by Addison Fox
“Welcome to Pesce this evening,” their waiter gushed. “We’re so glad to have you.”
The specials were duly noted and drink orders taken—wine for Darby and another one of the endless club sodas for Finn—before their waiter disappeared once more.
“I’ve heard good things about this place but haven’t been here. Red Ridge has certainly improved its restaurant game in the past few years.”
As conversation topics went, it was an easy one, empty of land mines. But Finn realized it gave him an opening he’d been curious about.
“Red Ridge is small, but between Colton Energy and Harrington Incorporated, there’s enough business to keep things hopping in town. And enough people on their payroll who can afford to eat like this all the time.”
“I suppose.” She nodded and sipped the wine the waiter had set down. “It’s progress and it’s good to see. But it does make me think of what it was like when I was a kid. I couldn’t have imagined a place like this, let alone expected to dine in one.”
“You didn’t go out much?”
“I had a single mother on a limited income. A place like this was so far out of our reach it was laughable.”
Darby’s gaze was distracted by the large mosaic mural of a mermaid hovering over undersea treasure. He waited until she returned her attention from the wall to him. “You don’t say much about her.”
“My mother?” When he only nodded, she continued. “There’s not much to say. My father ran out when I was young and she blamed him and me until the day she died.”
“When was that?”
“About five years ago. She worked two jobs until the very end and was found crumpled up against the Dumpster behind the diner.”
Darby’s words formed an image and Finn realized he remembered that day.
Vividly.
The small, slender woman found victim of a heart attack out behind the diner. She’d taken a large bag of trash outside and hadn’t come back. It had only been when another waitress had gone out for a coffee break that she’d found Darby’s mother.
“I’m sorry.”
Darby’s blue gaze remained direct and devoid of tears. “I am, too. I’m sorry she saw the world through such disillusioned eyes. And I’m sorry that her life ended as miserably as the rest of it. But I’m not sorry she’s gone.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Is it? She was my mother.”
“Is it fair I can barely think of my stepmother without adding a mental string of curses to go with it?” Finn knew their situations weren’t the same but also knew they weren’t entirely different, either. Joanelle’s behavior—and her inability to love a small boy—belonged solely to her.
On some level, he’d always known that. But after seeing how Carson had bonded with his niece, Lora—a child he would adopt through marriage—Finn knew Joanelle’s rejection had been that of a bitter and cold woman.
Carson had accepted Lora as his own and would never treat her as less than because she wasn’t biologically his. It was a gift they’d both share—and a love that would grow through the years.
“She’s earned every one of those curses, Finn. She emotionally mistreated a little boy. That’s terrible.”
Darby’s ready defense touched him, but it also reinforced the point he was making to her. “And what your mother did was any better?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I suppose not.”
He reached out and ran the tip of his finger over her cheek, catching a lone tear that had finally surfaced. “I’m sorry to make you cry.”
“It’s okay. I’ve had a long time to come to grips with how I feel. Most of the time I’m okay with it. Every now and again, I’m not.”
“I feel the same. Most days I don’t give Joanelle Colton a second thought. For some reason, she’s been front and center in my thoughts lately.”
The waiter came back and took their orders, the small reprieve enough to give Finn an opportunity to collect his thoughts. Once they’d ordered, he picked up where they’d left off. “I saw my younger sister Valeria today.”
He filled Darby in on the impromptu visit with Valeria and Vincent and their naive dismissal of the danger in town from the Groom Killer.
Darby’s already pale skin grew even more so in the muted lighting of the restaurant. “You don’t think someone would hurt them? They’re just children.”
“I don’t know what to think. And since we can’t seem to get a handle on motive or anyone who might be a suspect aside from my cousin Demi, I told them to be careful.”
“Do you think they’ll listen?”
Finn thought about the subtle defiance in both of them to be together, but was also reminded of how innately kind they were to each other. There was something genuine and loving between them. He had to hope that underlying concern would override any youthful impulses to tempt fate.
“I think so. I’ll keep an eye on them. The staff will watch out for them, too.”
“Youth.” She smiled before shrugging her shoulders. “I know it’s been a decade since I was that age, but it feels like a lifetime ago.”
“Would you go back if you could?”
“Never.” A warm smile filled her face and, once again, he was caught. Captured by whatever it was that lit her up from the inside. “You?”
“Go back to being that young and dumb? No way.”
She reached over and took his hand, lifting her glass with the other. “To adulting. Some days it stinks but at other times it’s not so bad.”
“Like now?” he asked, daring to hope she agreed.
“Like right now.”
He clinked his club soda against her wineglass, the light tinkle rising between them. “To adulting.”
* * *
The muted lights of the restaurant didn’t hide a clear picture of the diners inside. Table after table filled with people having a good time and enjoying their expensive meals.
Expensive and wasteful.
