Chapter Seventeen
Nicki checked the clock in the station’s break room. Four forty? Man, this day just wouldn’t end. Twenty minutes to go and plenty of paperwork to fill them, yet it sounded like eons before she’d find herself at home with a glass of wine in her periphery as she helped her mom prep dinner or went over Matty’s homework with him. No rest for the wicked, they said. They were spot-fucking-on.
Your own fault for sacrificing a decent night’s sleep in exchange for—
Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, and the name waiting on her screen made her stomach do a cartwheel.
She hit accept, glancing around as coworkers came and went from the coffeemaker and microwave. “Mr. Church.”
“Nicki, hey. You at work?”
“Not for long,” she said, making her way toward the office she shared with her partner. She found it mercifully empty and shut the door behind her. “What’s up?” She might be running on fumes, but if he asked her to come by tonight . . . Well, God help her. God and caffeine, come morning.
“I need to see you. As soon as possible.”
She smiled, such a goner. “Oh, do you then?”
A soft laugh. “Um, not like that, I’m afraid. Trust me, I’d like nothing more, but I actually need to talk to you about the case.”
“The case?” She was all ears now.
“I could meet you in town—I won’t make you come all the way out here.”
It was a twenty-minute drive for Miah, and she’d be off in as much time. “Okay. At the bar?”
“Sure. Long as we can talk privately. And we should—Wednesdays are usually quiet.”
“You’ve got me intrigued, I won’t lie. Let me just finish my paperwork and I’ll find you there.”
“Thanks. See you soon.”
Once she hung up, she had to force herself to forget what they’d just spoken about. The promise of seeing Miah was distraction enough, to say nothing of some mysterious business to do with the case.
It can’t be anything too important, she told herself, sliding her forms close. Otherwise he’d have taken it straight to the detectives.
She pulled into the Benji’s lot just a couple minutes later than she’d hoped and parked beside Miah’s truck. She could make him out as she headed for the entrance—he was at a table in a front window, and he watched her every step.
It hadn’t occurred to her to worry about what people might think, seeing the two of them huddled close. She was thankful for her uniform, lending her a veneer of professionalism she didn’t feel especially deserving of after last night.
Last night was none of anybody’s business. She only hoped it stayed that way.
The place was quiet, just a few customers camped at the bar. It’d pick up at dinnertime, but for now it would do nicely for a discreet conversation.
The drinkers all turned as the door shut at Nicki’s back. They were older guys, quarry workers to judge by the backsides of their dusty jeans. A couple offered polite dips of their chins, the others just stares, nosy and passing alike. She offered a smile and nod of her own, then headed for Miah’s table. No doubt they’d all be hypothesizing in seconds flat about what the two of them were discussing—the murder case was the talk of the county, and its residents had been short on new information for long months now.
“Miah,” she said, taking a seat across from him. She kept her spine rod-straight, wanting to look a thousand percent on duty.
“Deputy. Thanks for coming so quick. Get you a drink?”
“No, I think I’d better look like I’m still on the clock,” she said quietly.
“Sure.”
“So what’s up? You said you have information?”
He nodded. He looked nervous, or perhaps just cautious. Cautiously hopeful? “I talked to Lorna Bean today.”
“She came by again?”
Miah pursed his lips. “Uh, no. I went to her. I was talking everything over with Casey. Without going into any details, he’s, um . . . He’s got the gifted mind of a seasoned criminal.”
She smirked. “So I understand. And what did this gifted mind have to impart?”
“We were wondering, firstly, how much was Chris Bean promised to do what he did. Casey thought it could tell us a lot. Tell the detectives a lot, that is.”
She considered it. “I suppose it might. The perpetrator’s budget isn’t irrelevant. Though Bean’s real price tag was the hope that he could keep them from retaliating against his family if he went through with it all.”
“True. But Case also wondered if they’d ever paid out. And if so, what were the bills like.”
Nicki supposed that was true. “But wait—so you went to see Lorna? To ask her about all this?”
He nodded, the gesture tight and rightly so.
“Miah.”
“I know, I know.”
“Well, you should also know I swung by the ranch today while I was on patrol. I talked to your mom and she said you’d taken a half day. Tell me this wasn’t premeditated.”
“Not exactly. Only to get together with Casey, and the topic came up. He got curious about the money and we went to see her from there.”
