Chapter Two
Darius Williams was late getting on the road because, despite years of working relatively solo, he had begrudgingly taken on not one but two busybodies under his worn, tired and slightly annoyed wings.
Annoyed, not because they were a handful by themselves.
No. Annoyed because Oil was sitting in the back seat and arguing with Water in the passenger’s seat.
The water portion of the problematic duo was sitting shotgun and rolling her eyes.
She had a notebook open on her lap, notes neatly written out in tight rows and a fancy book bag at her feet.
Winnie Collins, the little girl that the McCoy County Sheriff’s Department had watched grow up alongside her young and extremely talkative father, Price, through the years.
Now she was about to graduate college, a budding professional in a pantsuit and a shocking reminder that time did indeed go fast when you weren’t paying attention.
Though Darius couldn’t help but see the preteen in her at the added huff she sent toward the oil portion of the duo in the back seat.
Darius hadn’t watched Theo Weaver grow up, but he had caught the tail end of his teenager years after the sheriff had taken him in. Now he was a year out of college and had been officially adopted by the Weaver brood.
Which meant that Darius had somehow gone from the only detective in the county to the only detective in the county who had been talked into helping the oldest children of the McCoy County Sheriff’s Department’s most beloved.
Some of the newer hires might have balked at the pressure.
Darius, thirty-six, no kids and single, simply wanted turn up the radio to drown out their bickering.
Instead, he kept quiet as Winnie went for another pound of flesh from Theo in the back seat.
“Listen, I’m not saying you’re wrong,” she said. “I’m just saying I’m right. So do you want to keep talking about it or just agree to move on with the facts?”
“The facts?” Theo repeated, voice pitching higher and not at all showing signs of moving on.
Darius heard the resulting rustling of the laptop bag that had been constantly glued to the boy’s side.
“Do you need to see the data again? I have it all right here, in plain text and code. All you have are feelings.”
“Feelings?” Winnie shot back. “You mean my experiences with other human beings? You know, those things you can’t talk to without getting on every single one of their nerves?”
Darius finally made it out onto County Road 22, but he knew the ten-minute drive to the sheriff’s department would be the end of him if he didn’t stop the young’uns from slandering one another.
So he cleared his throat.
Despite their drive to prove the other wrong, both Winnie and Theo quieted in an instant. At times like this Darius didn’t mind the reputation he had gotten as the stonehearted dealer of death, an extremely dramatic depiction of a homicide detective, if you asked him.
“Having both the feelings and facts when you’re trying to answer a question isn’t a bad thing,” he said. “When I solve a case I look for evidence and the story that fills the spaces in between. The head and the heart. If you don’t have one, there’s no point in having the other.”
“But we’re not looking at a homicide case,” Theo pointed out. “We’re trying to figure out if the new pharmaceutical company is actually doing their jobs or not. That puts me neck-deep in data, and data doesn’t need a story.”
“Data plus interviews from the admin, former patients and staff who worked in the research annex where the drug study was taking place creates a story,” Winnie returned just as quickly. “One you are, for whatever reason, ignoring because you think facts and figures are never, ever wrong.”
Darius stifled a sigh. He hadn’t solved the problem but instead thrown more fuel on the fire. He rolled his eyes to County 22 through the windshield.
Then that eye roll went to nothing but focused attention.
A little hatchback was parked on the shoulder of road, emergency lights on, and driver’s-side door wide open. A woman was standing in the middle of the road, coat pulled tight around her.
“Look alive,” he told the kids.
Darius wasn’t in a cruiser, but he reached for the walkie-talkie that was always in his personal vehicle, just in case. He slowed, taking in the details as his passengers did the same but with volume. Their feud turned to joint observation in a snap.
“She doesn’t look hurt,” Theo said from the back seat. “No blood or open wounds. The vehicle seems to be in one piece. The tires aren’t flat. At least not the ones I can see.”
He was right. The hatchback was facing the same direction as traffic but from there didn’t seem to be any obvious reason it was disabled.
“She doesn’t look distressed either,” Winnie added. “Maybe a little excited?”
Darius put down his radio.
He agreed.
The woman didn’t look worried or hurt or even a bit stressed.
She did, however, look familiar.
