Gone From Me: Hearts of the South, Book 10

by Linda Winfree

  An engine purred behind them and a siren whooped once. Blake tensed and glanced over his shoulder. A Chandler County sheriff’s unit pulled to a stop behind his Ford. Oh, heck yeah, this had to look good, Britt on the ground crying, him facing off with Mike, a bat in his hand.

  The dome light in his truck flashed on as Montgomery pushed the passenger door open. A tall deputy unfolded from the driver’s seat and Blake swallowed a groan. Just his luck…Troy Lee Farr.

  Montgomery’s brother paused at the hood of Blake’s truck. He glanced from Montgomery to the tawdry tableau beneath the scrub oak. His cool blue gaze rested on Blake. “Someone want to tell me what’s going on here?”

  *

  “Rob?” Amy paused next to the couch and leaned down to brush his tousled hair away from his brow.

  His eyelids flickered, but didn’t lift. “Mmph?”

  Some things never changed. His drowsy monosyllables indicated he had actually slept the night before, even if it was still on the couch. “I’m making coffee. Do you want breakfast?”

  He rubbed the back of his wrist across his eyes. “What time is it?”

  “A few minutes after five.”

  A groan rumbled in his throat. “No, I’m good. Grab some cereal or something later. Thanks, though.”

  This…this almost felt like them again. She let her gaze travel over his stubbled jaw to the lean muscles of his chest and abdomen. As much as she liked him all cleaned up, pressed and polished, she loved him sleepy and a little rough around the edges. What if she lay down on him and nuzzled into that jaw the way she had so many times before? Would that be one step closer to getting them back? Somehow, snuggling up to him on the couch, both of them in some form of pajamas, seemed less threatening and intimate than getting naked in the bedroom.

  She leaned forward, ready to take that step, only to freeze at the doorbell pealing. Someone ringing their doorbell this early? Seriously?

  Frowning, she tightened her robe on the way to the door. The porch light illuminated the small stoop as she peered through the peephole. The two clean-cut men—both clad in running shorts and T-shirts, one T bearing the insignia of the Chandler County SO—occupying her porch didn’t look like serial home invaders. She threw the lock and opened the door enough to greet them. They didn’t appear dangerous, but she wasn’t abandoning all caution, either. “Yes?”

  “We’re looking for Rob Bennett.” The dark-haired man’s voice was quiet and even.

  “Yeah, we wanted to see if he could come out and play.” The younger man, his hair a sandier shade of brown, held his phone aloft. “But he’s not answering our texts.”

  “His phone’s in the bedroom…” She let that trail away and fixed them with her best GBI-agent stare. Behind her, the couch creaked. “Who are you again?”

  “Sorry. We should have introduced ourselves.” Still not smiling, the dark-haired guy pointed at his chest and the SO insignia there. “We work with him at the sheriff’s department. I’m Chris Parker and—”

  “Troy Lee Farr.” With a wide grin, the younger one stuck out his hand. “Rob’s partner.”

  Bare feet shuffled on the hardwood, and Rob rested his hand above hers on the still-open door. “What are you guys doing here?”

  “We usually go for a run a few mornings a week,” Chris said. “We thought we’d see if you wanted to join us.”

  “Dude, were you still asleep?”

  “Yeah, I was.” Sleep husked his voice. Rob’s exhale stirred the hair above her ear, and the warmth of his body infiltrated her thin sleepwear. “We don’t have to be on duty until seven.”

  “You got to start the day right, man.” If anything, Troy Lee’s grin widened. “A run, some breakfast. We can shower at the station and be ready to go early. What do you say?”

  She sensed Rob’s slight tensing and hesitation before another exhale shivered against her ear. “Sure, let me change and grab my gear.”

  He moved away down the hall, leaving her missing his warmth and facing the social awkwardness at her door. Might as well drop the GBI stare and pin on a mannerly smile. She gestured toward the living room. “Would you like to come in?”

