Chapter Four #2
So he drove, maybe sped a little, trying not to let his thoughts speed too as he turned onto Dry Road. On one side of the road, rows of corn grew in tall, neat rows. On the other side, he passed gravel driveways marked with numbers spread pretty far apart.
He saw 7651, a gravel drive without a marking, and then 7655, so he backtracked to the unmarked drive and turned onto the gravel.
The house wasn’t far back off the road. It looked a lot worse in person than it had on its picture.
One front window was cracked beyond repair, a window on the second floor was boarded up.
The porch sagged—and there were no stairs up to it, just a pile of warped boards where stairs would have once been.
There were no cars, but plenty of junk in the front yard. Rusted-out bikes and tools and other unidentifiable things. Gard eyed the house. It looked pretty abandoned.
He should leave it at that.
Instead, he parked on the scrubby lawn and got out of the car.
He kept one hand on his holster as he moved quietly and carefully toward the front door.
It looked like there had been a storm door at one point, but it had fallen off—or been ripped off—its hinges and tossed into the corner of the porch.
The heavy wood door to the house was slightly ajar.
Trying to avoid creaking spots, Gard climbed onto the porch, slow, steady, stealthy. He thought he heard…voices coming from inside the house.
Calm from years of experience in police work and approaching possibly dangerous scenarios, he crept closer to the door.
If he could get close enough without making noise on this crumbling porch, maybe he could hear what was being said.
It sounded like low voices, men, but maybe Dani was in there. Maybe this really was a clue. Maybe…
He leaned forward, desperate to hear something. And it was that desperation that got him in trouble. He knew better, always knew better when it came to work.
But Dani was a whole other story.
So when the door flew open, he wasn’t ready for it, and it crashed right into his face. Pain bloomed from his nose as he jerked back, stumbled, but managed to keep his footing.
Someone ran out of the door, leaping off the porch like a bat out of hell. Gard ignored the throbbing pain echoing through his skull and the feel of liquid oozing out of his nose and grabbed for his gun.
“Bent—” Hell, he wasn’t on duty, so he could hardly invoke Bent County. But he did have a gun. “Stop!”
The guy, of course, did not stop. And Gard could hardly shoot at him—especially when the man leaped into the cornfield across the street and disappeared. Maybe if Gard was on duty, he’d have ventured into the tall corn and tried to find the guy, but that hardly seemed smart without backup.
He glanced back at the house, wiping the blood dripping over his mouth with the back of his hand. The door was wide open, thanks to the runaway. Gard had his gun in his hand. What was the harm in looking around?
Who had this guy been talking to? It had to be somebody. He held his gun out in front of him and crept inside. Quickly and thoroughly, he went through the entire house, but it was completely empty of people.
The guy must have been talking to himself, or maybe on the phone, which made sense, because while the house was empty of people, there was plenty of evidence of drugs. The kind of evidence that certainly wasn’t as old as the rest of the abandoned items in and around the house.
Damn it all to hell.
Lia was desperately trying to think of anything else for Sammy to do, but it was well after three now and there was no sign of Gard.
Why the hell had she gotten involved in this mess of a situation?
Was she now going to be in charge of a teenager while Gard Fairhurst gallivanted around doing who knew what?
Not that Sammy was a problem. She’d been a little sloppy with measuring ingredients.
She had not been at all thorough with cleaning, but she’d shown an interest in the actual food prep.
Lia couldn’t let her jump on only the things she liked, but she figured if she could get the girl interested in learning how to make at least one bakery item, Lia could hold it over her head like a bribe to get her to do the less fun parts.
Albennie had headed home for the day. Lia had even closed up the store. Should she call Gard? He’d left his cell phone number. Maybe a text. A casual Hey, you remember you have a niece to pick up, right?
But it made her nervous. Because he’d seemed like he was very dedicated to Sammy. And he definitely didn’t strike her as flighty—but maybe she’d been fooled by piercing blue eyes and an unfairly handsome face.
Wouldn’t that just figure?
Her bakery phone rang, causing her to jump. It was after hours, but she had a feeling she knew who the caller would be. “Hope Town Bakery.”
“Hey, Lia, it’s Gard. Um. I have another favor to ask of you.”
“You’re just full of them,” she muttered irritably, but he sounded…weird. Not that she had any great insight into what Gard Fairhurst sounded like over the phone. Just that there was something…nasally and muffled about him.
“I’m running late, so I was wondering… Look, it’s a lot to ask, but do you think you could meet me at my place and drop Sammy off for me? The bakery is closed, right?”
“Yeah, it’s closed. Look, Corporal—”
“I just had a little…accident. Had to get patched up at the hospital in Fairmont. No big deal, but—”
Hospital. That was serious. And almost made her feel bad for thinking the worst of him. “What kind of accident?”
He was silent for a moment. A hesitation. “Broke my nose is all. Nothing serious. Not the first time even.”
He’d broken his nose—probably on duty. And was being all nonchalant about it. Maybe he’d deserved it. Lia wouldn’t have minded popping a few cops in the nose given a chance.
Lia slid a glance at Sammy, who was staring at her. What was she going to do—tell the guy in the hospital no while his niece stared at her?
“Yeah, I’ll drive her.”
“Okay, I’m heading out now. If you guys leave now too, we should get there about the same time.”
“Sure. Yeah. See you in a bit.” She hung up the phone and stared at it. Now she was driving this problem child home? All because she couldn’t just accept the stolen money being repaid. Creating your own trouble, Lia.
“What was that?” Sammy demanded.
“Your uncle got…held up.” Lia didn’t know why she was lying for him, but she didn’t really want to be the one who broke it to the girl that her uncle was hurt. “I’m going to drive you to his place. You got an address?”
