Really, Really Bad Day

Hixon

WHEN HIS PHONE rang, waking him up, the first thing that hit Hix was that it was raining.

The second thing that hit him was seeing from his alarm clock it wasn’t quite yet six in the morning.

And grabbing his phone from the nightstand, the last thing that hit him was that it was Bets calling.

He felt a compression in his gut, an acrid taste in the back of his throat as he got up on a forearm, took the call and put it to his ear.

“Bets.”

“Hix, I found him.”

Hix pushed up, the covers falling off, and he swung his legs around so he was sitting on the side of his bed, doing all this asking, “Where?”

“Game trail some hunters use. Hix . . . boss . . . shit.” She paused before she hit him with it. “He’s dead.”

Hix closed his eyes for only a beat then he pushed up and started moving. “It’s raining, Bets.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Ran to my car before I called you. Have a tarp in the back. It’s a new one, Hix. I was gonna do some painting, so I bought it this weekend and thank God I did. It was in a packet. It won’t screw with the scene. I took a bunch of pictures best I could in this light and then threw it over him.”

“Good,” he grunted, dragging on some shorts. “Now, we end this call, text me directions to exactly where you are. Then you get on the line and you call Donna. You tell her where you are, you tell her to bring a tent and you tell her to get her ass there fast. Then you get on with Larry. Tell him to bring lights and get his ass there. After that, you get on with Hal and you tell him to get his ass there and do it bringing a shit ton of coffee.”

“Right, boss,” she replied.

Hix kept talking, phone wedged between his ear and shoulder as he did up his jeans. “You get done with that, I want you to get on the line to the forensics boys up in Cherry County. Tell them to come down and do it fast. I’ll call Lance on the way there.”

“Okay, Hix.”

Hix took the phone from his ear long enough to pull on a clean undershirt then he put the phone right back.

“His truck there?” he asked.

“Nope.”

Goddamn it.

Where was that truck?

“You up all night lookin?” he went on.

“Yeah.”

“Good job,” he said. “Now make those calls.”

“You got it, boss.”

“See you soon.”

“Yeah.”

He hung up, tossed his cell on his bed and went to his closet to grab a clean sheriff shirt. He shrugged on his shirt, buttoned it up, tucked it in, wasted precious time transferring his badge from the shirt that was on the floor to the shirt he was wearing. He hit his closet and grabbed his sheriff slicker then went back to his bed. He sat on it, put on his socks and boots, shoved his wallet in his jeans, tagged his cell and the slicker and hauled his ass out through the rain to his Bronco.

Hix stood under the big marquee tent they’d set up over the body and stared down at the man who was now on his back. After Lance, the county coroner, had done his thing and Hal and the forensic boys had taken their pictures, they’d turned Nat Calloway, who’d been on his stomach, to his back.

He’d seen pictures Faith had emailed Larry so he already knew. And what Calloway had, even death and rain didn’t do much to dim it.

Pretty wife. Good-looking husband.

They fit.

Perfect match.

He tore his gaze from the body as Lance approached him.

“Right, Hixon,” he started, cleared his throat and launched in. “Man’s been dead ’round about thirty-six hours, give or take. Got a gunshot wound to the back, right shoulder, another to the back of his neck, which unfortunately went through and through and part of what it went through was his jugular. Bled out fast. Reckon you figured this out already, but that didn’t happen here. This is the dump site. Crime scene is somewhere else and,” he looked to the ceiling of the tent, indicating without words how unlikely what he said next was now going to be before he aimed his eyes back at Hix, “there’ll be a goodly amount of blood.”

Hix nodded.

Lance kept going.

“Gunshot isn’t at close range. My guess, this man was running away from the shooter, and the shooter was either a good shot and was aiming to kill or he got lucky or seriously unlucky, depending on what he wanted to go down. Shoulder hit and a rip in his shirt at his right biceps that looks like a bullet went through it but didn’t hit flesh says it’s the last. No other indications on the body how many shots were fired, but right now it’s lookin’ like at least three.”

Hix nodded again and told Lance something he knew, “Man’s wallet is in his jeans. Money in his wallet. This wasn’t a robbery, unless he desperately wanted a cell phone, which our man has but he doesn’t have on his person.”

This time, Lance nodded. “Nothing to give indication he was tied up or there was a struggle either. No obvious defensive wounds, may be some I find after I cut his clothes from him, but nothing I can see so it doesn’t look like there was a fight. He’s got abrasions on the heels of his palms with dirt and small rocks dug in, probably from falling forward once he was hit. My best guess right now, it’s from goin’ down on concrete. Other than that, don’t know what it is at this point except the obvious, it was a shooting.”

Hix looked back down at Nat Calloway.

“Can’t know more until I get him on my table, but forensic boys are done with the body. Gonna get him into town and get down to gettin’ you some answers right away,” Lance went on.

“Right,” Hix murmured. “Thanks.”

Lance gave him a look, clapped him on the arm and moved to spread out his body bag.

Hix walked to the leader of the two-man forensics team from Cherry County.

“Anything you can give me to go on?” he asked even if he knew the answer.

He got that answer right away when the guy shook his head. “If there was anything, the rain fucked it up. Got no footprints. Got some cigarette butts and litter, but all we got of that’s been out here since maybe 1977. We still bagged it just in case. This being the dump site, minimal blood.” The man’s chest puffed out with his big breath before he concluded, “With this rain, this spot is what this spot was before a body was dumped in it. It’s just a spot on a game trail with a man’s body in it. We got dick for you, Drake. But we’ll keep lookin’.”

