Chapter 28
“Imissed you, girl.”
I wasted no time letting Loretta know this the moment I walked through the door. She would get her kiss in just a minute. But first, I would breathe in the fragrance I had dearly missed and admire her starburst eyes.
“Buck,” she said. It was just my name, but the breathy way she said it did something to me. From her, a single syllable held so much.
Since I didn’t have a mirror, I couldn’t speak to how goofy I looked, but I was aware of my smile. It was wide enough to cause an ache in my cheeks. I looked down at her another second before setting down my takeout and pulling her in for a kiss. It didn’t make any sense, how kissing Loretta felt just a little bit sweeter every time, like we got better and better, even though kissing her had always been good.
“What’d you bring?”
She asked it against my lips, not having completely pulled away. By now, she’d have noticed the smell. I’d stopped at a renowned steak house that sat along my route. Last night, I’d slept at my parents’ house in the spirit of benevolent espionage. Tonight, I’d gone to lengths to make sure I was not on call.
“I brought wine and a very fancy dinner, tonight being a night of some occasion.”
Loretta’s eyes went soft. That afternoon, she had closed out her last case for Sniffing Around.
“How was it?” I asked as she ushered me in.
“Bittersweet,” she admitted. “Clarine did the talking. The client was thankful.”
“But?” I sensed there was more.
“But it felt like this was the last time I would ever help a woman get her life back, you know?”
She looked sad and wistful. I circled my arms around her waist.
“The work you’re headed to now is real important, too. You might catch murderers. Swindlers. Thieves. And nothing that happens now can erase all the good you’ve done.”
She smiled a watery smile and a single tear fell down her cheek. It caused a tender ache in my own heart, and I lifted a gentle hand to her face.
“How is it you always know the right thing to say?” she whispered.
I most certainly didn’t, but I liked that she thought I did.
“Technically, this isn’t your last case. You’re still investigating on my behalf.”
“Your case is pro bono,” Loretta scoffed. “Remember? I owe you a favor.”
“You repaid the favor by taking the case. I fully plan to compensate you.”
“It’s a moot point now,” Loretta reasoned. “Come Monday, I’ll be with the sheriff’s office. It would be against the rules to take a fee.”
“Then it looks like I’d better get you your fee by Friday. Now you can tell me the fair price you ought to charge me or I can find out on my own. Don’t underestimate me, Loretta. I have my ways.”
Loretta looked like she might protest, but just rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’m too hungry to argue about this.”
She gave me a little push and began taking containers out of the bag.
“Loretta...,” I crooned with a sly smile. “Did we just have our first fight? Does that mean we can have our first makeup sex?”
When Loretta regarded me over her shoulder this time, she rolled her eyes twice as hard. “So, Buck, how was your day?”
I chuckled and defaulted to helping, opening up one of her cabinets to get some plates.
“I did a lot of driving. Had a long talk with my momma last night at the house, then went down to Knoxville for a tuxedo fitting.”
“How’s she doing with everything?” Loretta asked. “A wedding is a lot to deal with on top of all the election stuff.”
I could see that her concern was genuine. Loretta empathized with her at a human level. My playfulness dampened as I thought of how my mother had been.
“It’s weighing on her. So much so that I couldn’t bring myself to ask my prying questions. I know I’m not bringing much to the case.”
Loretta appeased me with a placating look. “All investigations are like this. They all have stops and starts.”
I reached into her gadget drawer for a corkscrew, then into the cabinet above it to grab stemless glasses. I now knew her kitchen as well as I knew my own. I’d started cooking dinner for her every night that neither of us was working. When our schedules didn’t align, we still did for each other. She left harvested vegetables in my kitchen. I left her breakfast in her fridge. To gain entry, we’d exchanged garage codes.
“You could reconsider not going to Trevor’s bachelor party,” she suggested. “And get something out of your dad once he’s three sheets to the wind.”
I shook my head. “Even with a half a bottle of whiskey in him, he’s more locked down than Fort Knox.”
“Trevor?” she asked hopefully.
“I’m not sure how much alone time we’d get. He’s not as close to me as he is to all of his boys.”
Loretta’s sympathetic smile conveyed an understanding of everything I didn’t say out loud. Not being close to my brother, it hurt.
“Anyway...I’ll keep at it,” I vowed. “My mom’s headed to Nashville this weekend since they’ll be away for the bachelor party. We’ll go for Sunday dinner next week.”
Ever since our date, I’d been trying to sell Loretta on the idea of meeting my family. I wanted to show her how serious I was about her. Yes, things were fucked up, but my family would never not be fucked up. Bringing her home would fill me with no small amount of pride, and my mother no small amount of joy.
