It’s Not That

Hixon

HIX WALKED INTO his department Monday morning to see Hal at his desk.

“Yo, Hix,” Hal called and smiled a smile that Hix didn’t like all that much. “Good weekend?”

Clearly, from his read on Hal’s smile, news that Hix had been to the Dew and had waited outside for Greta had made the rounds.

“Yeah,” he grunted, moving down the aisle toward his office.

As he got close to Hal’s desk, the man unsurprisingly (considering it was Hal) had the balls to ask, “This hairdresser the reason Bets is acting like she’s perpetually on the rag?”

Hix halted and turned only his head to his deputy.

He liked all his deputies—in their jobs and out of them—including Bets when she wasn’t being a pain in his ass.

Not including Hal.

He was a good enough deputy.

But he was an asshole.

His voice said things Hix wasn’t going to verbalize, but he still made them clear when he replied, “How ’bout I leave your private life to you, you let me have mine, and you don’t say shit about Bets like that at all in anything owned by this county, like this building, your cruiser, during your time earning a paycheck or to anyone who’s also on the county’s dime.”

What Hix hadn’t verbalized was that Hal’s private life included the fact he’d been a cop in Kansas City until his wife had become fed up with him chasing skirt.

She’d given him an ultimatum: they changed their lives in order to assist him in changing his ways or they were done.

Instead of cutting her loose, what he should have done, he’d changed their lives. They’d moved up to Glossop and he’d moved into his position as a deputy.

But he hadn’t changed his ways.

He had a steady woman on the side and a couple of other not-as-steady ones he also saw.

Who he banged, and so many of them not being his wife, was unfortunately not something Hix could release him for.

Hal did the job, had a number of years on it, was as good at it as he could be, considering nothing ever happened, so Hix was stuck.

Therefore Hix put up with him.

But Larry only tolerated him.

And Bets tried to avoid him because he razzed her about Hix, also about being a rookie, and lastly she avoided him because he was an asshole.

Donna detested him and was professional enough to work beside him without hurling, but that was the extent of it.

This last came to a head after they’d solved the burning mystery of the farmer whose chickens were getting stolen (the farmer’s daughter’s boyfriend said farmer wouldn’t let her date was doing the deed).

Donna and Hal had worked that, and after they sat in his office reporting on it, Donna had turned to Hal and declared, “If I have to sit in a squad and listen to your trashy sex talk with one of your floozies again, Hal, I’ll forget about the protect-and-serve brotherhood and share with Ashlee you can’t keep your dick in your pants. Don’t test me. This is your only warning.”

She’d gotten up after that and walked out.

Hal had turned to Hix, clearly feeling the brotherhood he didn’t consider Donna a part of because she had a badge but not a dick would commiserate, but Hix just stared at him until the man spoke.

“I just—”

Hix had lifted a hand. “Not my business. But Donna’s right. That shit does not happen on county time. You got life stuff with family and friends you need to deal with on the job, that’s not an issue. You wanna talk like that with one of your women on the county’s time, we got a problem. Now, you want my counsel, I’ll tell you to keep your dick in your pants for anyone but your wife. You want my opinion, I don’t like how it reflects on this department that you don’t. Since you didn’t ask my counsel or my opinion, I gotta keep my mouth shut about both. I won’t, I find any more of your shit happens on the job.”

“Everyone takes personal calls on the job,” he’d defended.

“And right now I’m tellin’ you, my deputies don’t take that kind of personal call on the job,” Hix returned.

Hal said nothing.

So Hix did.

“Feel we got that straight. Now, out.”

Hal had slunk out and Hix had made a point not to schedule Donna on weekend call with Hal, nor had he put them on a case together.

It was working.

Just.

“Sorry, boss,” Hal muttered.

Having been reminded of his place, something, thankfully, that Hix didn’t have to do often, Hal looked that mix of chastised and pissed he pulled off so well.

He then cleared his throat and asked, “Larry phone in about the weekend?”

“Accident on 28,” Hix told him. “Lots of damage to the cars, thankfully minimal damage to the people. He says his report is on my desk.”

Hal nodded.

“Outpost had a thing but Betty-Jean handled it before Larry and Donna could hit it,” Hix went on. “That’s it.”

“Right.”

“Yeah,” Hix said, dipped his chin and then walked the rest of the way to his office.

He didn’t look at Hal as he settled himself and he also didn’t think of Hal.

He’d had Junk Sunday with his kids. It had been great. Now was the not-so-great part, since they were off to Hope’s after school and practices that day.

But also now he could turn his mind to something else, something his, and what he was turning it to was Greta.

He should have gotten her number before he left her.

He didn’t.

He’d rectify that.

But that morning, after Lou’s opened and he was sure Greta would be around, he was going to call down to the salon and ask her to meet him at the Harlequin for lunch that day.

He didn’t care what that would say to anyone but Greta.

And what he hoped it would say to Greta was that Hix wanted to spend time with her in a place they couldn’t lock lips and things would then get out of control.

