by Jeff Carson
“Hey, there he is.” Hawkwood shelved a book and walked over.
Wolf shook his hand. “Here I am.”
“Good to see you.”
Wolf nodded, unsure how to respond, and settled for “Good to see you, too.”
“Please. Take a seat.”
Wolf did as he was told, taking four o’clock on the dial again to Hawkwood’s twelve.
The skylight beamed a shaft of sunshine onto the carpet in the middle of the circle of chairs. The windows on the far wall were open, letting in the afternoon breeze.
Hawkwood wore a tight flannel, buttoned halfway, revealing a Gibson guitars T-shirt underneath.
“You play?” Wolf asked.
“Huh?”
“Your shirt.”
“Oh. Yeah. I have an ES-335 and a Les Paul. You?”
Wolf shook his head. “I have an old Martin D-18 my dad left when he died. I don’t play it much anymore.”
“Oh, wow.” Hawkwood’s eyes lit up. “You’ll have to show me that guitar sometime.”
They let silence take over for a beat.
“So. I’ve been reading the newspapers,” Hawkwood said. “You’ve been a busy man since the last time I talked to you.”
Wolf nodded.
Hawkwood’s expression became serious. “How do you feel about what happened to you?”
“Which part?”
“I hear there was a shootout. The guy had a gun to that girl’s head. You talked him into letting her go. He was shot down right in front of you. Died right in front of you.”
“Oh, yeah. That.”
Hawkwood chuckled. “Yeah. That.”
Wolf shrugged. “It’s over. She’s okay. Her father’s okay.”
Hawkwood stared at him. “Right.” He shifted position and crossed his legs. “So I’m glad you made it to your session.”
Wolf nodded.
After a moment of silence, Hawkwood said, “Listen, I know you’re not enthused about the visits. You’re following orders.”
“Thanks for taking my call last week.”
Hawkwood nodded. “You’re welcome. Did our conversation help?”
“The bit about the Sriracha?”
“That’s a hot sauce.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Wolf let out a breath. “Yeah. It helped. It helped a lot.”
“Good. Care to tell me about it?”
Wolf said nothing.
Hawkwood pointed to the clock. “Forty-one more minutes. You can spend that time offloading your stuff onto me, or you can spend it thinking. Since I don’t have any truth serum on me, I’ll leave it up to you. Of course, we both know how each of those choices play out, don’t we?”
Hawkwood sat back and preened a nail.
He was good.
“Okay, fine,” Wolf said.
He hesitated for another minute, wondering where to begin, and then he told Hawkwood about Ella and Lauren contacting him and coming to bury Jet on his property. He told about Jack’s visit, and Cassidy’s pregnancy, and the pride of becoming a grandfather, and the shame as he’d remembered the countless times he’d been an imperfect dad.
Hawkwood listened attentively and pressed when Wolf stalled, and Wolf responded to the prodding by letting thoughts tumble out of his mouth. It was an utterly foreign feeling. Selfish. Unnecessary. And yet, liberating.
And then the forty-one minutes were up.
As they stood, Wolf swallowed, feeling guilty about rambling on about his son.
“Thanks again, Doc.”
“You’re welcome.” All the facial hair preening in the world couldn’t hide the solemn expression on Hawkwood’s face as they shook hands.
Wolf nodded and weaved through the chairs. Before he got to the hallway, he stopped and turned around. “When was the last time you saw your daughter?”
Hawkwood was still standing in the circle like a statue. His eyes flicked to Wolf as he smiled without mirth.
“Is there anything I can do to help with that?” Wolf asked.
“It’s that kind of thinking that gets you in trouble, Dave.”
Wolf was less than satisfied with the answer on more than one level. “Right.”
Hawkwood turned his back and made his way to the bookshelves.
“Well, we’ll just save that topic for next time,” Wolf said.
Hawkwood turned around with a furrowed brow.
“Later.” Wolf gave the wall a slap as he walked out of the room.
Chapter 37
The sun sat in a saddle between the mountains, its last rays sparkling off the fresh rain that had fallen on the valley only minutes earlier. A two-tiered rainbow arched across the sky. Behind it, a wall of rain receded up the valley.
Water trickled from a hanging flower pot onto Wolf’s head as he strolled down the sidewalk.
Patterson was on her phone outside, having a heated conversation with somebody. She looked up and saw him, then ended the call in what looked to be mid-sentence.
“Hey, there you are.” She walked down the sidewalk toward him, a strained smile stretching her face. “Good to see you. Happy birthday.”
Wolf embraced her and stepped back. “Thanks.”
“Who was that?”
She frowned. “Who?”
“The phone call.”
“Oh. Yeah. Just … my mom.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Good.” She popped her eyebrows and looked around. “Pretty nice night, huh?”
Wolf smiled. “Yeah. Nice.” It was the type of evening that usually had Patterson snapping photos with her phone. But, clearly, she was preoccupied.
“You ready for some pizza?” she asked, thumbing over her shoulder to the entrance of Black Diamond Pizza.
It was six o’clock on a Saturday night, but nobody streamed in or out of the place.
