Gone From Me: Hearts of the South, Book 10 (19 page)

“How’s your arm?” She rubbed a gentle hand across his shoulder.

“Sore.” He let his lids slide shut, his eyes gritty and swollen. His nose and sinuses felt equally inflamed. “You know, there’s a reason I don’t cry. The aftereffects suck.”

“You needed it.” She turned her head and rested her lips against his palm. He felt her teasing smile against his skin. “I can get you some cucumber slices for your eyes.”

“I’ll pass.” He stretched and grimaced at the sheer number of his muscles protesting the movement. “Hell, I hurt all over.”

“Roll over.” With gentle hands, she nudged him to lie on his belly. Kneeling next to him, she employed those same magic hands to ease the tightness from his muscles. He relaxed into the mattress, giving himself over to the relief. He turned his head to one side, pillowed on his arms. Her hands pushed at the muscles sloping into his lower back, and he groaned in boneless pleasure.

She dropped a kiss on his shoulder. “Savannah says you’ll probably be sore for a couple of days.”

“Think she’d write me a prescription for this?”

“You don’t need a prescription.” She worked her way down, across his buttocks and down his thighs, to the painful tightness of his calves and finally to his feet. “I’ll take care of you.”

He let his eyelids close. “I may never move again.”

The bed shifted slightly as she rose. “You may have to move for food. You have to be starving.”

“Not really.” His stomach felt hollow and empty, but he had no desire to eat.

“You haven’t eaten anything since at least yesterday afternoon.” She sifted her fingers through his hair. “I’m making us both a grilled cheese. If you don’t want it now, it’ll save for later.”

He let himself sink back into a half-doze. Without warning, he floundered in cold, rushing water, and jerked into full wakefulness. His heart thudded a sick rhythm against his ribs, and he gasped, trying to catch his breath. He passed a clammy hand over burning eyes. With careful movements, he pushed up from the bed. Despite Amy’s ministrations, his muscles ached with each motion.

His stomach rumbled. He scrubbed at gritty eyes and glanced at the clock. Almost three o’clock. He tugged on jeans and a faded VSU T-shirt, then slowly made his way to the kitchen.

Amy stood at the island, cutting sandwiches into triangles. She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Perfect timing. Your juice is on the counter.”

The first swallow of cold orange juice, his preferred beverage with a grilled cheese sandwich, burned his raw throat, but suddenly aware of his thirst, he drained the glass and went to refill it. Tumbler full, he joined Amy at the island. A large rectangular box, wrapped in shiny navy-and-white paper and topped off with a gold ribbon, lay between their plates, and Amy nudged it in his direction. “Open it.”

He lifted a sandwich and took of bite of melted goodness. His stomach, still wanting to clench in knots, didn’t rebel. “What is it?”

“Your anniversary gift.”

He looked at her askance. “Our anniversary isn’t until… Shit.”

“You get a bye this one time.” Her smile carried a note of indulgent affection. “Open it.”

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” He ran a finger underneath the tape holding one end closed.

She laid a warm hand on his knee. “Babe, the best present I could ever get was you walking up that riverbank last night.”

He slid the box free from the wrapping paper and lifted off the top. He parted the tissue paper to find a classic wood frame showcasing a photo of himself and his father on his and Amy’s wedding day.

“Amy.” He breathed her name and touched a shaky finger to the frame. In the photo, his father stood before him as he peered into a wardrobe mirror, collar up and tying his bowtie. His throat went tight all over again, and his chest ached. Picture held to his torso, he leaned over to kiss her. “It’s great. Thank you.”

“That’s his giving-solid-advice expression.” She rested her hand on his shoulder, a winsome look in her eyes. “I wonder what he’s saying to you.”

“‘So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth,’” he whispered, hearing his father’s deep voice in his memory. He
missed
him, but here was proof that he’d never really be without him. All of that wisdom stayed with him.

“You remember that?” She fiddled with the edges of his hair.

“I do.” He caught her other hand and squeezed. “This…this is awesome, babe. Thank you.”

“I’m thankful you listened to him.” She wrapped her fingers about his and lifted his knuckles to her lips. “That you remained loyal to me, even when I was so blind to what you needed.”

“I will always be loyal to you.” He rotated their clasped hands so he could trail the back of his hand along her jaw. “You’re ‘my treasure, my bride’.”

A smile brightened her face as he recited the scripture that had made up part of his vows to her. Tears sparkled along her lashes. “I remember that.”

