Chapter 1 #2
“What you never understood was that Derrick could never be Ricky because he’s my Derelope.
” Derek Morgan in sexiness and protectiveness, and Penelope Garcia in his analytic skills, but all rolled up into one.
Her fiancé was her type: mahogany skinned, athletic, caring, an intelligent technical analyst for the government, hence the nickname he hated.
She smiled, thinking about the way he groaned in despair when she called him that, then she wiped away an errant tear and continued to pack.
“How many weeks along are you?” she asked pragmatically, detaching her mind from her emotions. It’s what she was taught to do. Because not everyone in the family could be emotional if they wanted to exist peacefully.
“Two months,” their mother responded.
Lauren froze.
Two months?
She’d been in New York about two months ago, visiting her best friend, Reese.
Lauren remembered the call from Lahn. She’s been in San Francisco for an art show and had left the event only discover her tire had a flat.
Lahn had called Lauren from a bar across the street from the parking garage after she ordered a drink and waited for a tow to the dealership.
Lauren had laughed and ridiculed her for like the hundredth time for not learning the basic car mechanics their father taught her.
Lauren told Lahn to cancel AAA, that she’d call Derrick who lived about five minutes away from the venue.
Looking pointedly at Ma Mable, Lauren asked, “Exactly how long have you known about the pregnancy?”
Her mother wouldn’t look at her.
“Nearly a month and a half.”
The deception, the betrayal, broke through Lauren’s emotional defenses and she screamed as if she’d been stabbed in the heart. An actual dagger through the chest would’ve hurt less.
“I’m sorry Shug! I thought it was something Lahn should tell you herself, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it, so I promised her we’d do it together. And with the wedding coming up…”
“In days! With the wedding coming up in days, and you figured that now… Get out!” she snarled, her voice sounding demonic.
“Shug–”
“Get out!” she screamed. “Get out, get out, get the fuck out!”
Everything she valued was packed into her SUV.
She’d had an impromptu estate sale for the rest and instead of canceling the movers coming on Sunday, she had them take the rest to storage instead of Derrick’s place.
And again, she did it all on her own because no one, no one, had come back to check in on her.
Not Lahn, not her parents, not Derrick, which was all fine and good because she’d hit the road Sunday night, refusing to give them another opportunity to hurt her.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she shouted, slamming her fist against the steering wheel, because she still hurt. Still hurt horribly.
Grabbing her iPhone, she ignored the multitude of missed calls and opened her DMX playlist, needing the aggression that filled the interior of her SUV.
After driving another hour, the brief escape of emotion was corralled back into the dead place within her heart.
She drove to the nearest gas station, used the restroom, and fueled up.
She’d been reluctant to stop any place overnight because the remaining parts of the life she valued were inside her SUV.
Though it had dark tinted windows, she couldn’t stomach the possibility of anything else being taken from her.
But she was exhausted, and she needed a bath and a solid night’s sleep. Before pulling away from the station, she used her phone to reserve a cabin in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, which required she check in before seven this evening or she’d lose her reservation and deposit.
Entering the cabin’s address in her GPS, she decided to continue on the scenic route instead of taking the interstate.
The interstate would get her to her destination about two hours earlier than the deadline, but she’d still have plenty of time going over the mountain.
These solitary backroads had absorbed her pain in a way that nothing and no one else had.
She chose not to abandon her journey for a quick meaningless ride.
Decision made, she put her Toyota 4Runner in drive and headed higher up into the mountains.
Santiago Stillwater rocked back on his heels twice then looked down the part of the two-lane road not laid to waste.
The seventy-year-old woman still gripping the steering wheel of her dead husband’s mint green 1965 Pontiac GTO glared at him.
It was a real shame about the car. It had been in perfect condition before now.
“Sheriff Stillwater, you give those keys back right now or I swear I will get out of this car and beat the stuffing out of you!”
Santiago waved Deputy Roan Gray over.
“Yeah Sheriff?” she said, stopping beside him.
“Take Mrs. Veronica over to Olivet Hospital to get her checked out,” he said, then lowered his voice. “And Roan, make sure you get a urine sample, even if you need to Mirandize her before you do it. I want her medically cleared before we take her to our best cell at the Shrouded Lake Jail and Spa.”
