Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Coach Ward wants us training. So we’re running like she’s here riding our ass.” Drew didn’t expect an argument, and he didn’t get one. They’d slacked the first two days Jo was in the hospital. A few of them camped outside the hospital, waiting for permission to visit her. She looked as bad as everyone said she did. Worse.
Drew gave her shit about her driving skills and had her laughing. Making her smile was the only reward he wanted.
It didn’t escape him that the car she’d been driving had the same recall as his dad’s. It could have easily been his father in that hospital bed. Drew hated that for a brief second he’d wished it was.
The feeling didn’t last. Especially when his father acted guilty about the whole thing. When they’d visited Jo, his father was visibly upset.
“Let’s take Lob Hill,” Tina suggested.
Gustavo moaned.
“Bite me. C’mon. Lob Hill, then our normal. We’ll send her a picture of us up there and make her proud,” Tina said.
Drew liked the way his girl thought.
“She’s going to ask what we were doing to all be up there.”
Tim was right. Coach Ward would think they’d been out partying. Which none of them dared this close to state.
“Whatever,” Drew said. “I’m in.” And they started to run, grumbling Gustavo and all. At the top, they snapped a picture and sent it to Jo’s cell phone.
Drew paced beside Tina during their normal run through the woods surrounding the school.
“I hope Coach Ward can be here for prom.”
“I bet she will,” Drew said.
“Did you rent your tux?”
He smiled. “Nope, gonna wear jeans and a T-shirt.”
Tina slapped his arm.
“C’mon.” Drew picked up the pace.
“Overachievers!” someone yelled from behind them.
Drew flipped them the bird and kept running.
Later, when they were cooling down and finishing with a stretch, the morning football practice took over the field.
Drew and the others skirted off the fifty-yard line to give them room.
“There goes dog-killer’s son,” he heard someone in the crush of football jocks say.
Drew swiveled around.
“I heard Dad jacked the car, too.”
He clenched his fists. “Who said that?” He started toward the football team.
Tim and Gustavo jumped up from their stretches, grabbed Drew’s arms.
“Ohhh, looks like someone wants to defend Daddy.”
Drew’s eyes burrowed into the voice. Freddy. The kid deserved to be on Coach Ward’s track team for all the partying he did. His daddy kept him in football even though he’d never make it past high school in the sport.
“You have something to say, douchebag?” Drew asked as he attempted to pull away from Tim and Gustavo.
“Everyone knows your dad wants Sheriff Ward’s job. What better way to get it than to off her?”
Drew saw red.
By now the remaining track team had joined them and faced off with the football team.
“That’s fucked up, Freddy.” Gustavo’s grip on Drew’s arm loosened as he spoke.
Just when Drew was ready to make Freddy eat his words, Tina jumped in front of him. “Don’t do it. You punch him and there’s no prom, no state. He’s just an asshole.” Tina forced his eyes to hers. “Please.”
His back teeth ground together, his fists dug holes into his palms.
He wanted to punch something.
“He’s not worth it,” Tina pleaded.
Drew’s breath came in short pants. “Fuck!” He turned away.
Behind him, Freddy laughed. “Dog-killer’s son is a wimp, too.”
Drew didn’t move fast enough.
Gustavo did. He had a mean right fist, and it connected with Freddy so fast the kid didn’t see it coming.
The football coach jumped in before Freddy could get to his feet.
Gustavo shook out his fist, turned to Drew. “I hadn’t planned on going to prom or state.”
Miss Gina’s idea of playing nurse when it was her shift—Jo’s friends had mapped out a schedule of who was with her day and night—involved marijuana and vodka. Neither of which Jo took her up on.
Jo didn’t mind. She’d blown out of the hospital after six long days and five nights. Three too many, if anyone asked her.
No one did.
Gill refused to let anyone else drive her home other than him.
She wasn’t sure how he was managing to avoid his day job while he played nursemaid. Shauna had visited twice, both times bringing Gill up to date on the case. Jo envied their working relationship.
Jo couldn’t help but think of the tension between her and her so-called partner. Through the years, they had managed to work well, but in the recent past things had become seriously strained.
Still, she was ecstatic to be home.
Miss Gina sat on Jo’s couch, a plate of one of the many dishes Zoe had made and stocked her refrigerator with warm in her lap. “So much better than hospital food,” Miss Gina said between bites.
“You act like you were the one in the hospital.”