“Babe, you are my treasure every day.” He leaned in to touch his lips to hers, a promise in the brief caress. “My bride.”

Chapter Eleven

Rob flipped through another interview transcript and glanced at his watch. Seven minutes since the last time he looked. Amazing how a few days in a car changed a guy’s perspective about riding a desk. With Troy Lee possibly out on medical leave and the Charger out of commission, Calvert hadn’t seen any reason to place Rob with another officer. So here he was, waiting on Zeke Jenkins’s autopsy reports and slogging through paperwork.

He read back over Mike’s initial interview, trying to tune out the conversations around him.

“Stringham was wound up at that roadblock this morning.” Walker popped open a soda and settled in with Campbell and Monroe at the table across the room. “Wonder what’s with him?”

Campbell harrumphed. “No telling. He’s a son of a bitch.”

Rob tried to tune out the chatter. He skimmed the interview again. Something didn’t make sense. Two to three days?

“We’re thinking right here, next to the bulletin board.” Calvert’s wry voice preceded his and Cook’s entry. “A Troy Lee Farr Hall of Fame and maybe a photo of every car you’ve managed to destroy.”

“Anybody ever tell you what an ass you are?” Resigned humor colored Troy Lee’s voice. “Hey, Bennett.”

“Hey.” Filled with an insane surge of emotion, Rob rose to meet his partner, who he hadn’t seen since Calvert had hauled him into the boat two nights before. By the time he’d finally been cleared at the ER, Troy Lee had been stitched up and gone. He stuck his hand out.

“Screw that.” With a wide grin, Troy Lee grabbed his hand and tugged him into a tight, back-slapping bro-hug. “You saved my life, man.”

Rob winced at the pressure on his injured arm, but pounded his other palm against Troy Lee’s back and blinked sudden moisture from his eyes. “I think that’s mutual.”

Troy Lee laughed, slapped his back a couple more times, and stepped back.

“Damn, that’s sweet,” Walker drawled. “You gonna suck him off or what, Farr?”

“Asshole,” Troy Lee muttered. Rob pulled his own shoulders straight, the way he’d witnessed on his dad a thousand times, and turned a glower on Walker.

“Hey, Walker, you know what Stringham’s problem is? I am.” He tapped his chest to punctuate the
I
. “Trust me, I can be yours too. If I hear this shit from you one more time, I’ll file a hostile workplace complaint and take it as high as I need to go. Be really bad to lose your POST certificate because you can’t stop being a dick.”

“Son of bitch,” Cook murmured. “He sounds just like Ham.”

“That’s why I didn’t cut him loose last week.” Calvert tagged Cook’s chest. “He’s definitely Ham Bennett’s boy. Walker, I need to see you in my office.”

Walker cast a glare at Rob, shoved his chair back and followed Calvert and Cook down the hall. The deputies lingering in the room suddenly found a myriad of tasks to occupy their attention.

Troy Lee snickered. “Man, that was—”

“Let me guess. Epic.” Rob slanted a grin at his partner and gestured at the neat line of stitches a scant inch above his temple. “What did the doctor say?”

“Another couple of days before he’ll clear me for actual road duty. He and Calvert agree I can ride along if you’re driving and there’s no actual road work involved.” He grimaced. “Two days of freaking investigations.”

Rob’s phone buzzed, and he glanced at the screen. “Well, you want to ride with me over to the crime lab? Zeke Jenkins’s autopsy results are in.”

“Might as well.” Troy Lee’s tone didn’t exactly hum with enthusiasm.

“Hey, is there a decent jewelry store in this town?”

“Hodges. Why?”

“I forgot my anniversary, and I kinda need to pick up a gift.”

“Now who’s the resident screwup?”

* * * * *

Bone-chilling cold and the mingled smells of disinfectant, body fluids and decay greeted them in the lab’s autopsy room. Seated at her desk, Ford looked up from a file at their entrance. She smiled. “Hey, Bennett, long time no see.”

“Tell me about it.” He jerked a thumb in Troy Lee’s direction. “You know Deputy Farr.”

Her smile morphed into a smirk. “I know of him.”

Troy Lee rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath. Rob ignored him. “You have results for me on the Jenkins’s autopsy.”

“I do.” She tugged a folder free from the uneven stack on her desk and handed it to him. Then, she nodded toward the storage room. “You want to take a look while we go over it?”

“Sure, why not?” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a couple of strong peppermints. He extended one in Troy Lee’s direction. Troy Lee lifted an eyebrow in silent inquiry, and Rob grimaced. “Trust me.”

