Chapter 17
Hog
I startle awake when something hits me in the face and I shoot upright in bed.
It takes me a second to realize Anika is whimpering and rolling her head on the pillow. Reaching over, I flick on the light on the nightstand before turning to her. She has her back to me.
“Hey…wake up, Sweetheart.”
My voice alone doesn’t seem to do the trick, so I put a light hand on her shoulder. The moment I touch her, she swings her arm around and rolls over, leading with her fist.
“Fuck!”
She clocks me right in the eye, it stings. I try to gain control of her flailing limbs without hurting her, and end up straddling her hips, pinning her arms to the mattress. Not exactly the gentle waking I intended, but I’m afraid she may end up hurting herself.
“Get off!”
“Hey, Sweetheart, it’s me. Open your eyes.”
They snap wide open, fear evident in their depth. Until she focuses on my face and I can feel the fight drain from her. Immediately I roll off and take her with me, so she’s on top of me. I can feel her heart hammering.
“Holy shit,” she whispers on an exhale.
“Must’ve been a doozy,” I mumble, running a hand up and down her back.
She props her chin up on my chest and looks at me.
“Sorry if I woke you.”
“No need to apologize.”
I stroke my hand down to the curve of her ass. I love there’s enough substance to Anika for me to grab on to. She’s not tall, but not so petite and dainty I have to worry I’ll hurt her with my large frame and shovel-sized hands. She fits me perfectly.
“Noah? Can I ask you something?”
Can’t get enough of her calling me by my given name. Funny, because for most of my adult life, I preferred Hog. My parents were the only ones who called me Noah.
“You can ask me anything.”
“How come you never married? I mean, I’m happy, obviously, but you’re the complete package. I don’t get why some lucky woman didn’t snatch you up already.”
She’s cute when she’s flustered.
“Are you asking what’s wrong with me?” I tease her.
“No,” she answers emphatically. “I’m asking what was wrong with them?”
“Them?”
“The other women. The ones who didn’t hang on for dear life to keep you.”
This time I laugh out loud, wrapping both arms around her when she tries to get up.
“You’re laughing at me,” she grumbles.
“Sweetheart, I’m laughing because you’re making it sound like I had women lined up. Trust me, you couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“Oh, please. I’m sure there were women.”
I grin and slide one hand under her hair as I lift my head to drop a kiss on her lips.
“I’m forty-nine-years old, Sweetheart. I haven’t been celibate for all forty-nine of those, I’m not a monk. So, yes, there have been women, but I’ve always been clear I wasn’t in the market for anything serious or long term. I definitely never lived with any of them, even temporarily. Not many women would consider a hog farmer long-term material.”
“Well, that’s just stupid,” she mutters indignantly.
“And because you think that, I’m in your bed and my toothbrush is sharing a cup with yours in your bathroom.”
She smirks and her amber eyes sparkle. “I feel special.”
“You are special. That was clear the first time I met you.”
“That was a lot of years ago,” she points out.
“I know, but I wasn’t in a place where I felt I had much to offer. Hear me out,” I quickly add when I see she’s about to disagree. “My father was an abusive tyrant.”
I see the shock in her face, and briefly wonder if this is the wrong time to share my dysfunctional history, but I already got this far and it’s only fair she knows where I came from.
“He was hard on me, was quick with his fists, but he was absolutely brutal with my mother, who tried to protect me as best she could. Living on a farm, we were pretty isolated. I didn’t really have spare time to socialize. I went to school, came home, did homework, and then worked on the farm from the time I was old enough to carry a bucket or pick up a shovel.
“By the time I was fifteen and had a growth spurt that suddenly made me taller than my father, the dynamic changed. He didn’t even try to lay a hand on me anymore, only slinging words to belittle me, but I was used to those, they didn’t touch me.”
Anika slides her body off me but stays tucked to my side, her leg over mine and her hand in the middle of my chest. She’s watching me closely as I tuck a few pillows behind my head and scoot up a bit. I shoot her a little smile, but she can’t seem to bring herself to smile back and presses her face into my shoulder instead.
Better get this over with.
“Mom wouldn’t leave him, no matter how much I begged. She believed in the sanctity of marriage and the vows she gave. So, she stayed, and therefore so did I. I was the only thing standing between her and my father’s fists.
