Headway
Hixon
HIX WOKE UP to a dark room.
The first thing he noticed was that he was in Greta’s bed.
The next thing he noticed was that he was alone.
The next was that he felt refreshed.
After that, he saw from her bedside clock it was before six in the morning. He also saw her wineglass and his bourbon glass were no longer where they’d set them the night before.
Last, he smelled bacon cooking.
Having woken on his side facing Greta’s side of the bed, he rolled to his back, did a stretch then rolled again and threw his legs on the floor.
He went to her bathroom, flipped on the light, used the facilities and then headed to the sink.
He washed his hands, splashed water on his face and dried it with a fluffy, white hand towel.
A quick survey of all her cabinets told him she didn’t have a spare toothbrush but he found some mouthwash in her medicine cabinet. He rinsed with it, spit it out and headed back into her bedroom where he got dressed, all the way down to his boots.
He found Greta and the bacon in the kitchen.
She had her hair in a messy bun at the top of her head, tendrils floating down, and she was wearing a simple, short robe in gray T-shirt material.
A robe that clung to her hips and ass in a way Hix was going to have to expend a goodly amount of effort in order to ignore.
The bacon was in a frying pan on her stove and she had her back to him, tending it.
“Babe,” he called.
She turned to him, looked him up and down and smiled.
It was lucky he’d made it to the island which gave him an excuse for the fact her smile made him stop dead.
Not to mention, the robe clung to her tits almost better than it did her hips and ass.
Fortunately, she took his mind off of this by announcing, “If you think you’re leaving my house without a good breakfast in your belly, Hixon Drake, think again.”
The good of her smile shifted away as he replied gently, “This is not what you want to hear. And it’s brutal, sweetheart, so I hope the indications you’re giving me that you can take it mean you can actually take crap like this. But as much as I appreciate you lookin’ out for me, I know Nat Calloway’s last meal from getting the coroner’s report, which included the contents of his stomach. I’m grateful for your concern but stuff like that makes a man’s appetite not what it used to be.” He hated to see her pale so he finished, “It’ll pass.”
“You need to eat, darlin’.”
“I’m not hungry, baby.”
“I don’t mean to be flippant in the face of certain tragedy, Hix, but I simply cannot believe even murder beats the smell of bacon.”
On her words, he felt his stomach rumble.
She might have heard it, she might not and just was bent on her need to look after him when she repeated on a tender push, “I get what you’re saying, Hix, darlin’, but you need to eat.”
“Right, I’ll let you feed me, Greta, but not to be rude, please, God, no biscuits and gravy.”
Her brows shot up. “Are you telling me you, a Hoosier, do not like stick-to-your-ribs biscuits and gravy?”
“White gravy should be smothered over a chicken-fried steak and that’s its only use.”
“How weird,” she murmured.
“Not weird, just my opinion,” he replied.
“No, Hix, it’s weird because I agree.”
He stared at her.
No one in the entire state of Nebraska agreed with that.
She shot him a grin. “So, rest assured, no biscuits and gravy. Just eggs as you like ’em, bacon, toast, and ranch-style beans, you’re in the mood.”
Suddenly, he was starving.
“Beans sound good,” he muttered.
She tipped her head to a full coffeepot and said, “Mugs in the cupboard. Creamer in the fridge. You want sugar, it’s in that canister on the island, spoons in the drawer by the dishwasher.”
He moved to the coffee. “Gotcha.”
“Egg order?” she prompted.
“Fried, over medium.”
“Toast order?”
He was pulling down a mug and looked to her. “Toast order?”
“Light, medium, toasty, burnt,” she explained.
“You do toast to order?”
“It’s not hard. There’s a little dial to the side, you see,” she teased. “You want burnt, I’ll turn it all the way to ten.”
He shot her a grin. “Medium.”
She gave him a brief nod and he made his coffee while she moved around, dealing with bacon, eggs, beans, toast, butter.
He took his mug to the end of the counter closest to her where the sink and dishwasher were, catty-corner to where she was at the stove in the middle of the back wall, and he leaned a hip against it.
“You always get up this early?” he asked.
“I do when I have a good-lookin’ hunk of man in bed who has to wake up and face another shitty day and I know he didn’t eat the one before.” She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes bright, and he could see the happy there was partially forced to hide her worry for him. “Though, just saying, I’d do it even if you ate yesterday.”
“This is my job, Greta, you don’t need to worry about me,” he informed her quietly.
“Someone has to do it,” she returned in the same tone.
“No they don’t.”
“Okay then, I have to do it, so please let me.”
He held her gaze as he ignored how that made him feel too, lifted his mug to his lips and muttered, “Knock yourself out.” He took a sip, but when he was done, he saw her mug by the stove was half empty, so he offered, “Want a warmup?”
“Yeah, darlin’. Just a splash of creamer.” He got her a warmup, slid the mug by the stove, and she requested, “Stools by the door, I pull them to the island when I eat in here. They get in the way otherwise. Could you bring them over, please?”
He looked to the two half-Windsor-back stools, side by side next to the door then back at the kitchen.
It wasn’t a small space and there was plenty of room around the island.
“Okay,” she went on, and he turned his attention back to her to see she was looking like she was trying not to laugh as she watched him. “So they mess with my aesthetic.”
“Right,” he replied, his word shaking with his own laughter.
“I’m dishing up, get on those stools,” she demanded.
“She’s bossy in the mornings,” he mumbled, moving to put down his mug on the island in transit to the stools.
“Just like to eat my food when it’s hot, snuggle bug,” she retorted.
He stopped, turned, stool in hands, and asked, “Snuggle bug?”