“I’m leavin’ Hal with you to help do that,” Hix told him.

The guy tipped up his chin.

“And you need anything, he’s your man,” Hix continued.

“’Preciated, Drake.”

“Nope, it’s appreciated you boys comin’ down here to help us out.”

The guy dipped his chin and lifted a hand.

Hix held his eyes a beat then walked away, turning his attention to his deputies, Bets standing to the side watching, Hal the same but not close to Bets, as Larry and Donna were in squats, helping Lance transfer the body onto the opened body bag.

Hix waited until they had Nat Calloway zipped in and had lifted the body onto the hand stretcher. Something Lance could carry a quarter mile through tall grass and mud, but he wouldn’t be able to carry it back loaded with a body.

“You can hang tight for five, Lance,” Hix called out, “wanna give my deputies direction and then we’ll help you get ’im out.”

“Thanks, Hixon,” Lance called back.

His team took their cue and moved to form a loose huddle under the tent.

Hix didn’t waste time.

“Hal, you stay here, help the forensics team to comb this place and all around. From here all the way back to the road and don’t be stingy about the distance you check the perimeter of this site. That said, this is a dump site. Unless you happen onto where the crime was committed, I doubt the perpetrator spent a lot of time here. If he went to the trouble of dumping a body in a place like this, he’s not gonna move a man’s body just a half mile away from where he shot him to death. There’s a lot to do. Be smart about the time you spend here.”

Hal jerked up his chin.

Hix kept at him.

“Those boys need anything, you get it for them. Mouth of this trail, such as it is, has enough vehicles at it, one of them our coroner’s van, folks are gonna be curious. Keep alert. While you’re searchin’, you see anyone is curious enough to come lookin’, you send them right back to their vehicle and on their way. Forensics team finishes up, you get back to the department and you get all the pictures printed out. Yeah?”

Hal nodded. “Yeah, boss.”

Hix looked to Donna. “Want you back at the department. You call all the sheriffs of the adjoining counties and give them a brief. Tell them where we’re at.” His gaze grew intent on her. “Donna, I want that fuckin’ truck found and I want the crime scene located. From what we got with time of death, whoever did Nat Calloway didn’t have a lot of time to take him somewhere far. But that truck could be anywhere by now. And I want it.”

“You got it, Hix.”

“You get done doin’ that, and don’t take a lot of time doin’ it, you tell Reva to watch over reception and I want you to start combing every inch of road between Glossop and Grady’s ranch. Ask the boys down in Grant to help you out seein’ as there’s a chance the crime happened on their patch. You won’t find the truck, but you might find the crime scene and we need that.”

She nodded.

“Not gonna be anything to find,” Hal put in, throwing an arm out to indicate the steady wet that was falling around the tent. “Man was probably done outside, seein’ as he was hit runnin’ away. It’s been raining since the middle of the night. Whatever there was is probably washed away.”

“We’re still looking,” Hix told him.

“We should be knocking on doors and it’s Grant County Sheriff who should be doin’ it,” Hal returned. “That’s dusty road from here to Grady but it’s got houses on it, farms, ranches. Gunshots are loud. People hear them.”

Hix’s jaw felt tight. “Yeah, and anything left of that crime scene we can find before this rain takes it, we’ll bust our balls to find it, Hal, before the rain takes it. Not goin’ house to house, some of those houses miles apart, chattin’ with folks while rain washes away a crime scene. We got no cause to believe Nat Calloway was anywhere but on the road between Grady’s ranch and his house, only about two miles of that being Grant County’s patch. Got no idea what happened, but my gut says whatever happened was on that road. Regardless, abrasions on his palms tell Lance he fell to concrete, so if we gotta focus our search, we’re doin’ it on the concrete that makes that road.”

Hix kept Hal pinned with his gaze as he took a breath and went on, annoyed it was taking time to point out the obvious to one of his deputies.

“He didn’t bleed a little, he bled a lot, Hal, and it was eighty-six degrees yesterday. That blood had all day yesterday to bake into wherever it poured out. I’m not feelin’ all that lucky right now, but we get a stroke of it, we might find a huge-ass stain. That said, the rain won’t wash away anyone’s memories. We can canvass once we’ve exhausted our attempts to locate where Nat Calloway was shot runnin’ for his life. And that’s what you’ll be doin’ after you’re done helpin’ the team, finding out if someone heard something, saw something, then you can help Donna pinpoint the site.”

Hal gave him his chastened, pissed look but Hix ignored it when Bets spoke.

“You want me on that too, boss?” Bets asked, and Hix looked to her.

“Nope, Bets. I want you to go home and get some sleep.”

Her eyes grew big then squinty.

“I found him. I should be able to—”

He cut her off. “You been up all night and a man’s been murdered. Your dedication to finding him has been noted, Bets, and it means a good deal to this case that you found him and he wasn’t out here for days, weeks, before someone bumped into that body. I appreciate it. This team appreciates it. But now I need all my deputies fresh and alert and you been up all night. You need to go home, unwind, try to relax and get some sleep. I don’t want to see you for six hours.”

When she opened her mouth, he leaned an inch toward her and lowered his voice.

“I’m not cutting you out of this case, Bets. We need to find the person who did this and I’m gonna need all of you to help do that. But we gotta go about it the right way, clearheaded and smart. I’ll give you your duties when I know you can perform them the way I already know you can perform them . . . doin’ shit right.”

She looked about to argue but then she ducked her head and nodded.