Not that he didn’t want that. Greta out of control was a very good thing.

He just wanted to get to know her better.

He liked looking at her. She made him laugh. There was stuff about her he was curious about and he wanted to know.

And she knew where he was in his life and his head, and she didn’t care.

She was uncomplicated, the only thing in his life that had been in a long time. She gave him that freely, when he wasn’t acting like a dick.

He liked it.

And he wanted more.

He could give it headspace, overthink it, fuck it up.

There was no reason.

She was just Greta. She made him laugh. She made him feel good.

So he wasn’t going to make something simple, complicated.

He was just going to have lunch with a woman he liked to spend time with.

What came after that, he wouldn’t give it headspace either.

His son had been right. He’d been living so long with trying to hold together his family his only focus, he forgot to look after himself.

That wasn’t teaching his kids good lessons.

If his two girls found out about Greta, he’d deal with that if or when the time came.

But Corinne may give her brother guff, she still looked up to him and listened. Mamie adored him and would follow his lead.

It might end up in disaster.

It might be great.

It didn’t matter right then. He wasn’t bringing her into his children’s lives right then.

Right then it was two people getting together for lunch.

That was all Hix was thinking about.

And for the first time in a very long time, he was looking forward to something.

This lasted all of ten minutes, when the deep chill that came from the bullpen hit his office.

He looked from the report he was reading out the window to see Bets had arrived and she was avoiding Hal at the same time doing that to Hix.

If he was there before her, she came in and said hey.

This time, she was at her desk, staring at her computer like the impossible had happened and something interesting was on it.

She’d been like that all last week.

He’d give her that week.

Then he’d find some way to snap her ass out of it.

He was finishing up reading the report when another feel came from the bullpen.

He looked out the window and then he fought closing his eyes and tipping his face to the ceiling.

He just drew a breath in through his nostrils.

Letting it go, he got up and moved to the side of his desk, standing there but leaning his thigh into it as he watched his ex-father-in-law, Jep Schroeder, finish walking by the window to disappear down the back hall.

Hix aimed his eyes at the door and saw Jep walk through.

Jep had a thinning head of gray hair and a thick mustache over his top lip, and the only thing about it that had changed since Hix had met him was the color.

He also had a way about him that said plain he was a good ole boy in the right sense of that—he was a good man and he was not young.

“You got a minute, son?” Jep asked.

In all likelihood, he had all day.

And it had been setting itself up to be a good one, if Greta agreed to lunch.

Now?

Not so much.

“Jep, not sure this is a good idea,” Hix said by way of answer.

Jep gave him a look that lasted a few beats before he replied, “Won’t take much of your time, Hix. Promise. And I won’t be much of a pain in your patoot. That’s a promise too.”

Hix sighed before he tilted up his chin.

Jep closed the door behind him and walked in. He stood behind a chair and put a hand on it when Hix didn’t move from his place, leaning against his desk.

“We got a situation with Hope,” Jep announced.

Well then . . .

Right.

He had to make this clear as best he could without hurting feelings or damaging a relationship that meant something to him.

And he had to pull that off now.

So Hix shook his head. “Love you like a father, you got that and always will, no matter what papers I’ve signed. I hope you knew that before I just gave it to you. That being so, I also hope you get you got my respect even as I tell you whatever situation you have with Hope has nothin’ to do with me.”

Jep held his gaze as he nodded slowly.

“That’s the situation we got with Hope, son,” he said quietly.

Not a surprise. She probably went straight to their ranch after her conversation with Hix in that very room last Tuesday.

“I know it’ll take time,” Hix replied. “I know it won’t be easy. And I know in this town, it bein’ so small, that’ll make it even harder. But that doesn’t negate the fact I’m tryin’ to move on from all this and I’ll ask you to help me with that by not bringing this kind of thing to my office. But also, Jep, not bringing it to me anywhere at all.”

“You’re done with her,” he whispered.

“She divorced me, so yes. I’m done with her, Jep. I’m sorry but there it is.”

Jep swallowed, looked to the side, sniffed loud and Hix gave him time.

The man was sixty-two and he had more land than Hix figured took up the whole of the town proper of Glossop.

He was a rancher, not a farmer, as his father (this happening twice over) had been, all of them expanding the ranch and the head of cattle on it to the point they didn’t see lean years like other ranchers sometimes had to endure. His sons worked with him as well as both owning their own small farms. His daughter worked for him too, doing the books, dealing with the auctions, making the sales of steer sperm, overseeing her brothers’ individual accounts, their farm business, and all the rest that was required, which was a lot with an operation that large.

For the men, the work was honest, but hard and never-ending.

Even so, Jep looked his age, not a day younger, but not a day older either.

Except right then.

Right then he looked about a hundred.

“Jep,” Hix called.

His ex-father-in-law turned his eyes to Hix and requested, “Can I ask one thing of you, Hixon?”

“Hate to say it how I gotta say it, but it depends on what that thing is.”

Jep accepted that with a nod.

