“You might be surprised.” Caitlin flicked a negligent gesture toward the front window. “There’s your sister. And Tori.”
Fuuuuck
. Not sparkly, perky little Tori Calvert. Not in conjunction with smooth, polite, perfect Autry. She remembered her grandmother’s warnings about people struck down instantly by the wrath of God. What did she have to do to arrange that?
Aware of Caitlin’s steady gaze, Madeline endured the next few minutes as her sister kissed her, Tori bestowed one of her trademark hugs, and both women cooed quietly over the still-sleeping baby.
Tori was her normal Homecoming-Queen-on-speed self, smiling and bubbling over with conversation. Just being in her vicinity made Madeline tired. The younger woman shook out her napkin and placed it in her lap before leaning forward, her big dark eyes sparkling. “Well, the gossip mill is at work extra hard today. Guess who’s in the middle of it again?”
“Tick, I’m sure.” Caitlin rested her chin on her hand. “What now?”
“Honey, you better watch out.” Autry actually giggled, her blue eyes brimming with mirthful teasing. “You have competition.”
The rock of foreboding settled in Madeline’s chest.
Caitlin looked between her sister-in-law and Madeline’s sister with an indulgent, exasperated expression. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, the word from the Tank and Tummy is that an old flame just bought him lunch over at the Hickory House.”
“He went to lunch there with Ash.” Caitlin lifted her water. “What’s this about an old flame…wait. Not Allison Barnett?”
Autry stared. “How did you know that?”
“She called him at home last night to open up her house, which is a closed crime scene.” Caitlin waved a dismissive hand. “Makes sense she’d do something as a thank-you.”
Heat, followed by a chill, flashed over Madeline’s body. Nothing Allison had ever done made sense.
“Well, he should have better sense than to let her sit at the table with him and Ash, even if he did let her pay.” Tori sprinkled sugar into her tea. “He knows how Gayle is and once Jeannette at the Tank and Tummy got a hold of it… Lord, someone will call Aunt Maureen, who’ll tell Mama and she never liked Allison anyway. Next thing you know, the story will be he’s having some wild affair.”
“Oh, that’s a given.” Autry nudged Caitlin’s foot with her own. “Because it’s common knowledge around town that you’re not—and I quote—‘giving him any’.”
Caitlin touched her fingers to her forehead on a rueful laugh. “This is the oddest town ever.”
“I know a good divorce attorney when you’re ready,” Autry deadpanned, but Madeline couldn’t force a chuckle. It simply wasn’t funny. Autry turned to Tori. “Why didn’t your mama like Allison?”
“Who knows?” Tori shrugged. “I didn’t like her, but I was eight. She pinched me because I touched her sacred, precious prom dress.”
“I wouldn’t like her either.” Caitlin smiled, a finger pressed to the corner of her mouth.
“I remember being thrilled when they broke up because she hated having me around,” Tori continued. “That was pretty soon after Daddy died, so Tick would have been at UGA then.”
Nausea trembled in Madeline’s throat. She curled her nails into her palms. Destroyed lives. Except that Tick’s wasn’t. And Allison…she’d obviously married, had children. Madeline’s daddy had survived with her gone after it was all over. Their lives had gone on.
Madeline’s life was the one that ended in ruins.
“Maddie?” Autry’s gentle touch at her knee brought her back to the conversation. “Weren’t you and Allison friends in school?”
“Not friends, not really.” She swallowed and forced her voice to sound normal. “We ran in the same crowd, though.”
The conversation turned to other directions, and Madeline, grateful, tried to relax. Instead, the guilt and apprehension grew, twining together into a knot that sat in her throat and threatened to choke her. Lee woke and Caitlin lifted him to her lap, soothing him, smiling over his dark head at something Autry said.
No, Caitlin Falconetti didn’t have to worry about Madeline interfering in her marriage.
But Allison? If she still had her ability to find a weakness and worm her way through it…
Then Caitlin might need to worry about her. Because Madeline sure as hell wasn’t the only one with a history of destroying other people’s lives.
After lunch, Madeline filched the thick folder of missing-person reports from Tick’s office and settled in at the scarred metal desk designated as hers. A fresh manila file lay on the scratched top. Inside, she’d tucked a copy of Tick’s original report from the Miller Court house along with his notes on the quick witness interview he’d done with Allison. After finally managing to get her laptop connected to the less-than-reliable wireless server, she had crime scene photos slowly spitting out of the shared printer.
She flipped to the next missing-person report. Tick was right—this case could take forever to solve, if they ever did. She wouldn’t even be here for the outcome, so why was she getting so wrapped up in this unknown girl?