They followed Ford into the long, narrow room. Even with the drop in temperature, the smell grew stronger, especially when Ford opened one of the drawer doors and rolled out the metal holding tray. Troy Lee coughed hard into his hand, the skin around his mouth paling, and Rob looked up from the folder he’d flipped open.

Ford snorted, her expression stern and unamused. “If you get sick, do not throw up in my lab.”

“I’m good.” Troy Lee straightened, his voice a little strangled around the mint.

“Accidental death?” Rob stared at the report a moment, then glanced at Zeke’s nude corpse, recognizable even with the bloat and discoloration from being in the water. “For real?”

“Blunt force trauma to the skull from an accidental fall.” Ford shrugged. “Scalp lacerations are consistent with a fall as well as the comminuted skull fracture and resultant hemorrhaging. His back is scraped up, much as we’d expect to see with skin hitting rock or asphalt. I’d say he fell backward onto a flat surface from a slightly elevated height—three or four feet. Ladder, truck bed, who knows?”

“He die on impact?”

“No. May have knocked himself out for a few minutes, but it was a relatively slow bleed. Probably another thirty minutes, an hour at the most. He’d have been confused, slurring his words.”

Rob flipped to the initial toxicology report. Detailed reports always took weeks, but Ford, bless her, always gave the basics up front. “He had alcohol in his system.”

Ford nodded. “Yep. Legally intoxicated, which means if he was with someone, they might have thought he was merely drunk once he started with the confusion and slurring. His stomach was empty, so more than likely, he vomited after the head injury.”

“Which someone could attribute to the drinking too.” Rob closed the folder. “Well, hell.”

“Don’t look so disappointed. Homicide cases are a bitch. All you have to figure out is who wanted to conceal his death.”

“Come again?” If she thought she was making his life easier, she was wrong. Concealing an accidental death?

“See the bruising on his torso?” Ford swept a hand over the large round contusions. “Stones. Big ones, used to weight the body down in water.”

She made an imaginary circle with her hands to approximate the size of a large rock.

“He was in the water, though, right?” Troy Lee shrugged. “And that water was moving hard and fast. Maybe it slammed him into rocks.”

“No, definitely not. That would have caused avulsion of the skin. The lividity shows he was basically on his back in a small space sometime after death. The rib fractures and bruising to the chest are postmortem, and the stone pattern left impressions in the skin that were still there even after time in the water. He was somewhere with water and someone didn’t want him found.”

Rob frowned, his gaze on the large swathe of bruising spread across Zeke’s chest. “Why?”

Ford patted his cheek with one gloved hand. “That’s your job, hon.”

“Funny.” He held the folder aloft. “Is this my copy?”

“Yes. I’ll send you over an electronic copy via email too.”

“Thanks.” He tagged Troy Lee’s chest. “Let’s go.”

On the road back to Coney, Rob flexed his fingers around the steering wheel and rolled the details about in his brain. “Okay, so it’s an accident. He’s drinking, he falls, and he hits his head. He’s a kid, he’s a guy, and he doesn’t realize the injury is worse than he thinks. He dies, and whoever he’s with panics and has to hide that. That doesn’t make sense. You don’t have to hide an accident.”

“It’s Smithwick.” Troy Lee slumped in the seat, frowning. He cast a glance at Rob, an eyebrow lifted. “You know it is.”

“Probably, because they’re drinking buddies. But it sounds like he went to a hell of a lot of trouble to hide that body.” Rob frowned, tapping his palm against the wheel. “What do people hide?”

“Gambling. Drugs.” Troy Lee rubbed a finger across his mouth. “Money problems. Affairs.”

“Shit.” He dropped the right wheel off the pavement and concentrated on pulling the vehicle back on the road. Excitement pulsed in his chest. He tapped his palm in a rapid tattoo on the steering wheel. “Son of a bitch.”

“Fill me in.” Wry humor lurked in Troy Lee’s voice. “I can’t read your mind, and I don’t think like an investigator, remember?”

“Whose texts don’t show up on Zeke’s records?”

“Mike’s.”

“Exactly, but Vaughn said Zeke had one of those apps on his phone that deletes messages after you send them. Maybe he was texting Mike, and we simply couldn’t see it.”

“You think Mike and Zeke had a thing?” Troy Lee braced a hand against the dash as Rob swerved over the centerline. “Dude, pull over and let me drive.”

