by Deirdre Dore
She studied the tall, hard-muscled body of the man she’d loved since she was eight years old. He wasn’t on duty, obviously—he was wearing jeans and an untucked short-sleeve button-down shirt—but she’d bet Dixie he was carrying a weapon. Sheriff’s department officers were encouraged to wear their weapons at all times.
He’d grown more handsome over the years, his features becoming more defined, less pretty and more masculine. His hair was still blond, but he kept it cut short now. When they were in high school, he’d kept it long—enough that the ends stuck out of his helmet during football games, his cap during baseball games, and around his shoulders like a young Viking god otherwise.
Tavey considered her response. He hadn’t said anything quite so hurtful since they were both teenagers, but she understood where the venom came from. She’d come to expect it, the stab of pain accompanying her involuntary delight at the sight of him. He was her secret pain, her unwelcome obsession, her missing friend.
When she’d lost Summer, she’d lost him as well.
Tavey stood, dusting her hands on the legs of her pants. “Good afternoon, Tyler. What brings you to the woods?”
He shook his head. “Typical Tavey response. You know I hate that.”
She did. He hated it when she was polite—had since they were kids—which made absolutely no sense to her.
“Fine.” She dropped the coolly polite tone she adopted when she was nervous or speaking in public. “What are you doing here?”
Dixie wandered over to Tyler, wagging her tail at him. Tavey kept the lead loose, knowing that while Tyler might not like her, he had a soft spot for dogs. He’d completed training to work with the search dogs in the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office and he’d once kept two German shepherds at his house just southeast of Fate. They’d died about a year ago of old age, within months of each other. Tavey knew all this by accident, more or less. The minute Tyler Downs divorced his wife and moved to Fate, gossipy tongues had started wagging, informing Tavey of his every move. She hadn’t gone to a great deal of effort to stop the flood of information, but she hoped she’d hidden her intense interest. Mrs. Carlyle and her friends—Tavey’s friend Chris called them the Four Senior Ladies of the Apocalypse—stopped her last week in the grocery store and voiced their concern that she was going to dry up and turn into an old maid, and didn’t Tyler Downs look just so handsome in his uniform.
He looks handsome in everything, she thought as he bent down and patted Dixie, rubbing her ears and crooning to her. Tavey felt a brief slash of jealousy and immediately chastised herself for it. She was not going to be jealous of a dog, and Dixie deserved as much affection as she wanted.
Around them milled other handlers and their dogs, some of them calling out greetings and congratulations to Tavey. She barely noticed them and just nodded absently in response.
Tyler stood, giving Dixie one last pat. “I’m here helping Christie, my stepdaughter. She thinks her dog, Grumbles, would make a good search-and-rescue dog.”
“I see.” She’d never met the girl, but she’d heard through the town grapevine that he’d stayed involved in Christie’s life even after his divorce from her mom, attending her soccer matches and helping her with college. He and Angela, the girl’s mother, hadn’t been married long and hadn’t had any children of their own. Tavey felt her hand twitch involuntarily toward her stomach. She’d never even come close. She’d been too busy with Once Was Lost, which included her search-and-rescue canines and the animal rescue she’d built on her property. Tavey and her two friends also actively searched for missing and exploited children, though her friend Chris did most of that work online.
“Where is she now?” Tavey asked Tyler.
He looked around. “She was just talking to—” He nodded to a group of people nearby, all with dogs on leads. Several collapsible water bowls had been set down around their feet, but most of the dogs had already had their fill and were lying on the ground, silently enjoying each other’s company.
The sight reminded Tavey that she needed to give Dixie some water. She swung her backpack around, pulling out a collapsible dish of her own and one of the many water bottles that she had lugged on the trail for hours. She unfolded the plastic dish that reminded her of the Barbie pool she’d had as a child and was pouring water in when Tyler spoke.
“I want you to stay away from my uncle.”