One of the deputies she’d met the first day wandered through, dropped a couple of reports in the basket on the counter, but didn’t speak. Parker, the quiet one. At least it wasn’t Troy Lee, who she’d already figured out liked the sound of his own voice, because he never stopped talking. With him around, she’d never get anything done. Now-familiar footsteps sounded down the hall. A door opened, closed, opened again.
Madeline frowned at one report and jotted a note on the pad at her elbow. The missing mother of two had been almost twenty-seven, too old for their victim. Another dead end.
“Madeline, did you take…” Tick sighed behind her. “Listen, would you ask before you take something off my desk?”
She didn’t reply and ignored his near-silent huff of exasperation. Without looking she knew he was scowling.
He pulled the straight chair from beside her desk and spun it around to straddle it. He gestured toward the file and her notes. “Anything?”
“No.” She tapped her pen on the paper. Propping her elbows on the desk, she rested her forehead on her hands. “How long ago was that house built?”
“Twenty-five, maybe thirty years?”
“We’re both old enough to remember. Any girls this age who went missing in that time frame?”
Frowning, he spun his wedding band around his finger before shaking his head. “None I can think of. But she could be from anywhere, someone who was passing through. We had a Jane Doe victim three years ago that we never identified. She didn’t match to any missing-person reports in the national database. The closest we could figure, she was a runaway who’d slipped through.”
“Yeah.” Madeline rubbed her eyes and lifted her head. She thumped the file folder. “This is probably a waste of time. I’ll enter our stats into the national database and see what comes up.”
“Sounds good.” He stood and returned the chair to its spot. “I’ve got paperwork to finish today. Come get me if you need me.”
“Sure.” If at all possible, she wouldn’t “need” him for anything. An irresistible urge gripped her before he made it beyond the doorway. “Hey, Calvert?”
He turned at the door. “Yeah?”
“I know how you feel about me, that you have no reason to trust me or listen to me, but you should really be careful with Allison. I’m serious. Just…remember that.”
His brows dipping into a frown, he nodded once before disappearing into his office.
The door closed softly behind him.
Even if she’d lost. Every. Single. Time.
In the intervening years, the furniture had been moved around, the pool tables replaced with newer models and a few more framed sports articles graced the walls. But the couple swaying together on the tiny dance floor, the country music tinkling from the jukebox…all that remained the same. The bartender was new, a pretty little blonde who worked the customers lining the polished counter like a pro.
“Maddie!” Across the room, a familiar redhead waved and recognition jolted Madeline, much as it had when she’d heard Donna’s voice on the phone. Being intimately acquainted with Madeline’s hatred for Chandler County, Donna had sarcastically welcomed her home and invited her to “come out and play” for old time’s sake. Obviously, enough of the desperate-to-belong Madeline of old existed because she hadn’t been able to resist.
“Hey, hey, Maddie Rae! Look, the whole gang is here.” Donna patted the empty seat beside her. Madeline glanced at the other side of the shadowy booth, shock running over her.
Allison Barnett bared her teeth in a semblance of a smile. The old hatred sparkled in her eyes.
“Hey.” Despite the better judgment screaming at her to go, Madeline slipped in beside Donna. Next to Allison was Stacy Cheek, another of the girls who’d made up their loose clique in high school. All they needed was Lori and Kelly to round things out. Only Lori was gone, killed in a freak car accident on the Panama City strip during her sophomore year of college. And Kelly…Kelly had taken off on them so long ago.
Stacy leaned forward to grasp Madeline’s hands as Donna wrapped a fierce hug around her shoulders. “Gosh, it’s so good to see you.”
And this was too much too soon. This wasn’t high school; they weren’t seventeen and eighteen anymore. Madeline eased free of Donna’s hold, the heavy smell of beer and tequila choking her. “You too.”
“I can’t believe you’re back,” Donna said as the waitress arrived to take new drink orders. Madeline ignored Allison’s mocking smirk when she ordered a red wine. “You got
out
, baby. All three of you—Kelly, Allison, you. I always envied you that.”
“It’s temporary.” Madeline reached for one of the roasted peanuts in the bucket on the table. “I’m only going to be here a few weeks.”
“That’s what I said,” Stacy said, her expression glum. “And here I am, still working in the office at McGee’s, trying to make ends meet since Scott couldn’t make a child-support payment on time if his life depended on it.”
Donna smiled and reached for Stacy’s hand. “But we’re all in it together, honey.” She waved a hand around the table. “All three of us work at the plant now, Mad. Hey, I hear there’s an opening for a security manager. You could join us over there.”
