Chapter Twelve
The sleepover had been a success. Sammy had ridden the high of that party for at least a week.
She crashed down the next week when her science grade dipped and Gard had insisted she spend her Friday night working on the lab report she was allowed to redo instead of going to Sarabeth’s softball game after school.
He’d received an epic cold shoulder for that one.
But then Lia had come out with them for Saturday dinner and Sammy seemed to even out again, excitedly regaling Lia with tales of her great debate club practice triumph, shutting up some pretentious senior with her excellent arguments—Sammy’s words.
Lia just had a way about her with Sammy. Their situations weren’t really alike. Maybe Sammy resented him sometimes, but she knew she was cared for and about. Lia clearly hadn’t had that. Maybe ever.
And still she’d turned out…amazing. Smart and sweet and funny and kind.
Yeah, he had it bad, no doubt. He was surprised Sammy hadn’t called him out on it.
He’d catch her watching them sometimes, carefully cataloguing whatever teenagers noticed about old people—her words again—having a relationship.
But she didn’t say anything about it—except to always push him to include Lia in whatever their plans were.
So he assumed that there was some kind of stamp of approval in there.
Gard was currently trying to figure out how to have another night alone with Lia.
He didn’t mind holding her hand or giving her a quick, casual kiss in front of Sammy, but that was about it, which left him a bit…
frustrated when the only time he ever got her alone was in his driveway if he walked her out to her car, or for their standing Monday lunch date.
Of course, if he let Sammy hang out at Sarabeth’s softball practice Friday after school and then go to a movie in Fairmont like the girls wanted to, he would have at least part of a night with Lia to himself.
But three unsupervised teenagers at a movie theater…was that really wise? Sure, he’d been doing that kind of thing at fifteen, but weren’t times different?
Gard shook his head. Not the time to be going over that again. He was at work. He’d been trying to finish this report for too long already. He needed to focus on it, not his personal life.
He looked at the computer screen. The inane details he had to put into the system over some found bicycle that no one had reported missing, but he had to log as found property anyway. A particularly annoying waste of time.
He stared at the screen, typed one word before his focus wandered again. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened up a text to Lia.
You free Friday night? Sammy’s going to the movies with the girls. Because didn’t Sammy deserve some normal? And didn’t he?
Yes.
He started typing out a message about maybe going to a movie—not the same movie as the girls, but if they were all in the same theater, that wasn’t being too overprotective, was it?
But a message from Lia came in before he could finish.
Do you want to come over to my house? I’ll make us dinner.
He stared at that brief message. His immediate internal response was: Hell yes. But that meant letting Sammy go to this movie on her own.
And if he let her do that, it meant dinner. At Lia’s. He was desperately curious what that might entail. He hadn’t really seen the inside of her house before.
He could see that she was typing and quickly typed his own response before she took her offer back. Yes.
“You got a minute?”
Gard nearly dropped his phone at Detective Beckett’s voice. He’d been so wrapped up in the text conversation he hadn’t heard anyone come into the room.
Gard cleared his throat, tried to look casual as he put his phone down on the table. “Sure.”
Beckett raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t question it. “I’ve got a picture I’d like you to take a look at.” He set the laptop he was carrying on the table Gard was sitting at.
Gard peered at the picture on the screen and his stomach dropped as Beckett pointed to the woman standing off to the side of what appeared to be a still from security footage.
“Laurel said this looks a lot like your sister,” Beckett said.
Gard had to work hard to make sure his voice was devoid of any kind of emotion. “That’s her.” And just like that, any good feelings he’d had about today were completely gone. There was no good reason Dani was in a picture Beckett was showing him.
“You’re sure?”
Gard gave a sharp nod. “Where is this?”
“A warehouse outside of Hardy. A Bent County deputy witnessed a drug deal going down. Intervened. He was on his own, so only managed to arrest the buyer. We’re trying to identify all the players. Investigate.”
“Well, Laurel’s right about that ID. Dani Fairhurst. No doubt. I don’t know the guys.”
Beckett nodded. “And you don’t have any idea where your sister is staying?”
Gard thought about the address on her computer, but no one had been living there. No doubt she’d been there, done drugs there, but she wasn’t staying there. “No.”
