Chapter Three
She’d made a huge mistake.
Winnie had fantasized about this moment a thousand times.
What she’d say, what she’d wear, right down to the details of her posture.
She’d have her nails done and more than four hours of sleep under her belt and the last few pounds of binging divorce weight gone.
Adrial would be on his knees, apologizing for never showing up for their rehearsal dinner and subsequent vows.
He’d apologize for embarrassing her in front of the entire town, leaving the BHPD high and dry, and tell her he’d regretted his decision to disappear every day since.
Yeah. None of that was happening.
This was so much worse.
Her throat swallowed against the dryness cracking through her.
Winnie clutched the package of candy the other investigator had handed her, wanting to pop it open and shove her mouth full of sugar.
She’d have to wait to eat her feelings until she was safely out of sight of the ridiculously handsome specimen waiting for her to do something. Say something.
Unfortunately, her brain wasn’t quite there yet.
Adrial Tucker had always been handsome, but the man standing in front of her fell into a whole other category.
The years had been more than kind, that thick beard and dark hair intensifying the piercing blue of his eyes.
The color of just barely frozen ice. He’d let his hair grow a little longer than she remembered, the ends curling to the point all she could think about was running her hands through it to see if they’d straighten.
It looked good on him. He seemed almost carefree, though that wasn’t a word she’d ever have used to describe him.
Thick eyebrows met over the bridge of his nose as he considered her, and it really wasn’t fair the expression didn’t expose any laugh or eye lines.
He’d put on several pounds of muscle, the top two buttons of his shirt free to reveal hints of coarse dark hair and strength that had her mouth watering.
Okay. Obviously, it’d been too long since she’d touched a partner. She was bordering on sex-starved to consider any kind of intimacy with the man who’d run her out of Black Hollow.
“I bill by the hour, Ms. Hutton.” Adrial straightened to his full height, all six-four of him that’d once made her feel protected, safe.
Now, he was just trying to get the upper hand.
He rounded behind his desk and took a seat, adding a barrier between them.
“What you do with that time is up to you, but I doubt you came here to ogle me.”
Ms. Hutton. Not Winnie. Not Red, as he’d called her a few seconds ago, the nickname that triggered a physical reaction every time it left his mouth.
He was going for emotional distance. Fine.
She could play that game. In fact, she’d become a master at that game in the months leading up to the divorce.
She’d beat him over the head with emotional distance if it got her out of here that much faster. “You own Cold Hollow Investigations.”
Well, now she just looked ridiculous. Clearly, he did.
Though why her father had left a note in the Lila Mercer file with Adrial’s agency name on it, she had no clue.
There hadn’t been any other additional notes in the files she’d skimmed, and Adrial had only been involved in the first couple of weeks of the investigation.
The two of them hadn’t spoken in years as far as she knew.
Her father had nothing good to say about his former partner, who’d betrayed the badge and broken her heart, but if she was going to solve this case, she’d follow any lead available. For her dad.
Adrial shifted some things around on his desk. “What can I do for you?”
“The Lila Mercer case.” Winnie caught the subtle stillness flooding through him, though he didn’t let it pin him down for more than a few seconds.
She nearly cut her palms on the edge of the file folder tucked against her chest. Of all the ways she’d imagined hers first conversation with Adrial in over a decade of separation, it hadn’t been because her father had passed away or from a case that had destroyed her family.
“My dad worked to solve it for years. Apparently, he thought you might have something to add, considering he wrote your agency name on a sticky note in one of his files.”
That traitorous drop of hope flared—too bright. It couldn’t be this easy, she knew that. If all it would take to solve a twenty-year-old cold case was putting herself in this position with her ex, Winnie was sure her dad would’ve done it. But there had to be a reason Arthur Hutton made that note.
“Not sure why he’d think that. I haven’t talked to your dad in years.” Adrial leaned back in his chair, the muscles in his forearms flexing and releasing under a deep tan that told her he’d never be satisfied being bound to his oversize desk. “Anything else?”
He wasn’t serious. Was he? Winnie couldn’t stop the humorless laugh bursting free from her chest. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say after years of silence?”
“You asked me if I had anything to contribute to the Lila Mercer case. I don’t.
Black Hollow PD has taken the lead in the investigation for twenty years with clear instructions Cold Hollow Investigations is not to get involved.
” That unreadable gaze locked on her, and her blood seemed to course faster through her veins.
Being this man’s center of attention had been dangerous from the beginning, and yet, somehow, she’d forgotten the cellular effect he’d always had on her.
Elbows back on his desk, Adrial interlaced his fingers like the executive he was supposed to be.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your father.
He did a lot of good work for this town and for me. ”
“And yet you abandoned him when he needed you most.” When she’d needed him the most. Sure, Dan leaving her for another woman had been hard, but she’d already developed an immunity to loss like that.