He turned to Larry. “You’re with me. We’re goin’ to talk to Faith Calloway. Then we’re goin’ back to Grady. After that, we’re helpin’ Donna and Hal.”

Larry looked sick a second before he hid it.

Hix got that look.

Larry had not ever had to tell a woman her husband and the father of her young children had been murdered.

Hix himself had only done it once, back in Indianapolis.

To say the experience sucked was an understatement, and to say that he remembered every second of it like he’d just walked out of that woman’s house was not an exaggeration.

“Wanna help Lance carry him out.”

Bets’s words took Hix’s attention from Larry back to her.

“Sorry?” he asked.

She lifted her chin. “I found him. You’re right. I’m tired. Been up all night. I’m also hyper. So I’m good for now. And I found him. I want to help get him out of this fucking place.”

She wasn’t dainty. She didn’t have Hix, Larry or Hal’s power.

But she could help them carry the deadweight of a body out of there, and even if she couldn’t, right then she’d do it if she had to will it to be done.

Yeah, Bets was still mostly a rookie.

But she was a good deputy.

“Larry, front end,” Hix ordered then looked back at Bets, “You take the foot. Lance and me’ll take the sides. Donna, you lead the way and go at a good clip. We got company at the road, I want you pushing them back.” He drew in breath and finished, “Let’s get him out of here.”

They moved. Hix sent looks to Hal and the forensics team then he took his position at Nat Calloway’s left side.

They hefted him up, and by the time they started out from under the tent, Donna was twenty yards down the trail.

They fortunately had no onlookers watching as they got him in the back of Lance’s van (though a number of cars slowed as they drove by).

The coroner didn’t waste time taking off. Donna and Bets didn’t either.

But Larry approached Hix at the side of his Bronco.

“It’s gonna freak her out,” Hix said. “But this is an official visit so we need to hit the department and get a Ram before we go to her house.”

Larry nodded but started, “Hix, I’ve never—”

“I know,” Hix interrupted. “And it’s gonna be one of the most shitty memories you’ll hold on to for the rest of your life. But she needs to know as soon as we can get to her. And we need to give her what she needs to put the worry to bed and start her mourning.”

Hix got closer to Larry and stood in the gently falling rain with his hand on his deputy’s shoulder.

“You go in her house, you are not her friend,” he said quietly. “You’re a sheriff’s deputy. You’re sorry for her loss. You make no promises we’re gonna find who did this. You make no assurances that it’s gonna be all right, because it’s not. Even if we find who did this, for her, it’s never gonna be all right. She’s gonna get on with her life eventually but this will be a black spot in it and that is never gonna change.”

Larry nodded and Hix kept on.

“You can tell her we’re gonna do everything we can to find who did this. And you’re gonna watch her to see if there’s anything we mighta missed yesterday. This is not the time to grill her or ask more questions seein’ as you did a thorough job of that yesterday. We can ask her to get in touch with us immediately if she thinks of something. We’ll make certain she understands she can contact us at any time if she has questions, and we’ll make certain she knows we’ll keep her as up to date as we can on the investigation as it unfolds. Other than that, this is the time to tell her she’s lost her husband, her babies have lost their daddy, we make sure she’s got someone with her and then we leave and get on findin’ the person who ripped that family apart.”

Larry stared him in the eyes before he swallowed and mumbled, “Yeah.”

Hix gave his shoulder a squeeze, let him go and watched as Larry walked to his truck.

He swung up into the Bronco.

They drove to the department and switched out to a Ram.

Then they drove to Faith Calloway’s house.

“Was not wrong about the hands. It was concrete. He went down forward, did it hard, also has abrasions on his knees,” Lance stated, going through the motions of starting to fall, hands lifted in front of him, but not finishing that.

Hix and Larry were standing in the coroner’s examination room with Lance, Nat Calloway’s dead body on a table, all of it covered but his head and his feet, his toe tagged.

It was late evening after a really shitty day.

“Like I said at the scene, neck hit did him in,” Lance continued. “Bullet went through his neck, don’t have that. Got the bullet out of his shoulder. Both wounds came from the same caliber of gun, which I’d hazard to guess was the same gun. Put that bullet in the system, it comes back with a hit, you’ll get the notification.”

When he paused, both Hix and Larry gave him nods, so he kept going.

“No drugs in his system. No alcohol. Last meal was a ham and cheese sandwich and chips.” Hix watched as Lance’s manner changed. “Nothin’ else, boys, ’cept the man had sex sometime the day he died. Got vaginal secretions and sperm on his genitals. He was dumped face down, wet did seep in but not enough to wash that away.”

“He was married, Lance,” Hix told him.

Lance nodded. “Then sorry to say, you gotta ask his wife if they had relations before he took off for work but after he had his morning shower, if that’s when he cleans up.”

Fucking great.

“We’ll do that tomorrow,” he muttered and glanced at Larry.

Larry’s mouth was tight.

“The only other thing I can give you is I reckon you’re right,” Lance declared. “This was done on a stretch of road, maybe, outside guess, a parking lot. Those abrasions and debris I found aren’t from somethin’ like a sidewalk. There’s too much debris, abrasions too rough. Besides that and the two holes in him, man was fit. Healthy. Young. No defensive wounds under his clothes. Nothing that gives indication he was held captive or bound. Nothing under his fingernails but dirt and not a lot of it, but foreman on a ranch is gonna have dirt under his fingernails after a day on the job.”

“So outside of the fact he had sex, had this shitty-ass last meal of a goddamned ham sandwich and got shot on concrete, we got nothin’,” Larry said.