She awarded him with another big smile. “You snuggle.”
He did?
“No, I don’t.”
“Uh . . . you were there,” she reminded him.
“You snuggled me.”
“You hooked me around the waist and put me there.”
He did do that.
“We fell asleep that way because a man does that after he’s bedded down with a woman as good as you are with your mouth . . .” he paused, and finished, lips twitching. “And hand.”
She planted that exact hand on her hip. “Woke up with you wrapped around me.”
Come again?
He’d never wrapped himself around Hope. He moved around in sleep. She did too. It was go-to-sleep cuddles and then they went their separate ways.
“You did not,” he declared.
“Okay,” she was still smiling and turning back to the stove, “tell yourself that . . . snuggle bug.”
He set the stool down and asked, “That stool placement work for you, gum drop?”
She whirled around, spatula in hand. “Gum drop?”
He headed back for the other stool. “Not sure you want the meaning of that.”
“Try me,” she dared.
He brought the stool to the island, setting it beside the other one, and shot her a different kind of grin. “You taste sweet.”
Color rose in her cheeks, it was more indication she could be cute, and she turned back to the stove.
“You’re right. Maybe I didn’t wanna know,” she muttered.
“Better than the alternative,” he pointed out.
She faked horror with her, “Ohmigod.”
“Can’t say I’m wrong,” he noted.
“Ugh,” she pushed out.
“Could call you donut,” he said to her back.
“Blech,” she said to the stove.
“Cupcake,” he suggested, sliding his ass on a stool, enjoying the hell out of this.
“Gag,” she declined.
“How about pumpkin?” he offered. “That wouldn’t give anything away.”
“Please, no,” she said, bending down with an oven mitt on her hand and pulling out one of the two plates she was heating in the oven.
Greta heated plates.
Jesus.
“Gum drop it is,” he stated, forcing his mind from heated plates.
She shot him a look, her face severe, eyes amused, and straightened.
She dished up. He got off his ass again to get cutlery for both of them.
He sat down, she set his plate in front of him and went back to make her own.
He didn’t give her any more shit as she grabbed her mug and sat opposite him.
“Babe,” he called and her eyes went from picking up her fork to him.
“That one works,” she declared. “You go with another one, I’ll have to bounce from snuggle bug to stud muffin, depending on the occasion.”
The day after Hix stood, near to that very hour, next to a dead man, he sat on a stool in a country kitchen next to a beautiful woman who’d made him breakfast and he busted out laughing.
Still doing it, but while it was diminishing, he reached out, caught her behind the neck and pulled her to him.
“I was just gonna say, thanks for goin’ all out to make me breakfast.”
She stared into his eyes close up and whispered, “You’re welcome, Hix.”
“Now I’m gonna say thanks for making me laugh after a shit day and facing another one.”
“You’re welcome, baby.”
He touched his mouth to hers, let her go and tucked in.
After a few bites of crispy bacon, perfectly toasted toast and exceptionally fried egg, he said with mouth full, “Relieved to know the woman who forces breakfast on me can cook . . . sprinkles.”
Her big eyes came to him, she gulped down the coffee she’d been drinking then it was Greta who busted out laughing.
“S-s-sprinkles?” she asked through it.
“Take that however you want,” he offered.
She kept laughing.
Hix went back to eating but did it smiling.
“You name a dog Sprinkles,” she informed him.
“Then we’re back to gum drop.”
“Please, God, deliver me.”
Hix chuckled and kept eating.
He got done when she was half done, and he hated to say it but he had to.
“I’ll clean up while you finish up and then I gotta go.”
Her eyes came to him and the cheeriness was gone, the worry was back.
“I’ll clean up, darlin’. You gotta go, just go.”
“Need to get home, shower, change—”
“Hix?”
“What?”
“Shut up and get outta here.”
He grinned at her, picked up his plate, cutlery and mug and took it to the sink. He rinsed them all and came back to her, close to her side.
She tipped her head back.
He dipped his, running his hand along her neck at the back and curling his fingers around the side as he touched his mouth to hers and pulled a couple inches away.
“Thanks again, sweetheart.”
“You’re welcome, Hix.”
He smiled at her, traced his fingertips along the soft skin at the side of her neck then let her go.
He was at her front door and about to open it when she called out, “Catch ya later, stud muffin!”
He bit back laughter but couldn’t quite stop his smile as he opened the door, lifted a hand, gave her a flick of the wrist and walked out.
Hix wasn’t smiling when, two and a half hours later, he turned his eyes from the whiteboard timeline case profile he’d drawn up that was butted to the wall across from his desk—a whiteboard that had way too much white—to watch Bets and Larry come through the front door to the department.
They both looked to him but only Larry walked back to his office. Bets went to her desk.
Hix got up from behind his and had his ass leaning against the front of it when Larry walked in, coming to stand in front of him.
“Faith has been updated and you were right. It was her Calloway had sex with the day he died. She told Bets they . . . he . . .” He cleared his throat and pushed through it. “She likes to get up with him. Get him breakfast. So after he showers, he wakes her up and they . . . take care of business.”
“Right.”
“Doesn’t rule out another woman,” Larry pointed out.
“Lance didn’t say he found vaginal fluid from more than one woman, but I’ll call him later and make sure of that.”
Larry nodded.
“Do me a favor, man, and call the others in,” Hix requested.
Larry turned to the door and walked out.
Hix stayed where he was and watched the progression of his team as they filed into the office.
Donna was last in and she closed the door behind her.
They fanned out exactly as they’d done the day before. Donna at one end, Bets beside her, Larry beside Bets, Hal on the other end, like Larry was playing buffer for Donna and Bets against a colleague they both despised.