“What it is, is that I know it’s none of my business, wasn’t when you were with my daughter, isn’t now. But can I ask if you’re needin’ to use that money your uncle gave you to buy you a new place?”

Hix straightened from the desk, surprised this was something he wanted to know.

Surprised, but there was no reason not to tell him.

“No choice,” he shared. “Had to use some of it on a lawyer and setting up the apartment too. Why?”

Jep’s eyes went even sadder and he shook his head. “Just . . . guess . . .” He pulled in breath, looking like he was struggling, and Hix hated watching a man who was always so sure of himself going through that. Finally, he got where he needed to go. “Wanna know you’re covered, son.”

This wasn’t surprising.

Hix had a great dad.

But Jep still was like a father to him and had always treated him not like a son-in-law, but like a son.

Not to mention, Hix had Jep’s grandchildren half the time.

“I’m good, Jep. Kids’re good. We’re lookin’ at houses. We’ll be settled soon.”

“Unh-hunh,” Jep mumbled.

“We’re okay and it’ll get better, time passes,” Hix assured him quietly.

Jep nodded.

Then he lifted himself up, faced Hix dead on and declared, “We spoiled her. Our last. A girl. Marie wanted one so bad. I didn’t admit it, but I did too. Let her have her way until it was time to stop doin’ that, then she set about makin’ things her way and we shoulda nipped that in the bud too. We just didn’t, and now—”

Hix cut him off. “Jep, now she’s an adult and she needs to bear the consequences of her actions, not you. Not Marie. This isn’t on you. Or Marie. And further, no need to find a place to lay blame. What’s done is done. It’s over. We just gotta find our way to move past it and settle in.”

“Reckon you’re right,” Jep muttered.

“No choice but to be right about that,” Hix told him.

His shoulders slumped, the light in his eyes dimmed, and Hix wished he’d found different words or not said anything at all.

“We’ll miss you at our Thanksgiving table, Hixon,” Jep told him.

“And I’ll miss being there, Jep,” Hix replied.

Jep brightened. “Maybe one day, you all get settled in, we’ll all—”

“Jep,” Hix said carefully.

“Yup. Yup,” Jep replied, catching his meaning and nodding. “You’re right, Hix.” He took his big, calloused hand from his chair and lifted it Hix’s way, pressing it toward him a couple of times, saying “Best be leavin’ you alone. No need to follow me out, know my way.”

Hix stood where he was and watched Jep walk slowly to the door.

He stopped in it and turned.

“End this the only way I can,” he stated. “And that’s to tell you the God’s honest truth. Me and Marie, we want you to be happy. Cook and Jessie do too. Reed, he spoils his sister more than any of us ever did, he’s not handlin’ things well, but he’ll come around. His Molly’s already there.” He gave a grin he didn’t even try to make Hix believe was real. “But she’s always been the sharper tack between those two. Smartest thing Reed’s done is make that woman his wife, and you know I’ve said that to his face so you don’t gotta keep it under your hat, mostly ’cause Reed agrees with me. But we all . . . just to say, we all . . .” He smacked his lips, held Hix’s eyes, and finished, “Don’t care what no papers say. You’ll always be family, son. Not my grandbabies’ daddy. Family, Hixon. The real kind. Always.”

Hix found he had to clear his throat before he replied, “Same.”

Jep nodded quickly and repeatedly and murmured, “Let you get to work.” And on that, he opened the door and walked out.

Bets walked in.

Damn.

“Bets—” he started.

She interrupted him.

“The Mortimers called. They just got home from a weekend in Lincoln. Home game. Made a thing of it and cashed in some freebie they’d won for a double-night stay at a Best Western. Got back this mornin’, found someone painted graffiti on their barn. They’re ticked. They want someone out there. I’d say I’d go with Hal, but, don’t get pissed, he’s being more of a dick than normal and I’m fed up with his crap. So just wanna ask, can I go alone?”

Butch Mortimer was born in a bad mood and he was big as a house.

His wife Louella didn’t come straight from the loins of her momma. She came straight from the loins of Satan.

No way in hell he was sending Bets out there to deal with those two alone.

And this would take some time. Time to listen to Butch shouting. Time to listen to Louella bitching. Time to ask the questions that might give them answers that possibly might pinpoint the actual person who graffitied their barn rather than the dozens of suspects who disliked them enough to be moved to do it.

Shit.

Apparently, he’d have to ask Greta to lunch tomorrow.

He moved from his spot, saying, “We’ll both go.”

She looked panicked.

She’d have to get over it.

He was her boss. They had to work together so she had to find a way to make that work.

She might as well start now.

That night, after they did not narrow down the suspects of the barn taggers, and after Hix had gone to the gym to work out, he sat at a stool at the bar of the Outpost between his buds, Toast and Tommy, watching Monday Night Football on Betty-Jean’s eighty-inch TV.

His gut was full of wings and pop and his mind was full of football and the lunch he hoped to share tomorrow with Greta.

In other words, he was feeling good.

Until his phone rang, he lifted it from the bar and the screen said Hope Calling.