“Sorry, son, but yeah,” Lance muttered. “That’s all we got.”

Larry blew out an audible breath.

Hix turned to him. “First thing tomorrow, want you to take Bets or Donna to Faith Calloway’s house. You’re there because she talked to you first and you’re her point person on this because of that. She needs to know you’re on it, you’re her man, you’re following through, and she can count on you. You give her the minimum you can to update her on our progress. Don’t get bogged down, just assure her she has all of the department’s resources devoted to solving her husband’s murder. But if she blushes tellin’ you she got pregnant at seventeen, want Donna or Bets to ask her about any activities she and her husband got up to before he went off to work the day he died. You with me?”

Larry nodded.

“He didn’t have time to have a quickie in his truck on that stretch of road, Larry,” Hix told him in a lame effort to make what wasn’t going to be easy a little easier. “And no woman dragged his body from where she shot him and then carried him to the dump site. Nat Calloway made love to his wife before he went to work. It won’t be fun she has to share that with a female deputy, but she’s not gonna be gettin’ bad news that her husband cheated on her coming on the heels of her hearing the worst news she’ll probably get in her life that her husband’s dead. What she will get, if she gets to the point she’s thinking rationally at all, is that we’re being thorough.”

“Right,” Larry mumbled.

Hix took him in, noting the frustration and exhaustion written plain all over him, before ordering, “It’s been a long day, man. Go home. After you get back from Faith’s in the morning, we’ll have a team brief and get back on it.”

“Yeah,” Larry replied, looked at Lance and said, “Thanks, bud.”

“My job,” Lance murmured.

He glanced at them both and took off, his shoulders drooping, the weight of the day weighing visible and heavy.

Hix and Lance watched him go, and when he disappeared, Lance spoke.

“You get anything?”

Hix turned back to the coroner. “Nothin’. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. No lock on the truck. No crime scene found. Rain stopped, still couldn’t find dick. Talked to his boss. Talked to the men who worked under him. Talked to his friends. Canvassed that road. Canvassed his neighborhood. Outside of everyone bein’ anything from pissed as shit a good man’s dead to dissolving into tears a good man’s dead, we got dick.”

“Forensics get anything?” Lance queried.

Hix shook his head. “No footprints. No tire tracks. Can’t even tell a person walked out there carrying a body, rain beatin’ down the grass and game goin’ through that area. Might not be lookin’ for a criminal mastermind, but my hunch says it’s someone who knows the area, since they took him to that spot. That still doesn’t give us shit. Any hunter or outdoorsman can spot a game trail in his search for a dump site. There’s no motive. No witnesses. My only guess is, we can’t find that truck, someone wanted it. But it was a five-year-old Ford F150 that wasn’t top of the line when Calloway bought it. Not a pimped-out ride that would garner attention or envy. So if he was done for that truck, the person who did it was either desperate, whacked out or just an asshole.”

“No truck, you reckon you got two people to look for?” Lance asked. “Person would have to have their own vehicle and you haven’t mentioned another set of wheels. That road is dusty, but someone’d notice an abandoned vehicle, and then they’d notice Calloway’s truck if the shooter had to leave it to go back and deal with his own car.”

“Either that or we got a drifter with a gun who knows the area and is strong enough to heft around a five foot eleven, one hundred and seventy-five pound body.”

Lance’s attention to Hix turned into scrutiny.

“He had sex, Hix. Could be the woman lured him, her man got him, one took his truck, the other took their car.”

“I’ve learned anyone can get up to anything in this world, Lance. But I’d be out-and-out shocked Nat Calloway scored himself some, got murdered after he did the deed, then got his cheating ass dumped in his own town. We spent all day yesterday essentially investigating that man and there wasn’t even a hint he had that in him. And we checked all that road, but if I had to wager, he was done close to Glossop, so for the sake of time and convenience he was dumped just outside of Glossop. But bottom line, there simply wasn’t enough time for him to get his rocks off and then get himself dead. So he was murdered close to home, unless the killer knew him, and out of some act of remorse, dumped him close to home. Or the murderer didn’t mean to kill him, and again out of an act of remorse, dumped him in a place he’d be found. But I’d stake my badge on the fact no woman was involved.”

“That happens,” Lance noted. “That kind of act of remorse.”

“Yup. And since we got nothin’, we’ve got nothin’ we can rule out.”

Lance looked to the table and back to Hix.

“This man a man who’d stop for someone who looked like he needed some help?” he asked.

“Yup,” Hix answered.

“So you gotta find that truck,” Lance said quietly.

“We gotta find that fuckin’ truck,” Hix replied.

Lance tipped his head to the side. “Wife hold it together?”

Hix clenched his teeth before he forced himself to release them but still had to bite out his, “Nope.”

“This guy’s twenty-eight, how old’s she?”

“Twenty-six and they got two kids, eight and five.”

“Shit,” Lance muttered.

“Yeah,” Hix agreed.

“She got kin close?”

Hix nodded. “Her sister, his sister and brother, all their folks. Before Larry and I left, his mother was there. As we were walkin’ out, the rest were descending.”

“Least she’s got support,” Lance muttered.

“Least she’s got that.”

Lance held his eyes. “Somethin’ll break, Hixon.”

Hix had worked as a detective for two years in crimes against persons at Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

He and his partner had a good close rate.

They also had cases they couldn’t solve.