She shook her head, exasperated. “Okay, okay. What’s done is done, and what’s done was extremely reckless, but fine. What did she say about it all?”
“They promised Bean six grand, and paid him half in advance.”
That surprised Nicki. She couldn’t say how much she’d have expected, but six grand sounded like a lot. Sounded like the kind of sum a person would pay if he was serious about wanting a job done, and could afford to make a desperate man keen. “Well. That’s something. I don’t know if the investigators know about that or not. Likely. They questioned her enough.”
Miah nodded. “The amount was interesting, but the bills were more interesting.”
She blinked. “You saw them?”
Miah started. “I . . . Lorna did. Chris gave her money when he first got it. He didn’t trust himself with it, I think she was implying.”
“And with good reason. If only he’d skipped town with it and never gone through with the job.”
Miah nodded grimly. “Addict or not, he wouldn’t have done that to his family, I guess.”
“What a saint. So, what where the bills like?”
“All hundreds, all crisp like they’d come straight from a teller.”
She pondered that. “Interesting, for sure.”
“Casey said that means they probably have an account, and likely local. Maybe not right in Fortuity, but in the county, surely. And she said he got paid between one and three days before the fire . . .”
“Interesting.”
“What’s the deal with requesting bank records? Could the detectives get a subpoena, to see who withdrew three or six grand in cash in that time frame?”
“Theoretically, I suppose so. Usually that happens when there’s an individual already being scrutinized, but I imagine it’s possible.”
His brows rose with hope so plain it broke Nicki’s mixed-up heart.
“It’s a long shot,” she told him. “Just remember that, please.”
“Of course. It’s just . . . It feels good to be trying, is all. I don’t mean to sound paranoid or plain old jaded, but it doesn’t feel like the detectives are trying. Not anymore. Not since the spring.”
“I’m sure it does feel that way. That doesn’t mean it’s true though.”
“Fair enough.”
“Now tell me this—why come to me?”
“I was hoping you’d relay it to the investigators. They’d take you more seriously than me.”
She smirked. “You overestimate my influence, I promise you.”
“Better a deputy than a grief-racked wreck of a meddling civilian.”
She frowned, nodding. “Also fair. And of course I will. But like I said, don’t get too excited—I’m sure they know how much Bean was paid, provided Lorna was straight with them. But they might not know anything about what the bills looked like. Of course it’s all conjecture, just her recollection of what she thinks she remembers from, what? Half a year ago, now.”
Miah’s lips pursed and he nodded. “Any chance it could be you who goes to question her, about the money? I think she likes you, after how you treated her that night when she came by the ranch . . .”
She shook her head. “Not my place.”
“I figured. Just hoping.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t trust them, do you? The detectives.”
He shrugged and took an incriminatingly long drink of his neglected beer.
“It’s okay to say. It’s only natural you’d feel skeptical by now. Even resentful.”
“I’m frustrated,” Miah said. “If you want conspiracy theories, my best friend’s the one to talk to . . . And it’s not a matter of trusting them, just a steady dwindling of my faith, how about that?”
“That’s fair. But it’s their case. All I can do is pester them, which I promise I will.” Though her heart did hurt to see the pain and the desperation on his face, and she was frustrated herself. She could and would pester them, too, but it sucked that she was the newest person on the force. Back in Chicago she was someone, if not a high-ranking someone. She’d proven herself with half a decade’s service, and earned the trust of her colleagues and associates. Here she was practically no one, an outsider and a newbie—and soon to be a shrill and nagging one at that, as she was as good as her word.
His gaze had gone to the window, those dark eyes reflecting the panes, the lines beside them looking as deep as Nicki had ever seen them.
She took a chance and reached across the table, giving his warm hand a brief squeeze, the businesslike gesture of a compassionate public servant. She hoped it felt like far more, like the contact of a lover longing to whisper, I’d give anything to take away your pain.
He met her stare. “I appreciate it. I do.”
She folded her arms before her, craving his hand in hers, missing it. “Sorry this sucks so much.”
He cracked a small smile at that. “So am I. It could only suck more if I was sitting at home, doing jack . . . Tell me, honestly—is there any chance this could go anyplace?”
She nodded. “There’s a chance. How big a chance, I couldn’t say.”
His smile faded. “Guess I’ll take those odds.”
“You should.”
He eyed his glass—nearly empty, and now he drained it. “Well, Deputy, I won’t keep you. Thanks for meeting with me.”
