She’s fighting for her life.

He’ll risk everything to keep her safe.

When Rachel Roberts is nearly abducted, she makes a panicked call to the one man she can trust. Lawman Dane Jones will do anything to protect his best friend’s widow. Plagued by the guilt he bears over the man’s tragic death and his undeclared love for Rachel, Dane must confront his past in order to stop a madman. Their lives—and their futures—depend on it.

The Protectors of Riker County

TYLER ANNE SNELL genuinely loves all genres of the written word. However, she’s realized that she loves books filled with sexual tension and mysteries a little more than the rest. Her stories have a good dose of both. Tyler lives in Alabama with her same-named husband and their mini “lions.” When she isn’t reading or writing, she’s playing video games and working on her blog, Almost There. To follow her shenanigans, visit tylerannesnell.com.

Also by Tyler Anne Snell

Small-Town Face-Off

The Deputy’s Witness

Forgotten Pieces

Loving Baby

The Deputy’s Baby

The Negotiation

Private Bodyguard

Full Force Fatherhood

Be on the Lookout: Bodyguard

Suspicious Activities

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

The Negotiation

Tyler Anne Snell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07929-7

THE NEGOTIATION

© 2018 Tyler Anne Snell

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is for Dianne. Not only are you the

best mama-in-law I could ask for, you’re also insane.

In the best way possible. Thank you for all of your help

with this series. And for creating my favorite human.

May all your days be blessed with pineapples.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue

Dane heard the call the same time Rachel did.

Both were sitting in the belly of the sheriff’s department. They were two of several who heard what the men had to say.

“These men are sinners,” the man shouted, voice slightly distorted over the speakerphone. “Plain and true! Just like this town. Just like this county. Just like this state. Sinners, all sinners!”

Dane’s fists had already been balled. Now his fingers were eating into his palms. It wasn’t until Rachel silently covered one hand with her own that he loosened the tension. Her wedding band was cold against his skin.

“Then why take them? They were on their way to the prison,” Sheriff Rockwell said. “You’re the one who kept them from facing justice.”

The man on the other end of the phone call was fast to answer, like he’d rehearsed the whole thing beforehand.

“They represent corruption. A corruption that has taken over,” he said, voice still high and filled with unmistakable self-reverence. “And we, the Saviors of the South, represent the consequence to that corruption! The answer! We will show this town that this corruption will no longer be tolerated. These sinners will be the first of many demonstrations on how we will cleanse this place!”

Rachel’s hand tightened over Dane’s while he shared a look with the sheriff. Rockwell was a solid man who Dane had felt privileged to work alongside as his chief deputy for the past few years. He was fair, to the point and levelheaded. He was also a mean shot, and that didn’t count for nothing.

“But you didn’t just take prisoners,” the sheriff pointed out, “you also took two guards. Two good men through and through. What’s your plan with them?”

Dane held his breath. He knew Rachel was doing the same. One of those men was David Roberts. And he was one of the best of them.

That’s why Rachel had married him.

That’s why Dane was his best friend.

That’s why both were willing to do whatever it took to get him back.

“The men who protect sinners are no better than the sinners themselves,” the man answered.

Anger swelled in Dane’s chest but he kept his mouth closed. Popping off at an obviously unstable man wasn’t going to save David or the other guard. It wasn’t going to save the inmates they had been transporting, either. Good or bad, they’d undergone trials and received a sentence by their peers. Neither Dane, the sheriff nor the Saviors of the South had any room to change those sentences. Certainly not to make the decision of whether they should live or die.

And that’s really what the man on the phone was saying without saying it.

They aimed to kill the seven men they’d kidnapped that morning.

Dane knew it. The sheriff knew it. Even Rachel knew it.

She’d rushed to the department the moment she’d heard the transport van had been hit, ready to help in any way she could.

“I have money,” she’d told him. “Not a lot, but maybe we can exchange it.”

That had been before the call had come in. Before they’d realized the men didn’t want money at all. They wanted to be heard. They wanted attention. They wanted fame.