And from that first look he had of Faith Calloway’s face while she was sitting next to Larry’s desk yesterday, Hix knew the sour feeling in his gut was not only about what they were going to find when they found Nat Calloway.

It was the feeling that this was what they were going to get.

What appeared to be a random crime on a lonely stretch of road, the only reason behind it being stealing a man’s truck.

They had that rain that likely washed away evidence and time was not on their side.

Unless the person who did it felt compelled to walk into his station and make a confession, Hix had the very bad feeling that nothing was going to break in this case. He had four people on it all day, five when Bets came back to them, a forensics team, a coroner who’d already done his autopsy, and they didn’t have a single lead. They had no crime scene, no shell casings, no witnesses, one bullet, a dump site and a victim that it would seem no one had one single reason to want dead.

“Somethin’ll break, Hix,” Lance repeated into Hix’s thoughts, doing it more firmly this time, and Hix focused on him again.

“We’ll work to that,” Hix told him.

“Know you will. Now like you said to your deputy, it’s been a long day. Go home. Face this head on tomorrow,” Lance replied.

Hix gave him a nod, a low wave, and murmured, “Thanks, Lance.”

Lance nodded back.

Hix went out to his Ram, drove it to the station, parked it next to his Bronco and went in.

Ida was in dispatch.

He greeted her by lifting a hand and flicking out two fingers before he went right back to his office.

He’d ordered all his deputies home for a good night’s sleep so the place was deserted, lights on in his office as he’d left them, the rest of the lights were out, outside the ones they always left on over reception.

He sat at his desk, opened the file on it and spread out the photos Hal had printed out.

He looked them over. He looked them over again. He studied each one from corner to corner. Then he stood up, bent over them, unfocused his gaze and stared at them all at once.

Nothing jumped out at him.

They were just photos of a man, clothes and hair wet, face down, head turned to his left, right arm cocked and up, left arm caught under him, both legs arranged haphazardly like he’d fallen, put a hand out to stop his fall, but hit his head and went unconscious.

But he hadn’t fallen and he wasn’t unconscious.

He’d been tossed and he was dead.

Maybe the person carrying him had Nat Calloway’s right wrist held by his hand, which was why it was flung out.

He couldn’t know unless he had the man who did it in front of him to ask.

And if he had that man, that wouldn’t be a question he’d ask.

“Know pictures like that tell stories to men like you,” Ida said quietly from the door, and Hix lifted his gaze to her. “But you been in here an hour, Hix, so I reckon, they aren’t talkin’, maybe you need to give them some time, look at ’em in the morning, and maybe they’ll be ready to tell their tale.”

“That’s my hope, Ida, but my concern is they wanna keep their secrets and I gotta find some way to pull them loose.”

“Maybe you should do it when you don’t look like you’ve been hit by a truck,” she suggested.

More good advice from Ida.

“Yeah,” he replied.

She tipped her head toward the bullpen. “Gotta get back.”

“Before you go,” he called as she made her start to turn. “Town talking?”

She nodded. “Word’s definitely out. Shock. Whispers. Sadness, even if they don’t know the family. We’re not used to this here in Glossop. Terra from the Guide called, twice. Me and Reva been puttin’ her off. Blatt came and went this afternoon. Said he’d catch you later.”

The editor of the paper and the ex-sheriff sniffing around was not a surprise and town talk was unavoidable.

Even so.

“We gotta do our best to keep gossip contained,” he told her. “They can and will talk, but my team needs to be free to do the work they gotta do, not deal with people flipping out. Nothing indicates this is anything but random. Nothing fitting this MO has happened anywhere in the state. What we know right now, we got a one-time deal and we gotta figure out who did it. That’s all.”

“I’ll do my part in that, Hix, that’s a promise,” she assured.

She would. You didn’t work dispatch that included suicide and sexual assault hotlines, which meant the training to do all of that, without having a head on your shoulders.

“Let you get back to it,” Hix replied. “And I’ll say my goodnight now.”

“Right. ’Night, Hix. Try to get some rest.”

He doubted that would happen.

He still gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

She went back to her desk. He shut down and headed out to his Bronco.

He needed answers.

He needed bourbon.

But as he drove, what he gave himself was not heading to his apartment.

He headed to Greta’s house.

It was after nine at night, but as he pulled up to the curb in front, he saw she wasn’t inside, watching TV or painting her nails or shit like that. She was sitting on her porch, the porch light on, and she had a laptop in her lap.

She also had her eyes on the Bronco.

She shifted them to Hix as he rounded the hood, made his way up her walk, the steps to her house, her porch, and as he moved to stand in front of the wicker chair beside her.

But once he’d stopped, her eyes dropped to the chair and then came back up to him.

He took her invitation and rested his weight in the chair, slouching right into it because he didn’t have the energy to do otherwise, aiming his gaze to the quiet street.

“You need a beer, darlin’?” she asked quietly.

“You got bourbon?” he asked the street.

“Yeah.”

He didn’t say anything else but he didn’t need to.

He heard her setting her laptop to the side and he saw her walk across his line of vision as she went into the house.

He stared at the street and then lifted both hands, rubbing them over his face.

Damn.

He was tired.

He had his arms resting on the arms of the chair when she came back out.

He lifted one hand to take the healthy dose of bourbon she held in front of him.

He took his gaze from the street to see she had a big, stylishly-shaped wineglass in her hand filled with red wine and she was folding herself in the chair next to him, legs crossed under her.

As he was noting, this seemed like pure Greta. Courtesy so ingrained, she wasn’t even going to make him drink alone.

Once she’d settled, her attention came right to him.