Toast made a grunt, but then again Toast had had his own bitter divorce from his wife two years previously. Tommy just shifted on his stool, giving Hix a half-grimace that said he felt Hix’s pain even though he was a confirmed bachelor so he couldn’t even come close to doing that.

They’d seen the screen.

For Hix’s part, she had his kids, he had to take the call.

“Be back,” he muttered, sliding off his stool and letting the phone ring until halfway to the door of the bar where he took the call. “Hope.”

“Hixon,” she replied shortly.

He pushed out the door. “The kids okay?”

“Yes,” she bit out.

He pulled a deep breath into his lungs and stopped on the sidewalk, looking unseeing at Main Street.

When she said nothing, he prompted, “Right, you wanna let me in on why you’re callin’?”

She did because she launched right in.

“I know you dislike me repeating myself, Hix, however, it’s important enough to me to make one final attempt to ask you to stop this Junk Sundays thing. It seems lost on you that I’ve been trying since they were born to teach them healthy habits. They have to live in those bodies for what I’m sure we both hope is a long time, so it’s important that they take care of them.”

“Hope, it isn’t lost on me. What also isn’t lost on me is both Shaw and Cor play sports, so the entire school year they’re training and conditioning. Mamie is in dance year round. In the summer, they all like to go and help your dad out on the ranch and that work is heavy. They aren’t sitting around playing videogames all the time. It’s one day and they don’t eat so much they puke. They just have a day to relax and let loose.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” she shot back.

“You’ve made that clear.”

“They need to be shown what’s right, Hixon. Not shown what’s right but there are exceptions. Right is right. There are no exceptions. And they need a solid foundation for that when it’s their turn to make good choices.”

“Hope, they’re not five years old,” Hix returned. “No offense, but it’s weird, a momma tellin’ her seventeen-year-old son what he can put in his mouth. Or her fifteen-year-old daughter. Or even Mamie. We gotta loosen our hold and let them make those choices. We can’t treat them like first graders until the second they take off for college.”

“Shaw has a man’s metabolism,” she retorted. “But it would not be good for the girls if they got heavy.”

Hix tried to hold on to his temper.

“Neither of our girls are heavy, they don’t have the build or the habits to go that way, but that said, I’m not a big fan of you giving them ideas that they’d be anything but perfect however they are.”

“Society is not kind to fat girls,” she snapped.

“Unfortunately, you’re correct. But how about we worry about that if either of them gives us any indication they’re going to put on too much weight?”

She said nothing, and since they were on the phone, Hix couldn’t tell if she was seething or scheming.

He’d find out it was the former.

“So this is your play.”

Hix blew out another sigh and replied, “I’m not playing at anything.”

“Yes you are. Making it more fun to stay at Dad’s than put up with Mom expecting them to make the proper decisions about important things in their lives.”

“I don’t let them throw keggers at my place, Hope,” he clipped. “We have donuts and chips and dip and watch movies and football for one day. Christ, it’s not a big deal.”

“It is to me.”

“Yeah,” he bit out. “And you’ve shared that. I’ve listened. I don’t agree. So we’re not talkin’ about this anymore right now and we’re not talking about it again.”

“Hix—”

“Later, Hope.”

With that, he disconnected, and since he was on call, he not only had to drink pop with his wings rather than beer, he couldn’t turn off the phone but he could turn off the ringer.

So he did that, put his ex out of his head and walked back into the bar to continue with friends, football and shit food.

It didn’t occur to him as he did that for the first time since she’d kicked him out, he had no trouble putting her out of his head.

It also didn’t occur to him that he would not have to go home to her after football with his buds and listen to her bitch about the fact he put down so many nachos and wings.

By the time he sat his ass back on the barstool, he just ordered a plate of nachos and didn’t think of her at all.

The next morning, after going out first thing to the Mortimers to take their shit that he hadn’t yet figured out who’d graffitied their barn, Hix hit the department.

The instant he did . . .

No, the instant he saw the back of the rounded woman sitting in the chair beside Larry’s desk, he went wired.

Hal was not to be seen. Donna was probably out in a cruiser (the woman liked a desk about as much as Hix did, which was to say not much at all). Bets was at her desk.

Hix looked to Reva in the dispatch room and gave her a chin lift before he moved directly to Larry.

Larry looked up at him and straightened in his chair, murmuring, “Sheriff. This is Mrs. Calloway. Mrs. Calloway, this is Sheriff Drake.”

Hix was no longer paying attention to Larry.

One look at young, pretty Mrs. Calloway, he was also no longer wired.

He was tweaked.

“Mrs. Calloway,” he murmured.

“Sheriff,” she whispered.

“She’s in reporting her husband didn’t come home last night,” Larry put in. “She last saw him yesterday morning before he went to work. I’ve been explaining that protocol for a missing—”

His gaze cut to Larry as he cut him off. “Deputy, a quick word.”

Larry looked surprised, but Hix didn’t spend time taking that in.

His attention returned to Mrs. Calloway.