“I can’t just let you do what you want with them, no matter who they are,” Sheriff Rockwell said, stern. “So let’s find us a way to work this out where no one gets hurt.”

The man, who would later be known as Marcus the Martyr by his followers who found themselves in prison, laughed. Without realizing it, Dane locked that sound in his memory for life. It was cold and callous. It didn’t care about corruption, no matter how falsely perceived, and it didn’t care about justice. It, like the man, only cared about being louder than everyone else.

Marcus wanted violence.

Dane knew it the moment he heard the man laugh and then hang up the phone.

He’d later realize it was in that moment that he knew his best friend might not make it to see the next day, but at the time all he could feel was the deep need to do something.

So when the sheriff was done cursing at the dial tone, Dane straightened and felt his world settle on his shoulders.

“I have a plan.”

Chapter One

Seven years later Rachel Roberts surveyed the blacktop ahead of her with a pang of annoyance. It was an early Saturday morning and the Darby Middle School building was absolutely teasing her in the background. Between her and it stood the two reasons why she was sweating in her jeans instead of lounging in her pajamas, catching up on the backlog of television shows burning a hole in her DVR.

“Now, I know none of us want to be here, but we are and that’s that,” she started, making sure she split her narrowed stare between both boys equally. “I guess the two of you are at that age where you don’t know how ridiculous it is to call each other names in the school hallways or during class presentations, so instead of making you write long essays about compassion and being polite...”

Rachel motioned to the two buckets of chalk she’d found in the closet filled with art supplies in her classroom and the rectangle outlined in painter’s tape in the middle of the blacktop. The one she’d made right before spilling her coffee onto the grass next to it. The one she’d said a few harsh words over in the silence of the school’s empty front lawn.

Lonnie Hughes was the first to voice his concern. His scowl had only deepened since he’d hopped off his bike.

Lonnie was a thin twelve-year-old with tightly coiled black hair, dark, always-questioning eyes and a mouth more than ready to voice one of his many opinions. The latter was one of several reasons he was at the bottom of the school’s popularity totem pole. He talked too much, listened too little and had almost no filter. This, plus an ingrained aversion to authority figures, had earned him dismissive attitudes from most of the teachers. Rachel wasn’t one of them, though most of the staff had assured her that if she had more than one art class with the boy she’d think differently.

The boy standing next to him, however, was completely opposite in that respect. Teachers and students alike seemed to love Jude Carrington. Even for a seventh-grader, he had charm and was clever enough to know when to speak, what to say and how to hide all the devious things most kids that age did. His hair was a shock of red, his skin was covered in freckles, and he wore thick-framed glasses. Yet, according to Mrs. Fletcher, who had him in her homeroom, he seemed to be the leader of the seventh-grade class. Instead of being the stereotypical outcast from an ’80s movie, he was Mr. Popular. With a side of bully when it came to Lonnie.

Which was why Rachel wasn’t shocked to see the two of them there, though she was surprised their guardians had opted for Saturday detention instead of after school. Darby Middle rarely implemented what she called the Breakfast Club punishment. Yet here they all were.

“You want us to draw for detention?”

What I want to do is to find out what’s going on with Jon Snow from Game of Thrones, she wanted to say. Instead she decided to go with a more stern response.

“Unless you really do want to write a five-page essay about why you’re so sorry about what you did, I suggest you show a little enthusiasm. It wasn’t exactly easy to convince Principal Martin that doing art projects was punishments for you two.”

“It is when it’s on a Saturday,” Jude interjected.

Rachel nodded and grabbed one of the buckets.

“That’s what I told him.” She took out a thick piece of white chalk and sat in the middle of the empty rectangle. The blacktop was warm but nowhere near as hot as it would be by midday. If they didn’t get it going now, the heat would force them inside and she’d be the one coming back in the morning to finish it alone. Rachel loved her job, but she wanted at least one day off before having to go back to it.

“This is our fall-themed mural, but I was thinking we could make it more Halloween-y. Do a bigger collage of doodles like we did in class last week to help make this slab look a bit more fun. Then, after we’re done here, we’re going to go inside and cut out a few hundred leaves, pumpkins and maybe some bats from construction paper. Then we’re going to go hang them.”

