16. Idaho
SIXTEEN
Idaho
Harry
T he first thing Harry did was quickly walk to Rus’s desk and ask him if he’d go to Harry’s house and let the dogs out after he left work and before he went home.
Rus took one look at his face, his lips thinned, then he asked, “Idaho?”
“Idaho,” Harry answered.
“I’ll let them out and bring them over to ours. That way, you won’t have to worry about them tonight. As you know, Maddie loves them.”
Maddie was Cin’s daughter, and she did love Lucy, Linus and Smokey, and they loved her.
“Thanks, brother,” Harry muttered. Then he tipped his head to Rus’s computer and said, “Hit enter.”
Rus nodded.
Harry went back to his office and got right on his phone.
Jason answered in two rings.
“We got shit,” Jason said as greeting. “But we got so much shit, we’re compiling it at the same time we gotta?—”
“Those bones are Sonny’s and Avery’s.”
“ Fuck ,” Jace bit.
“So give it to me fast. What you got?” Harry demanded.
“We think we’re onto something. Few days, we’ll be home. Before that, just so you know, and Lillian probably didn’t know this at the time, but the Rainier place in LA was broken into when Avery was home, Sonny was at work and Lillian was at school. She was okay, it was just a junkie looking for something to pawn so he could get his fix, and she reported she thought she scared him more than he scared her, but still, it tweaked her. Friends say Sonny wasn’t much of a city boy, and the rat race of LA was beginning to wear on Avery too. They said the break-in was the last straw for Sonny. They had their place on the market within a week of the incident and took off the day it closed.”
That was an explanation, but not a full one.
Before he could dig into that, Jace kept talking.
“Needless to say, property values in LA are a lot higher than in MP. The equity they had in their place, plus the fact it was known both Sonny and Avery didn’t live beyond their means and regularly set money aside in savings, it’s not a stretch they could buy a small two bedroom in Misted Pines.”
That explained more.
“I hear you. But that’s not exactly upping stakes and leaving,” Harry pointed out.
“When I was ten, Dad could have had a for sale sign in the front yard for a year, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed it, but I definitely would have pitched a fit if I knew Dad was going to sell our place. Better to say you’re sorry than get in a discussion with a ten-year-old who doesn’t want to leave her friends.”
That tracked, though now they’d never really know why Sonny and Avery didn’t share with their daughter they were moving.
“Right. So what are you on to?” Harry asked.
“I don’t wanna say unless it doesn’t pan out. But we think we got a lock on the hotel where Sonny and Avery stayed here in Coeur d’Alene.”
So the twins were already in Idaho.
Fantastic.
He had no idea, after all this time, how the twins had managed to possibly track the Rainiers to a hotel, or why that might be important at this juncture. But he’d learned in dealing with the twins to give them their head and let them get on with it. The results rarely disappointed.
“I’m on my way to go tell Lillian the results of the tests,” Harry shared. “You find anything, I want to know so I can decide if she’ll want to know.”
“You got it.” There was a heavy pause before, “Don’t envy you, brother. Take care of you while you take care of her.”
“You’re heard. Thanks, Jace. Later.”
“Later.”
They disconnected and Harry shut down.
He stopped in Polly’s office on his way out.
“I’m gone,” he told her.
He knew word had gotten around when her eyes were somber as she looked at him.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said gently. “So sorry for you and for Sonny and Av’s girl.”
He nodded, said no more, and noted a number of solemn eyes of his deputies and staff as he hoofed it out of the station.
He headed down the block, but he didn’t go to Lillian’s house.
He went to her neighbors.
He hit the doorbell and Ronetta opened it within seconds.
Tears hit her eyes the minute she clapped them on him.
“I need you,” he said the instant he clapped his on her.
Her voice was throaty when she bid, “Come in, she’s not home yet. I need to call George.”
She stepped back. He stepped in. She closed the door and went to her phone. He went to the window to keep a lookout for Lillian’s return.
He heard murmuring behind him.
It stopped and Ronetta was standing beside him.
“George is coming,” she said.
He looked down at her.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
Her gaze rose to his. “Sometimes, the world doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“You’re poorer, never having met them,” she declared.
“I know.”
Her lip trembled.
Harry slid an arm around her shoulders.
She gave him her weight.
“She’s going to come undone,” Ronetta warned.
“Reckon so.”
“George might too, just so you know. Sonny and my husband were two peas in a pod.”
“Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.”
“Knew you were a good egg,” she said under her breath.
That felt good, but Harry didn’t reply.
Five minutes later, Lillian’s Subaru rolled up the street and into her drive.
Harry looked back down at Ronetta. “George know to come next door?”
She nodded.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
She shook her head, but said, “Let’s go.”
He watched her draw in a deep breath, and only when she let it go did he take his arm from her shoulders, and they walked to the door, out it, across her lawn, and Lillian’s.
They were walking up the front steps when Lillian opened her door.
Her gaze pinging between Harry and Ronetta, she otherwise didn’t move out of the doorway.
He stopped in front of her, and before he could say anything, she seemed to be walking, or even falling, back.
Swiftly, Harry reached out to catch her, but instead, she listed forward, put her hand on his chest, and her touch seared right through his uniform, right into his skin, doing this like a brand, one he’d wear with honor for the rest of his life.
Then she collapsed into him.
And the sobs came.