Gone From Me: Hearts of the South, Book 10

by Linda Winfree

  Her brown eyes softened. “I know. I needed this too.”

  *

  The hiking trails curved and meandered around the perimeter of the acreage set apart for the wildlife preserve. Deep in the pine woods, the towering trees and foliage lining the dirt trails cut the heat and humidity. Rob sucked in a lungful of pine-scented air and released it, letting go some of the tension that had been building over the day. They kept up a brisk pace, and Amy matched his stride, her dark glossy ponytail bouncing against the yellow athletic tank she wore with gray running shorts.

  She lifted her water bottle for a swallow, then fiddled with the cap when she was done. With a finger, she swept her bangs to the side. “So you’re going to teach me that stupid budget spreadsheet, right?”

  “Of course.” He darted a glance at her. He’d never understood how someone who could lay out a long-term plan of attack for any major task or event could be so intimidated by numbers. Her neglected checkbook had been a mess when they’d gotten married, and he’d finally set them up a cash envelope system simply to keep from having to straighten it out again. They shared a joint account, but he’d always kept up with the checkbook and reconciliation.

  “I don’t know why it bothers me so much. The envelopes don’t bother me at all.” A pouty note entered her voice. “Savannah doesn’t have this problem.”

  “You’re two different people. Math is one of her things. Organization is one of yours.”

  “Thanks a lot.” She shot a glare at him from beneath her lashes.

  “Wait. What did I say?” He caught her arm in a gentle hold and drew them to a stop. She didn’t look up at him, her gaze fixed squarely on his throat. He tipped her chin up so he could see her mutinous eyes, tinged with hurt. “Amy?”

  “‘Don’t worry about it, sweetie. Maybe accounting math isn’t your thing.’” She made air quotes around the bitter words.

  “I have never said that to you.” He frowned. “And I have never called you ‘sweetie’.”

  “Not you. My daddy. I’d sit down with him every Saturday with that stupid checkbook, and he’d straighten it out. And every week, I’d screw it up all over again.” Frustrated tears glimmered along her lashes. “And I know it frustrated you. You should have seen your face the first time you looked at it. Then you fixed it, just like Daddy, with the whole envelope thing and…”

  She trailed off, looking a little horrified. “Oh my God, I married my father.”

  “What? What a minute, honey.” He lifted both hands. “I am not your father. Trust me.”

  “I know that.” She passed a hand over her eyes and drew herself up straighter. “But sometimes I let you fix things without having you show me how to fix them myself, just like Mom and I let Daddy do.”

  “Babe.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her to him. “I can teach you how to balance and maintain a checkbook if that’s what you want. I promise. I’d have already done it if I’d known it bothered you. Why didn’t you say something?”

  She wrapped her arms about his waist and rested her head on his chest. “I didn’t want you to think I was stupid.”

  “What?” He caught her face in both hands and made her look at him. A shuddery sigh moved through her. What the hell? The insecurity bothered him when he wanted her secure in him, in them, at all times. “You are one of the smartest people I know. I would never think that about you. Honey, we all have weaknesses.”

  “Really? Name one of yours.”

  “I can’t understand anything Troy Lee says about that damn radar gun and how it works, and when he talks about triangulating in accident reconstruction, it’s like a fucking foreign language.”

  She shook her head. “Babe, radar guns work on radio wave frequencies. I learned that in the eighth grade.”

  Laughter bubbled up from his chest. She giggled with him and rested her face against his chest. He rocked her side to side and pressed his mouth to her hair. “God, I love you, Amy, and yes, I will teach you how to use the spreadsheet and the checkbook, and damn it all, don’t you ever be afraid to tell me you need something from me again.”

  She lifted her face and tiptoed up to kiss him, her hands framing his jaw. “That has to be mutual, Robert.”

  “I know.”

  Her hold on him tightened. “I mean it. If I’m overplanning or steamrolling or being blind to you, you have to tell me. Promise.”