“Am I wrong?”
Jo had eaten half her meal, put the rest aside. “Nope.”
From her bedroom, Gill emerged fresh from the shower, his chest bare, his hips holding up his jeans.
“Well, that’s a damn fine sight.” Miss Gina hummed over her fork as she stared.
Gill paused. “I feel strangely violated.”
Miss Gina kept teasing. “That can be arranged. Pretty sure I can take Jo out in her current condition.”
Jo laughed, held her side with her good arm. The left sat in a sling, more for the broken collarbone than anything else. Overall she was feeling pretty good. Didn’t mind taking the pain meds before bed but stuck with the over-the-counter stuff during the day. Even if that meant feeling the pain with every chuckle.
Gill ducked back into her room, returned with a shirt covering his broad chest.
“So not cool,” Miss Gina muttered.
The doorbell rang. Miss Gina jumped to answer it.
Mrs. Miller stood in the doorway, a pie in her hands. “Hello, Gina. Taking care of our patient?”
Miss Gina shrugged, opened the door wide.
Mrs. Miller smiled at Jo, glanced at Gill, who had sat on the arm of the recliner Jo was perched in.
“Looks like you’re on the mend.”
“Thank you. My friends keep telling me I look like crap.”
Mrs. Miller cocked her head to the side. “Well . . .”
Jo glanced at Gill. “Will someone please lie to me!”
Gill stood and extended a hand. “I’m Gill.”
Mrs. Miller smiled and handed the pie to Miss Gina. “A pleasure. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“You have me at a disadvantage,” Gill said.
“I’m Luke’s mother.”
“Ah.” Gill eyed the pie. “I’ve heard about your pies.”
“I suppose it could be worse.” Mrs. Miller crossed the room and leaned down to Jo’s side. “How are you feeling?”
“I have a marathon scheduled next week. I’m in.”
Mrs. Miller smiled. “I’m not staying. Just wanted to stop in. You call if you need anything.” The woman kissed Jo’s cheek.
“I will.”
After Mrs. Miller left, the parade began.
Once the fourth neighbor had stopped by and left, Gill excused himself, said he wanted to see how everything at the station was running. Considering how much she’d talked about her job, about the cars . . . about Karl’s desire to vie for her job, stress ate at her sleep almost as much as the pain.
Gill noticed.
The station was an excuse. He had every intention of stopping in, make sure that Karl knew Gill was paying attention, but not before talking with Wyatt about his cloaked text. Gill agreed to meet him at Miller’s Auto. Since the mild weather was holding out, Gill took the opportunity to walk through town.
Each step felt more familiar than the last.
When he passed the station, and then Sam’s diner, he found himself waving at the waitress through the glass. He’d forgotten her name but remembered she’d been kind.
Hard rock pumped through the doors of the garage. He found Luke and Wyatt shooting the crap around an old pickup that looked like it was twenty years past its prime.
They shook hands, went over how Jo was doing now that she was home.
“What’s going on?” Gill jumped to the point.
“There are some significant rumors going around,” Wyatt told him. “Beyond gossip.”
“I’m listening.” Gill crossed his arms over his chest.
“It’s starting at the high school. One of my track kids ended up suspended for the last few days for fighting. Apparently he was defending Drew Emery.”
“Karl’s son?”
“That’s the one. One of the kids alluded to the possibility of Karl being behind the dog.”
“You’re kidding.”
“There’s more,” Luke said. “With Karl taking a position for Jo’s job, there’s talk of him tampering with the brakes.”
Gill uncrossed his arms, looked over his shoulder, down the street to where the station probably housed the man right now.
“Gossip or reality?”
“Hard to say. I’d like to know what the mechanics find on the squad car,” Luke said.
“Karl’s dislike for animals isn’t rumor.”
“These are some serious accusations.”
Wyatt shuffled his feet. “Karl is taking point on Jo’s job now with her laid up. An accidental death . . .” He let his words die in his mouth.
“Like her father’s?” Gill asked on a breath.
“We all know how Jo feels about that.”
Could it be that simple? Could Karl be that man?
“Jo can’t take this right now.”
“Which is why we’re talking to you,” Luke told him.
“If it is Karl, why wait until now to make a move?”
“Too suspicious to happen on the heels of her father? You’re the FBI agent, you tell us.”
Wyatt had a point.
“I don’t like how this smells.”
“Neither do we.”