In the rare times he had a briefing with them all, this was always the way they positioned themselves.
He’d never noticed it.
Now he did and Hix’s high estimation of Larry rose higher.
“Right, unless anyone else had ideas since yesterday, I want us to start adjusting our focus and broadening our scope. We’re lookin’ for drifters. Homeless. And partners. We got nothin’ so nothin’ is out of bounds. Two men, man and a woman, even two women. Ask around. Hit the bars, diners, cafés and shelters in the county. New faces. Known folks. People actin’ hinky. People givin’ a bad vibe and gettin’ attention. Work as partners, Larry and Hal, Donna and Bets. Work it out amongst yourselves who’s going where. We struck out finding a crime scene, we have to focus on finding a suspect.”
“So you think it was about the truck,” Bets noted.
“Only thing missing is that truck,” Hix replied.
“That’s the only thing I can think too. Figured, maybe he picked up a hitchhiker or something. Maybe a fugitive who needed a ride but not one he had to share.”
That was a good idea, but unlikely. Unless the kill freaked him out, that brand of perp would take Calloway’s wallet, or at least the fifty-three dollars in it, especially if he took the time to move the body from the crime scene.
Even so.
“Run with that,” Hix ordered. “Anyone recently jumping bail who’s desperate enough to go to those ends to get his ass out of Nebraska. Do a search on that before you and Donna head out.”
“We got a BOLO on that truck, Hix, and no hits on it,” Donna pointed out.
“He might be layin’ low, Donna. I’ll start reaching out to law enforcement outside the adjoining counties at the same time hitting park services. Rangers get police alerts, gonna make sure they’re on the ball as well as get folks to put a bug in the ear of anyone they know in Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, South Dakota, doin’ the same myself.”
“What about Iowa and Missouri?” Hal asked. “Not like roads don’t lead those places.”
“Great stretches of nothin’ in the states I named, Hal,” Hix returned. “This man is on the run, he wants a lotta nothing. Not to hit a state where he’ll be nabbed by highway patrol or a town cop faster ’n he can say his own name. But bugs in the ear means be on the lookout same as BOLO actually stands for be on the fuckin’ lookout, so right now, havin’ dick, we gotta light some fires under people in hopes they’ll get motivated to lend us a hand. We also gotta go with hunches, attempt to create a focus of efforts and see if we can find a needle in a goddamned haystack then pin motive and opportunity on the damned thing.”
Hal looked to his boots.
Hix cut his gaze through his team. “Time to get moving.”
They didn’t hesitate but Hix turned his attention to Hal.
“Hal, a minute.” He looked to his door where Bets was the last to file out. “Close the door, Bets. Yeah?”
She couldn’t quite fight back her grin as she muttered, “Yeah,” and closed the door behind her.
Hix looked to Hal.
“I’ll make this short because there’s shit to do,” he began. “You waste time sayin’ stupid shit during a briefing one more time, Hal, you’re suspended. I’m not fucking with you. We got a dead citizen and his grieving widow and kids in this county and I don’t need to be explainin’ to you how to do your job or the decisions I make. You got a genuine question or suggestion you wanna add, I’m open to it. You wanna bust my balls for whatever reason, shut it down.”
“You’re threatening to suspend me during the first murder investigation in McCook County in fifty-two years?” Hal asked incredulously.
“Yes, Hal, I am.”
Hal straightened his back and puffed out his chest. “You’re giving preferential treatment to the other deputies.”
“Are you kidding me?” Hix asked, now he was incredulous.
“You told Bets to tell me to bring fucking coffee to a crime scene yesterday.”
“It was six in the morning, settin’ up to be a long day since we had the first murder victim on our hands that the county’s seen in fifty-two years, so yeah. I want my deputies alert and that means I want them to have some damned caffeine, and to get that not every one of ’em stoppin’ by Babycakes on the way to check out a body dump.”
“I coulda brought the tent,” Hal pointed out irately.
Hix could not believe what he was hearing.
“You’re bustin’ my balls and wastin’ my time,” he warned low.
Hal was and it would seem he couldn’t stop himself from doing it.
“You’re handlin’ Bets with kid gloves ’cause it’s clear you got fed up with puttin’ up with her dewy eyes, obviously laid it out, and you gotta expend effort to kiss her ass and snap her out of it ’cause she’s a girl and not a man who first, wouldn’t give you dewy eyes and second, you could just say it like it was and he’d take it like a man. Not to mention, you left me behind as forensics’ errand boy while the rest of you started the investigation.”
Hix couldn’t even think of his first point without physically getting in the man’s face.
So he focused on the second.
“Those Cherry County boys treat you like an errand boy?” he asked.
“No,” Hal mumbled. “You did.”
“Hal, I left you behind because you have experience at a murder scene so you’d know more what you’re lookin’ for working with forensics at a dump site. And I told you to show them McCook hospitality because those boys aren’t paid by our county and they coulda told us to go spit rather than hauling their asses down to another county to investigate a crime scene. It’s called interdepartmental relations and that leads to interdepartmental collaboration, somethin’ right now we need.”
Hal opened his mouth.
Hix lifted his hand.
“Listen to me, Hal, and listen good. Your balls are so big you can’t bring coffee to your team and you got a problem handling orders or doin’ the job you’re paid to do for this county, then we have a bigger problem and that’s to do with your continued employment. From the very beginning, you wanted to blow this off. When my hunch this was serious played out, you’ve questioned nearly everything that’s come out of my mouth. Just now, Bets had an idea that, frankly, mired in the utter lack of shit that surrounds Nat Calloway, didn’t occur to me. She’s now workin’ that, and who knows, it might help us catch a killer. I can’t believe with your years on the job I gotta tell you this, but you’re either with us or you’re against us, and that us includes your superior officer and the two females we have in this department. My advice is, make your choice. Don’t make me make it for you.”