Tavey continued pouring, but her hand shook, just a little. Dixie, unwilling to wait, was lapping at the water as Tavey poured it out, spraying droplets on her tan hiking pants. With an effort, Tavey stopped her hand from shaking and finished filling the bowl for Dixie.
When Tavey stood, he was standing just a few feet away, and she realized that he moved as silently as ever. He’d also lowered his voice, probably to keep anyone from hearing their conversation, but to Tavey it sounded both intimate and threatening.
“I can’t do that.” She shifted her gaze away from his mouth, which had tightened with anger. She breathed in deeply through her nose, as her friend Chris had taught her during yoga class, and drew in the smell of overheated male and overturned earth. “You know as well as I do what they found.”
“Anyone could have written that.”
Tavey shook her head at his stubbornness. Several months ago, Chris had been kidnapped by a psychopath and taken to an abandoned paper mill deep in the woods. While searching the mill for evidence, the police had found several additional bodies in the millpond and an old book with Summer’s name written in the inside cover. The letters were shaky and awkward, as if Summer herself, who’d been blind since birth, had written her name with someone guiding her hand. Above her name, in a tight, spidery scrawl, had been a quote from The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, stories about the Vietnam War. Tyler’s Uncle Abraham had served in the war. A slim connection, maybe, but it was enough to kindle the suspicion that had lingered in Tavey’s mind all these years. The forensic investigators hadn’t gotten any usable prints, and when the FBI and county sheriffs had interviewed him, Abraham had denied all knowledge of the book, but Tavey wanted to talk to him herself.
“You know it’s his book. It’s about the Vietnam War. He must have given it to her,” she accused.
“Why would he do that?” Tyler’s voice never broke a whisper. “The man did everything he could to avoid you girls. Why in God’s name would he write something for a girl who couldn’t even read it?”
Tavey stepped closer as well. “I don’t know. But he did. I just need a sample of his handwriting to prove it. That’s it.”
“And then what? So what if it’s his? What does that prove?”
“It proves he isn’t telling us something. Something about that time. Maybe he didn’t kill Summer, but he knows something.”
Tyler moved closer. “Leave. Him. The. Fuck. Alone.”
Tavey’s eyes snapped to his at the commanding tone and her chin lifted. “Or what? You’ll arrest me again for trespassing?” He’d arrested her three weeks ago when she’d attempted to get Abraham to talk to her. She’d been out before they’d even arrived at the station—the chief had seen to it.
“For starters, I’m thinking that my uncle is well within his rights to sue for harassment.”
She leaned even closer, feeling her heart race as she confronted him. God, he was beautiful. His eyes were bright blue with shots of white, like a husky’s. “Fine. You go ahead.”
Unlike most people, Tavey was not afraid of lawyers. Tavey had an army of lawyers at her disposal; she considered her easy access to them one of the main benefits of being from an absurdly wealthy family.
He gripped her upper arms, surprising her into jerking back, but he held her still, tightening his fingers just enough to hold but not to hurt. He smelled delicious, like the woods and sweat.
He didn’t say anything; his teeth were clenched around fury, and he wasn’t letting it go easily.
Tavey held herself stiffly in his arms, wondering what he was going to do. He’d touched her like this, with such intense ferocity, only once before, when they were teenagers. They’d been screaming at each other on the porch of Abraham’s house when he’d reached out and dragged her forward for a kiss that had ruined Tavey for life. Though full of fury, no other kiss had ever made her feel as if her soul was being lit up like mist at sunrise. Even now, she wanted to howl when he let her go and stepped away, his hands coming out to his sides as if in denial.
He slashed at the air in her direction, already turning away. “Just leave him be, Tavey. For once in your stubborn-ass life, let it rest. He’s . . . he’s dying.”
He stomped back over to where his stepdaughter waited, her head tilted curiously as she watched the two of them.
Tavey drew in a shuddering breath. Dying. No.