Sure. Right after she cut out her own heart. She shuddered. What if the Jacksonville PD didn’t take her back or she couldn’t get another major department to hire her? What then? Working security at the chicken plant actually made Chandler County’s backwoods sheriff’s department look good.
Desperate to change the subject, she faked a smile for Stacy. “I’m sorry to hear you and Scott split up.”
“I’m not.” Stacy’s brittle laugh cut through the air and drew the attention of several patrons near them. “Son of a bitch wouldn’t know a clit if it walked up and bit him on the ass.”
“Could be worse.” Donna reached for her beer and slugged half of it down. “He could have been like Joey. On a mission to conquer every strange pussy in the county.”
The crudity grated and Madeline gratefully accepted her wine from the server, giving her watch a surreptitious check. Fifteen minutes. She’d hold out fifteen minutes then escape. Listening to Mama bitch about Nate’s being in jail and Madeline’s failures was preferable to this. Hell, being trapped with Tick was preferable to this. At least he possessed a modicum of common decency.
“Allison, you can hop in anytime.” Stacy nudged Allison’s side. “Give us the down and dirty on your divorce.”
Allison shook back her shining hair and spun her beer in a slow circle. “He just wasn’t the right man for me.”
She swung her gaze slowly to Madeline’s, and once again, the animosity glittered in the blue depths. Madeline exhaled. Maybe ten minutes. That look in Allison’s eyes had never been a good thing. Suddenly, that malevolent light changed, shifted, morphing into an avaricious hunger, her entire face lit with it, and Madeline didn’t even have to turn her head to know who had walked through the door.
“Oh, yum.” Stacy licked her bottom lip. “Ride ’em, cowboy.”
Donna stared toward the entrance as well. “No, honey, you got it wrong. That right there is definitely ride
me
, cowboy.”
Cowboy? Maybe it wasn’t Tick. Lifting her glass, Madeline slid a shuttered glance in that direction. She barely managed to not sputter on the sip of pinot noir she’d just taken.
Holy fuck, it was Tick.
And Ash.
She drank in the details of his appearance as the two men approached the bar. He did have on cowboy boots, expensive but well worn, and on him it looked good, natural. His jeans were equally faded and frayed, molding strong thighs and that fantastic ass of his. A cotton shirt stretched over muscular shoulders and arms, the sleeves turned back a couple of times to reveal tanned skin.
A memory flashed over her, that tall powerful body between her thighs, pounding into her, making her come, breaking her into a thousand little splinters of pleasure.
Another memory, those big hands stroking her hair, his rich murmur soothing her to sleep.
Donna jabbed her in the side. “That’s Ash Hardison. He’s new here, owns one of the local chicken farms. Big buddies with your brother-in-law.”
“That has to be the finest ass known to woman. God, I love when he comes in the office.” Stacy wriggled on the vinyl seat. “It’s all I can do not to cream my panties, right there.”
The look Donna slid in Stacy’s direction was pure evil. “Too bad he doesn’t share your interest. Turned you down flat when you threw yourself at him, didn’t he?”
Stacy glared. Madeline tensed. She’d seen that look before too, usually right before Stacy slapped someone hard enough her mama felt it. Stacy leaned forward, eyes trained on Donna’s.
“Bitch.”
“Whore.” Donna smirked and leaned back.
Madeline rolled her eyes. The maturity was staggering.
“He’s with your ‘right man’, Allison.” That was Donna, stirring up trouble, just like always. Why the
hell
had Madeline thought this would be fun, delving back into the good old days? There hadn’t been any such thing and this sure as hell wasn’t her idea of fun.
Had she really been this kind of person? Surely not. And surely, if she had been, she wasn’t now.
Allison didn’t say anything, her gaze trained on Tick as he and Ash took their beers and wound through the small crowd to an empty pool table. Madeline studied them. They were obviously engaged in a heavy conversation, both bearing serious expressions, Tick talking with his hands as he often did. The light over the billiard table glinted off his wedding ring. He’d changed from his investigator’s uniform, wearing jeans and a buttondown shirt like Ash now.
“You should make a play for him, Allie.” Stacy sipped at her beer. “You steered him away from Kelly way back when, and it would be nice to see someone steal him from that stuck-up bitch he married.”
“The scuttle is she’s not giving him any, and that baby of theirs is four months old now,” Donna added. “You know that has to be one hungry man.”
The vitriolic words took Madeline’s breath. She smacked her glass on the table, afraid for a second that she’d break the stem. “Do you hear what you’re saying?”
“What?” Stacy spread her hands.