She smirked at that. If not for her mounting sexual frustration, she’d find this charade charming. “You’re very welcome. I’ll be in touch with the detectives ASAP.” She stood, smoothing her shirt into her waistband.
He dipped his chin, and even without his hat she couldn’t help but picture him on horseback, sage grass and American flags waving in the background and an eagle shrieking overhead.
“I’ll talk to you soon,” he said, picking up his glass.
And I’ll find myself back in bed with you not nearly soon enough.
“You drive safe, Mr. Church.”
* * *
Miah spent much of the next day outdoors. For months and months he’d been putting off today’s task, sure it was going to rip his still tender wounds wide open.
The barn that Bean had burned down to the beams had been ancient, used for storage. Just about everything it housed had been destroyed, but over time the ranch had accumulated a new inventory of equipment and materials in need of housing, and it couldn’t be put off much longer. They needed a new barn.
In the old days, when a barn burned down—by accident or because it had grown too decrepit to use—the community came together to help build a new one. Raze one barn, then raise another. But this wasn’t the old days, and so contractors had needed to be called, loans and designs approved. Today the manager in charge of the project was here to get the spot staked out.
The only saving grace is that it’ll cover up the scab left by the old one.
In the end, it didn’t hurt too badly. It hadn’t felt good, exactly, but rather right. Miah had felt ready, and when the time came to show the planner where the new building would be going, all he could think was, About time.
It also took up the bulk of his workday, and kept his mind off the issue of Lorna and the money, and what the detectives might be up to. Hope could nag just as well as it could buoy.
He’d considered telling his mom what he’d found out, but in the end chose not to. If it came to something, she’d find out then. As it was, she seemed in strangely good spirits this week, and Miah didn’t plan to wreck that by getting her head into the same spin his was currently in.
His day wrapped with a drive to check out some damage to one of the outbuildings, deep in the range. He climbed back in his truck with a growling stomach, squinting into the sun as it edged its way toward the mountains. As he made his way back into cell range, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Twice.
He slowed to a crawl on the deserted, dusty service road and slid it out.
One missed call—Deputy Ritchey. “Huh.”
No voicemail, but there was a text, also from Nicki.
Hey, can I swing by and talk to you after I wrap up my patrol? Five o’clock? Won’t take long. It was four fifty now.
Miah found her number in his contacts and dialed her.
She answered on the second ring. “Hello.”
“Hey, just got your message. Sorry—I was out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Not busy playing detective, then?”
He rolled his eyes. “No, ma’am.”
“Good to hear. Can I swing by? I’m just about done.”
“Give me twenty minutes. I’m on my way back to the house.”
“Wait a second—are you driving?”
“I am. And yes, I’m operating a phone. And yes, it’s requiring the use of my dominant hand.”
“Jeremiah Church.”
He laughed. “Don’t panic—I’m going about fifteen and the only things I’m in danger of hitting are rocks and jackrabbits. I’m on a service track.”
“Fine. But that’s still illegal, so you know.”
“It’s a private road.”
She sighed heavily, making him smile. “You’re a private pain in my ass.”
Miah laughed. “What do you need to talk about anyhow?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there. Meet you in the parking lot? I can’t stay long.”
“Shame.”
A pause, then a warm, “Tell me about it. See you soon.”
“Yes, you will. Bye.”
“Bye.”
He pocketed his phone and sped up, as quick as he could go without rattling the wheels off his truck. Dust rose in his rearview, obscuring the eastern horizon.
By the time he reached the front lot, Nicki’s cruiser was waiting, its driver sitting on the hood with her arms crossed over her chest. He could just make out her smile with the sun turning her into a silhouette.
He parked in the next space and climbed out. “Hey, Deputy.” He glanced at her passenger seat, finding it empty.
It wasn’t lost on her. “I dropped my partner at the station. We’re free from prying eyes.”
Miah glanced over each shoulder. “Don’t be so sure.” Then he thought about what he was implying, thought about how Denny could spot them as easily as anyone else, and his stomach dropped, the guilt a sour reminder that he wasn’t the man Nicki surely took him to be.
I’m the kind who exploits his employees and goes knocking on the doors of drug dealers. Facts he’d really need to disclose, should he ever find himself in a position to take things to a higher level with this woman. Which, deserving or not, he’d begun to hope for, more and more. Frankly, he probably should have come clean before he slept with her.