“Faith is one of my clients,” she said softly.

“Right,” he muttered.

“So, I’ve seen some cop shows, and my guess is you can’t talk about it,” she noted, still giving him the soft.

“No, Greta, I can’t talk about it.”

“Don’t need to, baby,” she whispered. “Written all over you that you’ve had the definition of a really, really bad day.”

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he confirmed. “I’ve had a really, really bad day.”

She leaned toward him, reaching out and wrapping her fingers around his biceps, giving them a comforting squeeze before she let him go and sat back.

When she moved away from him, abruptly, he announced, “Told you I didn’t wanna move from Indy.”

“Yeah, you told me that,” she replied.

“This is a good place to raise kids,” he shared.

“I can totally see that.”

“Man like me, the job I do, though, it doesn’t offer much.”

She twisted in her seat so she was faced more his way, kept her gaze on him, all this telling him she was listening.

“I don’t want crime. No one wants crime,” he stated.

“No,” she said. “No one wants that.”

“But this is what I do. It’s what I know. It’s what I wanted to do since I was a kid.”

She nodded encouragingly.

“And here, it didn’t feel like I was doin’ much to help. Not anybody. Not anything that was worthwhile. ’Cause I gotta admit, I don’t really give a shit who graffitied the Mortimers’ barn. They aren’t gang tags. Those two make a habit outta pissin’ people off. They’re mean as snakes. Hell, coupla months ago, Louella shot her neighbor’s dog when he got loose and made his way on their land.”

“Oh my God,” she breathed.

“Dog survived,” he told her. “But the vet bills were astronomical. They refused to pay ’em. Nothin’ I could do about that. Their land. They got chickens. That coop is more fortified than Fort Knox and the dog was nowhere near it when she shot it, but she defends herself by sayin’ she’s defendin’ part of their livelihood by discharging a firearm, I got no recourse. But that’s who they are, and you’re like that people in these parts aren’t gonna feel a lot of kindness for you. What they’re gonna do is maybe get up the nerve to piss you off right back by spray painting unflattering stick figures of you on the side of your barn while you’re away for the weekend.”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmured.

“But that’s my job in these parts,” he told her. “Finding who did it and takin’ it as far as the Mortimers use the law to make me take it, which with those two will be as far as the law will allow me to go.”

“Hix,” she whispered, but said no more.

So Hix kept right on talking.

“Felt now for years that I was irrelevant. Experience I had. Skills I got. And my job is about bein’ up in some man’s face for spendin’ too much time with his bottle of Jim Beam and not enough keepin’ track of his cows.”

“You’re not irrelevant.”

“No. And now a man’s dead and his five-year-old son is probably not gonna remember him much when he grows older and it’s been made clear in the ugliest of ways that I’d sure as fuck rather be talkin’ to owners of stores across the county about spray paint purchases. I’m also a dick for not seein’ that as relevant, no matter I don’t like the citizens I’m doin’ it for.”

“You’re not a dick either, Hixon.”

Hix looked to the street and did it belting back half the healthy dose of bourbon she’d poured for him. The burn made the muscles in his jaw bulge out as he gritted his teeth to fight it. But not long after, the warmth hit his chest and gut and it was worth it.

“You didn’t will Faith’s husband to get murdered because you were bored, darlin’,” she said carefully.

Hix’s only response was to throw back the rest of the bourbon.

“How can I help?” she asked.

“You’re doin’ it, lettin’ me sit with you and bitch.”

She let that sink in then she offered, “Can I get you more bourbon?”

“Gotta drive home, Greta, so no.”

“You don’t have to drive home.”

He turned his head to her again.

“This,” he started, lifting his empty glass to indicate the two of them on her porch, “is about a friend comin’ to a friend after a shitty day. It isn’t about me showin’ at your place to bury that day in something sweet.”

She smiled at him. It was small, sad, sympathetic, but entirely genuine.

“Okay. Though . . . uh, the ‘something sweet’ remark totally bought you that option if you want it open to you.”

He couldn’t believe it after the day he’d had, but what she said made his lips tip up.

“Good to know,” he muttered.

“You can think on that over another glass of bourbon,” she returned.

He looked at her a couple of beats then he looked to his glass.

He didn’t answer her before she slipped the glass out of his hand and she was again walking in front of him to get into the house, this time carrying her closed laptop with her.

She was back, he had another healthy dose of bourbon in his hand and she was settled in beside him, sipping wine, when he asked, “What were you doing on your laptop?”

She glanced over his shoulder into her front window like she could see it from there and then back at him.

“Trolling eBay and discount designer sites for new cocktail dresses.” She shot him a big grin. “I have a guest room closet full of them, due to my history.” She lifted up her hand, thumb and forefinger half an inch apart before dropping it, all the while talking. “And I’ll admit the barest hint of an addiction to pretty, shiny dresses. That said, I haven’t bought one in a while and I figured it was time to treat myself.”

“You find anything you like?”

“Seven hundred anythings. I should say, more precisely, when you showed, what I was doing on my laptop was narrowing that down.”

He tipped his lips up at her again before he looked to the street and threw back more bourbon.

“Sorry I didn’t call today,” he said to the shadowy quiet beyond her porch.

“Word travels fast, Hix,” she replied, back to soft and gentle. “I got it.”

“Not thinkin’ I can take you to lunch anytime soon.”