“Have you even met her?” Madeline shook her head, disgust filling her throat. “You don’t even know her, do you, and you’re calling her a bitch, saying someone needs to steal her husband.”
“God, Madeline, what is your problem?” Donna flipped back her too-red hair.
Madeline reached for her purse. “I’m not the one with a problem here.”
Stacy hissed in a breath. “You—”
“Bitch.” Madeline waved off the insult. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“You’ve changed, Mad.” Donna huffed the words. She tilted her beer to her lips.
“Thank God,” Madeline murmured beneath her breath, the pressure in her chest lightening somewhat. “Good night, girls. Wish I could say it’s been fun.”
On her way to the side entrance, she dropped a bill off with the bartender. Before slipping outside into the frigid night, she looked back. Ash leaned on his pool cue, a grin lighting his face as Tick missed a shot. Drawing her jacket more closely around her, Madeline turned away and stepped into the chilly, damp air.
“You’ve already slept with her, so why are you asking questions now?” Tick missed his shot and Ash chuckled. That ten bucks would be his for sure. Tick sucked at pool almost as bad as he did at golf. “Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”
Tick stepped back and Ash stepped forward to line up his shot. “Maybe not all of us are as slow to start as you are. It took you, what? Nine years to get in Cait’s bed?”
“You’re funny. A regular Jay Leno.” Tick rested his hips against the empty table behind them. “At least I know I’m in the right bed. There’s something to be said for getting to know a woman
before
you sleep with her. You know that, right? Or wasn’t Suzanne a big-enough lesson for you?”
Ash smacked the cue into the ball too hard, totally screwing his plan to end the game in four moves. He cast a narrow-eyed look at his friend. “Bringing the crazy ex-wife into this isn’t nice, Lamar.”
Holding his stick out to one side, Tick gave him a long-suffering look. “Did you sleep with Suzanne on the first date?”
The back of his neck heated. “Yeah.”
Tick lifted his brows in the “I rest my case” expression Ash hated.
“See, you let your dick lead you into things before your head has a chance to catch up.” Tick actually managed to put the six ball in the corner pocket. “And it’s attracted to dangerous women. Your head likes the safe ones. But you don’t listen to it and then you end up married to some crazy bitch who seduces your brother, runs over your dog and tries to kill your father.”
“She did not try to kill my father.”
Tick sank the three. “She put ground-up azalea leaves in his tea. Those things are poisonous. I think that falls under the umbrella of ‘trying to kill someone’. I’ll have to check the criminal code, though.”
“Now who’s the comedian?”
The eight ball made the side pocket. Tick straightened. “You owe me ten bucks.”
“I’ll make it twenty if you’ll answer my questions without further commentary on my choices in women.”
Tick rolled his dark eyes heavenward. “Keep your money. I’ll answer your damn questions. First, tell me this, because I just don’t get it—why are you interested in her?”
“Stanton didn’t get you and Cait either.”
“That is so different, it’s not in the same zip code.” Tick propped on the corner of the table. “You didn’t answer the question.”
“I don’t know. She’s…she’s different.” Ash scrubbed a hand over his nape. “Ever been in a room full of people and been completely alone, all at the same time?”
“I’ve been there.”
“Me too.” He leaned against the other table and surveyed the area around them, then lowered his voice. “I think she’s there all the time.”
“And you just have to rescue her, right? Even if it ends up kicking you in the balls. Shit.” Shaking his head, Tick pushed to his feet and laid his cue aside. “What do you want to know?”
Ash frowned. How to articulate what he needed to understand, the one thing that bothered him most, the way she refused to let him in at all. He blew out a breath. “What made her so hard, so damn scared of letting anybody close?”
“I’ve barely seen the woman in eighteen years, except for from a distance at her daddy’s funeral. How the hell am I supposed to know?”
“Because I think it happened here.” Ash tossed his cue on the table and folded his arms over his chest. “And I think it had something to do with you.”
Tick glanced away, muttering a word Ash knew he used with utmost rarity.
“You’re going to pull that ‘I gave my word’ bullshit on me, aren’t you?”
“I did.”
“The man you gave it to is dead, Tick. What is it going to hurt to tell me?”
“Because it’s my word, Ash. Hell, you should get that.”
“Yeah, and Caitlin made her brother give his word that he wouldn’t tell you what happened while you were in Mississippi, too. How bad do you wish he’d have broken that?”
“That’s dirty, Hardison.”
“Well?”
“Hell, yeah, I wish he’d said something. But that’s different, Ash. That affected both of us, me and Cait, directly. This doesn’t…it doesn’t concern you.”