Gone From Me: Hearts of the South, Book 10 Read online

  “You think Mike and Zeke had a thing?” Troy Lee braced a hand against the dash as Rob swerved over the centerline. “Dude, pull over and let me drive.”

  “No, I’ll pull over, but you’re not driving my truck.” Thoughts zinged through his brain, almost too fast to connect them all together. He pulled into a dirt turnoff to Covey Rise Plantation and shoved the gear into park. He turned sideways in the seat to look at his partner. “Blake Calvert said he couldn’t tell what he knew because it would hurt a lot of people. If Zeke and Mike were together, who does that hurt?”

  “Britt.”

  “Yeah, and Mike Smithwick’s daddy’s a preacher in a hard-line church too. Bet he would be none too happy to find out his kid is gay.”

  Troy Lee nodded. “Zeke’s daddy is a deacon in that same church.”

  With a sharp nod, Rob spun and shifted into drive. “Let’s go talk to Blake.”

  *

  Cars lined the small neighborhood targeted by the No Place Like Home charity housing-repair blitz. Rob slotted his truck in behind Blake Calvert’s Chevy. A guy down the street called a greeting to Troy Lee as they exited the truck, and Troy Lee lifted a hand. College kids swarmed two houses, a cacophony of hammering, chatter, laughter and music filling the air.

  Montgomery stood on the porch of one house, repainting spindles on the old-fashioned railing.

  “Montgomery, where’s Blake?” Troy Lee called as they mounted the steps. She froze, paintbrush in hand, long lashes sweeping down over tear-filled eyes. The aftereffects of weeping were plain on her face—mascara spotty, skin splotchy, her nose red. Troy Lee frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  She waved a hand toward the house. “We’re… It doesn’t matter.”

  Troy Lee watched her a moment and sighed. He smiled at her and wrapped a quick hug around her shoulders. “You know where I am if you want to talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Troy Lee. Sometimes things just don’t work.” She rubbed a finger under her eye, then gestured toward the screen door. “He’s working in the kitchen.”

  They made their way through the small home, skirting a pair of kids laying new laminate flooring in the living and dining rooms. In the tiny kitchen, they found Blake helping another young man rehang newly painted cabinet doors. Blake looked wrung out—tense, stoic, and a little pale under his tan. Once he caught sight of them, he closed his eyes on a muttered “frick”.

  Rob flicked a hand toward the open back door and the shaggy green lawn beyond. “Can we talk to you in private?”

  “Sure.” Blake grimaced and slammed his screwdriver into his tool belt. He gestured toward the other kids helping him. “Take a break, and I’ll be right back.”

  He clattered down the steps and turned on them once they cleared the stoop. A glare twisting his face, he shoved his bangs back from his forehead. “I told you—”

  “I’m not asking you to break your word and tell us anything.” Rob pitched his voice as low and even as possible. Man, the kid was wound tight—almost visibly vibrating with anger and emotion. “But maybe you can confirm a theory for me, and that’s not the same as telling me something.”

  “More like lying by omission, right? Because not telling the whole truth is somehow better than outright lying.”

  “You feel like you’re lying by omission, Blake?” Rob rested his hands at his waist and suppressed a wince when his injured arm twinged.

  “No.” A spasm of guilt and grief belied the words. He shrugged. “I don’t know anything about what happened to Zeke, except he’s dead and nothing I know or don’t know will bring him back.”

  “Zeke and Mike were romantically involved, weren’t they?”

  Blake’s head tilted back as if under a sudden blow, and surprise flared in his tortured gaze. He sucked in an audible breath, looked away, then turned fierce eyes in Rob’s direction. “Yeah.”

  “I get the secrecy before, Blake.” His voice soft, Troy Lee tucked his thumbs in his pockets. “Why after?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Blake shook his head, mouth tight. He rolled his shoulders, took another deep breath, and let it out as a frustrated sigh. “Sometimes people get locked in by what they’re raised to believe. My sister was able to go to my parents and say, ‘I’m gay,’ and know they loved her, and she was still scared. Mike and Zeke, go to their parents and say that? No way. Their church preaches you can lose your salvation and being gay is a sin. So Mike’s going to tell Mr. Dale and Mrs. Shelli that, according to what they believe, their only child is burning in hell? No. He loves them like he loves his own parents. He loved Zeke too. Do I think they were together when it happened and that somehow Mike’s involved? Yeah. But they’re my friends. What do you want to me do?”