“I want this guy found much as you, Hix.”
“Then welcome back to the team.”
Hal glared at him a beat before he asked, “We done, boss?”
Since they were into it, he wasn’t.
“No,” he answered.
“What else?” Hal bit out.
“I gotta partner you with Larry because he’s the only one who can work with you without lettin’ his feelings for you get in the way of that work. That doesn’t say anything about Bets and Donna. Watchin’ you alienate yourself from your colleagues, that says a lot about you and none of it is good. We need to find who killed Nat Calloway and we need to work as a functioning, healthy unit to do it. Again, with your time on the job, thought you’d sort yourself out with your fellow deputies, but you didn’t do dick to do that. So now I’m forced to share with you, you need to expend some effort, Hal. You razz Bets and you take it too far. You avoid Donna because she gave you some honesty you didn’t like to hear and you need to get over it. They don’t have to like you so much they ask you to Sunday dinner. But they do have to like you enough, trust you, know you got their back, to work with you on a job that in this place may seem like it don’t matter much, but we’ve got a dead man in the morgue proves that wrong.”
Hal didn’t reply.
So Hix asked, “Are you understanding me?”
“Yeah,” Hal gritted.
“Good.”
“Now we done?” he asked.
“I hope so, Hal.”
Hix would swear he could hear the man actually grinding his teeth before he stalked out.
He drew in a big breath and went back behind his desk.
He put Hal out of his mind and picked up his phone in order to start first with park rangers to make certain they’d seen the BOLO and maybe motivate them to get some of their rangers out in their vehicles to search their parks for Calloway’s truck.
He’d graduated to calling county sheriffs when his cell on his desk beeped and he looked to the screen to see it was from Reva, who was just across the way.
It said, Terra Guide.
His eyes went out the window and he saw Terra Snyder, editor of the town’s paper, the Glossop Guide.
He lifted a one-minute finger to her through the window, noted she’d caught it and then set about tying up his phone call.
He did this trying to think of Terra’s arrival as a boon. Their paper came out only once a week, on a Tuesday, that day had passed, and Hix hoped they had this solved by that day next week.
However, they also had a website and if she could get word out that they were looking for anyone who saw anything on that stretch of road around six o’clock on Monday night, maybe they’d catch a break.
In reality, this would probably just buy them a bunch of phone calls from people giving them crap they couldn’t use in an effort to be helpful or insinuate themselves into the situation in order to find out what was going on.
But Terra was a good woman. She ran the paper practically by herself, was serious about her job even if it was mostly reporting on bridge club tournaments and high school sports, getting student interns from the high school or home for summers from college, and that was mostly it.
So Hix pushed up from his desk, exited his office and walked out, calling a greeting to her when he entered the aisle between his deputies’ desks on the way to reception where she was standing, watching him.
“Hey, Terra.”
“Hix,” she replied, studying him closely.
He didn’t talk to her over the reception desk. He moved through the swinging half door and went to stand close to her, resting a hand on the desk.
“Heard you came by, sorry, been busy,” he remarked.
“I bet,” she said. “Got anything for me?”
Openly, he gave her what she needed to know, only what she needed to know. The victim’s name. Age. His occupation. The fact he was a family man. And that he was now sadly dead.
“Got any suspects?” she asked, her head down, the fingers of one hand tapping away on the screen keyboard of a tablet she held in the other.
“I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, Terra,” he told her.
She lifted her eyes to him. “Come on, Hix. Don’t shut me down like that. This isn’t Indianapolis. But it is the juiciest piece of news Glossop has had in near on two centuries.”
All of a sudden he didn’t feel like this was a boon.
“How about you go to Nathan Calloway’s widow and describe it like that?” he suggested.
She looked instantly contrite and Hix was relieved he hadn’t been wrong that she might be a reporter, but she was a good one as well as a good woman.
“That was out of line,” she muttered. “Sorry.”
“Forgotten,” he replied. “Now you could do us a favor, you’re willin’ to help out.”
She perked up and asked, “What’s that?”
“Anyone who saw anything on County Road 56 from Glossop to the Grady ranch down in Grant County. Broken-down car. Hitchhiker. Sometime between the hours of five and seven Monday night. They saw something, they can call this department. Also lookin’ for a truck, it’s Nathan Calloway’s. White Ford F150, can shoot you the details on that through email.”
“I can put somethin’ up on the website, Hix.”
“We’d be obliged, Terra.”
She stared hard at him, remarking, “Could read from that you don’t got a lot.”
“Read whatever you want,” he returned. “But I’ll tell you we’ve got all our resources at work on this, and we’re doin’ everything we can to find out who did this to the Calloway family.”
She nodded, dropping her head to tap on her tablet before she looked back up at him. “Gotta know, citizens of this county have anything to worry about?”
Hix shook his head. “Nothin’ leads us to believe that’s the case. Everything points to this being a random, one-time incident. But that doesn’t mean I won’t say what I say when I do my yearly talk at the middle school. Always be alert. Lock your doors. Let loved ones know where you’re at and when to expect you home. Though, again, sayin’ that only because it’s smart and should be routine for every citizen of this county.”
“That’s good,” she muttered, tapping away. “Spin this also as a PSA, remindin’ folks they should look after themselves.”
He didn’t like the idea of spinning a murder any way, but if there was a way it had to be spun, Hix would pick that one.
