Chapter Four
Gard’s first stop after he dropped Sammy off in Hope Town was to head to the sheriff’s department for roll call. Then he’d work half his shift before taking off at noon like he’d originally planned. Because he hadn’t canceled his afternoon off. He was going on a little recon mission.
Sure, Dani had likely fallen off the wagon, so to speak.
Maybe she was hiding out because she was embarrassed.
Maybe she was just “enjoying life” as she’d so often put it in the past. And maybe, he should just let her, but he couldn’t.
He had to know for sure, then make a decision with all the pertinent facts.
Because Sammy needed a legal guardian if Dani wasn’t going to be around to be that.
At times, Gard had been that, so he knew what steps to take, but if this was just a little one-off, just a little…mistake on Dani’s part… He had to know for sure before he moved forward.
So, he was going to look into it. Just try to figure out where she might have gone. Even if it was to get high and ruin her life, again, at least he’d know she wasn’t just…dead in a ditch. Gone forever. Lost forever.
He shook off the worst-case scenarios. He saw plenty in his job, so he could hardly pretend they didn’t exist, but he didn’t need to reimagine old events in his professional life with his sister’s face on the victims.
On his way out of the building, he happened to pass by the detective bureau’s office and caught sight of Laurel sitting at her desk. The other two detectives, including his neighbor Hart, were not in there with her.
He shouldn’t do it. He should let this be, handle it himself if he was going to be pathetic, but… He poked his head in her office. “Detective. You got a minute?”
“Sure, Fairhurst. Come on in.”
When he stepped in and closed the door behind him, she raised an eyebrow. Then offered a sad smile. “Your sister?”
“Yeah.” The first time Dani had dropped Sammy off with him and disappeared, he’d been at his first police job in Dubois. He’d gone to his parents for help.
They’d started talking about having Sammy taken away from Dani and never letting Dani have any access to her ever again.
Gard still felt guilty about that—how close he’d come to ruining Dani’s and Sammy’s lives. Because Gard knew that his parents would have never shown Sammy an ounce of love.
Luckily, his parents hadn’t wanted to explain taking care of their granddaughter to their important friends, so Gard had weaseled out of that plan. And he’d vowed never to go back to his parents for help again. In fact, he hadn’t spoken to them since.
In the end, Dani had shown up just three days later, apologetic and ready to get help—the very first time she’d ever admitted she had a problem. Gard had been hopeful.
She’d made it two years that time. He’d been at Bent County the second time Dani had dropped Sammy off and lit out. Gard hadn’t asked for help—too burned by his parents. He’d just done his level best to take care of Sammy and do his job.
When Dani had come back after a week, Gard had decided it was time to get proactive. Not just rehab—family therapy, adding him as a legal guardian of Sammy, and the three of them moving in together.
That had lasted six years. Dani had disappeared twice in that time.
The first time Gard had tried to handle everything himself, but Sammy had been old enough to really get it and he’d been at his wit’s end, enough to say something in passing to fellow deputy Laurel Delaney—she hadn’t been married or a detective yet at that time.
Without judgment—or involving any DFS authorities—Laurel had tracked down Dani and given him the information.
So, the second time it had happened, he’d gone to her again.
She’d been a detective and Delaney-Carson by that time, but she’d done the same thing.
Tracked Dani down to some flophouse up in Hardy.
Gard had promised himself that time, he wouldn’t drag anyone else into things.
The next time Dani screwed up, he was done.
He’d been young and naive and hadn’t understood child development at all—but now he’d been to therapy, he’d read the books, and he understood that Dani’s behavior was likely to impact Sammy as negatively as his own parents’ cruelty had.
But here he was. Still trying to protect Dani.
Because ever since then, she’d slowly rebuilt her life.
The first year had been iffy, and included some setbacks, but she hadn’t disappeared anymore.
The second year had been good for all of them.
She’d even been the one to come to him and said he needed to move out, so she didn’t have a safety net.
So she could prove to all of them she was done falling back.
That had started really good years. Dani surviving, staying put, staying clean. Sammy thriving—she was so smart and doing so well in school, happy and involved and loved.
