He’d just gotten off the horn with Jen and was fried from her asking where the force budget was at and when the new positions were going to open up, both of which he had no control over or information to share. She’d said she’d seen a position online, for security, at the Littleton, NH, mall. A mall. In New Hampshire. Was she trying to give him reasons to strangle her? Had she not heard him all these years about how New Hampshire was the state they were forced to drive through to get to the Maine coast and back for vacation. A fucking mall. Fucking New Hampshire. He thought about Boyd Pratt. Something was off about that one. Grout tossed a dart and almost struck Larkin’s eye with it as he poked his head into the office. Larkin looked at Grout, who held a pair of darts, his feet propped on the desk next to a growler of his home-brew stout and a half-tanked pint glass of the beer beside it, and said, “Am I interrupting something important?”