The front door opened and Hix looked to it to see Henry Blatt, McCook’s last sheriff, strolling through.
“Hope you ain’t talkin’ to the press, boy,” he declared loudly, his gaze swinging from Terra to Hix.
Terrific.
“Sheriff Blatt, what’s your take on what’s happened to Nat Calloway?” Terra called out as Blatt sauntered right to the swinging half door and also right through it.
“My take is no comment,” he stated and kept talking and walking. “Drake, wanna talk to you. Office.”
Hix watched him go, sighed and looked to Terra.
“Just to say, off the record, which is not something a reporter usually throws out there, but thank God you’re in that office instead of him, this happened in this town, Hix,” Terra murmured, lifted her tablet his way and said, “Thanks. You shoot me the details of that truck, I’ll have some text to you to look over before I post it on the website. Work for you?”
“Yeah, Terra, thanks.”
She nodded, moved, waved to Reva and walked out.
Hix turned to the half door and saw Reva in the door to dispatch.
“That pompous ass messes things up for you and the Calloway family, Hixon, you’ll have another shooting on your hands,” Reva announced.
Reva was a petite, very round, older version of Ida but with short, dyed-brown hair teased into a helmet style that oddly suited her.
However, whereas Ida was a sage who was relatively mellow, regardless that her family might or might not be significantly dysfunctional, Reva had the wisdom of her years and was a ball-buster, which might be the reason why her son was a heart surgeon in Omaha and her daughter flew jets for the Air Force.
“It’ll be all right,” he told her.
“It better be,” she shot back, turned and flounced to her desk.
Hix went through the swinging door and right to his office, relieved to see Blatt at least had it in him not to be sitting in Hix’s chair.
He was standing, staring at the whiteboard, and the second Hix hit the room, Blatt turned to him, clapped his hands, rubbed them together and asked, “Right, run it down for me.”
“Henry—”
Blatt lifted a hand his way. “Don’t give me that. This is serious. You need all the help you can get.”
“We got it covered.”
Blatt’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll repeat, don’t give me that shit, boy.”
Hix let his deputies call him by his first name and he’d never, maybe even with a gun to his head, though he hoped that was never tested, refer to one of them as “boy,” “son,” “girl,” or “gal.”
Until he’d retired, Hix had never called Blatt “Henry,” but Hix had been called “boy” almost exclusively, unless Blatt was feeling soft-hearted, then he’d call Hix “son.”
Hix hated it.
But right then, the priority was stopping a retired sheriff who’d never investigated a murder in his entire career interfering with a murder investigation. It was not telling the man how he felt about being forty-two, the elected sheriff and being called “boy.”
“Due respect, Henry, I understand you wanna help but the best way you can help is let us get on with this case.”
“I know every inch of this county and practically every soul in it.”
The first was true. The second, even with a county that unpopulated, it was still large in land mass, so it couldn’t even come close to being true.
“You happen onto a five-year-old, white, Ford F150 with McCook County plates that shouldn’t be anywhere but the Grady ranch or a house on Emerson, not much you can do,” Hix told him.
“You run it down for me, maybe I’d have other ideas,” Blatt returned.
“Henry, I got some calls to make and then I gotta get out there and see if I can make some leeway in finding out who killed the father of two little kids. Again, respect, but I don’t have time for this.”
“I’m here to help.”
“And I’m tellin’ you, best way you can do that is let me get on with doing my job.”
Blatt gave him a scowl. “That isn’t respect.”
“And just to point out,” he tossed out his hand to indicate the both of them in that room having that conversation, “this isn’t respect.”
Blatt blew out a breath, broke eye contact, lifted a hand to squeeze the back of his neck, dropped it, then looked again to Hix.
“Faith is my wife’s sister’s great-niece. My sister-in-law is married to Faith’s great-uncle.”
Damn.
It was true that Blatt was a blowhard, but outside of liking a bit too much his position of authority, he’d always given indication he was also about serving his citizens.
He just did it in a pompous-assed way.
“Then how you can help is keep an eye out for Nat’s truck and look after Faith. She’s gonna have a lotta people in her space thinkin’ they’re helping when they’re probably not. If you can shield her so she can get on with her grief without playing hostess to half the town, you’ll be doin’ a lot.”
Blatt didn’t look like he liked it, but he did look like he was considering it, then he came to a decision.
“Yeah. Maybe I’ll spend the day on Faith’s porch. Make sure she’s got quiet to take a nap or somethin’.”
Hix bit back a sigh of relief.
“I’m sure she’d be grateful.”
Blatt nodded.
Hix got out of his way when Blatt started toward the door.
The man stopped when he was in line with him.
“Find this fucker, son,” he ordered, fire in his eyes, wearing his sixty-eight years on his face.
He knew Faith and he cared for her.
He also knew Nat and he wanted the man who ended his life to pay for it.
“We’re throwin’ everything we got at that, Henry.”
Blatt nodded, drew in a big breath and walked out Hix’s door.
Hix was back at his desk, making his last calls, approving the notice Terra sent to him after he’d emailed her the details on Calloway’s truck, fielding other calls from papers in the county, when his cell on the desk beeped again.
He looked to it and it was another text from Reva. This time it said, Hope.
His eyes went to the window but Reva texting him because she couldn’t phone him seeing as he was on the phone had taken too much time.
A knock came at the door and his gaze turned there to see Hope standing in it, her face soft.
Shit.
He did what he could to make the call he was on short and then ended it.
The minute he put the handset in the receiver, still in the door, she called quietly, “Hey.”
“Hope, whatever this is, I really can’t do it now,” he returned.
Unsurprisingly, he said that and his ex-wife walked right in.