Gard had stepped back farther and farther, until their relationship had begun to feel normal instead of codependent.
Of course, he’d always be Dani’s safety net, and Sammy’s for that matter. No matter what he told himself, he couldn’t let that go.
Case in point. This discussion he was having with Laurel.
“She could lose custody if I file a missing persons, so I don’t want to go that route yet, but she’s cut off communication with Sammy and that isn’t like her.” He was really holding on to that even though experience told him nothing was ever really different.
Laurel asked the relevant questions—when had Sammy last seen her and where. What did he think might have happened. What did he want Laurel to look into.
“I’ll poke around,” Laurel agreed. “Off the record.”
“You know I appreciate it.”
“Any time, Corporal.”
Gard knew Laurel meant it. She’d never once acted put out or given him a lecture about working within the system. Still, it left him feeling…heavy with guilt that he couldn’t figure this out himself. That he couldn’t solve any of these problems like he wanted to.
So he went through the morning with that heavy weight on his shoulders, and it certainly didn’t lift at noon when he radioed off duty, went home, and changed into plainclothes, switched out his county-issued gun for his personal one
He had planned to pick up Sammy, not have her spend extra hours at the bakery, but… It just didn’t sit right, and he knew his gut was all sorts of messed up when it came to his sister and her choices, but he’d made a deal with himself: If she contacted him or Sammy, he’d back off.
Until she did, he got to look for her. And since he couldn’t do it on the county’s time, he’d do it on his own.
First, he went to Dani and Sammy’s apartment in Fairmont. He had a key, so he let himself in. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Some kind of clue of where Dani’s head was at. What Sammy had said at dinner the other night still stuck with him. That Dani had been worried about money.
She should have asked him, and he couldn’t understand why she didn’t. In the past, she’d never had any problem asking him for money. Though that was usually when she was using.
Just another tick in the column of abnormal. Because Dani had a pattern, damn it. People didn’t just deviate from fifteen-plus-year patterns without a big reason.
Like right now? He was reverting to his pattern. Invading Dani’s privacy by snooping through her apartment. Looking for some miraculous reason this was different than every other time.
The place was clean, if cluttered. There were a few dishes in the sink, an empty soda can on the living room end table.
When he eased into Dani’s room, the real mess exploded.
Clothes everywhere. Used glasses on just about every surface, along with makeup and jewelry.
Not surprising. She claimed organization and cleaning gave her PTSD, and maybe it did.
God knew they’d been expected to be military neat and orderly growing up.
But Dani made an effort to keep her messy tendency in check in common spaces… for Sammy.
She so desperately wanted to be a good mom. She tried so damn hard. It was why he’d never been able to give up on her.
Gard sighed heavily, tried to blow out all his conflicting feelings with it. This was just an investigation. Just looking for facts, not to dredge up all his feelings of loss, inadequacy, and regret.
Her laptop was on her nightstand, still plugged into the wall. He unplugged it, made a mental note to unplug any other unnecessary appliances before he left since he didn’t know when anyone would be back.
He knew her passwords to everything, because she used the same one or a variation of it for everything. Because he’d had to at certain points in their lives, to help Sammy.
S@mmy58. Because Sammy had been born May 8. So he typed it in to log into her computer ignoring any conflicting feelings he didn’t have time for.
He’d deal with those later, when Dani was found and back and okay.
The notes app was front and center, with an address typed out. There was no town name or zip code, but since Gard had patrolled every inch of Bent County, he knew 7653 Dry Road was out near Wilde.
He copied and pasted the address into the internet browser. The picture that came up was of a farmhouse that looked a little worse for the wear.
Hmm.
Well, what could it hurt? If it was a dead end, he’d go pick up Sammy a little early. And if it was something else…
Well, he’d deal with that.
Wilde was a good forty-five minute drive from Fairmont, and he knew he couldn’t spend much time at the address and get to Hope Town in time to pick up Sammy by the promised three o’clock.
He’d just do a drive-by. See if he could glean any clues. It didn’t make sense Dani was doing anything out in Wilde. If it was just about drugs, Dani surely could have got them in Fairmont.
Wishful thinking, Fairhurst.