It was an odd feeling that pressed against Darius as he put on his hazards and pulled over onto the side of the road.
Seven Roads was a small town; McCoy County was bigger, but the faces rarely changed.
He had been a career local, born to a woman born to the town, and had rarely left the county limits since.
Where they were now wasn’t exactly a hot spot of tourism or even a well-traveled road from simple passers-through.
Maybe she was a relative or friend visiting?
Maybe she was new to town?
Maybe she was just lost.
Either way she wasn’t missing an inch of him. Her stare burrowed into him as he pulled to the shoulder.
Then she smiled.
Darius hesitated for the briefest of moments. That smile? It…
The woman started toward them, her pace obviously slower than the easy-to-see excitement spreading through her.
Darius left the engine running and handed the walkie-talkie to Winnie. The girl took it but threw out one last observation before he had the door open.
“She’s wearing a wedding dress!”
The woman’s steps were slow, but her coat fell open at the movement. She didn’t try to cover herself back up as the white fabric became unmistakable against the backdrop of the old county road.
Why would a woman wearing a wedding dress be in the middle of County 22?
“Stay here.”
Winnie and Theo were quiet as Darius left the warmth of vehicle for the crisp cold of the Georgia winter. It would turn his nose red if he stayed out in it for more than a few minutes. The woman had to have been waiting for a bit: her nose was red as she approached him.
That didn’t seem to dull her excitement.
She stopped a few feet short and put her hands on her hips. The smile of excitement switched to an undeniable mischievousness in a flash.
“Well, if it isn’t Darius Williams.” She tilted her head to the side. “I was getting a little worried you’d somehow found a new way back to town since I’ve been gone.”
His brow rose in question.
The woman seemed to be in her own world. Her gaze swept up from his feet to his eyes.
“I can tell you for sure the one thing that changed is how tall you are,” she continued. “You outgrew me by almost a foot. Not sure if I like that, to be honest.”
Darius had been the only detective in McCoy County for years.
He hadn’t seen a lot of things compared to bigger counties or cities—nothing that had left him speechless or staggering, at least—and even outside of work his surprises, scares and startles hadn’t been much at all.
Nothing to write home about. Nothing to flip, rock or shake his world.
He could take a hit.
He could dole one out too.
He could button up his emotions, and he could unleash hell, if need be.
Even walking up to a woman waving him down in a wedding dress wasn’t enough to move the needle on his radar from cautious to confused.
But then the stranger moved her hand up above her head to emphasize how he was taller.
And that’s how he saw the small scar along the side of it.
It instantly reminded him of the scar on his back, jagged and uneven. Darker than his olive skin color and easy to spot if he wasn’t careful with the sleeves of his shirt.
If the location were different, it would almost look like they had tried to match—
Darius’s eyes flashed to the woman’s face.
At first the woman had been nothing but average. Nice-looking in a pleasant, fine way. Green eyes, brunette. Hairstyle that might be expected for a wedding and a smile that was all right. A woman who might not stop traffic but could stop one driver.
But now?
Darius saw something else entirely.
Someone else.
The scar seemed to be the secret password to unlocking an entirely new version of the woman standing in the road, wearing a wedding dress.
“Evie?”
The name came out of his mouth on reflex.
“I guess some things always look the same no matter how long it’s been.
” She nodded and then dropped her hand with a little shake.
Like it was the most normal interaction in the world, she continued with a smile still.
“Though, I guess you might not have figured it out had I been in a crowd. So I’m not sure this counts all that much. ”
Her shoulders tightened, and her smile disappeared, all before Darius could mumble out a word in response. She tucked her hand and its scar into one of her coat pockets.
The scar that matched Darius’s.
The scar that had changed his life.
The scar that would have been much worse had a little girl named Evelyn Myers not protected him with everything she had.
Now, scar out of sight, there might have been a fully grown woman standing across from him, but Darius couldn’t help but feel like he was staring into the determined pine-green eyes of the same little girl next door back then.
“I have never once asked for it but, you, Darius Williams, owe me a favor,” she said, smile absolutely wiped clean. Her next words were spoken with a familiar resolve that gave him no space for a response. Not that he would have known what to say if he’d had the time to do so.
“My wedding is in an hour…and I need you to stop it.”