  His voice cracked on the question. His jaw clenched, and a sheen brightened his eyes.

  “And Britt was your friend.” Troy Lee blew out a long breath. “Caught in the middle.”

  “Yeah.” The younger man was on the verge of openly crying now, his voice ragged. “We were all friends, then she got pregnant and their parents made them get married. Zeke was a good guy with a good heart, and at the beginning, Britt really did love him. Zeke didn’t want to hurt her.”

  “But he did,” Rob said quietly. “Every day because he loved Mike.”

  Blake nodded. “And Mike…Mike was eaten up by fear and jealousy, and he had to hide it.”

  Rob glanced at Troy Lee. “It’s the stuff you don’t talk about that eats you alive.”

  “It made him mean.” Blake’s voice grew quieter, drenched in misery. “And it made Britt a target.”

  Rob rubbed a hand over his mouth. Hell. The whole situation—from Brittany’s disappearance to Mike’s involvement in it and her reluctance to tell Zeke right up to Zeke’s disappearance and death and Mike’s hostility—all made sad, sickening sense now. A life wasted, at least three more in shambles.

  “I wasn’t deliberately trying to mess up your investigation. I made a promise.” Blake’s shoulders lifted and fell. “Mike’s in trouble, isn’t he?”

  “I can’t discuss that with you, Blake. You know that.” Rob tried to dredge up a reassuring smile. “But you’re not in trouble. You’re right. All you did was keep a secret for a friend. But secrecy… It usually doesn’t turn out to be such a great thing.”

  “You know, I tried to tell them from the beginning that the secrecy wasn’t ever going to work, but it wasn’t my life. It still isn’t. I don’t have to live it.” Blake tilted his chin and met Rob’s gaze head-on. “But I know that wasn’t my secret to tell.”

  *

  In the truck, Rob checked his watch and groaned. “What day is it?”

  “Wednesday. Why?”

  “Damn it. That’s what I thought.” He jammed the key in the ignition and turned the engine over. “I have a therapy appointment in ten minutes.”

  “There are worse things than hanging out in Tori Cook’s office for an hour.”

  “Yeah.” Their conversation with Blake and the hurt in the kid’s eyes lingered with him.

  Troy Lee stretched and pressed two fingers against his forehead. “Drop me off at the diner. My head is killing me, and I need some protein.”

  A few minutes later, Rob parked halfway between the diner and the women’s center. He pulled a ten from his wallet and passed it off to Troy Lee. “Get me a burger to go. No ketchup. I’ll see you in about an hour.”

  “Got it. Later.”

  The dated pastels in the women’s center lobby were probably meant to be calming, but they did little to soothe the anxiety that spiked in him when he walked through the doors. He was committed and in this for the long haul, but that didn’t mean he had to like the whole process of spilling his guts to a woman he barely knew.

  Tori stood at the reception desk, reviewing a document with the receptionist. She looked up and smiled at his entrance. “Hey. Welcome back.”

  “Thanks.” He refused to shift under her friendly regard. Even if it was good for him,
the whole situation still felt weird.

  “Stacey, I’m going to be with Investigator Bennett until about one. Will you hold my calls? Come on back, Rob.”

  He ignored the twist of nerves in his stomach and followed her down the hall to her office. She closed the door behind them, and he took one of the chairs before her desk. He crossed his ankle over his knee so he wouldn’t be tempted to jitter his leg.

  Tori closed her laptop and sank into her chair, one leg folded under her. “How are you?”

  “I’m good. Better.” One positive was being able to skip right past the empty niceties. “My appetite and concentration are still messed up, but I’m not as irritable. I’m tired and sore today, but it’s a different kind of tired.”

  “Treading water for several hours would make anybody sore.” She smiled, and a winsome light glinted in her brown gaze. “You sound good.”