  “I promise.” He lowered his head enough to bring their lips together. She wound her arms around his neck and bit his lower lip, a move she knew was guaranteed to rev his motor. Growling, he cupped her cute little butt and pulled her into him. “Not out here. I can’t afford to get fired for lewd and lascivious behavior.”

  “Fine.” She kissed him one last time and nipped at his lip as she pulled away. “As long as you show me the cheetahs.”

  “Sure thing, honey.” He swatted her bottom as they picked up their pace again. “As long as you never, ever, compare me to your dad again.”

  After hiking the remainder of the trail, they made their way to the animal park and its concession stand. Amy ordered popcorn while he refilled their bottles at the water fountain. She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Do you want anything? You didn’t even finish your sandwich at lunch.”

  “I’m good.” Even though he felt better every day, his appetite was still hit-and-miss, and the mingled scents of popcorn, pizza, nachos and hot dogs threatened to turn his stomach. His gratefulness knew no bounds once she joined him, red-and-white popcorn bag in hand, and they meandered onto the pathway into the animal park. Trees and vegetation lined the wooden path, and shade and sunlight dappled the walkway. Around them, other couples and young families oohed and aahed over bears and elephants and small primates.

  When the path opened onto a multi-section observatory overlooking an alligator habitat, Amy propped her hips on the railing and popped a piece of popcorn in her mouth. Sunlight glinted off her dark hair. Next to her Rob rested on his forearms and estimated the length on the gator floating along on an unseen current. At least eight feet.

  “You said we had a decision to make about money.” She nibbled at another puffed kernel, her expression tentative. “Is it a lot?”

  He didn’t have to ask what money she was talking about. His throat tightened a moment, and he swallowed against a sudden lump. “About two hundred fifty thousand from his retirement annuities and the life insurance. The house in Valdosta appraises out at over two hundred thousand, but the market is soft so we may not get that much if we sell it. With that, his other savings, and not counting the beach condo, which I think we should keep…about a half a million.”

  She choked, and he handed her his open water bottle. “That’s a lot.”

  “Yeah, and I haven’t been where I could really think about what to do with it.” She passed him the bottle, and he took a swig, blinking against a sudden burning at his eyes. “I need you, Amy.”

  Her face flushed with emotion at the raw statement. She laid her hand over his and squeezed. He rotated his hand to lace their fingers together. She was quiet a moment, her expression pensive. “We could pay off our mortgage.”

  “Yes, we could.”

  “And my car.”

  He sighed. “Honey, your car was paid off a year ago. The title’s in our safe deposit box.”

  She looked up at him, lips parted and surprise plain in her eyes, and he laughed. “See? You need to be in on this stuff. And with your eye for planning, you’d be good with the long-range investment strategy, which kind of blows my mind sometimes.”

  “What happened to buying a boat once my car was paid for?”

  The question punched him in the chest. Buy a boat? Seriously? He tried to catch his breath, unprepared for the wave of pain and grief. Fuck, he missed being numb sometimes.

  “I’m sorry.” She gripped his hand and pulled herself closer to him. “I didn’t think about what I was saying—”

  “It’s okay.” He blinked hard and sucked in a harsh inhale.
He was not going to give in to the urge to cry. “It’s fine.”

  Crying wasn’t a problem for Amy. Tears glimmered along her lashes, big brown eyes damp and shining. “I really am sorry. This is a lot to wrap my head around.”

  “Babe, I’m fine.” He leaned down to brush his mouth over hers in a quick kiss. “But this is why you have to be involved. What if something happened to me? I want you to understand how to take care of yourself financially, to know about my life insurance and where everything you need is—”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you.” The panicked devastation he’d seen that evening in the kitchen when he’d admitted to thinking about suicide hovered in her voice. He wanted nothing more than to wipe her fear away with an easy dismissal, but she was too strong and too cherished for him to let her stay mired in fear and stonewalling. He brought their clasped hands up between them, pressed a kiss on her knuckles, and rested her hand against his chest.

  “I never thought anything would happen to him,” he whispered, his voice raw and hurting his throat. “And I’m not sitting in an office reading interviews any longer. Things happen, Amy, and I need to know you can take care of yourself completely.”