“Uh, Sheriff?” Roan said, leaning closer. “Derry’ll be here in a few minutes, maybe it’d be best if he took the lead on that.”
“I’m fighting to maintain my peace right now, Roan.”
“Copy that, Sheriff.”
Santiago backed up a few steps. The optics of him laying hands on and arresting the mayor’s elderly mother was something he wanted to avoid.
Roan tried to reach through the open driver’s side window to unlock the door, but the older woman tightened her lips and gripped the door sill with her thin knobby fingers, holding it closed.
The onslaught Santiago had been dreading began.
First, the history lesson. “Do you know who I am? My family has been here so long they ruled over your people like kings. My son runs this town, and you’d be good to remember that, Roan Gray.”
“Half my lineage was here a millennia before your family even knew here existed Mrs. Veronica, and my other half touched down on ships the same time as, if not before the ships that brought your kin here,” Roan said, calm and respectful, two traits in a combat that made her perfect for the role of Santiago’s chief deputy.
“I will see you fired and thrown in your own jail if you lay one hand on me you Black-Indian witch!”
Mrs. Veronica pointed an unsteady finger at Santiago.
“And you, I will make sure these are your last days as sheriff of this town, Santiago Stillwater.”
Roan reached for the door handle and pulled. And the old woman escalated, hitting and scratching at Roan’s hand to keep her from opening it.
Roan hissed as one of Mrs. Veronica’s manicured peach-colored claws drew blood.
That was it.
Santiago stomped forward and Roan backed away. He reached into the open window, impervious to Mrs. Veronica’s weak blows and scratches, and wrenched the door open so forcefully the woman nearly tumbled out as he broke the door’s spine.
Getting out of the car on unsteady feet, the older woman stumbled to the opposite side of the road where there was at least a twenty-five-foot drop. Once she’d gotten as far away from her car as possible, she clutched her chest and began to wail.
“Help me!” she cried out loud enough for the people stopped down the road to step outside of their cars to get a bird’s eye view of Mrs. Veronica’s antics. Except for the unfamiliar SUV with out-of-state plates that came to a stop behind Clark Shetfield’s truck, everyone else on the road was local.
Not even ten seconds later, Deputy Derry pulled up behind the out-of-towner and parked.
He went into his trunk and walked down the hill, placing “slow” and “caution” signs and flares.
Roan had already done the same for anyone descending the mountain.
Thank goodness no one had come down the mountain yet.
Checking the extent of the damage to Mrs. Veronica’s car and the area where the fender gouged out a long strip of mountain, causing a fallen tree to block the road, Santiago sighed. It was gonna take over an hour to get this mess cleared up.
Dragging a frustrated hand over the back of his neck, Santiago threw a glance over his shoulder, uneasy that the town’s drunken matriarch had gone silent.
“Oh, my freaking God,” Lauren muttered. Traffic had come to a complete stop.
The people parked ahead of her were outside of their vehicles looking up the mountain.
Dammit, these people took rubbernecking to a whole other level, Lauren thought as she laid a heavy hand on her horn.
She was slightly behind schedule and needed to get this train back on track and chugging along.
Her response only garnered curious looks before the people faced forward again.
Shit.
If she didn’t get over the steep uphill switchback soon, she’d miss check-in and have to find another place to stay. At night. In the unknown wilds of the Smoky Mountains.
To hell with that. Putting her car in park, she killed the engine and stepped outside to see what the problem was so she could organize quick action and resolve it.
A cop car pulled up behind her with flashing lights but no sirens.
The officer walked to his trunk and pulled out flares and safety signs and placed them along the road behind his car.
Lauren watched him complete his tasks and head back up the hill toward her.
Tilting his hat, he nodded and gave her a charming smile before saying “ma’am” and continuing to hike up the steep incline.
Standing outside of her car, Lauren could now see that there had been some kind of accident ahead and there were other police cars already on the scene.
She debated getting back into her car and waiting for the road to clear, but the people ahead began to mill around and chitchat as if they were at a tailgate party.