“We got a table. Rachette and Charlotte should be here pretty soon with TJ.”
“Oh.” He looked past her. “Cool. How about Margaret?”
Patterson’s eyes narrowed. “Margaret? She was … I never invited her to the dinner.” Her face softened. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want her to come, too?”
“It’s okay. I think she’s here anyway. Maybe she’ll join us.”
Patterson whipped her head around. “Where?”
The sidewalk was empty.
“She’s a block up. Sitting in her car. See the Hitchens for Mayor sign on her back window? She’s parked right in front of Rachette’s jeep. Didn’t you say he was on his way? I guess he must have already arrived.”
She turned around, keeping her eyes on the ground.
“And isn’t this Burton’s Chevy truck?” He gestured to the truck parked a few feet away. “Has that dent where he backed into the flower pot last year.”
She looked up with narrowed eyes. “Yeah, sure. I guess he’s here, too. It’s a bar on a Saturday night. Guy’s a fish.”
“And Jack’s truck is parked two vehicles from mine in the parking lot back there. I thought that was a bit odd, since he’s supposedly down in Boulder with Cassidy.”
“Are you done?”
He smiled.
She closed her eyes and exhaled mightily. “Are you going to at least pretend like you’re surprised?”
Wolf watched as Margaret ducked behind a vehicle up the road. The Wilson family minivan was parked one block in front of her campaign-machine. MacLean’s wife’s Audi was in front of that. Yates didn’t yet have privileges to drive his unmarked while off duty, and his beat-up yellow Chevy truck sat across the street.
Margaret appeared on the sidewalk and approached with her arms out. “Hey, guys! What are you doing here? Nice night for—”
“Go inside, Margaret. He knows. Pretend like you don’t know he knows.”
“Okay.” Margaret veered into the restaurant.
“Damn it. It’s like herding monkeys.”
“I am surprised.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Well, no. I figured it out weeks ag
o.”
Her eyes went to the sidewalk. “I wondered if I should keep it a surprise or not. I’ve been deliberating for days.”
“You decided to risk putting me back in the hospital.”
She looked up and her eyes were wide with concern.
“Hey.” He smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you. People were suspiciously lax with the secret. I overheard mention of the party numerous times over the last week when I was in earshot. I even had somebody push the invitation under my office door.”
“They did?”
“But you never told me.”
She lifted her chin. “I wasn’t going to chicken out. I knew you could handle it. I know you’re back.”
He stared at his detective. Her eyes matched every bit of intensity he felt inside.
“I never doubted you,” she said. “You know that, right?”
He nodded. “I know.”
“I knew you could get through whatever it was you were going through. And if you’re still not through it, I just want you to know that I’m here, and everyone’s here to help you. All of these people crammed into this tiny little restaurant—that with hindsight probably should have been Beer Goggles—will help you through it.”
He gripped her face and kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you.”
She wiped an eye and sniffed. “Dang it. We have to go inside soon. They’re probably wondering what’s going on.”
He looked down Main Street again. “Is that shiny black Interceptor with government plates whose I think it is?”
She smiled. “Yep. And she looks really good.”
His chest quickened, and the feeling brought a smile to his lips.
“Then let’s go.” He walked toward the door.
“And I want that invitation. I’ll dust it for prints and kill whoever did that.”
“Watch this. Did I tell you I took an acting class in high school?” He grabbed the handle.
“No. You didn’t.”
“Yeah, got a D-plus. Teacher hated me.”
“Surprise!”
Acknowledgments
Thank you so much for reading Drifted. I hope you enjoyed the story, and if you did, thank you for taking a few moments to leave a review. As an independent author, exposure is everything, and positive reviews help in so many ways to get that exposure. I’d greatly appreciate your support.
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I love interacting with readers so please feel free to email me at [email protected] so I can thank you personally. Otherwise, thanks for your support via other means, such as sharing the books with your friends/family/book clubs, or anyone else you think might be interested in reading the David Wolf series. Thanks again for spending time in Wolf’s world.
Would you like to know about future David Wolf books the moment they are published? You can visit my blog and sign up for the New Release Newsletter at this link – http://www.jeffcarson.co/p/newsletter.html.
As a gift for signing up you’ll receive a complimentary copy of Gut Decision—A David Wolf Short Story, which is a harrowing tale that takes place years ago during David Wolf’s first days in the Sluice County Sheriff’s Department.
David Wolf Series in Order
Gut Decision (A David Wolf Short Story)– Sign up for the new release newsletter at http://www.jeffcarson.co/p/newsletter.html and receive a complimentary copy.
Foreign Deceit (David Wolf Book 1)
The Silversmith (David Wolf Book 2)
Alive and Killing (David Wolf Book 3)
Deadly Conditions (David Wolf Book 4)
Cold Lake (David Wolf Book 5)
Smoked Out (David Wolf Book 6)
To the Bone (David Wolf Book 7)
Dire (David Wolf Book 8)
Signature (David Wolf Book 9)
Dark Mountain (David Wolf Book 10)
Rain (David Wolf Book 11)
Drifted (David Wolf Book 12)