Despite his constant need to charm the adults, Jude actually groaned. Lonnie kept scowling. Rachel adopted a look caught between the two.

“Unless you want me to go inside and tell Principal Martin that you actually want to write an essay explaining why you two said what you did and how you two are going to work together in the future?” She shrugged. “I could always do this later.”

For a second Rachel was afraid they would decide to go for the essays. It was fall, but in South Alabama that didn’t mean much. They’d all be sweating after a few minutes. The air-conditioning inside might be enough of a draw to sway the boys from the manual labor of arts and crafts to tackling papers. Though she hoped that wasn’t the case. Gaven, the principal, had mostly agreed to her suggested punishment activities because they were projects she had volunteered to do out of the goodness of her heart.

No sooner had she thought that than Rachel acknowledged it was a lie.

It hadn’t just been something she’d felt she needed to do to better the school or to help raise the spirits of those who attended it. No. She had needed a distraction.

One that would keep her mind away from the one place it had been traveling recently. A place she didn’t like to visit often.

“Whatever,” Lonnie finally said. Rachel breathed an internal sigh of relief as he took a seat on the bottom line of the taped-off empty mural. Jude followed suit but as far away from Lonnie as was possible while staying near the chalk.

Rachel tried to clear her head as it started to fill with sorrow. She smirked. “Glad to see we’re on the same page.”

Despite Rachel’s not wanting to be at school on a Saturday, the next half hour that went by did so with little fuss. The boys drew white, orange and red bats and spiders and skeletons with surprising skill. Rachel had seen both of their drawings before in class, but there was more precision and focus in their actions today. After Lonnie made a jab at Jude and then Jude returned that jab before Rachel could step in, she realized their new passion to do a good job on the mural was probably because they were trying to outdo each other. Meanwhile she filled the center of the blacktop with a giant spider web. It was oddly soothing.

“Why don’t we see what Principal Martin thinks about it before we start on the inside work?” Rachel said, stretching out her long limbs when they were done.

Lonnie rolled his eyes.

Jude perked up. “Can I go get him?” He was already turning in the direction of the school’s front doors. “Is he in his office?”

Rachel nodded but held up her index finger.

“Go straight there,” she warned. Jude gave her a wide smile and was off. Lonnie looked after him, scowl back in full force.

Now it was time to try to distract someone other than herself. “I think the mural looks really good, don’t you?” She pulled out her cell phone. “I’m going to take a picture. Maybe I can post it on the school’s website the week of Halloween.”

“Whatever,” Lonnie muttered. He turned on his heel. Goodness forbid he act interested. Rachel pulled up the camera app and was readying to take the picture when he spoke up again. His tone had changed. It was like night and day. Immediately she knew something was wrong.

“Who are they?”

Rachel heard the car doors shut before she turned to see a van at the front of the parking lot a few hundred yards from them. A tall, broad-shouldered man met her stare with a smile. Sandy hair, cut short, and broad, broad shoulders. She didn’t recognize him. Nor the man who had gotten out of the vehicle behind him. He wore a full set of overalls. He didn’t meet her eyes.

A cold feeling of worry began to swish around in Rachel’s stomach. It should have been the warning that sent her inside. However she held her spot, only instinctively taking a step forward so Lonnie was just behind her elbow. Whoever was driving the van didn’t get out or cut its engine. She couldn’t see the driver’s face through the tint from this distance.

“Hi there,” she called out to the man in front when it was clear he only had eyes for them. “Can I help you?”

The man, who she guessed was a few years older than her thirty-one, didn’t lessen his stride over the curb and onto the grass. He was coming straight for them, his friend at his back.

“Yes, ma’am, you can,” he answered, voice carrying through the air with ease. “I’m looking for someone.” His eyes moved to Lonnie for the briefest of moments. “Maybe you two can help me out.”

That cold in Rachel’s stomach began to expand to the rest of her. She tightened her grip on the phone. Her gut with it.