Another sour, guilty pang.
“Lay it on me,” Miah said, crossing his arms to mirror hers. “What’s up?”
“Well, I talked to the detectives—has anyone been in touch with you?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been out all day. I haven’t checked the office line, though. When did you tell them?”
“Yesterday night, as soon as I got home from the bar.”
He nodded. “I appreciate that . . . I wonder if Lorna’s had visitors yet.”
“I’d imagine so,” Nicki said, and hopped her butt onto her hood. “Though it’d be an even more hopeful sign if they went to the nearest banks.”
“True. Do . . . do you think they will?” he asked, all at once unconvinced himself. He’d been bolstered yesterday, out with Casey, but the stakes felt so high, his hopes strung so tight, he’d soon begun to doubt it’d been any kind of lead at all. “I mean, did they sound excited when you explained it or anything?”
“Neither is really the excitable type. The one I spoke to, Parsons . . . Well, he’s one of those people who wants you to know exactly how busy and important they are, if you know the type. He grunted a bunch while I explained it all, like he was taking notes, but he said something kinda patronizing in the end, like, ‘It probably won’t go anywhere, but thanks for telling me.’”
“Hm.”
“But they want to break the case, Miah. Don’t give up hope, but don’t cling too hard to it, either. Ugh, sorry, that sounded so glib.”
“Realistic,” he corrected. He noticed then she seemed tired or strained. “You all right?”
She took a deep breath, eyes darting around, shoes scuffing the gravel, then that gaze locked straight on his. “I did something a little fucked up. Well, no, not fucked up, but sketchy.”
He frowned. “What?”
“I went to the bank—the one here in town. I asked the security manager for a copy of the surveillance footage from the week preceding the fire.”
His frown deepened, then realization wiped it clean away. “Footage of the customers who came and went?”
She nodded, mouth a lopsided line, dimpling at one side like she was biting the inside of her cheek.
“Why’s that sketchy?”
“It’s not like I’m one of the investigators, myself. Plus . . . I lied. I told them I was looking into a missing person’s report, trying to find the last whereabouts of . . . Anyhow, it was shady. But they gave me a copy of the feed, no questions asked. The guy was really chatty, and probably bored as hell.”
And probably eager to impress you, as any red-blooded man would. Not that Miah minded—results were results. “So . . . so what does this mean, exactly?”
“Very possibly nothing. But if you could go through the video, look for any familiar faces . . . ?”
Oh, of course. It did stand to reason there was a chance that whoever had hired Bean might be known to Miah. “I’d be happy to. I just don’t know if I’d recognize anyone, even if I had met them. Like, say it was one of the real estate folks who came sniffing around, making offers on the ranch when the casino plans got the green light again? I only met a couple of them personally, and my memory’s not exactly photographic.”
“But it’s worth a shot.” Her inflection nearly posed it as a question.
“Yeah, it is. Thank you. Anything’s worth a shot.” Though he did feel daunted at the prospect of watching, what? Eight hours of footage per day—the bank’s business hours—times seven days? And times who knew how many teller windows, depending on how the cameras were set up. Where the fuck was he going to find that kind of time? “Is it good, the footage?”
“I got the feed from the entrance, everyone who entered and exited.”
“Oh, good. One angle narrows down the volume.”
She nodded. “It’s pretty crisp, too—black and white, but good details, not too grainy, and a good vantage for seeing the faces. And if any of the people look familiar, I’m sure I could get the footage from the interior cameras from that same time frame, if you needed to confirm.”
“You give what you got to the detectives, too?”
That shifty look again. “Without a suspect, it’s not of much use to them, and not a great reflection on me, professionally, to spell out what I did. But if you do happen to spy any suspicious faces, I’m happy to bite the bullet and fess up to obtaining it.”
“That gonna endanger your job?”
“Nah.” She smiled. “Might saddle me with a reputation as a loose cannon, but what cop doesn’t secretly want that, really?”
She was sticking her neck out for him, Miah realized, and it made his chest surge with something heady and fierce, gratitude set alight. He stood, crossed the few feet between them, and he pulled her hard into his arms. A laugh huffed out of her and he felt her hands fisting his shirt. Fuck if her hair didn’t smell amazing.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
“It was no—”
He gave her another gruff squeeze, cutting her off. “Hush. Thank you.” He let her go and stepped back, clearing his throat. “I won’t get my hopes up, but it means a lot, all the same.”
