The Sexiest Man Alive by Juliet Rosetti Page B

said, lifting the bottle in a toast to her. “Living high on the hog, Mazie.” He took a long, thirsty pull, chugged a third of it, burped, punched his chest, and sighed contently. “Hey, where’s yours?” he asked.
    “I don’t like beer.”
    “A down-home Wisconsin girl like you—shame, shame.”
    “I know. Uncool. But there’s only enough room on my thighs for beer or chocolate, and when the rubber meets the road, it’s chocolate by a mile.”
    This made Johnny smile. He had one of the best male jaws she’d ever seen, strong, square, and perfectly balanced with his lean face. His eyes were long and narrow, the grayish blue of Lake Michigan in early spring. At the moment, they were lingering on the very thighs she’d mentioned. Reddening, Mazie quickly turned away, setting the bass fillets into the hot oil, because she had the dizzying sensation of standing on the lip of a cliff and teetering. And her with a fear of heights.
    She’d gone to high school with Johnny, who was a year ahead of her and had a reputation for fighting, doping, and drinking—an all-around badass who drew girls to him like moths to a porch light. Johnny Hoolihan—mad, bad, and dangerous to know—had survived one scrape after another, charmed his way out of half of them, and was voted the kid most likely to end up in the state pen. Instead, he’d joined the navy after high school and had returned to Quail Hollow five years later and been hired onto the town’s police force.
    He came and stood next to her at the stove, watching the fish cook. It wasn’t going to take long, maybe another three or four minutes. “Why are you here?” Mazie asked bluntly.
    “Because we’re old high school buddies and I thought you might be able to help me,” Johnny said.
    She turned to look at him, surprised. She had to look up because, even in her torture-device heels, he was a lot taller than she was, about the same height as Labeck. “Help with what?”
    “You remember the Yatts?” Johnny asked.
    “The Yatts? Sure. Criminals, hoods, very scary guys. Mothers used to make their kidsbehave by telling them the Yatts would get them. Are they still around? I thought that lot had been scooped up and tossed in prison years ago.”
    Johnny shook his head. “A lot of ’em are out now. There’s a huge tribe of ’em, all related, in southwest Wisconsin. The Yatts are the biggest drug distributors in the upper Midwest—coke, heroin, pot, meth—you name it, they sell it. But drugs are just part of their operation. They also extort protection money from small businesses, run teenage girls as prostitutes, and use their biker gang to terrorize towns out in the boonies. You’ve heard of the Skulls biker gang, haven’t you?”
    “Sure.” Mazie tested the fish, decided that the fillets were cooked to exactly the right degree of flakiness, and removed the pan from the burner. Where had she heard the Skulls mentioned recently? Why, from her mom, of all people. “Didn’t they just kill somebody?”
    Johnny nodded. “Two people were shot to death. Gang executions.”
    Mazie stared at him, wide-eyed. “Gang executions in Quail Hollow!”
    “Outside the town but in my jurisdiction. You got some plates?”
    Mazie nodded toward a cupboard and Johnny got down plates and put them on her kitchen table. She set the fish on the plates and turned to take the fries out of the oven.
    “Here, let me.” Johnny gently moved her aside. “You don’t want to get your pretty dress dirty.”
    “My mom said the Skulls killed Ricky Lee Tatum. Is that true?” Mazie asked.
    “You know him?”
    “No, but I went to school with his older sisters.”
    “Well, Ricky Lee did not grow up to be a nice guy. He’s been in a lot of nasty stuff—he beat up an old man for accidentally bumping his bike, he helped firebomb a bar, and he threw in with the Skulls a couple of years ago, became one of their drug runners.”
    “Why haven’t you arrested him?”
    “Oh, he’s been