Loretta sat down at the table and I began to pour the wine. “What’s she doing in Nashville?”
“Something about her not liking the dress she picked out for the wedding. And she’s meeting a friend to hear some music up there.”
Loretta set down the wine that she seemed inches away from tasting. I meant to propose a toast—something to honor the momentous nature of selling Sniffing Around.
“Tim Riggins is going to Nashville this weekend.”
I blinked, barely knowing which part of what I’d heard to focus on.
“How do you know that?”
She did raise her glass now and took a long sip. “I was in Hinckley yesterday.”
She said it like it wasn’t a big deal, like she and I hadn’t texted four times yesterday without her mentioning it once.
“What were you doing in Hinckley?” It took effort to keep my voice even.
“Checking out Riggins Repair Garage.”
“Checking it out how?”
“Checking it out, as in, showing up with a broken taillight and chatting up Tim Riggins while he replaced it.”
I didn’t like this idea at all. “Who went with you?”
“No one,” she said nonchalantly. “It was just me.”
“And you didn’t think to ask me to come?”
“You were working.”
“And you were a woman alone walking into the lair of a man of unknown character.”
“The lair?” She had the nerve to look amused.
“Loretta, this isn’t funny.” My voice was getting tense.
She regarded me with genuine incredulity, then launched into her defense. “Tim has no criminal record. And I consulted with a character witness who believed that he was safe.”
Now I was on the defensive. “Who else knows about the case?”
“Nobody.” Now, she frowned. “We still have confidentiality. Any PI who can’t do recon without revealing their case isn’t worth their salt.”
I closed my eyes and took a breath. This was going all wrong. I hadn’t meant to insult her. The joke I’d made about our first fight suddenly held a grain of truth.
“Loretta.” I evened my breathing. “I just don’t like thinking about you all alone with the enemy.”
“Buck.” Her echoing of my name was not a good sign. “I was a private investigator doing my job—a job I’ve done on my own for six years.”
Just because it was true didn’t mean I had to like it. “When were you planning on telling me about this?” My attempts not to sound demanding were a colossal failure.
“I was about to tell you. I’m telling you now because you just brought up the case.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized.
Loretta was the last person I wanted to fight with. Everything she’d done, she’d done for my sake.
“What exactly did you find out?” I wanted to move on.
“That he’s driving up on Saturday to hear music, just like your mom.”
“A lot of people go to Nashville to listen to music on the weekends.” Still even as I said it, some part of me wondered. “You can’t be thinking he’s going to see my momma.”
Loretta picked up her utensils and took the first cut of her steak. “I’m tailing him either way.”
“You were going to follow Tim Riggins to Nashville this weekend?” My voice was louder now.
“Buck. I’ve followed marks to Nashville a dozen times. You asked me to work your case, and I’m working it.”
I bit my tongue against other things I wanted to say. Loretta was capable and independent. But I didn’t like the thought of her in danger because of me.
“What else did you find out?” I didn’t want to start another fight.
“He said he didn’t know your mother.”
I raised my eyebrows in astonishment. “Why would he lie about knowing the one person in town who everyone remembers?”
“The second I mentioned her, he seemed tense. It was an odd lie to tell to a stranger who was just passing through.”
“It makes no sense.” It was rare for me to meet a puzzle I couldn’t solve. I hated feeling this out of control.
“His behavior is strange,” she agreed. “It all but confirms he’s got something to hide. But nothing adds up. There are too many assumptions that I just can’t prove. And you’re still the spitting image of Rex.”
“So what do we do now?”
“I still think you ought to do a saliva test through one of those ancestry sites. If a bunch of Rigginses turn up, you’ll have your answer.”
“What do you think is going on?” I still didn’t want to go to the extreme of having a DNA test.
“Do you want the honest truth?” A stab of fear shot through me. Maybe I wasn’t ready.
“I think you need to prepare yourself for anything. The fact that we don’t have a single theory is a bad sign. It means we’re dealing with a five-percent case.”
My look told her I had no idea what that was.
“Ninety-five percent of my investigations expose the obvious. My client already sees what they don’t want to believe, and they hire me to get them proof. But every once in a while, you get a situation where the facts of the case are stranger—where the people are more complex and the motives aren’t straightforward.”
“I’m coming with you,” I decided, heedless of taking more time off of work.
“You’ll be recognized.”
I shook my head. “Not in a dark country music bar on a Saturday night.”
Loretta looked at me for a minute like she might protest, then said, “Okay. Saturday, we go to Music Row.”