Who spent that kind of money on something you could pull out of the river yourself? It was indulgent. And greedy.
And hurtful.
Once again, the chief was parading around town with that woman. She pranced beside him, a colorful whore in the dress that wrapped tight around her body and the hair teased out to draw a man’s eye.
She’d believed the chief above such trickery.
Yet here he was, kissing the woman’s hand and holding the chair for her and staring at her as if she’d walked out of a movie set. Actresses were whores, too, which only reinforced the point.
It was illusion.
Yet the chief’s adoration looked very, very real.
Oh, how it burned.
She’d watched and waited...and for what? To be ignored and discarded in favor of some scantily dressed woman who lured him to her bed? Did the chief not understand? Had he not received her gifts?
An image of the fragile glass still nestled in its box in her closet drifted through her thoughts. She’d meant to save it for Valentine’s Day. That was less than a week away. Could she wait? Or did she need to send it sooner?
Thoughts drifting as she sat in her car and stared into the restaurant, she imagined that glass heart beating in its box. Beating with love for her.
Beating the way her own heart pulsed and throbbed for Chief Colton.
If he only knew.
They had a connection. And once he understood that, the rest would fade away. The whore in the colorful dress meant nothing. Would mean nothing.
She’d make sure of it.
* * *
Darby snuggled deeper into her coat as she and Finn walked to the SUV. The air was cold and clear, the stars shining above them like glittering diamonds. It was cliché, but as she watched them shine from afar, she knew it was the only description that fit.
Red Ridge had grown since she was a child. It had prosperous businesses and a population of busy, industrious people. But it was still small enough to feel isolated and free, somehow. The Black Hills National Forest provided the perfect backdrop—wilderness for miles on end—and the Spearfish River added another natural border.
She’d not traveled much in her life, but she’d been to Seattle and Portland and had liked both. Had even enjoyed her time away. But neither had felt like home. The steady stream of strangers who had passed her on the street had seemed foreign and, while not threatening, just separate from her. The thought of trying to make a life in that throng of humanity hadn’t appealed and she’d welcomed the flights home with open arms.
Maybe she wasn’t so different from her mother, but she liked to think she’d channeled her needs and wants a bit differently. She stayed in Red Ridge because she chose to, not because she lacked options.
Which might have been laughable when she’d stared down a mountain of debt and an uncertain future. Yet even then, she’d been focused on doing right. By Bo. By Penny. And by the business that had meant so much to her ex-husband.
Never once had she felt trapped.
Without warning, the thought shifted and strangled, her adrenaline spiking as her gaze shifted toward the dark night that surrounded the parking lot. She reached for Finn’s hand, so close to her own, and came to a tottering halt on her heels.
“What is it?”
“Someone’s out there.”
She kept her voice low, turning into his body to keep up the charade of closeness and to shroud her voice in the clear night air. Rising on her tiptoes, she pressed her lips to his ear. “Out there. I can feel it. Someone’s watching us.”
Finn’s demeanor shifted immediately, his arm tightening around her waist as he held her in place. “Do you see anyone?”
“No. I feel them, but that’s the best I can tell you.”
He wrapped himself around her, shielding the majority of her body with his own. “I want you to get in the car and call for backup.”
“Where are you going?”
“To check it out.”
“What?” The screech edged out the whisper in her voice as she tried to slow his steady march toward the SUV. “You can’t go out there by yourself.”
“I have a gun.”
“Maybe they do, too.”
“It might be nothing.”
“And it might be something.” She tried standing still, pressing the back of her forearm against his flat, muscled stomach, but he continued to move them forward.
“In the car, Darby. Now.”
Arguing with him was impossible and she almost wished she hadn’t said anything when the throb of an engine roared to life.
“In the car. Now!” Finn had the door open and was shoving her inside, before slamming the door after her. She saw the glint of his gun reflected in the overhead lights of the parking lot and watched him race off.
What had she done?
Scrambling for her cell phone, she called in the situation, speaking as calmly as possible with her heart throbbing in her throat. She gave their location and the details as best as she could, stressing over and over that the chief needed backup.
“Where are you, ma’am?” The disembodied voice echoed through the phone, the urgency there suddenly penetrating her fear for Finn.
“I’m in the chief’s car.”
“Is a dangerous threat nearby?”
Threat?
Darby had ignored the parking lot, so focused on Finn’s retreating back and on calling for help. Now she looked around. The parking lot was well lit, but the dark night beyond seemed to close in around that light, leaving lurking shadows at the edges.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“Is there an immediate danger to you?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, her voice sounding foreign to her own ears.
“I’ve dispatched backup but I need you to stay on the line with me.”
“Okay.”
“My name is Frank. Frank Lanelli. I need you to stay where you are and lock your doors.”
Darby fumbled the lock switch, the snick a small comfort in the creeping quiet.
“Did you do that?”