  She closed the door behind them and turned to find them trying not to look like they were taking in every detail of her and Rob’s life. She examined the living room from their perspective, and her throat tightened. Packed boxes still lined the wall next to the dining room. No personal photos graced the walls yet. Rob’s T-shirt was tossed over the back of the couch, along with the throw he’d slept under. A rumpled pillow lay at one end of the couch, TV remote a reach away on the coffee table. It didn’t take a cop to see that they hadn’t shared a bed last night.

  “Coffee?” The offer came out too bright, too cheerful.

  Chris shook his head. “No, thanks.”

  “We’re good,” Troy Lee chimed in. They exchanged a glance, and everything that passed between the two only made her feel worse.

  “All right, let’s go.” Rob appeared from the hallway, clothed in workout gear and carrying his uniform bag slung over one shoulder. “Amy, have a good day. I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  The three men trooped out together, and just like that, he was gone.

  Did he even realize he hadn’t kissed her goodbye?

  *

  At the riverfront park, Troy Lee angled the Jeep into a parking spot and killed the engine. He tapped his palm against the wheel a couple of times, then turned to Rob. “Man, you didn’t kiss her goodbye.”

  “What?” Rob looked up from adjusting his watchband.

  Chris groaned. “Troy Lee. Don’t.”

  Troy Lee ignored him and continued to stare at Rob, askance. “Your wife. You didn’t kiss her goodbye.”

  “Sure I did. I think.” Hadn’t he? He ran the moments back through his mind and realized with a sick, sinking sensation that Troy Lee was right. He cleared his throat.

  Troy Lee pushed the door open. “What’s up with that?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to talk about it.” Chris climbed out of the back seat. His running shoes hit the gravel with a sharp crunch.

  “Maybe he needs to talk about it.” Troy Lee made a derogatory sound in his throat. “It’s the stuff you don’t talk about that bites you on the ass.”

  “How would you know? You talk about everything.”

  Troy Lee waved him off and pinned Rob with a look. “So what’s up with that, Bennett?”

  “I…I don’t… I thought we were here to run.”

  “We are.” Troy Lee tagged him on the chest. “We can run and talk at the same time.”

  Maybe he could, but within minutes, Rob figured out keeping pace with the other two was nothing like running on the treadmill, and talking simply didn’t exist in the same universe with their type of running. The only thing that salvaged what ego he had left was that Chris could barely talk and keep up with Troy Lee either.

  The first mile was all about survival and finding his gait.

  By the second mile, the ego was gone and anger had taken its place.

  By the third… The third felt like finally unloading on Jake Stringham.

  When he hit the fourth, he could actually breathe. With the fifth, as they rounded the park and the Jeep came into sight, his legs were shaking and a massive stitch gripped his side, but damn it, he’d made it. And making it felt pretty damn good.

  Walking out the shakes and the pain, he tipped his water bottle up. Troy Lee braced his hands against a tree and stretched. The guy wasn’t human.

  Chris straightened from his bent-double-and-trying-to-recover posture. “He’s going to make you talk about it. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah.” Even that prospect didn’t dim the triumph burning his body.

  “He’s right, though.” Chris took a slug of water. “It is the stuff you don’t talk about that eats you up.”

  If that proved true, it wasn’t going to get a chance to eat him up any longer. Troy Lee wouldn’t allow it. After breakfast
and showers and preshift paperwork, they spent a few hours cruising the county’s back roads until Troy Lee emptied a ticket book. As they headed south, Troy Lee tossed a searching glance at him from the driver’s seat. “All right, so what’s going on?”

  Rob didn’t pretend not to know what he meant. He stretched out his legs, thighs and calves still aching, and slumped a little in the seat. “We’re…we’re not where we need to be.”

  “What does that mean, not where you need to be?”

  Man, he’d really missed his calling. The guy should have been a flippin’ therapist. Rob refused to glare at him. He focused on the road in front of them instead.

  “Everything’s just wrong, you know? We don’t talk, we don’t…” He cleared his throat. “We’re roommates and not very good ones at that, I guess.”

  “You weren’t always like that.”

  “No.” Once upon a time, he’d lived to be with her. They’d had plans and dreams, and he’d been completely wrapped up in her, in making her happy.

  “So what went wrong?”

