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Was she overreacting?
Had she just been in the wrong place at the wrong time at the school?
Or were the men coming for her?
She tightened her grip on the gun. Her nerves shook her hand. The muscles in her legs readied to run. It didn’t help matters when a booming knock sounded against the front door.
She paused, a few feet from it.
There were no windows to show her who it was, so she walked softly to the peephole. Holding her breath, heart in her throat, Rachel looked through it.
“Holy buckets.” She breathed out and lowered the gun to her side. She opened the door in time to catch Dane’s fist in midair. He was quick to take in her expression and the weapon.
“Before you use that on me, know that, in my defense, I called you. Three times, in fact.”
It wasn’t lost on Rachel how much seeing the man made her feel better. Just as seeing him standing in the gym, cursing at the chained doors, had this morning. Capable, sturdy, a force to be reckoned with. Handsome, too. Though that wasn’t anything new.
“I just realized my phone died,” she said, trying to get her heartbeat back on its normal path.
Dane motioned to the gun. “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re more cautious than not. It makes my—the department’s—job easier in making sure you stay safe.” His eyes strayed over her shoulder as footsteps echoed up the hallway.
“Everything okay?” Marnie called out.
Rachel turned to find the woman holding something in her hands. It surprised a laugh out of her. “Yeah, Marnie. Everything is fine, but is that my bedside lamp?”
Marnie shrugged.
“I wanted to help,” she said defensively. She raised her chin a fraction, proud.
“Well, you can help by putting that back. Please.”
Marnie rolled her eyes but went back into the bedroom.
Dane grinned.
“I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t just barge in,” he said. “If a bullet didn’t do me in, the lamp just might have.”
A look she couldn’t place passed over Dane’s expression. He took a small step backward and jutted his thumb over his shoulder. His truck was parked at the mouth of the drive, since there was no true curb around the property unless you drove back to the two-lane that connected to the town. “Everyone’s still looking for the men, but until we have more information, I thought I might hang out here for a while, just as a precaution.”
Rachel couldn’t stop her surprise from surfacing.
“Deputy Ward is keeping an eye out on Lonnie, too,” he added.
She recovered. “Oh, yeah. Well, that’s good. Especially after everything Lonnie went through today. Better safe than sorry.”
Rachel omitted that she felt another surge of relief having someone so close. It was only after he started to turn away that she wondered if that feeling was because her someone just happened to be Dane.
“Okay, well, charge your cell and give me a heads-up if anyone else is coming over,” he said, already moving down the steps. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Hey, Dane.”
The words left Rachel’s mouth before her mind could catch them. Dane turned, but his expression was blank. He was shutting down.
Again.
Still, Rachel was riding the high of feeling relief and, after the day she’d had, she didn’t want it to stop.
“You could stay inside,” she said. “In the spare room or on the couch. It isn’t like you haven’t slept on either before.”
She tried to smile. She really did. She tried to remember the man who had been her husband’s best friend. The man who had been her friend. The one who had smiled and joked and never turned down an invitation from them to come over.
But time had a funny way of making memories hurt, even when they were good ones.
And maybe that showed.
Dane shook his head and averted his gaze. “I can’t.”
He went back to his truck without another word.
Then, all at once, Rachel felt her anger returning.
This time it was aimed at a man named Marcus. Not only had he taken her husband from her, he’d all but taken her friend, too.
Chapter Five (#ud176ea88-1e7c-5aeb-9e2b-746adf8af128)
Rachel took her coffee out onto the back patio the next morning. It was her second cup and not strong enough to combat her nearly sleepless night. Every time she seemed to close her eyes, there was the sandy-haired man smiling at her. Then there was Overalls grabbing her hair. Both images together and separate had gotten her out of bed and roaming the house. Or, really, going to the front windows and peeking out to see if Dane’s truck was still there.
It had been.
Every single time.
Now she was trying not to think too much and just hoping the caffeine would kick in and make her feel less sluggish. And more normal.
The sun shone through the tops of the pine trees and warmed the wooden rail she was leaning against. The side patio would always be her favorite spot in the world, she was sure. Worn, in need of a new coat of stain, and filled with past moments when she’d spent countless hours across its surface, it was Rachel’s idea of peaceful.
She looked out toward the creek in the distance. It wound around the two acres of her land in a half circle before going through the next two properties. She remembered how much she’d disliked having water near the house when she’d moved into David’s family home right after they married, perpetually afraid of flooding that never came. Now it was her favorite feature. She supposed there was some comfort in the fact that no matter how unexpected the turns her life took, she could look out at that creek and watch it keep going the same way it had been going for years.
It didn’t stop for tragedy.
It didn’t stop for sorrow.
It didn’t stop just because there were bad men with bad intentions out there.
It just kept going.
Rachel sighed into her coffee.
Clearing her head wasn’t as easy as she’d hoped.
Her thoughts turned to Lonnie. If she was having a hard time coping with what had happened, then she had to believe Lonnie might be struggling, too. Playing it tough in the schoolyard or in the hallways was one thing. He might have held it together at the school and in the department before his uncle had picked him up, but now that it had had time to settle?
Rachel tightened her grip around the coffee cup. She kept her gaze on the creek. There it was, apathetic to how rapidly her thoughts jumped from fear to worry and then to anger.