Frank’s voice was kind yet firm and she found herself nodding, even if he couldn’t see her. “Yes.”
“Our chief’s a fine man. I’ve got backup on the way. You can probably hear the sirens already.”
At Frank’s words, the distinct notes that screamed emergency came in muted through the SUV’s windows. “Yes, I hear them.”
“Now, who am I talking to?”
“Darby, sir. Darby Gage.”
“Why, Ms. Gage, I had a feeling it was you.” Frank’s kind voice calmed her and she listened to him rattle on, securing information as he went.
“I heard you and the chief were headed out for the evening. Small towns and all. Took you to Pesce, did he?”
“Yes.”
“Our chief is a sucker for a good meal and a pretty lady.”
Darby smiled in spite of herself and the situation. “Frank, are you flirting with me?”
“Only to stay young. I’m a happily married man with five children of my own.”
“Your wife is a lucky woman.”
“She’s the love of my life, Ms. Darby. Don’t think there’s a day that goes by that I don’t know I’m the lucky one.”
As she sat there huddled in the SUV, the flash of red and blue growing clearer through the front window, Darby figured Mrs. Lanelli was one lucky woman. And she was deeply grateful to her for sharing her husband for the evening to calm a frightened woman shivering inside an empty SUV.
One who waited for confirmation that the man who protected her would come back safe.
Chapter 12
Finn raced over the edge of the parking lot, heading as far into the woods as he dared before retreating and retracing his steps. He missed Lotte’s keen nose and ears desperately, but did his best to keep watch for any telltale signs.
Footprints. Creaking branches as someone stepped. Any hint at all of movement.
Over and over again, he entered the shadows, then retreated, seeking some sense of who was there. Or who had been there. When nothing materialized, he backtracked to the parking lot, the flash of red and blue lights warring with the fluorescent overheads.
He’d hated leaving Darby but couldn’t risk losing his potential quarry by waiting in the SUV. The order to lock the doors and call for backup had seemed like a good idea at the time, but as he thought about it now, he felt as if he’d let her down somehow, leaving her to fend for herself.
Without warning, Mary’s voice came back to him, one of their last great fights drifting through his mind.
You leave me day in and day out, that damned job of yours more important than our marriage. More important than me!
You knew what I did when we got married. I have a responsibility. A duty.
You have a duty to me. To us.
Anger had filled her words, yet unlike their prior fights, he’d heard something hollow and empty echo beneath.
I know what my duties are. Devotion to my job doesn’t make me a bad husband.
No. She’d shaken her head. But my resentment of it all makes me a bad wife. Which is why I want out.
Out?
He’d wanted to rant and rail at her in that moment. On some level he’d wanted to beg her to stay. To fight for their marriage. To fight for him.
That’s what a good husband would have done.
But he’d only nodded and said okay. Agreed that he wanted out, too.
The life they’d built had dissolved quickly, their divorce making it well and truly final six months later. He should have been upset about that. Even now, five years
later, he wondered at the lack of anger that had accompanied the dissolution of his marriage. Had he given up?
Or had he simply accepted that he wasn’t fit for marriage? For the requirements of being devoted and committed to another person.
Two cruisers were parked next to his vehicle and he could see Darby in the front seat of the SUV, her door slightly open as she spoke with Elle Gage. Elle’s bulldog partner, Merlin, stood by her side, sniffing around the SUV as his rookie officer kept Darby company. Merlin always looked a bit funny next to the larger dogs of the K-9 squad, but his smushed-up face hid a warrior. Finn had seen the dog sniff out any number of objects, beating the rest of the K-9 squad in nearly any trial involving retrieval by scent alone. His persistence had even turned up a small fragment of cloth six months ago that had led them to a robbery suspect.
He loped over to the vehicles, his cousin Brayden already out of his cruiser and scanning the parking lot.
Brayden started in the moment Finn was within earshot. “You always take off unaccompanied by backup, Chief?”
“I had a chance and I took it.”
“You went in blind and you know it. Why didn’t you wait?”
“There wasn’t any time to wait. Darby sensed she was being watched.”
Brayden shook his head but refrained from saying anything else. Finn knew he was right. He knew even better that haring off alone was the fast track to unexpected injury or even death. Every cop entered their job knowing they put their life on the line, but following protocol upped the odds of personal safety.
He’d disregarded all of it to chase after a faceless nemesis Darby hadn’t even seen.
But, damn it, she’d felt something. He didn’t take that sort of certainty—or sheer gut instinct—lightly.
Brayden handed him one of the heavy lined jackets they all kept in their SUVs and Finn pulled it on over his coat. The chase had heated him up but the frosty air was quickly clawing at the line of sweat at the back of his neck. Darby was already bundled in one from Elle’s cruiser, her gaze on him even as she remained by his vehicle.
“Not a stellar way to end a hot date,” Brayden teased him. “But sure is a way to get some attention.”