“Mom loved the farm, so after he died, it seemed natural for me to stay and help her run it.”
For a while we stay quiet. I play with a strand of her hair, and she draws patterns on my chest with her fingers, causing goosebumps to break out on my skin. Anika is first to break the silence.
“You know you’re nothing like your father, right?”
“Sweetheart, I know that,” I answer by rote.
But do I?
Hasn’t there always been a small part of me that wondered if perhaps I was genetically predisposed? After all, my dad followed in my grandfather’s footsteps. According to Mom, he’d become the very thing he had loathed in his father.
Maybe staying at the farm had been as much about me as it had about my mother. Fear is a great motivator, and perhaps I was afraid to find out who I might turn into.
Anika shifts as she climbs up and straddles my thighs, leaning forward so her nose almost touches mine.
“You’re a good man, Noah Hodgekins.”
She brushes my lips with hers and scoots down, pressing another kiss at the base of my throat.
“A kind man.”
She slides down and plants a kiss between my pecs.
“A generous man.”
The next one lands just north of my belly button.
“A deserving man.”
I feel her words soak into my skin as her touch brings my senses alive.
My body is very much aware of where this is going, even before she curls her fingers in the waistband of my boxer briefs and eases them down.
“A fine man,” she mumbles, as she wraps her hand around my hard cock at the root.
Then her long hair brushes my thighs as she takes my length into the heat of her mouth, and I forget my own name.
Anika
“Morning, come in.”
Evans steps aside and ushers me into what looks like a modest meeting room where Special Agent Livingston is already seated at a long table. A few file boxes sit open on the table, and a pile of papers as well as an open laptop are spread out in front of him. I’m guessing this is Livingston’s temporary office while he’s in town.
I’ve never been at the FBI office before and was a little surprised when Evans called and asked me to meet him here instead of the police station. That’s where I thought I was going at nine thirty to go over my statement.
The salon is open this morning, but I arranged it so my first appointment isn’t until one. I was hoping that would give me a chance to sign my statement, get a contractor to come in and fix the doorpost, and to meet with the insurance adjuster to hear the verdict on my Miata. But now I’m wondering whether this might not take longer than I anticipate.
Hog—who made it clear this morning he won’t let me out of his sight—is already not happy he was asked to wait outside, and I wouldn’t put it past him to come looking for me if I take too long.
“Ms. Jones, I appreciate you coming here.”
I wasn’t really paying attention yesterday, but I can’t help notice the agent is handsome. His dark hair is streaked through with silver, and those reading glasses he has perched on his nose only add to the overall picture. He looks like someone Monique might be interested in. I’m going to have to ask what she thought of him.
My fantasy to hook my friend up with the handsome FBI agent grinds to a halt when he pushes his glasses up on his nose and I notice the shiny wedding ring.
“Anika, please,” I tell Livingston.
“Yes, of course. So, Anika, in addition to going over your statement, I had a few more questions, if you don’t mind.”
“Anything I can do to help you find Kim.”
He slides one of the file boxes toward him and pulls out a plastic bag holding a red purse. I gasp when I get a good look at it.
“I guess I don’t have to ask if you recognize it.”
I shake my head.
“It looks like Kim’s. Did you find it in her car?”
I catch a look between the two law enforcement agents, before Evans answers my question.
“We recovered it from the lake,” he says in a kind voice. “Her phone was inside.”
Livingston reaches back in the box and pulls out a second plastic bag holding Kim’s phone. I recognize the purple cover.
Whatever faint hope I held on to, perhaps she’d purposely left her car there, evaporates. I don’t see why Kim would toss her own purse and phone in the lake.
Then it occurs to me Evans said they recovered them from the lake, which implies they were looking for something, and I’m guessing it wasn’t necessarily the purse. Suddenly my throat feels thick and tears burn my eyes, but I fight them back.
“Was anything else found?” I manage in a strangled voice.
“Actually, there is one more thing we’d like you to have a look at.”
Livingston produces a third plastic bag, this one with a black glove inside.
“Does this look familiar?”
He shoves the bag across the table and I pull it closer.
“We use gloves like this in the salon for coloring. There’s a box or two in the supply room. It looks the same.”
Livingston nods, then he pulls another glove in a baggie out of the second box.
“What about this one?”