Hix rose from his seat.
“You doin’ okay?” she asked.
“I’m working.”
“I know,” she said, again quiet. “I heard, Hix. God.” She shook her head coming to a stop right across the desk from him. “I’m so sorry. So sorry. It’s had to have been rough.”
“I wasn’t married to him, Hope.”
“I know, but you . . .” She looked to the windows before she came back to him. “You never liked the murders in Indy.”
“Not something you like.”
“I think you get me, honey.”
He felt a muscle tick up his cheek.
“I’m fine, Hope. Thanks for stoppin’ by but I got shit I really gotta see to.”
She nodded. “Yes, I . . . yes . . . well,” she stammered, looked back to the windows, and when he got her attention again, he clenched his hands into fists at the hurt he saw stark there. “I just . . . I know now’s not the time but I heard you were, well, last night you went to . . .” She paused then said like she had to force it to come out, “Her.”
It sucked that, after all her recent behavior, he totally could believe she came there not to see how he was doing but to share in her way she didn’t like it he was spending time with, not to mention doing, someone else.
But they were not going to get into this and not just because it was none of her freaking business.
“Hope—”
“You know,” she started quickly, “that I know that I made it that way. That was my fault. But now I’m here to say that I’m here, Hix, if you need me. You need someone to talk to. You can come to me.”
“Thanks for the offer,” he pushed out.
“I know we haven’t been getting along real great, but that offer’s genuine, Hixon.”
“’Preciate it.”
“Seriously.”
Christ.
“Hope, I got shit to do.”
Her body gave a small jerk and she whispered, “Right. Yeah. Of course. Of course, honey. I’ll just . . . get back to Mom and Dad’s. They say they’re thinkin’ of you and the team, and of course that poor family.”
“Right.”
“Well, better go,” she muttered.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
She looked into his eyes, sucking his time, making it clear the effort she was expending to force a smile his way at the same time still not hiding the hurt she felt he’d gone to Greta and not giving him a hint of the concern she was pretending to feel for him, which was the lie behind the reason she’d come there.
“Talk to you later?” she asked.
He didn’t know what to say to that without saying something he shouldn’t so he decided just to keep his mouth shut.
“Okay, well . . . later.”
“’Bye, Hope.”
She nodded, hesitated, and when he said no more and gave her nothing, she turned and slowly walked to the door, giving him ample time to call her back.
He did not.
He also didn’t look out the window to watch her go.
He sat down, texted all his deputies to let them know the notice would go up on the Guide website within the hour, walked out to Reva to give her that same news, went back to his office and got back on the phone.
He was into his final call when his cell beeped again.
He bit back a curse as he listened to the sheriff of Wheeler County telling him he’d keep his crew sharp in keeping an eye out for Calloway’s truck.
But he felt himself relax when the text displayed faded away.
He got off the call, picked up his cell and engaged it, fully reading Greta’s text.
Folks at the Harlequin say you got a thing for their Reuben so I’m bringing you one even if I have to drive it all the way across the county. So text me your whereabouts, smokey.
He grinned as he texted back, Office, babe.
I’ll be there soon, she replied.
She didn’t lie and ten minutes later Hix caught her coming in.
He got up and moved out to go and get her.
“Hey,” she called when she saw him come out of the back hall.
“Hey,” he replied. “Come on back.”
She glanced to Reva, smiled that way then came through the swinging half door.
He met her halfway down the aisle and turned. Taking the plastic bag with the Styrofoam box flattening the bottom from her hand, he put his other hand to her elbow and led her to his office.
He let her go and went right to the whiteboard, flipping it around so the timeline and the photos taped to it were not facing the room. This was not so she wouldn’t see confidential details of an investigation, but so she wouldn’t see disturbing photos of a dead man.
“Is this okay?” she asked as he turned to her, her eyes to the now blank board.
“What?” he asked in return.
She looked to him. “Coming here.” She lifted her hand to indicate the bag. “Bringing you lunch.”
He smiled. “Hell yeah.”
She smiled back.
Hix looked down and opened the knots to the bag, seeing inside there was only one tray.
He raised his head. “Nothing for you?”
“It’s my day off,” she told him. “And I’ve got a ton to do so I’m just dropping that off to make sure you eat something and then I have to get to doing it.”
“Right,” he replied, having a ton to do too but thinking he wished part of it was being able to spend fifteen minutes eating a sandwich with her.
“That ton to do includes buying another bottle of bourbon,” she shared. “I’m running low.”
Hix smiled again. “Right.”
“And, well . . . um, buying other things,” she went on.
Hix started chuckling. “I get a say in priority of these two items, bourbon would come in second.”
Greta started laughing.
It died away, she gave him a close look and what was behind her eyes was not about her, it was about him.
“You doin’ okay?” she asked softly.
“Yeah, babe.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Though one thing I’m not doin’ okay about is that I’d really like to kiss you to say thanks for the Reuben. But Reva wouldn’t share shit that happened in this department that had to do with sheriff business, even if she was waterboarded. Gossip does not hold that same level of confidentiality. Not even close.”
She was back to smiling when she said, “I understand.”
He wasn’t far away from her but he got closer. “Tonight, meet you at your porch.”
“Okay,” she replied.
“Don’t know when, it might be late, but I’ll text you before I show.”
“Sounds good, Hixon.”
“And thanks for lunch, Greta.”
She swayed to him, her eyes to his, but didn’t touch him. “My pleasure, snuggle bug.”
He chuckled again.
She grinned, reached out and touched a finger to the back of his hand and said, “Later.”
He knew the response to that.
“Yeah, sweetheart, later.”