  Silence stretched, which only served to make him more nervous. Maybe that’s how an interviewee felt when he used the same smile-and-wait strategy.

  He rubbed a hand over his jaw and glanced at the window comprised of frosted glass blocks that let in light but offered a sense of privacy. “So, um, Amy and I did the whole what-I-want, why-I-want-it thing and talked about what we thought were our, um, our unhealthy habits.”

  “That’s great.” She twirled a pen between her fingers like a baton. “What did you come up with?”

  “We want our marriage to be stronger, and we’re working on being partners. You know, being an ‘us’ instead of merely ‘me and you’.”

  The pen stilled. “You realize you don’t need to lose the you in that process, right, Rob?”

  “I know.” He ran a finger along the crease in his slacks between knee and ankle. “I think I’m kind of redefining who I am, and I’m having to figure out how that fits into the us.”

  A wide smile bloomed on her face.

  The knowing quality in that smile prompted his own rueful grin. “What? What did I say?”

  “You’re creating a new paradigm.” She tapped the pen against her lips, still smiling. “A new normal.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “It’s an important step in grief recovery. It’s going to help you get even better.” The pen made another slow rotation between her fingers. “You know, last time you didn’t really want to talk about a possible support system. Did you think any about that, about who those people are?”

  “Well, Amy. At this point, I don’t think not letting her support me is an option.” Not that he minded in the least. Receiving what he hadn’t even realized he needed was pretty damn good. He pondered the question a moment. “My sister-in-law. Probably Troy Lee, my partner at the SO.”

  A tiny frown drew her brows together. “No close friends?”

  “Not really. I mean, I had friends, but they were really only guys from college I hung out with, shot skeet with. We all ended up going our own ways. Jake was the last one, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t hanging around wanting to be my best buddy, you know?”

  “So it’s not that you lost your friends.”

  “More like I didn’t have any. I had guys I hung out with, but I mean, my dad was my best friend. I know that’s a cliché and all, but if I had a problem, I went to him.” He swallowed hard. “Then he was gone.”

  “And you were lost.”

  “Yeah.” He pinched the bridge of his nose until the burning at his eyes dissipated.

  “Is that changing?”

  “Amy and I are learning to be that for each other. That sounds really bad, doesn’t it? I’m having to learn to be friends with my wife.”

  Her laugh, pretty and genuine, bubbled up between them. “Not bad at all. It makes perfect sense, and you wouldn’t believe how many spouses have to learn how to be friends.”

  The laughter and reassurance loosened the anxious knot in his gut. Maybe he’d found his way after all. He rubbed at his jaw once more. “I kind of think Troy Lee and I are friends. He listens…really, he makes me talk. The guy’s relentless, but he actually cares about what’s going on with me.”

  Heat touched his cheekbones, and he emitted a laughing groan. He scuffed a hand over his neck. “Why am I embarrassed to admit that?”

  “Probably because needing the intimacy of friendship doesn’t seem to fall under the masculine paradigm, and it’s hard to admit to being vulnerable. I promise I won’t tell anyone.” She smiled once more, tapping her pen on the desk blotter. “You’re really going to be all right.”

  “I know I am.” An answering smile quirked at his mouth. “I know what I have to live for now.”

  *

  When Rob walked up the sidewalk, Troy Lee waited, leaning against the truck hood. Troy Lee handed him a foam takeout container, a couple of bucks atop it. “No ketchup.”

  “Thanks.” He set the container on the hood and tucked the singles in his wallet.

  “One night, I’ll have to take you out to the bar for one of Angel’s burgers and that beer I still owe you.” Troy Lee gestured at the shops in front of them. “Did you want to take a look at what Hodges has before we go 10-8?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” He frowned at the stately gilded font on the jewelry store window. “Anybody can buy jewelry. I need something bigger.”

  “There’s something bigger than jewelry?” Troy Lee grinned. “Would you like to tell my wife that?”

  “More significant, I guess.” Takeout container in hand, he walked closer to the window display in the gift shop next door. Leather goods in various sizes rested against turquoise fabric. A smile crept over his face. “Hey, put this in the truck for me. I’ll be right back.”