“Maybe you’d like to talk to the people inside,” she responded. Her voice had climbed to an octave that would let anyone who knew her well enough realize something was off. She was trying to tamp down the growing sense of vulnerability, even around her lie. “They’d probably know better than anyone who’s around. We’ve been outside all morning.”

The only people inside the school were Gaven and Jude, but at the moment, all Rachel wanted to do was to curb the men’s attention. Darby Middle was nestled between one of the small town’s main roads, a wide stretch of trees that hid an outlet of houses and an open field for sale that had once been used for farming. This being Saturday morning or not, there were rarely people out and about who could see the front lawn of the school. The two men continuing, unperturbed, was a reminder of just how quiet the world around them was.

Who were the men?

Why were they at a middle school on a Saturday morning?

Was she overreacting?

Sandy Hair’s smile twisted into a grin. Like she’d just told a joke that only he knew the punch line to. He kept an even pace but was getting close enough to make her stomach knot.

Something isn’t right.

The thought pulsed through her mind so quickly that it physically moved her another step over. This time cutting Lonnie off from the men’s view altogether.

“Nah,” Sandy Hair answered. “I think you will do just fine.”

In that moment Rachel knew two things.

One, something was about to happen and it wasn’t going to be good. She wasn’t a pro at reading people, but there were some nuances that were easy to pick up. The way the man in the overalls looked between her and Lonnie and then back to the building behind them. The way he tilted his body ever so slightly forward as if he was getting ready to move. The way his partner’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. The men were about to do something.

Which was how, two, she knew her gut had been right to worry. She should have listened sooner. While there was an unwritten law of Southern hospitality her parents had taught her from the moment she could walk and talk, Rachel wasn’t about to give the men the benefit of the doubt. Not any longer. She’d learned the hard way that there were bad people in the world who did bad things.

They’d taken David from her.

She wasn’t going to let another set of them take her or the child at her side.

And with a shock of adrenaline, Rachel realized that was what they were about to try to do.

There was about to be running.

There was about to be chasing.

So Rachel decided she wanted her and Lonnie to have the head start. Holding on to her cell phone like the lifeline it might become, Rachel spun on her heel and grabbed Lonnie’s hand. “Run!”

Chapter Two

Dane Jones, for once, wasn’t in the office. Instead he was at the park, sitting on a bench with Chance Montgomery, trying to convince the man that there wasn’t a conspiracy about to swallow Riker County whole.

“It’s been a helluva year—I’ll be the first to admit that,” Dane said. “But it sure does feel like you’re looking for trouble that’s not there. And we surely don’t need any more trouble here.”

Chance, formerly a private investigator from around Huntsville, Alabama, was what Dane liked to call a pot-stirrer, among other things. He was a good man and had been a good friend over the years, but he had the nasty habit of not just getting antsy when he was bored but turning into somewhat of a lone ranger detective when the mood struck him. It occasionally reminded Dane how different he was from the man.

Dane was contemplative. The kind of man who worked well in the quiet. Chance was brash. He spoke up, out, and didn’t think twice about the feathers he ruffled, especially when he was between jobs as he was now.

“I’m telling you, Dane, something isn’t adding up around here,” he implored. “Last week three warehouses were unloaded in Birmingham. All weird stuff, too. Radio equipment, dog crates and enough bubble wrap to wrap an eighteen-wheeler were stolen at the same time.”

“I’m not saying that isn’t strange,” Dane admitted. “I just don’t see why you’ve come to me with the information. We’re several hours away from Birmingham. I can’t see how I could help from here. Or why it would fall into my purview at all.”

Chance took off his cowboy hat and put it on his knee. He came from a long line of Alabama cowboys. They didn’t just wear the hats or have the accents, they had the attitude of an old Western movie lead. Dane wouldn’t even be surprised if Chance practiced drawing his pistols back at his family farmland outside the county. The same land Chance retreated to when he had nothing else to do. Or, again, got bored. Like he must have been now if he was looking into thefts of mass amounts of bubble wrap.

“I’m telling you because one of the vans spotted loading up the crates had a plate that traced back to a deceased Bates Hill resident.”