“I get that too,” she told him. “But, just sayin’, I’m on my porch practically every night. Like the quiet. It’s restful. Sets me up for a good night’s sleep. So, seein’ as my porch doesn’t have a door, it’s safe to say it’s open for you anytime you wanna share it with me. That said, even if I’m in the house, my door is open to you, even if first I gotta unlock it after you ring the bell.”

Hix looked to her again and his tone laid testimony to the truth of his, “Means a lot, sweetheart.”

She nodded.

He lifted his glass and again shifted his attention to the sleepy street before he took another drink.

He felt her attention drift from him and they sat in the quiet for a while, both of them putting back bourbon or wine.

After some time, she asked, “You get any food in you today?”

He hadn’t.

“Not hungry.”

“I bet,” she whispered, then offered, “I can make you a sandwich or something.”

Nat Calloway’s last meal was a sandwich.

“Think I’m good,” he declined.

She kept at it.

“You wanna go in? Relax in front of a movie?”

He looked to her. “Thanks, babe, but no.”

Her face grew soft as her gaze grew concerned. “Is there anything I can turn your mind to to help you take it off your day?”

“Probably not.”

The concern deepened. “You gonna be able to sleep?”

“Probably not,” he repeated.

She studied him for a few beats before a playful smile hit her face. “Just guessing on this, but seeing as you’ve been busy, you probably haven’t bought any condoms.”

That shocked a short bark of laughter from him and he shook his head through it, answering, “That guess would be right.”

“Damn,” she whispered, still smiling at him.

He twisted his torso in the chair and leaned into the arm toward her. “Again, Greta, I’m not here for that, and just to say, me wanting to have lunch with you is about communicating that to you too. It’s safe to say I like what we’ve shared in a big way but I’m not here to get that from you and that’s not all I want from you. It hasn’t swung my way to find a time to prove that to you so I’m takin’ that time now. I’ll finish my bourbon. I figure you won’t share wide I had two before I got in my car, unimpaired, mind you, and drove the five-minute drive home. But that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“I want you to stay,” she blurted.

He stared into her eyes.

She leaned into him too. “I want you to stay, Hixon. I want to be with you, but more, I don’t want you to be alone. Not after today. Not with what you’ve gotta face tomorrow. I heard you and I appreciate what you’ve said. But there’s not much I can do to help you out except look after you. So how about you let me do that.”

“Baby,” he murmured.

She said no more and didn’t wait for him to say anything.

She unfolded from her chair, got up, transferred her wineglass from her right hand to her left and came in front of him. She bent to him, wrapped her fingers around his free hand resting on the arm of the chair and she gave it a tug.

He resisted.

She tugged harder, her eyes locked to his.

Hix quit resisting.

When they were both standing and doing it close, she tipped her head back and whispered, “Let’s go to bed.”

Looking in her beautiful face, hers filled with soft concern but also traces of anticipation, Hix didn’t bother attempting more resistance.

He followed her into her house, watched her turn off the porch light and locked her front door himself.

Naked, his back to her headboard, his knees cocked, up and opened wide, his fingers gentle in her hair, Hix watched Greta suck him off.

He could come just watching how deeply she got off sucking his cock.

But she was seriously good at it. Lots of suction, lips tight, excellent use of tongue.

But no woman could do that forever, unfortunately. So when he started to rock up, meeting her movements, his fingers going from gentle to twist in her hair, and the noises she was forcing out of him came faster and got lower, she drew him out.

She wrapped her hand tight around him and came up to her knees between his legs, bracing herself in a hand beside him on the bed, her face close to his, his hand still in her hair as she started jacking.

“Good?” she whispered.

Good?

Not quite.

Great?

Absolutely.

“Yeah,” he grunted, staring in her eyes.

She stared back, then her gaze started wandering his face, and in a voice that sounded like half a whimper, half a moan, she said, “God, you’re so damned handsome.”

He took his hand from her hair, wrapped it around hers pumping his cock, lifted his other one to curl it around the back of her neck to hold her right there, and he tightened their grip on his dick, quickening their movements.

“Oh my God,” she breathed.

“Yeah,” he agreed, beginning to thrust up into their hands.

She tipped her chin down to look at him and when she again gave him her gaze, he felt as well as saw through the dark around them it had gone from hot to fiery.

“Okay, baby, I kinda like this,” she admitted huskily.

“I do too,” he growled the obvious.

He just caught her turned-on smile before he yanked her to him with his hand at her neck, starting to kiss her hard, but he lost it, groaning into her mouth as he shot, his hot cum landing on his stomach.

She was kissing him when he began to power down their strokes but he kept their hands moving on him as he took over the kiss.

Finally, he released his hold on her hand on his dick but only to reach out, still kissing her, to cup her pubis and draw her gently closer to him.

She broke the kiss, took her hand from his cock, put it to his chest and whispered, “Hix.”

“Straddle me.”

“You don’t—”

He released her but only to dive into her panties at the front, going deep, encountering what he felt on the outside, that she was drenched, and filling her with his middle finger.

Her back arched, a gust of breath hit his lips, and she scrambled up as he dropped his legs to give her access to come astride him.

He cocked them again and watched her face from close as he finger fucked her, felt her warm breath get heavier against his mouth, her hips begin to sync with his movements. He slid another finger in to join his other and kept at her.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Oh yeah,” she whimpered.

“Clit?” he asked.

She didn’t answer that time. Just nodded and did it fast.

He grinned and slid his fingers out to move to her clit.

Once he put on pressure and started circling, she emitted a sexy, quiet cry and lifted her hand from his chest to clamp it around the side of his neck.

“Yeah?” he asked, even though he knew.