The old bastard couldn’t die. Not until he’d told her where to find Summer.
2
THE SECRET TO difficult women, Tyler had discovered in his career in law enforcement, was to let them talk and nod as if every word that came out of their mouth was the God-given truth. Eventually these fine ladies would spill every secret they kept tucked away in their tackle box, including why they shot their husband, where they’d gotten the meth, and who’d started the fight at the Dollar Store, but nothing in his experience had ever helped him handle Tavey Collins—not persuasion, reason, threats, or God-help-him-he-would-never-live-it-down arrests.
The first time he’d seen her, Tavey had come with her grandmother to welcome his family to town, a tradition that had pissed off his father, rattled his mother, and left Tyler confounded. He hadn’t understood why a rich old lady would want to welcome his family anywhere. It was clear, even when he was young, that his family was considered trash and always would be. There was no point worrying about it. But then he’d seen Tavey standing behind her grandmother on the porch of his house, her hair neatly braided, her brown eyes disapproving as she looked at the old lawn chairs and the card table covered in cigarette butts and empty beer cans.
Her grandmother had called her to the door and Tavey had dutifully approached, her face polite. When she’d caught sight of him, her eyes had widened and her cheeks flushed. She’d stared, saying nothing, until her grandmother nudged her shoulder.
“W-W-welcome to Fate,” she’d managed, still staring at him.
Tyler had thought she was staring because of his clothes, which were too light for the fall air, or the bruise showing just below the collar of his shirt. He’d covered it quickly, hating that she’d seen it for no reason that he could name at the time. He’d just known that the sight of Tavey Collins made him so furious he nearly cried.
She was so pretty and perfect in her soft blue dress; she smelled of clean laundry and fresh-cut grass. She’d smiled at him and he’d shaken his head at her in warning, casting his father a glance out of the corner of his eye. Tyler watched his father’s lips curl in a faint sneer around his cigarette, his free hand twitching at his side, as if he was imagining what it would be like to smack the smile right off her face. His father had always seemed to find beauty offensive.
Tyler moved, stepping closer to Tavey and blocking his father’s view of her. “You should go,” he told the old woman, and felt his father’s attention settle on him like a shadow.
Frowning, Tavey stepped in front of her grandmother. “That’s rude,” she pointed out.
Tyler felt rather than saw his father’s body tense. He didn’t like it when women talked back, and the fact that this little princess was only a child wouldn’t make a difference.
Tavey’s grandmother took her granddaughter’s hand. “I think he meant it to be, Tavey dear,” she informed her granddaughter genially.
Tavey had frowned, studying him. “Why?”
“He’s a rude little shit, that’s why,” Tyler’s father said with a snarl. Tavey’s eyes had flickered up his father’s tall form, and her steady, measuring gaze had taken in his slovenly appearance, the reddened knuckles, and dirty, beer-stained shirt. She’d looked at his mother next, at the way she hid her face, at the shoulders that hunched forward as if in anticipation of a blow.
“I see,” she’d muttered.
Tyler thought she really had seen, which made his cheeks flush.
“Just go. We don’t want you here.” He’d waved a hand at their car.
“All right, then,” Tavey’s grandmother had replied easily, but there was a firmness to the tone that said she also understood the situation and wasn’t pleased. “You all take care and welcome again to Fate.”
Tavey had nodded in agreement, but her eyes were fierce. “It was nice to meet you,” she told him.
Tyler could hear Tavey talking to the old woman as she tugged her grandmother down the cracked sidewalk to their black town car.
“We’ll need to do something about that.”
He hadn’t heard her grandmother’s response because his father chose that moment to cuff him on one side of his head and order him into the house.
He hadn’t gotten the beating he’d expected, though, for which he could thank his uncle Abraham. Tyler’s mother intended to take him to visit Abraham this afternoon and maybe borrow some money. They’d visited a couple years before, and Abraham had threatened to put a bullet between his father’s eyes if Tyler showed up beaten bloody again.