  Rob repressed a snort. “Everything.”

  He waited for Troy Lee to ask what that meant, but only silence greeted him. He glanced sideways to his partner, then back to the road. He pulled in a deep breath and exhaled. “A couple of years ago, we started trying to have a baby. You think it’s going to just happen, right? Except it didn’t. A year later and Amy still wasn’t pregnant. So we did all the tests, and everything with her came back fine.”

  “But not with you.” Troy Lee’s hushed voice held a somber note.

  “Yeah.” A couple of fields, corn baking in the sun, flashed by them. Someone seriously needed to turn on the irrigation. “Not with me.”

  “That could be tough.”

  “Yeah. But then we were like, hey, we’ll adopt. We started that process and about a month later, the GBI cut me loose.” He stretched again. “Birth parents looking for adoptive parents kind of want a prospective father to be employed, so that went out the window for a while.”

  “And you went from there to sleeping on the couch and not kissing your wife goodbye?”

  Rob’s head whipped in Troy Lee’s direction. How did he… Right. The pillow and blanket. “It’s not like it happened overnight. My dad died the month after I got laid off. I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to bother her, so it was easier to sack on the couch most nights. She was still working and putting in a ton of hours since her division took on a lot of investigations from guys like me who got let go. Hell, she even got a couple of my cases. I was hitting the job hunt pretty heavy…and yeah. I’m sleeping on the couch and not kissing my wife goodbye.”

  “You love her?”

  He did snort then. “Of course I love her. She’s my wife.”

  “There’s no ‘of course’ to it. My parents, the last year or so they were married? They were husband and wife, but they didn’t love each other. My dad’s second wife? He loved her until the day he died, and the title of wife didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “I love her.” The words sounded defensive even to him. He did. Maybe not like he had at the beginning, but he loved her. And he was committed. Wasn’t that important?

  “So you love her, but things aren’t good.” Troy Lee turned onto Highway 3, toward town. Maybe Rob would learn this geography after all. “What are you going to do to fix it?”

  “Hell if I know.” He caught Troy Lee’s sideways look and grimaced. Troy Lee chuckled. “What? I don’t have a clue where to start. I barely know how I got here.”

  “Two suggestions.” A grin lurking about his mouth, Troy Lee lifted a pair of fingers. “Get back in her bed and try kissing her once in a while.”

  Rob glared. Troy Lee laughed. “Man, I’m serious. Who knows? The latter might lead to the former.”

  “Anybody ever tell you you’re a major dick?”

  “Right.” This time it was Troy Lee’s turn to snort. He steered into a spot in back of the department. “Spend some time in a patrol car with Calvert, then come tell me who’s a dick.”

  He swung out of the car, and Rob followed him up the steps to the side door, falling into step beside him in the hallway. They passed the administrative offices. Sheriff Reed’s door was closed, but both Calvert’s and Cook’s were open—Calvert frowning at his laptop screen, chin in hand, and Cook’s head bent over a case file. A shudder worked down Rob’s spine. It was weird, working with the man who encapsulated one of Rob’s biggest professional failures. Jenny Cook’s unsolved murder had been one of those files that had gone to another investigative team when his job had been eliminated. The details in her case file haunted him, the same as not being able to bring closure to the case did. That case had taught him how much he still had to learn beyond interviewing prisoners.

  In the multipurpose room, Troy Lee rummaged in the cabinet for ticket books. A couple of deputies sat near the small television, appearing to work on reports, but their rapt attention centered on the blonde haranguing a so-called witness to a high-profile murder case.

  “Turn that shit off.” Irritation lurked in Cook’s voice as he entered. Coffee mug in hand, Cook gestured at the screen. “How do you guys watch that crap?”

  “They’re honing their investigative skills.” Troy Lee leaned on the counter and scrawled his signature across the inventory report. He grinned, a distinct smart-ass tinge to his expression. “Besides, she’s totally hot.”

  Cook’s grunt dripped disparagement. “She totally goes out of her way to make cops look like idiots.”

  “These cops are idiots.” One of the deputies—Steve Wilson, maybe?—pointed the remote at the TV and the volume rose. “The husband did it, I’m telling you. Why they don’t arrest the guy is beyond me.”