Because she’d already lost Adrial. They’d been together for years by the time he’d disappeared to the city.
In a small town like Black Hollow, it was impossible not to know every single one of your classmates and their families in and out of school.
They’d lived down the street from each other her entire life.
He’d always been the popular one, the one everyone wanted to be friends with due to his mom serving as mayor.
They’d had the big house, the nice yard, the pool in the back and the treehouse in the front.
Every holiday was overkill in decorations on top of the entire town showing up for birthdays.
Adrial had had it all, while she’d watched from outside the circle that always seemed to be around him.
Everyone had wanted a piece of him, and he’d eaten it up.
Until that day he’d pulled her out of a middle school locker.
Things changed after that. He’d peeled away from the boisterous popular crowd and started sitting with her at lunch.
Much to the resentment of the middle school girls who’d used her as their very own punching bag.
He’d waited for her after school to walk home together—him to his perfect yard and pool, and her to an empty house—and entertained her with his favorite quotes from movies she’d never seen.
In a matter of weeks, he’d become someone else entirely, and she’d fallen for it.
Head over heels. And kept falling for him all throughout middle school each time he intercepted her bullies, through high school when he’d let her wear his favorite leather jacket during his football games, and long after graduation, when they’d tested their physical attraction for one another in the back of his car.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Muscles ticked in his jaw. He was holding back. Keeping more secrets from her. And, hell, she was so…tired. Of the lies. Of not being included. Of being left behind.
“Enlighten me.” She deserved answers. Deserved to know if something had happened, if he’d been hurt, if he’d gotten himself into trouble.
If he’d gotten tired of her and couldn’t go through with the wedding.
All she’d done was catastrophize for ten years.
Yes, she’d met Dan. She’d convinced herself to move on, to fall in love with someone else.
She’d created an entirely new future for herself because the last one had ended before it’d even gotten started, but standing in front of Adrial now, she wasn’t going to roll over and let him pretend he knew what was best for her.
Except he wasn’t answering. Didn’t even seem to be breathing.
Seconds ticked into a full minute, and for a reason she couldn’t explain, those old wounds turned fresh.
Cutting. Bleeding. Hurting. “I thought something had happened to you when you didn’t show up for the rehearsal dinner.
A car accident, a mugging. People in Black Hollow go missing all the time, and I begged my dad for days to put out a BOLO to find you when you wouldn’t answer my calls or texts, but he wouldn’t.
Because you’d already turned in your resignation to the department. ”
Adrial’s mouth parted as if he intended to deny it, but he couldn’t. Rolling his fingers into fists, he cut his attention to one of the towering case-file boxes on the other side of the office.
“I had to find out from the chief of police that my fiancé had left town for another job he never told me about, and that he had no intention of marrying me.” She wouldn’t cry.
Not for him. Not ever again, but she couldn’t stopper the pressure building in her chest for much longer. “What kind of person does that?”
Winnie wasn’t expecting an answer. She hadn’t gotten one in ten years.
Why would Adrial start now? But she wasn’t going to keep hoping for one, either, even at the hallucinated hint of shame crossing his features.
It wasn’t real. Men like him didn’t allow themselves to regret. She just wished they did.
She tossed the case file with her father’s sticky note directing her to Cold Hollow Investigations on the front onto Adrial’s desk with the bag of gummy clusters. So much for them putting him in a better mood. “I’d like to see everything you have on the Lila Mercer case.”
Adrial’s narrowed gaze shot from the note to her in record time. “Last I checked, you interpret scientific journal articles for a living. You’re not law enforcement. Even if I had information on the case, you don’t have clearance.”
He knew what she did for a living? What’d he do, read her LinkedIn page?
No. The job she had now was fairly new since the divorce, and she hadn’t updated her profile or her social media.
She couldn’t even remember when she’d updated any of her platforms. So how had he known?
Winnie forced herself back into the conversation with a shake of her head.
“My dad sacrificed the last twenty years of his career and what was left of his family working that case, and the only reward he got was an entire town turning against him in the end. All for some missing girl he didn’t even know.
” She sucked in a deep breath, fighting back the surge of disappointment and loneliness, and the utter audacity of her neighbors and the department.
They should’ve done better for a man who’d been committed to protecting and serving their community.
Arthur Hutton had deserved better. “Please. If you cared about him at all—if you cared about me—help me finish what he started. Help me restore my father’s reputation. ”
Adrial shoved to his feet, picking up the case file, sticky note and all, and handed it back. “Stay away from that case, Red. You don’t want to get involved. Trust me.”
Trust him? She almost laughed, but she held her chin high. Just like Adrial had taught her. Winnie headed for the door. Empty-handed. He didn’t want to help? Fine. She’d do it herself. “Have the day you deserve, Mr. Tucker.”