She cleared her throat, “It’s been four days since Becky Simms disappeared. Even my contact in Charleston that helped with the phone mentioned that there probably wasn’t anything there that would lead to a happy ending at this point.” Her voice was grim.
“I don’t believe that. If I thought we needed to switch the focus to recovering a body, I’d make that call. Just like I don’t believe she’s a runaway, I don’t believe this is a lost cause, not just yet.”
“If somebody told me twenty years ago that Brody Peters would not only be my boss but would be sitting here trying to restore my faith in humanity, I’d have told them they were bonkers and kicked them in the shins.”
“That sounds about like you when you were ten years old,” I said wryly.
“It sounds like me now, too,” she shrugged.
Then she jolted and pulled out her cell phone. “That’s Max, the guy who figured out the phone. I’m gonna go talk to him.”
When she left the office in a flurry of activity and shut the door behind her, the whole place seemed big—which it wasn’t—and empty and too quiet. That’s what she did. She filled up a room.
11
Laura
I chewed the end of the pen cap and listened to Max go over the likelihood of being able to trace the source of the unknown number that Becky Simms called before it was too late to be anything more than a talking point. Max was my techie friend from the Charleston PD, and he’d seen enough bad outcomes to expect them every time.
“Have you noticed in the five years I’ve known you that every time I ask you to do something, you say, ‘they’re probably already dead, it’s not gonna matter’?” I asked.
“It’s gallows humor, kid,” he said. “It helps to brace me for impact. You go around trying to get me to hurry up with accessing the data in her phone, sending me a picture of her at some fuckin’ science fair and now I gotta carry that image around in my head while I do this. Now I gotta think of her as a real person and not a case number. Why’d you go and do that to me?” he said.
“Because she is a real person, dude,” I said. “If you think of it that way, it lights a fire under you to get all the info you can to save her in time.”
“Bright side—maybe somebody just kidnapped her so they can traffic her. Florida’s got a big market for that, but most cities do.”
“Human trafficking is not a bright side, Max. You’re a strange man.”
“But one with skills,” he said. “And the point is, if they wanna traffic her, they’re not gonna kill her. They might drug her up, but she’s gonna be alive when you find her.”
“That was almost optimistic of you.”
“You’ll find her all right. What remains to be seen is if it’s dead or alive,” he said.
“Okay, fine, so hurry up,” I said.
“The number was a burner phone.”
“Can you find out who bought it and where?”
“That’s why they’re burner phones, so they’re harder to trace them and people ditch them pretty quick. It’s not like some guy gave out his Social Security number when he bought it and then registered for an extended warranty. Most people that buy burner phones aren’t figuring on keeping them long. They’re either financially insecure and know they can only afford it for a month or else they’re using it for a shady purpose. Best case scenario, extramarital affairs or blackmail.”
“Again, your bright side is not the same as my bright side.”
“Neither of those things involve dismemberment, so it’s a bright side.”
“You got some low standards, dude,” I said, but he wasn’t wrong. At this point, I wanted the girl safe and sound, but I’d settle for not dead and not critically injured. We were running out of good potential outcomes four days into the search.
“You’ll get back to me?” I said.
“Well, if I don’t decide to chuck it all and move to Maui, yeah.”
I hung up and pushed my notebook and pen away. I stretched my legs out on the desk in front of me and looked around. The place was pretty much deserted. Mrs. Rook was gathering her things.
“I put the calls through to Brody’s cell phone,” she said. “It’s past my time to go home and get dinner started. You should get out of here too. Nobody’s going to find the poor girl tonight.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Rook. What’s for dinner?”
“Whatever I dumped in the slow cooker this morning. Down at the meat department, Harry packages up some real good combinations for the old Crock Pot. Some kind of meat already cut up and vegetables or rice or whatever. Just dump in some water and the seasoning packet and voila! Dinner’s done when you get home. You should try it. I bet your mama would be on board.”
“She would, but with Dad’s dietary restrictions, he probably couldn’t have most of the stuff. Thanks though. I hope your dinner’s good.”
“I think it was something Mexican that I put in there. It was early, I don’t know. The Chinese one was real good.”
“You have a good evening,” I said. She nodded and took off.
As Mrs. Rook walked out, she held the door for Rachel who had her arms full of greasy, delicious smelling bags of food. I sat up straight, mouth-watering.
“How in the psychic hell did you know to bring food? I’m dying of hunger. Tell me there’s a bacon cheeseburger in there with extra cheese and pickle. I will love you forever. I’ll give you a lap dance right here for one of those,” I said, springing up to help her with the bags. Rachel had a shit-eating grin on her face.
“What?” I said.
“I called her,” Brody said from behind me, coming out of his office.
I shrugged, “She still gets the lap dance, because she hauled it over here in my hour of need. But you’re a lifesaver, Chief,” I said.
“Hope you still like extra pickle on your burger,” he said. I barely kept my mouth from falling open. He remembered a little detail like that after all these years? It was also all I could do not to kick Rachel in the shin because she kept waggling her eyebrows at me suggestively and grinning like a moron.