  *

  “Dude. Give me that.” Troy Lee removed the burger from Rob’s hand and tossed it back in the container. He rested the box on the dash and tightened his seat belt. “You can finish it back at the SO.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Rob looked at him askance.

  “You crossed the centerline. Put your eyes on the road.” Troy Lee swore. “You obviously cannot think hard, drive and eat at the same time.”

  “I did not cross the line. I hit one reflector.”

  “Just pay attention to the road. You’re making me nervous.”

  “And you told Calvert I have issues?”

  “I have issues with other people driving. I have no trouble admitting that.” Troy Lee cringed visibly as they went into the curve before the straightaway that led to the department and emergency center. “Especially my partner who admits his concentration is shot to hell.”

  Moments later, Rob pulled into a spot at the department and killed the engine. “Happy now?”

  “You have no idea. Here’s your burger back.”

  In the squad room, Rob logged onto an open computer and pulled up his department email. As promised, Ford had forwarded the autopsy reports electronically, and he also had an email from Vaughn with multiple attachments—ping reports on Mike Smithwick’s phone the day of Zeke’s disappearance as well as the texts recovered from Zeke’s text-and-delete app. Rob sent the files to the printer. Slumped in the chair next to the desk, Troy Lee snagged the papers as they zipped out.

  He flipped through the first few, eyebrows raised. “Uh, they were definitely having an affair. Your wife is not the only one who likes to send racy texts.”

  “What was the last sent and received?” Rob took a bite of now-cold burger and winced at the soggy bun and tough meat.

  Troy Lee shuffled through the papers. “Morning of his disappearance. Mike wanted him to go swimming. He was trying to put him off because he was working. Last text, from Mike, ‘Come on, baby, you know you want some of this.’ Somehow, that sounds so much better when I’m saying it to my wife in the bedroom than reading it to you.”

  “Tell me about it.” Rob snorted and dropped the unfinished burger in the box. “What about the ping report? Where was Mike that day?”

  “Grab some pushpins and we’ll put it on the map.”

  At the large county m
ap taking up a good portion of the bulletin board running half the length of one wall, Troy Lee examined the ping report, then squinted at the map. “The field is here.”

  He marked it with a red pin, then followed with a couple of others.

  “That’s the lime mine. He pings there late in the morning and into the early afternoon. Then he pings here, over by the west county line, north of the Big Slough. Then he pings here, probably back at his trailer.” He pushed a fourth pin into the map.

  “He’s moving the body.” Rob leaned a hand against the bulletin board. “He meets Zeke at the field, they go to the lime pit—I’m assuming there’s water there for swimming—Zeke falls and hits his head. He dies, and Mike takes the body somewhere out by Big Slough to hide it. Then he goes home.”

  Movement in the hallway drew Troy Lee’s attention. “Hey, Tick, come here.”

  “Yeah.” Calvert strode in to join them.

  Troy Lee swept a hand in a circle over the area by Big Slough. “Small space here where you could put a body in water and weight it with rocks.”

  “Small space?” Tick frowned. “Old wells on the Jenkins’s acreage over there, left from old homesteads. Why?”

  “We think that’s where Mike Smithwick hid Zeke’s body.”

  “Ford’s email said it was an accidental death.”

  “Did you read the whole report?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been bogged down in paperwork.”

  “She also said the postmortem injuries indicate someone hid his body.” Rob pointed at the pins. “We think he died at the lime pit, Mike moved the body, then went home.”

  “Why would Mike need to hide his death?”

  Rob handed him the text-message transcripts. “They were having an affair.”

  “Holy hell.” Tick skimmed through the first page and pressed a finger to the center of his forehead. “Oh, hell.”

  Troy Lee sighed. “Yeah.”

  Tick squinted at the map. “Makes sense, though. Mike wouldn’t want that out, not with his daddy. Put the body in one of those wells, weight it down. It would go a long time without being found, if it ever was. At least, until a five-hundred-year flood event comes along. Eventually, secrets always come out.”