She kept grinning at him even as she turned and walked out the door.
Hix watched her leave his department, doing it waving again at Reva.
Then he went back to the whiteboard, flipped it back around, pulled the Styrofoam out of the bag, set the bag aside, opened the box and ate, standing up and staring at the board in front of him.
Half the sandwich gone, pickle decimated, one bite into the second half, Hix froze, and mouth full, he mumbled, “Shit.”
He closed the Styrofoam, went to his desk and nabbed his cell.
He shoved it in his breast pocket, and still carrying the sandwich, he took off out the door, going to Reva and only saying, “You got reception,” before he hauled ass out of the building.
He ate the rest of the sandwich in his Ram between phone calls.
“You got this from scrapes?” Donna asked.
They were standing on the shoulder of County Road 56, seven miles up from Grant into McCook County, only distant farmhouses dotting the landscape, the rest just field, both the men of Cherry County’s forensics team squatted in the tall grass about six feet from the road, digging in the turf.
“Concrete’s graded,” Hix said, watching forensics, Donna standing close to him, Larry, Bets and Hal all out in the grass in different directions, heads bent, walking slow, swishing with their batons through the grass.
“And?” Donna prompted.
He looked to her.
“Heels of both his palms had bruising come up, not dark, didn’t catch it because of that, but it was there. Once I noticed that, it delineated scrapes that would indicate they cut in on the diagonal. Grading of the road goes side to side to allow water runoff. If he was runnin’ down the road and took a header into his hands, that bruising and those scrapes would be horizontal. But they were diagonal, which meant he was running off the road.”
“And that?” she tipped her head to where forensics was digging.
“We were lookin’ for a bloodstain and shell casings on the road yesterday, Donna. Drove down to Grady’s, drove back and did it slow. Took me nine miles and I saw that grass depressed, broken grass on the way to it that could seem beaten down by rain yesterday. That depression looks natural, unless you’re lookin’ for it. And that grass bouncin’ back in the sun today, the broken grass not doin’ that, you can see the path that leads to the depression. Yesterday, figure it didn’t look like that. Today, didn’t have to look hard to find it.”
He jerked his head to the bullet in an evidence bag weighed down by a rock on the hood of his truck, which was one bag amongst many that mostly contained cigarette butts and their bonus find: three shell casings. Two they’d found in the turf not far from the road, one had been knocked, probably by cars, to the opposite side of the road where yesterday they didn’t look.
“He went down on the road when he took one in the shoulder,” Hix told her. “Got up, kept running. Shooter followed him. Got off two more rounds while he was in the grass, going after him. The one that hit his shirt, the one that got him in the neck.”
“So guy did him, carried him out, and did it in a hurry, not bothering to clean up after himself,” Donna noted.
“Not a high traffic area, houses not even a little close, but he killed a man and folks around these parts stop, they think someone’s in trouble. He got that body, put it in Nat’s truck, and got the hell outta here.”
She looked from the grass to Hix. “No other vehicle? No partner?”
“Got nothing on this road or the shoulder, such as it is, to give us tire impressions, rain took that, and obviously no skid marks to say he’d been run off the road.” Hix shook his head. “Donna, gut tells me the man stopped to help someone out. I’m thinkin’, guy pulled a gun, my guess, he wanted Nat to drive, but Calloway thought his best bet was to get his ass outta his truck and run. The man tried to steal his truck, Calloway saw his face, man panicked.”
“You thinkin’ fugitive like Bets said?” Donna asked.
“I’m thinkin’ a fugitive that would do something fool enough to jump bail or run from the cops after he’d committed a crime would know that what he’d get for stealin’ that truck would be a whole lot better than what he’d get for shooting a man and definitely killing him.”
“Tweaker,” she murmured.
“Blatt saw to the fact no meth was sold in our county and I gotta admit a good byproduct of that deal is, since McCook’s meth man doesn’t sell close to home, he’s not a big fan of someone else’s product hitting his county, so he shuts that down before we gotta lift a finger.”
“Man could be from outta town, Hix.”
“Then how would he know about that game trail?”
She nodded. “Yeah. True.”
Hix looked back to the grass. “Least we got a crime scene.”
“Yeah.”
“And meth isn’t the only shit that could string someone out.”
“Yeah.”
His cell rang and Hix pulled it out of his breast pocket to see it was the chief at Dansboro Police.
“Gotta take this,” he muttered.
“Gotta help out,” she muttered back, then waded into the grass.
Hix took the call, hoping he’d get word on a Ford F150.
Instead, the fact they’d found the scene of the crime got out and he found himself giving an update.
He gave it, waded in the grass a different direction than any of the bodies out there, and helped out.
Hix pulled out, rolled off Greta, tagged her around the waist and hauled her up and around until she was on her knees in front of him, her back to his front.
He took her hand, planted it under his in the headboard, positioned behind her, guiding his cock with his other hand, then he drilled inside.
Damn.
So sweet.
Her head flew back and hit his shoulder and she lifted her other hand and braced it into the wall above her headboard, rearing back into his thrusts.
He slid his hand from her belly to her tit, rolled the nipple then pulled it.
“Hix,” she gasped, dropping her head forward and taking his cock.
He brushed the hair at her nape aside with his chin and then rested his lips there, grunting against her skin as he fucked her.
They’d never fucked.
She got off on it.
He did too, including the fact she did.
She tipped her ass up and slammed back into him harder.
Hell yeah.
She got off on it.
“Yeah, Greta,” he growled into her skin, pulling her nipple.
She whimpered and drove back into him faster.
“Fuck yourself, baby,” he encouraged.