That caught Dane’s attention. Bates Hill was the smallest town in Riker County, which put it square in the sheriff’s department jurisdiction. It also made Chance’s insistence that they meet make more sense. Still, he wasn’t about to jump to any conclusions.

“Who did it trace back to?”

Chance dug into his jeans’ pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He handed it over but read the name out loud.

“Tracy Markinson,” he said. “Ring a bell?”

Dane felt like he’d jammed both feet in a bucket of ice water. His mind skidded to a halt and instead of staying in the present where it was needed, it did one hell of a job throwing itself backward.

“Rings a loud one.” Dane looked at the paper but only saw the face of a man he’d never forget. “Tracy Markinson’s been dead for almost a decade,” he said. “Definitely not stealing bubble wrap in Birmingham.”

Chance slid his finger around the brim of his hat and then thumped it once. “Which is why I thought I needed to take a drive out to see you.” He cast Dane a knowing look. “And why I thought talking in private might be the best move. I didn’t want to waltz into the department and just throw this at you. Thought doing it here, in the fresh air, might be better. Plus, you know how much I hate offices.”

Dane didn’t speak for a moment. He was seeing ghosts. Ghosts of his past. Ghosts he’d created. And where there were ghosts, there was her.

He didn’t say it, but Dane was glad Chance had told him outside the department. He prided himself on being surefooted when it came to his job. Right now? Right now he felt like he was treading air.

“How exactly did it trace back to him?” he finally asked. Even to his ears his voice had gone low, nearing a whisper. “You said license plate?”

“Yes, sir. It was attached to a burgundy van that left the warehouse with the dog crates. Tracy was the last person who legally owned it, but past that, I’m not sure on any more details. Once I saw the name, I thought I’d come talk to you first.”

Dane’s gears were still moving slow. Like a cup of molasses had been poured over them. He’d worked a lot of cases since Tracy was killed. Ones that had made his blood boil. Ones that had kept him up at night. Ones that had shaken the entire sheriff’s department and county to their cores. Yet what had happened to Tracy? That was a case that had changed Dane’s entire life in the blink of an eye.

An eye that might be looking at him now.

“After Tracy died, his things were given to the family he had left and then the rest were donated, if I’m not mistaken. Birmingham might be far for some, but it’s definitely within driving distance. Not hard to get his van up there. It could be just a coincidence that it happened to be his old one,” Dane pointed out.

Chance picked his cowboy hat off his leg and put it on. He looked out at the small park and the autumn leaves that had started to fall. The scene contrasted with the heat that hadn’t yet left South Alabama.

“It could be,” he admitted. “Coincidence, maybe. Bad luck, maybe that, too. But my gut says it’s not, and I aim to find out why it’s telling me that.” Chance stood. “I’ll be at the hotel on Cherry for a few days, looking into some things. You’ve got my number. Don’t hesitate to call it. I’ll do the same if I find anything. Unless you want me to keep this one out of your hair?”

Dane shook his head.

“If there is a loop, keep me in it if you don’t mind,” Dane said. “And, Chance? Thanks for reaching out.”

The cowboy gave a small nod and walked over the fallen leaves to his truck in the parking lot. Dane watched as he drove away. Riker County was nothing short of surprising, no matter the season. It might only house one large city, but the trouble that found its way into its borders never ceased to amaze Dane. If it wasn’t a new criminal organization trying to take over, it was kidnapped children, manhunts and enough gunshots traded between the bad guys and their department to last him a few lifetimes.

Dane left the bench in an attempt to exit his current road of thought.

Even before the recent uptick in chaos around his home, there had been only one night that had burned its way into his soul.

The night he’d made a decision.

The wrong one.

Dane hopped into his truck and pointed it toward the department in the heart of Carpenter, Alabama. He had too much on his plate to fight with his past again. Now wasn’t the time.

He turned the volume up on the radio, let a crooning song croon, and was about to write off Chance’s gut when his phone vibrated in his pocket.

“I need a vacation,” he told the cab of his truck, fishing out the ringing phone. “One where I just don’t answer this blasted phone.” Hell, he’d needed one for years now. No time like the present, right?