“Yeah, but…” Sammy trailed off, then shook her head. “Whatever.”
“We’re going to have to walk over to my house and get my car, so follow me.”
Sammy said nothing but followed Lia out of the back of the bakery. She waited, nose stuck to phone screen, while Lia locked the door and engaged the alarm. Even though Sammy never looked up from the phone screen, she unerringly followed Lia down the side street to her house.
Lia walked up to her car, unlocked it manually because her key fob had been broken for approximately three years.
“Hop on in,” she said to Sammy.
Sammy looked at the car in disgust. “Will this make it to Bent?”
“Sure.” Maybe it wasn’t anything to look at. Maybe it burned oil here and there. Maybe it was older than Sammy herself, but Lia had bought this car with her own money. So Lia loved it.
She slid into the driver’s seat and then followed Sammy’s somewhat distracted directions to the small town of Bent, and a quaint little neighborhood right off the main drag.
“This one,” Sammy said, pointing to a pretty brick one-story.
Gard Fairhurst’s house was nothing that Lia would have imagined.
It didn’t scream single male cop lives here, except for the patrol car sitting in the driveway.
The sweet little brick ranch house on the main drag of Bent seemed more suited for a family.
Sure, he didn’t have the pretty landscaping his neighbor did, but the yard was neat. His windows looked clean.
Lia had a feeling this incongruous house had to do with the girl sitting in her passenger seat. She pulled her car into Park on the curb just as a truck pulled into the drive next to the patrol car.
Gard immediately got out and skirted the truck. He had a splint on his nose—so he hadn’t been making anything up. There was an awful lot of blood on his T-shirt.
Something about that had Lia getting out of her car at the same time as Sammy. Moving toward him with the strange thought she should…do something about it.
“Thanks for driving her,” Gard offered as Sammy rushed up to him.
“What happened?” Sammy demanded.
“It’s nothing. I’m fine.” He smiled down at Sammy, but between the splint on his nose and the clear pain in his eyes, it didn’t look like a happy smile. He slung an arm over her shoulders, but clearly Sammy wasn’t happy with the brush-off.
“What happened?” she said again, more seriously this time.
“Door to the nose, accidentally. I think. Wasn’t expecting it, obviously. It’s broken. It’ll heal.”
Sammy was staring at the blood on his shirt, and Lia couldn’t help but do the same. It was a lot of blood.
“Thanks, Lia. Really. I owe—”
“Why did a door hit your face?” Sammy demanded, but her voice was squeaky, and Lia realized she was crying about the same time Gard did.
He squeezed her to his side. “Hey. Hey. It’s nothing. Really. I’ve had way worse.”
Which was not the thing to say, because Sammy started crying even harder.
Gard looked up at Lia helplessly. She sure as hell didn’t know what to do though. She was tempted to turn and run—get in her car and go. Except her feet seem rooted to the spot, at the end of his driveway, looking at the blood on his shirt and the protective arm around his niece.
“You’re not in your uniform,” Sammy said, her voice squeaky. She sniffled as she pulled back from where she’d buried her head in his chest. She looked up at him—tears were all over her cheeks but there was something closer to accusation in her eyes. “You weren’t at work?”
Gard opened his mouth, but no words came out, and everything about Sammy’s demeanor changed. She stepped out from his arm, her expression mutinous.
“You were looking for Mom.”
Lia noted the girl didn’t sound happy about that. And Gard looked guilty as hell.
“Just…poking around.”
“Poking around and getting hurt,” Sammy replied, backing away from him. “She’s using. She left. Just let it be.” Sammy whirled away, stormed inside, slammed the door behind her so it echoed into the quiet afternoon.
Lia felt frozen in place. This was…so none of her business. Why was she even here? “I, um, should go.”
“Yeah, look. I really appreciate it.” But he sounded so damn defeated.
Soft heart. Soft heart. Soft heart.
“She’s just upset you’re hurt.”
He sighed, glancing at the house. “Maybe, but she’s got every right to be pissed at me too.
Dani…she’s struggled with substance abuse since she was Sammy’s age.
These disappearing acts have been going on Sammy’s whole life.
The family therapist has told me time and time again it’s not my job, or Sammy’s job, to fix it. ”
But he wanted to. That much was written all over him.
And in spite of herself, or maybe because of herself and all the people she’d known and lost to various bad decisions, she stuck her nose into this mess even further.
“Any time you need something for her to do, I’m happy to help. I can even have her help with inventory after hours or stuff like that. Doesn’t just have to be weekends.”
He studied her for a minute, an intense and uncomfortable study. She wanted to call it a cop look, but it wasn’t about cop things. It was about Sammy.
“That’s really kind, and I appreciate the offer, I do. But you don’t owe us anything.”
No, she didn’t. Not even an explanation, but here it came anyway. “Sometimes…you want to be the person you needed as a kid for someone else.”
His gaze held hers, serious. “Yeah, sometimes you do.”
The moment held. Just the two of them looking at each other—and he looked ridiculous with that metal splint on his face, but it didn’t seem to dilute all that piercing blue. Or the effect it had on her insides and their incessant fluttering when he was around.
She looked away. Pulled her phone out of her pocket and pulled up her contact information. She had to take a few steps forward to be close enough to hold it out to him.
“Here’s my phone number. My cell, not the bakery.”
He pulled out his own phone, poked at his screen a few times. “Here, can you put it in for me? This hurts like hell.”
Soft heart. Soft heart. Soft heart. She took his phone wordlessly, added herself as a new contact, then handed the phone back. “I’ll see you tomorrow…Gard.”
His mouth quirked to one side, no doubt that she’d finally used his first name, then he kind of winced, no doubt because his nose hurt. “See you tomorrow, Lia.”