“We won’t be long.”

She nodded.

Larry got up and Hix walked him to the back. He stopped them at the mouth of the hall that led from the cells to the back rooms.

He turned in a way that Larry had his back to the room and he kept his face expressionless.

“Take her statement,” he ordered under his breath. “Get everything you can from her. When she last saw him. How he was when he left. His mood and manner the evening before. Where he works. Where he hangs. Who he hangs with. His normal schedule. If anything has seemed unusual about his behavior or routine the last few weeks or months. Get his cell phone number. The make and model of his car. License plate number. Get anything she can give you.”

“Boss, a missing person isn’t a—”

Hix allowed himself to lift his brows. “You got somethin’ better to do?”

“See your point,” Larry muttered.

“It’s not that.”

When he spoke those words, Larry focused more fully on him.

“That woman takes care of herself,” Hix explained. “Nails are polished. She does somethin’ to make her hair that way. She’s got weight on her but she’s also wearin’ stylish clothes. Those clothes she’s wearing, though, Larry, she wore yesterday. She might not have taken ’em off, she’s been so worried about her husband not showin’ last night. She mighta just been so freaked her man didn’t come home by the time morning arrived, she took off her pajamas and picked those clothes right up off the floor to put ’em back on to come see us. She has the remnants of yesterday’s makeup on. She hasn’t done anything to her hair, not even brushed it, just shoved it back in that ponytail before she came here. And her eyes are dilated, which is an indication of panic or anxiety.”

He got closer to his deputy and laid it out.

“Her husband comes home, Larry. She’s not here because he’s in the Dansboro Motel with his piece on the side and she’s fed up with putting up with it and wants to make a point. She’s not here because they’ve been having serious issues, he’s over it and he took off. She’s here because her husband comes home every night and last night he didn’t come home.”

“Right, boss,” Larry whispered.

“Go get everything you can out of her.”

“Right, boss,” Larry repeated on a nod, turned and took off.

Hix watched him and then he moved to Bets’s desk which was behind Larry’s.

He bent slightly to her and said quietly, “Listen in. Take notes. Be alert. You don’t have to hide it. We want Mrs. Calloway to know we’re taking her concerns seriously. Then be ready. We got a man to find.”

She stared up at him with wide eyes and nodded before she grabbed her notepad.

Hix didn’t want to. He wanted to listen in. He wanted to make sure all the right questions were asked, no time was wasted, the interview was thorough and concise. And he was torn about the decision he made.

But he not only had to let his deputies know he trusted them when serious shit hit, he had to let his citizens know he trusted his deputies.

So he went to his office. Powered up his computer. Put in his password.

Then he watched covertly as Larry talked to Mrs. Calloway.

He’d called Donna back by the time Larry escorted Mrs. Calloway out the door and to her car.

Hal, who was out at Babycakes Coffee House getting himself an espresso drink that, not unusually, he didn’t ask his colleagues if they also wanted one, had returned before she’d left.

So he had all his deputies in his office fanned out in front of him with Hix leaning against the front of his desk while Larry reported what Faith Calloway had given him.

“You were right, boss,” Larry said. “He comes home. If he’s gonna be late, he calls. According to Mrs. Calloway, he’s a family man. He’s foreman on old man Grady’s ranch down in Grant county, so he’s got a long drive to work, gets up early, leaves early, gets home late. But likes to eat dinner with her, have some time with his kids before they go to bed. She says he’s in a fantasy football league and he and his boys got a thing where they rotate houses every Sunday and watch the games, but that’s usually all he’s away from them. He works so much and is on the road so much, when he’s got time, he likes to spend it with the family.”

“She report anything weird about him the last few weeks?” Hix asked.

Larry shook his head. “Not that she’s noticed.”

“Their story?” Donna queried.

Larry looked to her. “He got her pregnant when she was seventeen, he was nineteen.” Larry turned his attention to Hix before he said, “She blushed when she said that. Seemed embarrassed.”

Hix nodded.

It was a good catch. Didn’t give them anything they needed but it gave them insight into Faith Calloway.

Larry turned back to Donna and went on, “He married her and Mrs. Calloway says folks thought they wouldn’t work, but they did. They got a little girl, firstborn, she’s eight. Little boy came three years after. Mrs. Calloway works in the county clerk’s office part time and her husband’s ma looks after her boy while she works.” Again he looked to Hix. “She says it’s for ‘play money.’ She says he started as a ranch hand for Grady, worked for the old coot even before they hooked up, but even though he’s real young, he works real hard so Grady promoted him to foreman. They aren’t rollin’ in it but they also aren’t hurtin’. But she says, kids’re gettin’ older, they wanna start to take ’em for trips to Disneyland and stuff like that so they’re savin’ up. That’s her idea of play money.”

Another good catch.

Play money wasn’t nice clothes or new cars.

Play money was something for the family.

“No behavior changes,” Hix gave his question as a statement.

Another shake of Larry’s head. “She says nope.”

“Finances, who does them and is there anything funny?” Hix asked.