I grabbed my purse from under the desk, “What do I owe you?” I said, straight-faced to my traitorous best friend.
Brody reached past me and handed Rachel money, “I got this,” he said.
“Thanks,” I replied. “Next meal’s on me.”
Rachel winked at me broadly and flounced out. I was going to set her straight as soon as I got a chance, the aggravating little tart. I grimaced after her. First, I had a cheeseburger to attack, though.
“If you wanna come into my office, we can eat there. I even cleared off part of my desk.”
I nodded, not knowing what to say. We were alone in the police station at night. My boss had ordered my favorite food in the world to surprise me after a long day. And despite my irritation that Rachel was teasing me about something going on between us, I felt it. I would never admit it, especially to Brody himself, but I felt the electricity along every inch of my skin and sparking along every nerve ending.
“Vance, you coming?” he asked. I looked up, registered that I was standing beside my desk holding my purse. I hadn’t moved. I had just checked out mentally. I shook myself and decided to cut the crap and act normal. As if that were a thing I knew how to do.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m gonna wash my hands.”
My sudden concern about hand hygiene was actually a desire to look in the mirror. I took my hair down, brushed it, then pulled it back in a ponytail. It wasn’t sexy but at least it was neater. I may have dabbed concealer under tired eyes and put on more mascara. It was only considerate. I was trying to look presentable. There was no reason to look wilted and sweaty when I sat across from him to eat, even though it had been a long, hot day. I would have brushed my hair to go hang out with Rachel, I rationalized. Common courtesy dictated that I be tidy and pleasant. I was raised to do be a gracious guest. Not that I’d ever listened very well. I had manners when I chose to act like it.
In his office, Brody was seated behind the desk. He had laid out the food and drinks like you’d set a table, even doling out ketchup packets and salt. I couldn’t help but smile because it was sweet. He looked almost boyish when he grinned at me, just a flash of a smile, there and gone in an instant. I sat down across from him.
“This looks great. It’s exactly what I needed.”
“Me, too. You’ve been working too hard, and I know you haven’t eaten much today. So dig in.”
He said dig in, but I noticed the whole time he’d been waiting on me, he hadn’t taken so much as a bite. I felt that, took it hard for some reason. That this was a man courteous enough to wait for me before he began eating. Like it was a date or something. Not that I’d ever dated anyone like that.
“You didn’t have to wait on me. I would’ve stolen your fries if you’d kept me waiting,” I said, taking a drink of my root beer. “This is so good.”
“You haven’t even tried it yet.”
“The anticipation of it is even good,” I said picking up the cheeseburger and looking at it, the extra cheese melting over the sides. “Sometimes the anticipation is the best part.”
“If the anticipation is the best part, you’re doing it all wrong,” he said.
I blinked, startled, and met his eyes, his sexy eyes that were heavy-lidded and dark with suggestion. I felt his words between my legs like a lick.
I think he realized what he’d said right after I did, because he looked away before taking a big bite of his chicken sandwich. I took his advice and dug into my burger, which was great, but I couldn’t shake the tingle between my thighs from his innuendo. I shifted in my seat uncomfortably but tried not to squirm too much. He had made me wet just saying that one little thing, that thing he hadn’t meant to say to me.
“How’s your mom?” I asked, trying to veer away from dangerous territory.
“She’s doing okay. She’s remarried now.”
I nodded. I remembered his dad had died when he and Damon were in high school. I’d been made to wear a dress and have my hair braided for the funeral and threatened if I didn’t behave myself.
“Oh, that’s good,” I said. “Anybody I know?”
“Russell Bern, that owns the gas station out by the interstate,” he said.
“I remember him,” I nodded.
“Yeah, they spend a lot of time driving cross country in their RV. So she’s not home a lot. Which is good. I mean, she shouldn’t have to be alone,” he faltered a little.
“I’m sure it wasn’t easy seeing her with someone besides your dad,” I said.
“Not at first, but it’s fine,” he said. “Better than fine. I mean, he fixed up a lot of things around the house, made things easier on her. The thing was, it seemed like she was starting a new life, starting over, which she was.”
“I’m sure it helped her that you accepted him.”
“Like it’s helped your mom to have you home. It has to have been rough on her, seeing your dad so sick and trying to handle it on her own.”
“Yeah, she acts so relieved. She never even complained. I just had to figure it out for myself that it was too much, that it kept getting worse and it was more than she could manage. For one thing, he wouldn’t even let her get a visiting nurse or any help around the house because he was weird about it. Then I come in and I’m like, ‘Dad, cut the crap. She’s one person and you’re being unreasonable. This ain’t 1950 and you don’t make all the rules, my dude’.”
“I can hear you talking to him like that, too.”
“I did. I also told him that if he didn’t ease up on her, I was gonna try a DIY enema on him and see if it helped. The thing is, it’s better for him, too. Because they’re both less stressed out. Damon pitches in, plus I got a lady to come in and clean and a nurse for half days. I know he wanted Mom to do everything for him because it made him feel safe and more normal, but it’s—I mean, it’s not as bad as it could be, but it’s pretty bad. Beyond what one person could handle on their own.”
