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Back The Keeper of Bees Save as PDF
Contents ( 49)
  1. CHAPTER ONE
  2. CHAPTER TWO
  3. CHAPTER THREE
  4. CHAPTER FOUR
  5. CHAPTER FIVE
  6. CHAPTER SIX
  7. CHAPTER SEVEN
  8. CHAPTER EIGHT
  9. CHAPTER NINE
  10. CHAPTER TEN
  11. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  12. CHAPTER TWELVE
  13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  19. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  20. CHAPTER TWENTY
  21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  30. CHAPTER THIRTY
  31. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  32. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  40. CHAPTER FORTY
  41. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  42. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  43. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  44. THE SAME BREATH
  45. 1
  46. 2
  47. 3
  48. Acknowledgments
  49. About the Author

“You read the Wikipedia summary.”

“I did no such thing.”

Somers leaned back in the armchair; the house settled with a creak, and kids’ laughter came from downstairs.

“I might have read a few synopses,” Hazard said. “It was a long time ago. It’s hard to remember.”

“This is a travesty,” Noah said.

Hazard squared his shoulders, chin up. “I should probably get Evie home. It’s almost her bedtime.”

“Dang it,” Somers said, checking the clock. He rolled out of the chair, clapped Noah on the shoulder, and said, “Another time.”

“Are you sure?”

“Thanks for having us over.”

“You can stay, John,” Hazard said.

But Somers just smiled and helped him collect Evie, and then a swarm of children was trying to hug Evie and hug Somers and hug Hazard. Hazard decided the best policy was to do what you were supposed to do with most wild animals: stay still and wait for them to go away. The barrage of hugs finally ended, and Somers had a crazy-ass grin as he led Hazard out of the house.

“What?” Hazard said.

“I just love you sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Hazard grumbled.

They got Evie through her bath and into bed, and then Hazard read in bed while Somers played on his phone.

“You could have stayed, John. If you wanted to watch the movie, I could have gotten Evie to bed.”

“I know,” Somers said. And then he tossed the phone on the bed and rolled, straddling Hazard. He looked down. He carefully closed the book and lifted it from Hazard’s hands.

“I was reading that.”

“I noticed.”

“If you want to watch those movies, I don’t care. I want you to watch what you want to watch.”

“I’ve seen it before,” Somers said, shucking his shirt, exposing the hard lines of muscle and ink. “Besides, I think I liked your version better.”

“Yeah?” Hazard said.

Somers took his hands and moved them up to his chest, leaning into the touch. “Yeah,” Somers whispered.

CHAPTER TWO

JULY 1

MONDAY

8:07 AM

SOMERS WAS AT HIS DESK, clicking through emails that had arrived overnight. The bullpen inside the Wahredua Police Department was busy; uniformed officers had just completed the morning briefing, and now they milled around, talking and drinking bad coffee and putting off patrol for a few minutes. The city’s four detectives were all at their desks: Carmichael and Moraes worked all the drug-related cases in the city—despite their best efforts, central Missouri still produced and distributed a great deal of meth—and Somers and Dulac worked everything else.

At the moment, thankfully, everything else made a pretty small pile: Somers was currently examining expert testimony in a case of destroyed mailboxes. The self-appointed expert, Mrs. Bruce Campbell, had been Somers’s 7th-grade science teacher, and she insisted that the mailboxes had been destroyed with what she continuously referred to as an IED. For the sake of John-Henry Somerset, who had taken a B- in 7th-grade science (she included the grade when she reminded him of how they knew each other), she explained the acronym at the beginning of the email: improvised explosive device.