Larry tipped his head Bets’s way and told him, “Bets asked that. Mrs. Calloway does the finances, and no. She hasn’t noticed anything funny.”

“What about Grady? Did Nat Calloway get to work yesterday?” Hix pressed on.

Larry nodded. “When he didn’t come home, Mrs. Calloway called him. Grady told her Calloway came, did his thing, left at around six, which was usual. She called Grady around nine. When her husband still didn’t show around ten, she started calling around the hospitals. Said she didn’t wanna do it before that because she didn’t wanna think anything happened to him. She was still hopin’ he’d just walk in the door.”

“She call any of his buds?” Donna asked.

“Yup,” Larry told her. “All of ’em. None of them had seen or heard from him.”

“Why didn’t she call us?” Hal asked.

Larry looked to him. “Said she figured he was in a wreck or somethin’. Said, after she called the hospitals, she actually put the kids in the car and drove the drive down to Grady’s to check herself. She didn’t find anything. Didn’t think to call us until she got home from her drive and made her second round of calls to the hospitals early this morning. That still got her nothin’ and she heard nothin’ from nobody. That’s when she decided just to come in.”

Hix had been right. She’d come to them in the clothes she’d worn yesterday, clothes she hadn’t yet taken off.

And she didn’t suspect her husband of wrongdoing. She didn’t suspect he’d been arrested. She didn’t suspect he’d been caught in a prostitution sting or a drug deal.

She just suspected he’d been in a wreck.

Nothing else occurred to her until her worry overwhelmed her and she came in but did it only to get reinforcements.

“Drugs? Drink? Gambling? They been fighting?” Donna asked.

Again, Larry shook his head. “No drugs. No gambling, unless his football league constitutes that. She says she’d know. They’re comfortable with money but they wouldn’t be if he was doin’ anything like that. Drink, yeah, but she says it’s the normal kind. A coupla beers after work. He likes bourbon but doesn’t like to drink the hard stuff around his kids. And she was real honest about what it’s like between them. Said it was a bumpy road at first, bein’ young, settin’ up house, havin’ a baby to look after so soon. But they ironed it out. She said they aren’t perfect, they argue some. But they’re in a good place now.”

“Friends who might drag him into something?” Hal put in.

More shaking of Larry’s head. “Not that she knows of.”

“So there’s nothing?” Hal asked disbelievingly. “This loving family man just didn’t show up home one night?”

“Apparently,” Larry answered.

“She give you his phone number?” Hix asked.

Larry nodded.

“Right.” Hix looked to Bets. “Want you to see if you can track down that phone. If it’s got GPS, wanna know where it is. Also want you on the line with Dansboro Police and the sheriff departments in Grant, Hooker, Cherry and Sheridan counties. Give ’em info on Nat Calloway’s truck and a general description of the man. Tell ’em it’s not an official missing person’s case but we got cause for concern so if they can keep their eyes peeled for that truck, we’d appreciate it. Then I want you on the line with all the hospitals in all those counties, see if they got Nat or a John Doe of his description in a bed. The county coroners too. And then I want you to call all the hotels and motels in McCook and those other counties, Bets. Find out if Calloway is registered or his truck is registered. If not, ask ’em if they’ll do you a favor and do a walkthrough of their lots to look for it.”

“Isn’t that a lot of effort for a guy who’s probably pissed his woman let herself go and is likely off with someone who does it for him?” Hal asked.

Everyone looked to Hal, including Hix. “What makes you say she let herself go?”

“Saw her when I got back from Babycakes. She’s fat,” Hal answered.

Christ.

“You’re a tool,” Bets muttered.

She was right.

Hix decided he wasn’t going to bother responding to Hal’s remark.

“Larry, you and me are gonna go down, talk to Grady and see if he’ll let us talk to his hands.”

“Right, Hix,” Larry replied.

He looked between Donna and Hal. “Bets is staying here, want you two in cruisers, eyes peeled for that truck. Parking lots. Camp grounds. Wherever you can think to look.”

“On it, boss,” Donna murmured.

Hal said nothing.

“Okay, everyone, let’s move,” Hix ordered, pushing up from his desk.

They were all moving, Larry in step behind Hix.

They walked through the department, and except for Bets who hit her desk, they all went out the front door and made their way to the side lot.

The county had money, and not much to spend it on, but they felt law enforcement was a priority even if not much happened.

That meant each deputy and Hix had their own cruisers, if you could call them that. They were big, double cab Rams painted white with gold and brown stripes down the sides on which it said Sheriff with a star in front of the word, and under which it said McCook County. The Sheriff was across the tailgate and the hood too.

He and Larry went to Hix’s cruiser and angled in, but the minute Larry’s ass was in his seat, Hix said, “I gotta make one stop. It’s only gonna take a couple of minutes. Then we’ll get on our way.”

“Okay, Hix.”

With that, Hix drove the two blocks to Lou’s House of Beauty and parked in front of it.

He didn’t look at Larry as he folded out of the truck. He looked through the window where he saw Greta’s back to him as she worked on someone in her chair.

