    Lucky’s knees buckled. Surely the bastards weren’t going to harm Moonlight? She was a police officer; if anyone came after Moonlight, they’d have every cop in the British Columbia Interior, in the whole province, to deal with.
    Her hand shook as she fumbled in her purse for her cell phone and punched up the number. Voice mail answered. “Barry, it’s Lucky. There’s going to be trouble tonight at the site of the garden. Call me.”
    She hung up. She looked at her hands. She was gripping a shopping cart. It was not a shield.
    Who was she kidding?

Chapter Twenty-seven
    Why anyone would think that a name like The Potato Famine would attract bar patrons, Molly Smith couldn’t imagine. But everything Irish was fashionable in the world of imitation pubs.
    A group of men tumbled out of The Potato Famine, a cheap bar at the far end of town. One of them caught sight of her, and shouted to his friends. They whistled and made obscene gestures. She stuck her thumbs through her gun belt and stared them down. They carried on up the road, leaning on each other for support, shouting drinking songs into the night. She let out a puff of breath and her fingers loosened their grip on her belt.
    The radio at her shoulder crackled. “Report of a disturbance on Primrose Street,” the night dispatcher said. “Constable Smith, report your location.”
    “Outside the Potato Famine on East Street.”
    “Wait there. A car will be around to pick you up.”
    She didn’t have to wait long. A marked SUV pulled up beside her. Dave Evans was driving. She jumped in. “Trouble?”
    “Looks like it. Saw you on TV, Molly. You shouldn’t let them get to you.”
    “I’m sure you’d have handled being ambushed by the press much better, Dave.”
    “Natch,” he said, flicking the switch to bring on lights and sirens.
    She clenched her teeth. He’d been in the constables’ room when she arrived for the start of her shift. Barely able to control his smirk at seeing her returned to the beat.
    “You’ve got to try not to be so emotional, Molly.” He turned into Front Street, barely managing to keep two wheels on the road. “This is a tough job. It needs tough players. No one else need apply.”
    She looked out the window. The stores and restaurants of downtown turned into late-nineteenth-century houses, then, as they climbed the hill, the big old houses changed into compact Fifties bungalows, larger Eighties homes, and finally twenty-first-century edifices of brick and glass. They might