“Especially more than a husband or wife could do. Because there’s that weight on you of, this was supposed to be for the rest of my life, but I’m losing them. She can’t do everything and try to wrap her mind around that. And I’m not saying your dad’s gonna die or anything—”
“If he doesn’t get a transplant or there isn’t some kind of miraculous drug combo they find to help him, he is going to die. Which is horrible beyond anything I can say. It’s worse than someone telling me they’re gonna cut off my right arm. He and I are so much alike—just loud and smart-mouthed and irreverent. Like, we think everything’s a joke. It’s how we get through life. It’s a wonder my mother didn’t take Damon and leave. He’s got a sense of humor but he knows how to be mature if he has to be. Me and Dad, no way. We’re cut from the same cloth, and losing him is—I want to say it’s a not an option that we lose him, but that’s fiction, and we all know it.”
I dipped fries in my ketchup and ate them and licked the salt off my fingers. I took a drink of root beer and looked up at him.
“I think it would’ve been better if I’d been able to say all that when Missy was sick. I held it in, and I didn’t want to let anyone in the house to help for a long time. I only gave in because she insisted. Maybe it’s a male pride thing, I don’t know. But I think it’s healthier to lay it all out there, be open and say how you feel. It hurts either way, but keeping a lot of it secret is a kind of pressure I put on myself. I think maybe your dad was doing the same thing. I’d—if you think he’d be okay with it, I’d come by and talk to him sometime.”
“I guess ask Damon what he thinks. I don’t want to butt in and break some kind of bro code among men,” I said, glad to have something to be flippant about after I’d opened up like that. It felt a little too personal. I reminded myself that the guy was practically a part of the family and I needed to stop being weird about it. Again, no chance I would stop being weird.
“I will. But Damon basically says it’s all good.”
“Yeah, that’s gotta be a guy thing. Because if you ask me, I’ll tell you. It’s not great. We’re holding it together, but it takes all hands on deck to do it. Between dialysis and the internist and the nephrologist, and keeping up with the medications and what he can eat and what he can’t—and making sure he drinks just the right amount of water but not too little and not too much. Jesus. It’s enough to make my head explode.”
He shook his head. “Yeah. And I bet he isn’t an easy patient. He never gave anybody an inch when Damon and I were growing up. That time he caught us smoking, he made us clean all the slimy crap out of the gutters, and then said that’s what our lungs would look like if we kept that shit up with the smoking and how cool would it look to cough up a bunch of black gunk all over some girl on a date.”
“That is so him,” I laughed. “One time he found out I snuck out to see some guy after curfew. He straight up locked me out, windows and everything. He even locked the damn car so I couldn’t sleep in it. It got down to like forty degrees that night. He tossed me a sleeping bag from an upstairs window and told me to get used to camping if I thought I could sneak out of his house late at night. I froze my ass off.”
“That sounds like something you’d do.”
“It is totally something I’d do. Completely savage, asshole move, but it gets the point across,” I acknowledged and finished my burger.
It was so easy talking to him, knowing each other’s history and being able to color in the details.
“So, what’s the best thing that’s happened in this town since I’ve been gone?” I said.
“Well, we got a new dollar store and they have frozen foods,” he said. “They redid the ceiling in the high school gym, got rid of the asbestos. That’s about it.”
“Okay, worst thing?”
“The Ice Cream Dream shuts down for the season on Halloween now instead of Thanksgiving.”
“Anything important that’s not to do with food?”
“Prob
ably not. I mean besides the fact I made chief,” he said, looking smug.
“So what you’re saying is nothing good happened around here until I came back to town,” I said archly.
“You could say that and you wouldn’t be far off the truth,” he chuckled. “So tell me something you miss about the big city.”
“Let’s see… getting takeout any hour of the night. If I’m up working on a case at three in the morning cause it’s on my mind, I can make a call and have moo shoo pork in fifteen minutes. There was a club I liked that had a terrific DJ and they did karaoke on Sunday nights.”
“You would do karaoke,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I would not. What song was your big number?”
“Oh, I did a variety of music. Probably Fancy by Reba was my signature song, but I do a damn fine Halsey. I can’t sing Billie Eilish for nothing though—she goes so soft and she’s so expressive. I’m better at pissed off or just big and bold. Subtlety and the emo stuff—lost on me. What would you sing if you did karaoke?”
“I wouldn’t.”
Our conversation drifted back and forth through various topics from our families to the annual police versus fire department softball game, to cases that kept us up at night.
“You’ve grown up to be pretty impressive, you know that?” he asked me.
I felt heat rise on my cheeks. “Me, impressive? No. I’m just a hard worker. An obnoxious, off-color hard worker.”
Brody shook his head. “Not just a hard worker. You’re a good person, Vance. You’re determined and fierce and compassionate. If anything, you’re too easy to talk to. I’ve—I don’t talk about Missy or her death. But with you, I think I’ve talked more about it than I have with anyone. Because you’re so open and you make things okay like that, because you treat everything like it’s acceptable. Like you won’t freak out if I mention my dead wife.”
Hot Cop: A Brother's Best Friend Romance Page 9