  “Maybe because they need something more than circumstantial evidence and speculation?” Cook turned his attention on Rob. “You don’t watch this mess, right?”

  “No.” He shrugged. “Get my news the way my daddy did, reading newspapers, except I read mine on the ’Net.”

  Steve grinned. “Yeah, but the ’Net ain’t that damn hot.”

  Troy Lee slid the inventory sheet into its folder. “Told ya.”

  Cook snorted. “Your wife know you’re scoping out other women?”

  “My wife is secure in my affections.”

  “Cookie, I need you to forward me that purchase order for the body cams. County commission approved them last night.” Calvert strode into the room and made straight for the coffee station. He gestured at Troy Lee with his mug. “And your license-plate scanner.”

  “Awesome.” Troy Lee tagged Rob’s shoulder. “Wait until you see what that baby can do.”

  Calvert paused, mug lifted halfway to his mouth. “Is that Susannah Hartley?”

  Cook groaned. “Not you, too.”

  Calvert squinted at the television. “When did she make News Central? I remember when she was a field reporter for some Podunk station in Nowhere, Virginia. Of course, it’s not like we’ve stayed in touch.”

  Steve gaped. “You know Susannah Hartley?”

  “Dated her for almost a year.” On the screen, the woman in question hounded a panel of legal “experts”. Calvert quirked an eyebrow. “She always like this?”

  “Unfortunately.” Cook clapped a hand on Calvert’s shoulder. “Your taste in women continues to astound.”

  Steve raised his hand. “I have one question. Is she that smokin’ hot in person?”

  “I’d exercise great caution in answering that.” Cook held out his mug for Calvert to fill. “Anything you say may, and probably will, be used against you when it gets back to your wife.”

  “Like Cait’s threatened by other women.” Calvert paused a moment, listening to the television. “That is not the Susannah I knew. She was all about freedom of the press and idealism and…wow.”

  Cook lifted his mug for a sip. “Guess a lot changes in a decade or so.”

  “Guess so. If you gentlemen will excuse me, shift reports
don’t compile themselves.” Calvert pointed at Troy Lee. “That reminds me. I need your recap from last night.”

  Troy Lee nodded. “It’s in the car. I’ll go get it.”

  Rob accompanied him down the hall, still trying to make sense of the maze of hallways and offices that comprised the justice center.

  “Last night?” Rob squinted against the midday sun as they stepped outside.

  “Yeah.” Troy Lee jogged to the car and snagged a report from his clipboard. “Covered half a shift. Slow as hell too.”

  In a few minutes, the report was submitted, and they were back on the road. As far as this day went, slow as hell was an apt description. Rob wasn’t sure that was a bad thing. He could see where he’d like this side of law enforcement, but damned if he wanted a trial by fire on the second day, either.

  The radio blared its distinctive bleep and crackled, dispatch rattling off an address and requesting an available deputy to respond to a possible missing person. Troy Lee slammed the brakes and slid the Charger into the turn lane. He lifted the mike to his mouth. “C-13 to Chandler. Repeat?”

  The dispatcher repeated the address. Troy Lee pulled back into traffic and flipped the lights on, leaving the siren silent.

  “C-13 and C-2-A en route.” He replaced the mike. His customary grin was gone, and tension tightened his mouth. “That’s my in-laws’ place.”

  Within minutes, they pulled into the long driveway before a large brick ranch. A gravel parking area stood at one end, but Troy Lee stopped short of it. He called in their arrival and grabbed his hat. Rob slid from the car, urgency pounding under his skin. He sucked in a couple of deep breaths. Hadn’t his father always warned him about cops who got ahead of themselves?

  Despite his speed in responding, Troy Lee appeared calm as well, although the taut skin around his mouth stayed pale under his tan. Rob followed him up a set of steps to the side door next to the gravel parking area. A bell tinkled over their heads, and they stepped into a small beauty shop attached to the house. Every head in the room swiveled in their direction. Troy Lee removed his hat and propped it against his hip. “What is going on?”