  “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “I know.” With his free hand, he brushed a stray tendril of glossy hair behind her ear. “But it’s one those necessities, kind of like sitting in talk therapy when you’d rather be anywhere else.”

  “I guess.”

  How could a pout be adorable and sexy at the same time? He smiled and touched a finger to the corner of her mouth, smoothing out the tiny grimace twisting her lips. “There are positives too.”

  “Name one.” Her tone implied he had to come up with something big.

  “How about one weekend soon we go down to the beach and really look at what we need to do to update the condo?”

  “Maybe lie on the beach, have dinner out…” A grudging smile curved her mouth, and she tickled under his ribs, hitting the sensitive spot that made him want to writhe away and jump her at the same time. “Break in that lounge chair you bought me.”

  “Exactly.” He slung an arm about her shoulders and moved them back onto the pathway. She lifted a piece of popcorn to his mouth, and he nipped at her fingers in accepting it. “Sounds like a fair trade, right?”

  The animal-park walkway meandered in a wide circle so they ended up back at the concession area. Amy dropped her empty popcorn bag in a trash receptacle and linked her hand with his. She hugged his arm to her. “I’m glad we did this, even if the cheetahs were lazy and asleep.”

  “Maybe they had the right idea.” He flexed his fingers about hers. “A Sunday afternoon nap doesn’t sound so bad right about now.”

  She gave a distinctly un-pageant-princess snort. “Like we’re going to take a nap if we get into bed together.”

  “New memories first. A nap afterwards.” His gaze fell on a familiar figure, seated at one of the canopied tables scattered about the area. “There’s Troy Lee. I’m going to speak to him before we go.”

  “Are you two joined at the hip now or what?”

  He grinned. “You’re just jealous because you can’t bond with your partner.”

  “My partner is a total bitch. I don’t know how anybody bonds with her.”

  “Hey.” Rob paused by Troy Lee’s table. His grin widened. A barely touched pizza sat on the table, and Troy Lee juggled two sleeping babies—his infant son completely conked out against Troy Lee’s chest in one of those wearable carriers, his toddler daughter curled into the crook of his arm and drowsing against his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “Hey. The plan was we’d wear her out and she’d go down for a long nap when we got home. Then my sister-in-law called on the war path, and…” Troy Lee gestured toward the petite blonde a few feet away, cell phone pressed to her ear, then at the sleeping children. “You see what happened.”

  The little girl stirred, opened drowsy eyes and patted his cheek with one hand. Troy Lee bussed the tiny fingers, and she giggled before closing her eyes once more. Amy canted forward to get a better look at the baby in the carrier. “They are adorable.”

  “When they’re asleep, yeah.” Indulgent affection tinged Troy Lee’s smile. “Come hang out at our house around two in the morning, when he’s hungry and mad because he’s awake, and she’s in a terrible-twos snit because she’s not the only baby anymore.”

  “Sorry about that.” The blonde approached, the full skirt of her white dress swirling above a pair of turquoise boots. “My sister is insane.”

  “I am so not touching that statement.” Troy Lee shifted the little girl higher on his arm.

  “Hope has lost her mind.” The blonde settled on the bench with a huff. “She is actually thinking of letting Britt go on that woman’s show.”

  One of Troy Lee’s eyebrows winged up in a scathing expression, but he swallowed whatever he’d been about to say. “Angel baby, this is Rob and Amy Bennett. This is my wife, Angel.”

  “Oh, your partner. Nice to meet you.” A wide smile lit up her face for a moment, then she glanced at Troy Lee and sighed. “And now apparently that Hartley woman has been on her show accusing Daryl of having something to do with Zeke’s disappearance.”

  “His alibi checks out.” The words spilled out before Rob thought. Angel and Troy Lee looked up at him, and he shrugged. “It does. His and Hope’s both. Britt’s not seriously considering making an appearance on that show, right?”

  “Who knows? I hope not.” Angel lifted a hand, her expression miserable. “Hope doesn’t like Britt and Daryl being impugned. She wants them to defend themselves.”