“No, I’ll pull over, but you’re not driving my truck.” Thoughts zinged through his brain, almost too fast to connect them all together. He pulled into a dirt turnoff to Covey Rise Plantation and shoved the gear into park. He turned sideways in the seat to look at his partner. “Blake Calvert said he couldn’t tell what he knew because it would hurt a lot of people. If Zeke and Mike were together, who does that hurt?”

“Britt.”

“Yeah, and Mike Smithwick’s daddy’s a preacher in a hard-line church too. Bet he would be none too happy to find out his kid is gay.”

Troy Lee nodded. “Zeke’s daddy is a deacon in that same church.”

With a sharp nod, Rob spun and shifted into drive. “Let’s go talk to Blake.”

* * * * *

Cars lined the small neighborhood targeted by the No Place Like Home charity housing-repair blitz. Rob slotted his truck in behind Blake Calvert’s Chevy. A guy down the street called a greeting to Troy Lee as they exited the truck, and Troy Lee lifted a hand. College kids swarmed two houses, a cacophony of hammering, chatter, laughter and music filling the air.

Montgomery stood on the porch of one house, repainting spindles on the old-fashioned railing.

“Montgomery, where’s Blake?” Troy Lee called as they mounted the steps. She froze, paintbrush in hand, long lashes sweeping down over tear-filled eyes. The aftereffects of weeping were plain on her face—mascara spotty, skin splotchy, her nose red. Troy Lee frowned. “What’s wrong?”

She waved a hand toward the house. “We’re… It doesn’t matter.”

Troy Lee watched her a moment and sighed. He smiled at her and wrapped a quick hug around her shoulders. “You know where I am if you want to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Troy Lee. Sometimes things just don’t work.” She rubbed a finger under her eye, then gestured toward the screen door. “He’s working in the kitchen.”

They made their way through the small home, skirting a pair of kids laying new laminate flooring in the living and dining rooms. In the tiny kitchen, they found Blake helping another young man rehang newly painted cabinet doors. Blake looked wrung out—tense, stoic, and a little pale under his tan. Once he caught sight of them, he closed his eyes on a muttered “frick”.

Rob flicked a hand toward the open back door and the shaggy green lawn beyond. “Can we talk to you in private?”

“Sure.” Blake grimaced and slammed his screwdriver into his tool belt. He gestured toward the other kids helping him. “Take a break, and I’ll be right back.”

He clattered down the steps and turned on them once they cleared the stoop. A glare twisting his face, he shoved his bangs back from his forehead. “I told you—”

“I’m not asking you to break your word and tell us anything.” Rob pitched his voice as low and even as possible. Man, the kid was wound tight—almost visibly vibrating with anger and emotion. “But maybe you can confirm a theory for me, and that’s not the same as telling me something.”

“More like lying by omission, right? Because not telling the whole truth is somehow better than outright lying.”

“You feel like you’re lying by omission, Blake?” Rob rested his hands at his waist and suppressed a wince when his injured arm twinged.

“No.” A spasm of guilt and grief belied the words. He shrugged. “I don’t know anything about what happened to Zeke, except he’s dead and nothing I know or don’t know will bring him back.”

“Zeke and Mike were romantically involved, weren’t they?”

Blake’s head tilted back as if under a sudden blow, and surprise flared in his tortured gaze. He sucked in an audible breath, looked away, then turned fierce eyes in Rob’s direction. “Yeah.”

“I get the secrecy before, Blake.” His voice soft, Troy Lee tucked his thumbs in his pockets. “Why after?”

“Are you kidding me?” Blake shook his head, mouth tight. He rolled his shoulders, took another deep breath, and let it out as a frustrated sigh. “Sometimes people get locked in by what they’re raised to believe. My sister was able to go to my parents and say, ‘I’m gay,’ and know they loved her, and she was still scared. Mike and Zeke, go to their parents and say that? No way. Their church preaches you can lose your salvation and being gay is a sin. So Mike’s going to tell Mr. Dale and Mrs. Shelli that, according to what they believe, their only child is burning in hell? No. He loves them like he loves his own parents. He loved Zeke too. Do I think they were together when it happened and that somehow Mike’s involved? Yeah. But they’re my friends. What do you want to me do?”

His voice cracked on the question. His jaw clenched, and a sheen brightened his eyes.

“And Britt was your friend.” Troy Lee blew out a long breath. “Caught in the middle.”

“Yeah.” The younger man was on the verge of openly crying now, his voice ragged. “We were all friends, then she got pregnant and their parents made them get married. Zeke was a good guy with a good heart, and at the beginning, Britt really did love him. Zeke didn’t want to hurt her.”