Yesterday had felt like one long dance between her and Dane, both trying to move around each other without getting too close. She knew why she’d done it. Anger and frustration. But him? He’d pawned her off on a stranger once she needed to leave the department. The old Dane? Her friend? He wouldn’t have left her.
But he had.
Yet, even after years of no contact, when danger had found its way to her, Rachel’s first instinct had been to call him.
Because you still trust him.
“Hush it,” she responded into her coffee.
The coffee complied.
Something moved against her hip, earning a knee-jerk reaction of nearly jumping out of her skin. Her coffee sloshed over the edge of the mug. “Sweet crickets!”
Even with the coffee and the soothing creek in the distance, she couldn’t deny that she was still on edge.
Rachel finagled the vibrating phone from her pocket and shook some of the coffee off her other hand. The Caller ID showed Dane again.
“To be fair, I called to try and not scare you.”
Rachel looked from the phone to the patio stairs. On the path that led from around the house to the front porch stood Dane. Trying to look apologetic.
Rachel put her hand to her chest and took a deep breath.
“I guess I’m a little jumpy this morning,” she admitted. Dane nodded but kept to the bottom of the stairs. He was still wearing his button-down and jeans, but now there were bags beneath his eyes, too. He hadn’t slept. “Is everything okay?”
“Detective Foster thinks he found a potential lead. He and Billy are looking into it.”
“Good.” The faster the men were caught, the better.
Dane ran a hand across his jaw and nodded. “No suspicious activity was reported at Lonnie’s by Deputy Ward and no one other than your friend came or went last night.”
“Also good.”
He nodded again. It was off. Like the motion was on reflex. Like he wasn’t actually listening to himself. Rachel tilted her head slightly to the side, trying to figure out his thoughts. But, while she’d been good friends with the man years ago, it felt like a lifetime had passed between them. She could no sooner tell what he was thinking than she could tell what he was feeling.
“We’ll keep someone on both today, but I need to go relieve Henry from Lonnie’s until another deputy can step in,” he continued. “His kid has the flu and his wife woke up with it, so he needs to hustle home.”
Rachel felt herself perk up. “So you’re going to Lonnie’s right now?”
She already was turning with her coffee cup in hand.
“Yeah, just long enough until someone comes and relieves me.”
“Can I come with you?” Rachel was positive it was exactly what she needed to feel better. She could either sit around worrying about the boy, or check on him herself. Maybe even talk to his uncle and learn a little bit more about his home life, too. Maybe set some of the rumors straight when it came to the teachers at Darby Middle. “I mean, I can take my own car if you’d like,” she added. “I just—I’d like to see how Lonnie’s doing.”
Dane surprised her with a small smile.
“If you don’t mind me stopping by somewhere that has coffee, I’m fine with you riding along.”
It was Rachel’s turn to smile. “I can do you one better.”
* * *
THEY SET OUT from the house a few minutes later with two cups of homemade coffee, a Tupperware container filled with cookies, and too many things left unsaid between them. Dane had already known that Rachel asking to come along was a possibility, but until she’d asked, he hadn’t known what he was going to say in response. He’d planned his day around sticking close to her while working the case from a stationary spot—which he’d gotten good at over his career as captain—so if she wanted to leave, coming along with him definitely made things easier.
Or, at least, the work side of things.
Their personal issues weren’t as easy to work around.
So Dane decided not to address them at all. He was going to treat Rachel like just another civilian. There was a bigger picture. One he’d hopefully see when the men were caught.
He didn’t need to, nor had the time to, get lost in the past.
“I’m surprised that Marnie girl didn’t stay the night,” he said once they were on the county road. “She seemed ready to fight by your side. Never seen a lady brandish a lamp before.”
He kept his eyes on the road but heard the smile in her voice when she answered.
“You’ve seen a man brandish a lamp?”
Dane felt his smile pull up the corner of his lips. “Actually, I have.”
And so Dane ate up the time between the outskirts of Darby to the other side of town by relaying the story about Marty Wallace, drunk as a skunk, coming into a restaurant to confront his cheating girlfriend. Who’d just happened to be on a date one table over. Dane had barely saved the new beau from receiving a whack upside the head by a fancy lamp when he restrained the cursing-like-a-sailor Marty.
“Want to know the kicker? After he got out of jail, he went back to the restaurant and picked a fight with the owner.”
Rachel let out a small gasp. “Why did he do that?”
“The lamp that he broke cost five hundred dollars. Marty didn’t want to pay it.”
“Five hundred dollars?” She whistled. “I don’t blame him. I might have started a fight with the owner, too. Did he end up paying it or did he get arrested again?”
“Billy ended up feeling so bad for him that he talked the owner out of pressing charges.” Dane couldn’t help chuckling. “Then Billy managed to convince the man that the lamp was too ugly to be worth that much, so the owner went out and got a new one anyways.”
Rachel laughed a good laugh. Dane hadn’t realized how much he had missed the sound.
“That’s our sheriff for you,” he added. “A fearless leader with a bleeding heart when it comes to overpaying for lamps. I don’t know what Riker County would do without him.”
This time Rachel didn’t laugh. He glanced over. Denim blue. Staring straight ahead.
“You know, I always thought you’d run for sheriff.” Her voice sounded different. Off. Distant. “Wasn’t that a part of your five-year plan?”
There it was.
One of those unsaid things. Dane fought the urge to tense up.