Her head fell back again and she puffed out, “Yeah.”
He left her nipple, slid his hand down between her legs and pressed in at her clit.
Her body jerked against him.
“Hix.”
She was pounding into him now, no rhythm, no control, panting and reaching for it.
He pulled out again.
She cried out, “No!” but he turned her, walked into the headboard on his knees, lifted her up and slammed her down on him, this getting him a breathy, “Yes,” right before she shuddered in his arms, her limbs wound around him going tight, and her pussy convulsing around his dick as she came.
He rode her against the headboard, trying to focus on the beauty of her face as she gave it to him.
But he lost focus when the pressure built in his balls and he grunted, pounding fast and hard, his eyes closing tight, white exploding behind them as he shot into the condom inside her, coming spectacularly.
Her lips were working his throat when he came down, and he bumped his chin gently against her head to tell her where he wanted that.
She gave it to him, tipping her head back and offering him her mouth.
He took it, kissing her hard then softer until they were mostly brushing and nibbling lips.
Only then did he mutter, “Gonna clean up.”
“Okay, darlin’.”
He touched his mouth to hers, slid out, moved back, laid her in bed and then exited it.
He got rid of the condom and washed up in a dark bathroom before rejoining her in bed.
Hix didn’t have to hook her around the waist to pull her into him that time.
She cuddled right in after he’d settled on his back and as he was yanking the covers over them.
“Who’s snuggling now?” he teased.
“Shut up, Hixon.”
He grinned to the ceiling, curled his arm around her and drew circles on her hip as she pressed her naked body into his side, snaking a hand along his gut, curving it around his other side and holding him close.
“You’re in a better place tonight,” she noted.
Earlier, on her porch, he hadn’t had bourbon, he’d had beer. He’d also had some cold fried chicken he found out she’d bought for him just in case he came early enough to eat, or late but without dinner.
It had been the last.
She’d also shown him the three dresses on her laptop that she’d bought that night (all three he’d given his wholehearted approval). She’d told him the salon was on fire with talk about Calloway’s murder. And she’d assured him that everyone had faith in him and his crew finding who did it.
She’d also said, “A beauty salon is not a confessional, but you know, it wouldn’t be good to lose a client. So it was a little bird that told you that the Mortimers’ neighbor’s son loved his dog a whole lot. Not to mention, he’s got a paper route he does for spending money, thus the means to buy spray paint his parents didn’t know about, as well as a grudge his dog was shot and his parents were forced to use the money they were saving up to buy him the latest Xbox for his birthday in order to save that dog’s life. Insult to injury, he mighta acted on that. And his folks mighta found the paint cans. And they mighta reamed his ass even if they still thought it was pretty damned funny. So they might be comin’ in to share their son acted unwisely in his anger or they might not. Just act surprised if they do and don’t give me up if they don’t.”
“Talked to them already, Greta, and they told me their son would never do that,” he’d replied.
“Well, after they did that, they checked to make sure the statement they gave the sheriff was indeed correct and found that it was not.”
Even though he was grateful for the knowledge and amused she was so funny in the way she provided it, he shared gently, “You’re not my booty call. You’re also not my informant, sweetheart.”
She’d just smiled back. “I know. What I am is the chick who’s cool with ratting out one of her clients’ sons if it takes a least a little something off your mind.”
After that, with no will to fight it, he’d dragged her ass off the porch then nailed it in her bedroom.
“We made headway today,” he replied to her mentioning he was in a better place.
She gave his middle a squeeze. “Good.”
“Yeah.”
They both let that settle before Hix spoke again.
“Think that Reuben had magical powers, eating it, I saw somethin’ I hadn’t noticed from the photos we got and I’d been givin’ those a lot of attention.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him through the dark. “Then no more bitching about me feeding you.”
He lifted his hand and cupped her cheek, grinning at her and murmuring, “No more bitching, baby.”
She gave him a flash of a smile and settled back in on his shoulder.
Hix took his time drifting his fingers along her cheek as he slid his hand away.
She snuggled closer and muttered, “Pancakes okay for breakfast tomorrow?”
“Hope to God I close this case but now hope to God I do it without packing on fifty pounds.”
She gave him a warning shake. “What was that we agreed about no more bitching?”
“Right. Sorry,” he mumbled then spoke distinctly, “Pancakes will be good.”
“Excellent.”
The hour, the dark and the sex settled in, so Hix did too, relaxing and feeling sleep coming when Greta asked, “You talk to your kids?”
“Shaw called tonight after football practice, heard what happened, checking in. He handed the phone off to his sisters. So yeah. They’re worried about their dad but think they’re all old enough to get this is part of the job. At least that’s what they gave me. I’ll know better when I got ’em back.”
“Good.”
Hix hadn’t shared with Greta about Hope’s visit that day.
Since Reva had been there when Hope showed, Greta might already know if that news had hit the salon and she just wasn’t mentioning it. Or she could not know and he wasn’t going to bring his ex into her bed.
What he was going to do was carve out some time where his mind was not centered on a murder and consider what was happening with Greta.
He had friends. He had female friends. He’d never had a friend with benefits, he was thinking that might be nice, but it still wasn’t what this was.
No, he was thinking that wasn’t what he wanted this to be.
It was too soon but he was also beginning to think he didn’t give a shit.
She was great and it might not be the best timing, but he’d be a fool if something that gave every indication it was just that awesome walked into his life and he didn’t work with her to discover where it might go.
That conversation would have to happen after he found a murderer.
But it was going to happen.
So as Hix fell asleep feeling Greta’s warm weight pressed to his side, along his stomach, smelling her, he found he had another reason to catch a killer.
And fast.