  “I get that, but that’s not the right platform. Trust me. It chews people up, spits them out and moves on to the next target.”

  “Britt took her social-media pages down.” Angel slung a monogrammed bag over one shoulder and lifted the sleeping toddler from Troy Lee’s arms. “People who saw the show were piling on, leaving really ugly stuff. The whole thing is just a mess.”

  “And it’s not helping find Zeke at all.” Troy Lee rose. He cradled the baby’s head with one hand. Rob caught a glimpse of his own resignation about Zeke’s fate in his partner’s eyes. Troy Lee tilted his chin in a farewell gesture. “See you bright and early.”

  “Sure thing.”

  As the other couple made their way toward the exit, Amy slipped her hand into Rob’s. “This case is chewing up a lot of lives, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” He hugged her to him. “And it’ll probably get worse before it gets better.”

  Chapter Ten

  “We’ve checked all the way to the river, as close as we can get to it, on this side, and all the way to 112 on the other.” Dale Jenkins waved his hand over the map spread out on the hood of Tick Calvert’s unmarked unit. Face haggard, Jenkins looked as though he hadn’t seen sleep in days. Rob figured he hadn’t since the day Zeke disappeared. “Ain’t found nothing. We’re going to move south next and check from the city limits down to Big Slough.”

  Tick nodded. Hands at his hips, he gazed out over the fields, where a hot breeze ruffled golden corn silk. “I’ll send Chris out with the dog to help with that.”

  “Appreciate it.” The two men shook hands, and Jenkins made his way back to the small group of searchers standing by his truck. Tick scanned the group, a small frown tugging at his brows.

  “Did you interview Blake about this yet?”

  “No.” On the way over, Rob had filled Calvert in on the investigation so far—no NCIC hits, official fliers out, a request in for phone records. He had nothing new to take away from this checkin with the Jenkins family, either, except where Zeke wasn’t.

  “They were pretty close. Can’t hurt to talk to him before Troy Lee swings by to pick you up.” Calvert lifted a hand and gestured at his nephew, who stood with a handful of other teenagers near Jenkins’s truck. “Blake. Come here a second.”

  A glower passed over Blake’s features, but he separated from the
others and approached. He stopped a couple of feet away, thumbs tucked in his pockets. “Yes, sir?”

  Calvert slanted a look in Rob’s direction. “We’d like to ask you a couple of questions about Zeke.”

  Blake’s lean frame tensed, and Rob sensed that he was suppressing an irritated eye roll. Rob fought the urge to cross his arms over his chest. Open and inviting, authoritative, not closed. “You and Zeke texted a couple of times the last morning he was seen.”

  Blake shrugged. “We texted a lot. It wasn’t anything—just whether or not I wanted to go fishing with him this weekend. I had other plans.”

  Rob nodded. “Any ideas about what happened?”

  A spasm passed over Blake’s face, and beside Rob, Calvert tensed. “What is it, Blake?”

  “I think it’s too late to help Zeke.” Blake passed a hand over his eyes. “I know how he felt about his mama and daddy and Emma. If he could come home, he would have already. I think by the time Mr. Dale reported him missing, it was already too late.”

  “What do you know, Blake?”

  “I don’t know anything about him being gone.”

  “But you know something about him, about his life, that we don’t.” Rob lowered his voice and leaned forward. “Was he into drugs? Some other criminal activity?”

  “I can’t…” Blake closed his eyes, his mouth twisting. “I promised.”

  “Blake.” Calvert’s low voice held a gentle command.

  “No.” Opening his eyes, Blake shook his head. Defiance glittered in his dark brown gaze. “You and Daddy can’t preach to me about what it means to be a Calvert, preach to me that a man is only as good as his word, then expect me to break mine.”

  “Son, sometimes you have to weigh that word against how much it might help someone if you break it.”

  “I told you, I don’t know anything about Zeke being gone, where he is or what happened.” Blake pointed toward his chest, tapping his heart. “And what I know about him—if I tell that, it’ll hurt a lot of people who are here.”