He also felt attention from the women in the salon and from Larry in the truck.

He ignored it, opened the door and shoved only his torso through.

Greta turned to him and her eyes got big.

She was beautiful. Funny. Sexy.

And now he saw she could be cute.

“Lou,” he said to a Lou who was smiling so huge, it looked like it hurt. “Ladies,” he said generally. His eyes hit on Greta. “Greta, don’t mean to interrupt but need a minute if you can spare it.”

She looked to him at his place half in, half out the door. She looked out the window at his truck with Larry in it.

Then she looked down at the woman in her chair. “You okay here? I won’t be long.”

The elderly woman, who Hix had seen around but didn’t know, nodded enthusiastically. “I’m okay. I can wait all day. You take all the time you need, darlin’.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Hix said to her and lifted his eyes. “Greta?”

Greta moved on pale-pink, high-heeled pumps his way.

Today, she was wearing a white, slouchy top with a low vee neck, jeans that hugged her legs to her ankles, where they were rolled up, and some kimono-like thing over her top that was black with big gray, white, green and pink flowers on it.

She looked like a movie star out for a casual stroll, the sole reason behind it being having great photos snapped of her by the paparazzi.

He got out of the door but held it open for her. She glanced at him as she walked out, also shooting her gaze toward Larry in the truck before he took her elbow and stopped her just outside one of Lou’s windows, in full view of the salon.

“Don’t have a lot of time, Greta,” he told her when she looked up at him.

“Okay, Hix.”

She wasn’t hiding she was guarded, but also curious.

“I didn’t get your number, was gonna call down to the salon yesterday, wanted to have lunch with you. Somethin’ came up. Was gonna call down this morning. Something else came up and me and Larry gotta drive down to Grant County.”

He fished in his jeans, got his wallet out, flipped it open and pulled out a card.

He shoved the wallet back as he handed it to her.

She took it.

“Hopefully,” he continued, “what we’re lookin’ into will sort itself out today. So maybe we can have lunch tomorrow, you can fit that in your schedule. Don’t have time to program you in my phone right now. You text me, I’ll program you in when I got a second and then I can call you direct.”

She was staring up at him, lips parted.

“Now I gotta go,” he said.

“Right,” she whispered.

“Lunch tomorrow if we can, yeah?”

She stared some more, seemed to pull herself out of it and a small smile hit her face.

“Yeah, Hixon. Definitely.”

He nodded to her, wanting to smile back, pleased as hell she was clearly into that idea, but he had other shit on his mind. Shit he had to focus on, not doing it thinking Greta may be wondering, after what had gone down between them, why she hadn’t heard from him or seen him.

He was not that guy who got off and took off.

He also wasn’t that guy who played games, liked you, but felt the need to play it cool and waited days to connect so you wouldn’t know he did.

“Later, sweetheart,” he murmured.

Her smile got bigger and nearly blinded him.

He’d take that and keep it as the next hours unfolded because he had a feeling deep in his gut he’d need it.

“Later, Hix.”

He shot her a small grin, turned and walked to the truck.

He was starting it up, looking out the windshield at Greta walking back into the salon, doing it half-turned, arm up, waving his way, looking over her shoulder, still smiling that smile.

He lifted up his chin to her, and as the door closed, his eyes moved to the rearview mirror and he started backing out into Main Street.

“Don’t get pissed at me when I point out that woman is fine,” Larry remarked.

“Mm,” Hix replied.

There was silence as Hix put her in drive and started them on their way.

Three blocks in, Larry said quietly, “Good for you, man. Good for you.”

“We’re just friends.”

“Like I said, good for you, man. And I don’t mean that snarky, Hix. She’s pretty. Looks sweet. Great fucking smile. Friend or whatever, after what you been through, you deserve a smile like that aimed your way. So good for you.”

Hix didn’t reply.

But Larry was right.

More than just Greta’s smile was good for him.

Now he’d connected with her, she had his card, his number, she knew where he was at.

So he could clear his mind and focus on finding Nat Calloway.

“Not thinkin’ Nat Calloway is gonna walk in those doors, Hix.”

Hix took his attention from where it was aimed through the windows of dispatch to the outside windows facing the street and looked at Ida who took over for Reva doing the nighttime dispatch shift, three to eleven.

Dispatch wasn’t McCook County Sheriff’s dispatch. They didn’t have enough going on to have their own dispatch.

It was McCook County everything dispatch. Sheriff, fire, emergency, and a couple of hotlines (suicide and sexual assault). The county’s 911 number ran through that room so even Dansboro Police, the only town in the county that was big enough to have their own force (albeit there were only three people on that force) used that dispatch.

But the county was sleepy enough, five days a week, it was only operated from seven in the morning to eleven at night, the weekend shift going all the way to one in the morning mostly just because. The 911 calls were redirected to a service for the midnight hours due to the fact that no one called in during those hours because most the county was asleep, but it was still willing to pay for cover.