Dane didn’t recognize the number but unlocked his phone all the same. As the captain of the Investigative Bureau at the Riker County’s Sheriff’s Department, he had to be always ready for the unknown. Not to ignore it just because it was easy. Life wasn’t easy. There was no reason to suspect work would be, either.

He turned down the radio and cleared his throat. “Captain Jones, here.”

“Dane!” The sound of a bad connection was almost as loud as the woman’s scream. On reflex he held the phone away from his ear for a moment. “Dane! There are men at the school trying to take us!”

All at once Dane’s body and mind synced. No sighing. No thoughts of vacations. No molasses on the gears.

That wasn’t just any woman.

It was the widow he’d helped make seven years ago.

“Rachel?”

“There are three of them! One in a van and two—two are chasing us!”

A shout sounded in the background. Dane tightened his hold on the steering wheel, knuckles going white. The rustling noise wasn’t a bad connection. It was movement. It was running.

“Rachel, where are you?”

There was more rustling and the sound of something slamming shut before she answered.

“We’re in—we’re inside Darby Middle,” she said, out of breath. “Only four of us here when they—when they showed up.”

Dane cut the wheel hard, turning in the opposite direction. Another shout sounded in the background.

This time the shout was closer.

“We gotta hide,” came a small voice, much closer to the phone. A student at school on a Saturday? Rachel didn’t get a chance to respond before someone else was yelling.

“Rach—” Dane started. She cut him off.

“Dane, there’re children here,” she stressed. Something made a scrapping noise.

The fear in her voice was unmistakably true and poignant. It stirred something inside Dane’s chest he didn’t have time to investigate.

“Dane, please hurry!”

Dane pressed his gas pedal to the floor. Any more force and it felt like it would have gone through the floorboard.

“I’m coming,” he promised, voice rising to show he meant it. “Just stay on the—”

A series of crashes cut him off again. There was another wave of rustling. This time it sounded violent.

On cue Rachel cried out.

“Rachel,” Dane yelled into the receiver.

“Ms. Roberts!”

“Run, Lonnie,” she yelled in response. But it wasn’t to him. Instead Dane felt like he was under water, unable to break the surface to get to her.

“Run!”

Dane heard a new voice. It belonged to a man. An angry one at that.

“Oh no, you don’t,” he yelled.

Dane held the phone away from his ear again as a loud crash reverberated out of it. “Rachel!”

But it was too late. The call dropped.

And then Dane was left alone with nothing but silence.

* * *

THE FINGERS THAT threaded into her long hair were angry. They wasted little time in pulling her backward in one violent motion. The change in Rachel’s momentum was jarring. She yelled out as she fell into the man in overalls, feet coming out from under her.

There was a moment of pause when her terrified mind let her know that she could give up right then. It would be easier to let the men take her, especially since one had her by the hair. Like trying to hold your breath under water as long as you could but having to surface and breathe in air when you couldn’t stay down any longer.

“Rachel!”

Dane’s voice coming through her dropped phone was small compared to that of the man at her back, but it heralded in her good sense. She wasn’t going to let terror seize her body; she wasn’t going to let the men, either. With both hands, she did something David had once showed her. Cupping both hands, she threw them up and behind her with all the force she could muster at this awkward angle. Her head burned where he was pulling her hair, but her hands slapped over the man’s ears with surprising precision.

He howled in response. The pain at her roots lessened as he let go.

However he wasn’t the only man in the room. No sooner had she scrambled to her feet than the sandy-haired man lunged at her. Rachel didn’t have time to ready to fend him off. Luckily she didn’t have to. A large-bristled broom swung so close to her head she felt the wind off it seconds before it connected with her attacker’s face. Instead of swinging it around again, the broom’s wielder used it like a batting ram, charging forward enough that it sent the surprised man on his backside.

Lonnie let get of the handle when she was clear. Rachel didn’t have time to thank the boy for saving her. The men behind her were a tangle of limbs but neither was hurt enough to be down for too long. She and Lonnie had to get away.