She nodded, blushing if he wasn’t mistaken. “You’re welcome, then.”
He sighed, overwhelmed for a dozen good reasons. “I’ve got fuck-all clue where I’ll find the time to watch all that footage, but I’ll figure something out.” Something like not sleeping for a week, if need be.
“Maybe you feel a touch of the flu coming on,” she teased, and stepped back to open her driver’s side door. She fished inside, then handed Miah a stack of CDs in plain plastic cases. “They’re dated. The fire was on a Monday afternoon. The ATM doesn’t give out hundred-dollar bills, and the lobby’s closed on Sundays. I’d say maybe start with Saturday, then try Friday, then Monday morning? I dunno. That’s what I’d do, anyhow.”
“Hell of a lot of tape.”
She nodded. “At least you can fast-forward, right?”
“Yeah, true.” He flipped through the cases.
“Saturday hours are ten to two, so that’ll be the shortest chunk.”
“And during the weekdays, there must be long stretches where nobody’s coming or going.” Fortuity might be the county seat, but it was a sleepy town all the same. “Still, invest in aspirin futures—I can feel some major eyestrain coming on.”
She smiled again, her tiny little crow’s feet crinkling.
“Thing that really sucks is, I was hoping to spend any precious little free time I might scrape together with you.”
Another of those lopsided smirks. “Were you, then?”
“Yeah. Replay of Tuesday night, maybe . . . ?”
“I think you know I’d like that . . . Has your mom said anything to you about us?”
“No. Why? You hoping she’d approve?”
She rolled her eyes. “She knows. Or she suspects.”
He blinked. “How do you know?”
“I forgot to tell you last night—that day I came by, and you were out with Casey? She packed me a sandwich and she snuck in a little something extra.”
“What?”
“My earrings. I left them on the coffee table when we were messing around.”
“Shit. How’d she know they were yours?”
She shrugged. “We’re women. We notice each other’s accessories.”
“Goddamn . . .” No wonder his mom had been in such a good mood, last night and this morning—she anticipated Miah’s eventual settling down with the same fervor that crackpots awaited the End of Days. But he just laughed. “To be honest, for a split second I was afraid you were going to say she’d snuck you a condom or something.”
Nicki laughed, a big, noisy whoop of a thing, and Miah slipped a little deeper still into the ever blackening hole of his goner-dom for her.
“When can I see you?” he asked. “I’ll make time.”
Her expression changed, growing shy, downright beguiling. “I have tomorrow off. Matty’ll be in school, but you’ll be working, no doubt.”
“I could work late, take a long lunch.”
She pursed her lips, seeming to hold in a thought.
He’d have given anything to reach out and touch her, curl a finger beneath her chin and tilt her face up to his. “What?”
“I was thinking, the night when we got together . . .”
He smiled. “I’ve been thinking about that, too.”
“What you said, about how you’d never . . . indoors. In a bed.”
His smile turned sheepish. “Yeah. I hadn’t. Until you.” Said a lot about his attraction to her that he’d managed it.
“Well, it made me wonder what it normally looks like for you.” She was truly blushing now, her dark cheeks stained berry-colored. “Obviously, no bonfire in the middle of the workday.”
What was she proposing, precisely? “You looking for some afternoon delight, Deputy?”
She smacked his arm, smirking. “Hush. I’m just . . . curious.”
“Well, why don’t you meet me here at twelve thirty tomorrow, and I’ll try to illuminate things for you. You mind packing us some sandwiches?”
“Not at all. It’s a date.”
He nodded. “It’s a date. You bring lunch, I’ll supply the rest.”
Nicki paused, looking shifty, then stage-whispered, “This is a sex date though, right?”
He laughed. “I believe it is, yes.”
“Good. Just making sure we’re on the same page.”
Miah looked to the west and the loitering sun. “You better get going.”
“I better. See you tomorrow. And good luck with the footage.”
He nodded. “Can’t thank you enough for these.” He eyed the stack of CDs. “Incidentally, if I fall asleep in the middle of our sex date, I promise it’s only because I’m eager to get started on them tonight.”
“I’ll go easy on you then.”
He looked up and caught her eye. “Perish the thought.”
With that, she cast him a final smile, then circled to her driver’s side. He watched her go, and for the few steps it took her, he forgot every worry he had in the world.