The old man, while gruff and a recovering heroin addict, had never laid a violent hand on Tyler, had never shown him anything but rough affection.
Which was why he’d never understood why Tavey was so convinced that his uncle had something to do with Summer’s disappearance. She’d been running a one-woman crusade against his uncle and had shared her conviction with everyone in five counties. In the years since Summer had disappeared, people had spray-painted “Child Killer” and “Sick Fuck” and “Rot in Hell” on the outside of his cabin, thrown rocks through his windows, and once, shortly after Summer had disappeared, a group of men and women from town decided they were going to teach the old man a lesson and drag him out of his cabin and beat the shit out of him. Luckily Tavey’s grandfather and Old Ninny, one of Summer’s relatives, had called the police, who arrived in time to stop them from killing him. His uncle, who’d never been all that stable, had never seemed to recover from the incident, which had left him with a broken collarbone and a skull fracture.
After that things had calmed down somewhat, but there were new incidents every fall, around the months that Summer disappeared. Tyler didn’t think Tavey was involved in the fires and the bricks thrown through his uncle’s windows, but she sure didn’t hesitate to tell anyone what she suspected, including his uncle.
“Tyler, do you think you could get me an introduction to Tavey Collins?”
Tyler whipped his head around so quickly he felt his neck pop. They were driving down the 140 toward Canton. Christie’s dog, Grumbles, who was sitting on the seat between them in the truck, made the weird rumbling noise that had earned him his name, and started licking Tyler’s face.
Tyler gently pushed him away so he could make eye contact with his stepdaughter, before turning his eyes back to the road.
“You know why that’s unlikely.”
“Uh-huh. She hates your guts.”
“No, I hate her guts.”
“You really shouldn’t practice hate.” She had lowered her voice and drawn her eyebrows together, impersonating Tyler—he’d given a speech about Internet bullying in her high school the week before. It wasn’t his normal assignment, but all the officers tried to give back to the communities they served.
He snorted—she was a funny little shit, for a girl. “All right. I don’t hate her. She and I just don’t get along. It’s better that we avoid each other whenever possible.”
“Kind of like you and Mom?” she suggested, her toffee-brown eyes curious.
Ty
ler thought about that one for a moment. Strangely, it wasn’t like that with Christie’s mom. He felt no serious animosity toward Angie; they’d just figured out too late that they wanted different things.
“Your mom and I don’t avoid each other.”
“She avoids you.”
This was news to Tyler. “Why, for God’s sake?”
“She says she feels bad for not telling you she was in love with someone else.”
“She says this crap to you?”
“We have a very open relationship.”
Tyler chuckled. Yeah, if he missed anything about his marriage, it was getting to hang out with this kid, who was a pistol for sure.
He changed the subject. “Why do you want to meet her?”
“Are you kidding?” She turned in her seat so she was facing him more directly. “She’s awesome. She runs her own businesses, she gives to charity, and her dogs are the best trackers. They literally run circles around the other dogs.”
“Literally, huh?”
“Sometimes. My friend Becca says her house is killer and she has a gazillion dogs.”
Tyler could testify to the house being killer. The Collins residence sat grandly on one of the rolling foothills just west of Pine Mountain. Built in the mid-1800s by Tavey’s many times great-grandfather, it looked similar to plantation houses from an earlier era, with a huge porch surrounded by columns and elaborate gardens. The property ranged for several miles, basically from the edge of the city limits of Fate to the county line to the north. Farther to the northwest but also in the hills lived the family of the girl who had been Tavey’s best friend—Summer Haven. Before Summer had gone missing, the two girls had run back and forth across his uncle’s land to see each other, driving the old man nuts.
He glanced at the teenager next to him, who’d put her feet up on his dashboard and was now glued to her iPhone. He couldn’t imagine letting her run back and forth through the woods alone now, even with her stupid dog leading the way.