Hix had spent the day getting more of what Faith Calloway said about her husband, Nat.

Good guy. Hard worker. Family man. Loved his wife. Loved his kids. Might miss church on Sunday but only because that was one of the few chances he got to sleep in, though Faith didn’t miss it and took the kids.

He was liked.

Hell, Flynn Grady was beside himself, and not just because his foreman was missing, but because that foreman was Nat.

Hix had call to know Grady after Hix’s deputies had been called in by the sheriff of Grant County to assist with some cattle rustling mess that had happened a few years earlier.

Grady was a decent man, but he was crotchety. The kind of man you would know he liked you when he kicked the bucket and put you in his will.

But he liked Nat. So much, he’d suspended operations that day to set his hands on the roads to see if they could find him.

Not one of those men had protested or dragged their feet. They set out for their trucks practically before Grady finished giving the order.

That said a lot without using a single word.

Hix didn’t argue with this interference.

Mostly because he wanted that man found.

They’d also learned that no one thought Nat and Faith would work out, but he’d loved her at seventeen, and according to everyone they asked, he loved her now. He wouldn’t cheat. Worked too hard to get caught up in anything—another woman, booze, drugs, gambling. But it wasn’t the fact he didn’t have time, it was the fact he loved his wife too much. When he wasn’t working or on the road, he was with his family or his football league buddies.

Simple man. Simple pleasures. Simple life.

And now he was missing. No clues. His truck was nowhere to be found. They couldn’t locate his phone so it was either turned off or destroyed. Last person who saw him was one of Grady’s ranch hands and that man had seen him get in his truck and drive away.

Still, it was nearly eleven and Hix was at the station. He’d gone over his notes and copies of all his deputies’ notes and he’d done that repeatedly. He’d then gone out to the Harlequin and brought in dinner for him and Ida.

After that, he’d hung out with her in the dispatch room, his eyes often straying to the windows, his mind filled with Nat Calloway.

“You got a bad feeling,” Ida noted.

“Yup,” he agreed.

She nodded.

“You know the Calloways?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Think they go to the Methodist church.”

For some in that town, what church you attended was the social divide. Ida was a Baptist. She was one of Keller’s flock. She was a fine woman but her social stratum wasn’t all that layered.

“We don’t have much in the way of this kinda thing in this county, ’less a man or gal gets itchy feet,” she remarked. “Reckon in the big city you saw more of this. So I reckon your bad feelin’ isn’t a good thing.”

She was very right.

“Nope,” he agreed.

She leaned to him. “It’s late, Hix. Go home. Get some rest. It’s as bad as you’re thinkin’, you’re gonna need it. It isn’t, then you got a decent night’s sleep.”

It was good advice.

So Hix nodded, took the sole of his boot off the chair he’d pulled in front of him and his ass off the one he was sitting on.

He looked down at Ida.

Round, red cheeks, hair going gray and she wasn’t about to do a thing about it, something he knew because the “going” part of gray had almost went. If she dissed Lou’s House of Beauty and trimmed the long ends herself, Hix wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Your shift’s over in twenty minutes, Ida. Could wait. Walk you to your car.”

“You need company to keep your mind off things, Hix, you’re welcome to stay. But I’m used to the solitude and I like it. Got four kids at home who fight more than my husband and I did before he pulled on his boots and took off, and that’s saying something. Quiet does me a lot of good.”

Her four kids were actually four adults still living with their mother. Hix couldn’t figure out if they were sucking her dry or loyal to the bone after their daddy left her with them when they were a whole lot younger. This was mostly because she fought with them as much as she said they fight with each other.

There was love there, though, and Ida seemed content.

Not to mention, it wasn’t any of his business.

“Right, Ida. Catch you tomorrow.”

“You will, Hixon. Try to sleep good.”

He lifted his chin. Gave her a low wave. Went to his office, shut it down, shut the bullpen down, leaving the lights over reception on for Ida.

He gave her another low wave before he left, got in his Bronco and drove to his apartment.

He threw back a beer watching late night TV and trying to unwind, clear his head, find tired.

But he was still wired.

Even so, Ida was right.

Until they figured out what had become of Nat Calloway, he’d need to have his shit together so he needed his sleep.

He picked up his phone first, going to texts and finding Greta’s.

Now you got me. Hope things went ok with what you were looking into. That means hope I see you tomorrow.

That was Greta. She didn’t play games either.

For his part, Hix hadn’t texted a woman not his wife, one of her friends, Donna, Bets, or one of his daughters in nineteen years. He had things going but he’d felt a reply was needed and he didn’t have any damned clue what to say.

He’d gone with, Good to see your text. Things aren’t going great but call you tomorrow.

She hadn’t replied and Hix suspected this was because she was giving him space to get done what he needed to do.

Greta on his mind, he hit his shower before hitting the sack, because he didn’t jack off in the bed his daughters slept in.

So he did it in the shower, thinking of Greta.

Then he hit his bed, closed his eyes, and it took a while, but finally he found sleep.

While he slept, the rain came.