“Not going to be awkward if I have to arrest your sister, is it?”
Gard sighed. “No. Just life.” Gard tried to keep his tone even, but it was a hard-won thing. “So, she wasn’t selling?”
Beckett shook his head. “Didn’t look like it from Stanley’s body cam footage. Just hanging out with the seller.”
And Gard’s experience with Dani and drugs was just complicated enough to feel some relief over the fact she was just a bystander. When being a bystander wasn’t much better at all.
“Look. This case is mainly Hardy’s, and I can let them handle it and her if you want to keep this separate,” Beckett said, a certain softness to his tone that hadn’t been there before.
Or maybe ever. “Or I can wade in and take over the part that deals with her. Take a softer approach, if that’d be better for you. ”
It was…a kindness. Gard knew he should take it, no questions asked, but… “Not exactly known for your soft touch, Beckett.”
He snorted. “No. But I’m getting married next month. According to my future sister-in-law, it’s turned me into a big softy.”
Gard wanted to be amused by that, but he couldn’t find any levity.
“I’d appreciate it then. Look… I know what this is going to sound like.
But she’s no hardened criminal. She’s got a drug problem, and I’m not saying she hasn’t broken any laws, or that you shouldn’t arrest her if she has.
But she’s… She tries. For her kid. She just can’t resist that addiction.
Any way this can be a little soft on her, I’d be appreciative. ”
“Got it.” Beckett picked up the laptop.
But as some of those details meshed in Gard’s head, he had more questions. “I thought you were helping the Hardy cops with a human trafficking case? What’s that got to do with a drug dealer?”
Beckett nodded. “Yeah. It all connects, or at least we’re trying to prove it does. We’ve got some names, some theories, and they all connect to that address on Dry Road. That’s technically unincorporated Bent County, so we’ve got the jurisdiction on that, but most of the players are in Hardy.”
Connects.
“Can you email me that picture?”
Beckett hesitated, then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess that’d be okay. I’ll send it over in a minute.”
Gard tapped his fingers against his desk.
Grasping at straws again. She’d looked just fine in that picture, hadn’t she?
Standing next to a drug dealer. Hardly the first time.
Even if that was mixed up in some human trafficking group, it didn’t mean Dani was being held against her will. Clearly she wasn’t.
But when his email pinged with the picture, and the body cam footage, Gard set aside the work he should be doing and studied both.
Coming to no conclusions except that this nagging feeling of missing something wasn’t his gut, just wishful thinking.
Wishful thinking only ever hurt Sammy. It never solved any problems. So he had to set it aside and away. And hope that whatever Beckett’s investigation found, it was soon, and got Dani off the streets.
Lia stood outside the Simmonses’ house with nerves battling around in her stomach. She didn’t know exactly what she was hoping to get out of this. She just knew…
She couldn’t keep holding parts of herself back from Gard. And she couldn’t put anyone in Hope Town in danger by telling him about her past.
Which left her sitting between a rock and a hard place.
And Lia was used to dealing with her own rocks and hard places, but… Ever since her first real date with Gard, she had been trying to decide what to do, how to approach this. She didn’t have the answers when it came to Gard, couldn’t find them.
Which meant she needed help. Something she was definitely not used to asking for.
But tonight, Gard was coming over to her house for dinner. The girls were going to a movie after Sarabeth’s softball practice. Izzy’s stepmom was driving them to the theater, and Sarabeth’s stepdad was going to pick them up and drop them off at their respective houses.
Thinking about stepparents left Lia feeling awkward because… Because it was just too damn easy to think about a future that was…permanent like that. Where she’d be included and—
You haven’t even slept with him yet.
Hence why she’d offered to cook dinner for them tonight instead of go out when he’d told her about Sammy’s plans.
A home-cooked meal in her house had connotations. She was hoping it did, anyway.
And she had to get this talk with Zach over with so she could go home and finish making that dinner. She would have talked to Zach earlier in the week, but he and his family had been out of town.
And she’d maybe still been hoping to figure things out on her own. No help needed. Just relying on Lia Blair, the person she was these days.
But time had run out, and the only answers she was going to find required help.
Steeling herself, Lia knocked on the door.