She ground into him.

Yeah, he knew.

“You got a toy, baby?” he queried. “Somethin’ I can slip inside you while I work your clit?”

“I . . . the night—” She cut herself off as she mewed, bucked, pressed her neck against his hold there, and damn, this was almost hotter than her sucking him and jacking him. “Yeah, in the—”

Again she didn’t finish because all of a sudden her head dropped. She dug her forehead in his neck where it met his shoulder, moaned, and her body trembled over him, her hips grinding her clit into his fingers as she came.

He took her through it and cupped her when it was leaving her.

He also twisted his neck to tell her what he wanted.

She lifted her head, met his mouth, letting him have hers for a deep kiss.

When he was through with her, he used his hand at her neck to press her forehead back into his shoulder and they both stayed right where they were as he listened to her breath even out.

“You’re gonna be busy, I’ll go buy condoms,” she declared.

He felt his body get tight.

“Greta.”

She pushed against his hold still at her neck so she could catch his eyes through the dark. “I know, Hix. I know. Message received. And that was hot. Like, serious hot. But, you know, just in case we get bored of the idea of handjobs.”

“You’re not my booty call,” he said low.

“Again, message clear.”

“Not sure I can make it that, naked with my cum dryin’ on my gut, my hand still in your panties, which is all you’re wearin’ except that sweet bra.”

He saw her eyes sparkle through the shadows. “Right. I can see your dilemma.”

“This is serious to me, Greta.”

The sparkle died and she slid her hand down to his chest and pressed in but not to pull away.

“What happened before that made you feel like a dick, that’s over, Hix. You’re not gonna have to pay for it as long as whatever is happening with us is happening. Stop kicking your own ass. The only person who has the right to do that is me and I’m over it. Let yourself be over it too.”

“Babe—” he started, withdrawing his hand from her panties and gliding it around her hip to the small of her back.

“You had a bad day and I like you.” She pressed into his chest again. “I like you, Hix. I like talking to you and listening to you, and what I like most of all, tonight, even after what just transpired, which was awesome, I liked that you came to me after a bad day. I’m not reading anything into it and I’m not feeling used. I led you up here because I wanted to give you what I just gave you and it was a conscious decision. I’m delighted beyond measure you returned the gesture, although it was unnecessary. Just let it be what it was and relax.”

Jesus.

There was no other way to put it.

She was just freaking great.

“All right, sweetheart,” he muttered, trying not to smile.

“Now, just to say, your Bronco has been at my—”

“Babe, I’m spending the night.”

She fell silent.

“Unless you don’t—” he started.

“I do,” she whispered.

“Then get off me, Greta. I gotta wash up. Then I’m beat and I need some sleep.”

He caught her grin before he caught the brush of her lips against his and she pushed away.

He rolled off her bed and watched her as she sat on the side of her hip, hand in the bed, eyes on him as he went to the bathroom.

He turned the light on this time and understood why the bathroom was one of the reasons she bought the house.

Tongue and groove all the way up the walls painted white. Big, claw-footed tub. Wide-plank wood floors. Broad, spindle-leg sink. Built-in, window-front cabinets. Toilet open to the room but the shower discretely tucked away so the bathroom had one but it wouldn’t mess with the old-fashioned look of the room.

He pulled a thick washcloth that was a soft beige color and rolled up in an arrangement with a bunch of other ones out of a steel pail and cleaned his stomach. He rinsed it, draped it over the edge of the sink, turned to the door, switched off the light and walked back into her bedroom.

She was down, moon and streetlights coming through the windows to show her on her side, body pointed to the bathroom, head on a pillow, legs curled up, arm in front of her over her breasts, and Christ. Even seeing that through the shadows, he wished he could sketch so he could have that image, frame it and look at it whenever he wanted.

She reached out the arm at her breasts to yank down the covers, pushing up as she did to get under them herself.

Hix hit the bed, stretched out on his back and hooked an arm around her waist to pull her into his side.

He slid his hand up, encountered bra and asked, “You sleep in this?”

“Not usually.”

He unhooked it, and with a few deft movements, had the straps down her arms.

He tossed it to the floor then curled her into him.

“Well, uh . . . all I can say about that is that you should teach classes on how to do it,” she remarked. “I don’t think I’ve ever been divested of a bra that expertly.”

Hix chuckled.

He’d started the day on the news a man had been murdered.

And in bed with Greta, he was ending it chuckling.

“That was a pretty one, sweetheart, but they’re always better off than they are on.”

“Mm-hmm,” she mumbled against his chest, pressing her now-bared breasts to his side.

As with everything he was discovering with Greta, it felt great.

He stroked her up her spine, over her shoulder and down her arm as far as he could reach since she’d curled it around his middle.

“You good?” he asked.

“Yeah, Hix,” she answered, underlining that by snuggling closer. “You need me to set an alarm?”

“I won’t sleep in.”

“Figure not,” she muttered.

She was worried he wouldn’t sleep at all.

He gave her a squeeze. “Just . . . it’s good. Don’t worry about anything.”

“Okay, darlin’.”

He held her close, smelling her hair, hints of her perfume.

She cuddled closer.

“Greta?”

“Yeah, Hixon.”

He lifted his head, twisted it and kissed the top of her hair.

“Thanks, baby,” he said there.

Her arm gave him a squeeze but she didn’t otherwise reply.

He relaxed.

Her weight melted into him.

He stared at her ceiling, felt her softness, her warmth, smelled her, and finally, his eyes drifted closed and Hix slept.