I’m a little confused, because the two look identical.
“They look the same to me,” I tell him.
“Right, me too,” he agrees. Then he lifts the first one. “But here’s what’s curious. This one was found on the floorboard of Kim Cooper’s car.”
He lifts the second glove.
“Guess where this one was found?”
An uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach makes me a little nauseous.
“I have no idea.”
“The lab recovered this one under the pile of roadkill in your Mazda.”
He’s looking at me like that should mean something to me, but it doesn’t.
“Don’t you find it odd we find one in your car and another in the car of a missing woman?”
“No,” I snap, getting to my feet. “Not when we both work in the same salon. If you were to look at everyone else’s car, or purse, or coat pocket, or even trash can at home, you might find some too.”
I jerk my purse over my shoulder.
“If a customer wants to pay, or the phone rings, or I need to look something up on the computer, and I have gloves on, I take them off, stuff them in my pocket or drop them on my desk. Half the time I forget about them and find them later, at home when I’m doing laundry, or in the car when I’m digging for my lip balm. To suggest anything more sinister is offensive.”
With that, I swing around only to find Bill Evans blocking the doorway.
“The man is just doing his job.”
“Accusing me of having anything to do with Kim’s disappearance is his job?”
“I’m not accusing you, Anika,” Livingston says behind me, and I swing around.
“Then what the hell was that just now? And for you, my name is Ms. Jones,” I add, madder than a wet hornet.
My mood doesn’t improve when he bursts out laughing.
“I don’t believe you had anything to do with Kim’s disappearance, Ms. Jones,” he mocks me. “But the fact remains you somehow have landed in the middle of this investigation, and I can’t for the life of me figure out how it all ties together.”
I snort. As if I can. I don’t know what the hell is going on.
“Well, it’s not like I have any answers for you.”
“Maybe not. But you were able to point out how insignificant those gloves are as a lead, which saves us valuable time. This is a big case I’ve been working for a long time, and sometimes frustration has me forget my bedside manner. I’m sorry for being abrupt with you.”
The apology is unexpected and has me sink back down in the chair I vacated.
“I appreciate that, but I do want to point out that what for you is a frustrating case, is in effect my life, which right now is completely out of control. My car is unsalvageable, my business is suffering, I had a knife to my throat less than twenty-four hours ago, and last night I gave someone a black eye in the throes of a terrifying nightmare.”
I press the heels of my hands against my forehead, trying to stave off yet another headache from growing.
“You’re right,” he concedes. “And so noted.”
Evans takes over and spends the next twenty or so minutes taking me over every step of yesterday’s attack one more time.
“You think of anything else, however insignificant, give me a call. And keep your eyes open, stay vigilant,” the detective instructs me as he walks me outside.
There we catch Hog, pacing the parking lot.
“You kept her long enough,” he blusters when we approach. He immediately claims me, tucking me to his side before adding, “Are you done with her now?”
Evans lifts his hands and opts not to respond, which is probably wise. I, on the other hand, have something to say. My trigger’s been tripped.
“Her is right here,” I point out, slipping out from under his arm. “Please don’t talk about me like I’m some piece of furniture. I’m done with overbearing men.”
I’m so done —with everything—I start walking, leaving those guys standing in the parking lot as I march down Rock Point Drive. I have no fucking clue how long of a walk this is going to be, but I need some air and some space.
I don’t get very far when Hog’s shiny new navy-blue Suburban pulls up alongside me.
“Come on, Anika. Get in,” Hog calls out through the open passenger-side window.
Ignoring him, I keep walking. If he thinks ordering me around is gonna get me in his truck, he’s sorely mistaken. Suddenly he accelerates and drives past me, only to pull up along the curb down the street. Then he gets out and waits for me on the sidewalk.
“Anika,” he starts when I’m within earshot, softly adding, “Please.”
“Please what?” I snap, mainly to counter the burn of tears in my eyes.
“Please let me apologize for being an overbearing ass.”
He looks so crestfallen; I feel instantly guilty. It’s not fair to make him pay the price of a collection of offenses from a variety of sources.
Once again, I find myself walking right into his arms, burying my face in his chest as I let go of the frustrated tears I’ve been holding.
“I’ve got you, Sweetheart,” he mumbles in my hair. “Always.”