She grabbed his hand again and ran toward the second doorway leading out of the classroom. While she was seeking safety, Rachel had run in the opposite direction of the front office. She didn’t know where Jude was and didn’t want to chance having him walk out in the middle of the men.

“You bitch,” one of the men yelled from the other room. The sound of desks overturning followed. Rachel tightened her grip on Lonnie’s arm and skidded around the hallway corner. They’d been lucky that the study hall room had been open. The rest of the classrooms were not. If she’d needed any open for decorating, she was supposed to go to Gaven to unlock them.

Now?

Now she was doing the fastest recall she’d ever attempted, trying to remember which doors might be open while adrenaline had her heart thumping a mile a minute, trying to drill itself out of her chest.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway they’d just left.

Rachel didn’t want to admit it, but they were running out of time and out of distance.

She just hoped they weren’t also running out of luck.

Chapter Three

The heat from outside did nothing to break through the chill that had fallen in the cab of his truck. It moved into Dane’s bones and stayed there even when he screeched to a stop in front of Darby Middle and jumped out onto the lawn.

In the time it had taken to book it over to the school, he’d called everyone on the horn that could help. Local PD had a cruiser on the way. Billy was sending deputies and flooring it over, too, and their dispatcher, Cassie, had even managed to contact the principal. Gaven Martin had been given orders to protect himself and one of the children who had been at the school. He’d also confirmed that the only other people at Darby Middle were Rachel and another student named Lonnie.

It was nice to have so much communication and movement on the ground. However the time it took to get from point A to B had stretched too long. Dane’s gut dropped to his feet when he saw the parking lot was empty. No driver. No van.

Which meant the mystery men, or at least one of them, had left the premises.

Dane only hoped Rachel and the boy hadn’t been along for the ride.

He pulled his gun out and didn’t stop long enough to even think about waiting for backup. Instead he hurried to the front double doors like the devil himself was nipping at his heels.

Dane didn’t have any kids, and the ones he did occasionally babysit for friends didn’t live in Darby. Point of fact, he’d never been inside the middle school before. A wave of cool air mixed with the faint smell of cleaning supplies pressed against his face as he moved from the outside concrete to the beige tile inside. The door shutting behind him was the only sound that reverberated across the hall in front of him. For once, the quiet didn’t sit right with him.

He held his gun higher and went to the glass door closest to him marked Main Office. It was locked. Another closed door could be seen at the end of the room with the principal’s nameplate across it. Gaven and the other student were hiding on the other side.

Dane moved his attention back to the hallway in front of him. It cut to the right and was empty. Closed doors lined each side along with small lockers around the bottom half of the walls. Dane stayed alert as he hurried to the first set of doors. Both were locked. He went to the next two. They were also locked. He kept on until there was a room with a door wide open. His heart hammered in his chest. Some of the desks inside had been toppled over, a broomstick was broken in two and, in the middle of it all, there was a discarded cell phone.

Dane didn’t bother picking it up. He knew it belonged to Rachel.

This was where she must have fought the men.

Her cry echoed in Dane’s mind.

He hadn’t liked hearing it over the phone.

He didn’t like remembering, either.

Moving as quietly as he could, Dane exited the room through its second door. If Rachel had run in through the main school entrance and then into the classroom, he’d bet she would have gone deeper into the school rather than back outside. That was if she had broken away from the men and wasn’t in their custody now.

Dane shook his head.

He wasn’t going to think about that just yet.

The adjoining hallway led to another that formed three sides of a box that made up the school. Most of the doors were shut and locked. Dane checked the bathrooms quickly and wordlessly. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No one made a sound. If Rachel and Lonnie had run this way, their options to hide had been limited. By the time he made it to the end of another hallway, he worried that they might not have had the chance to even make it that far.

But then he saw it. An open door at the end of the hall.

Dane hurried over. The door led into a small gym. Bleachers were pulled out, a few soft mats were pushed into the corner and light from outside streamed in through the tall windows on either side of the room. Two doors that must have led to the locker rooms were located on the far wall, another was in the corner and had a set of locked chains around the handles. A soccer field, surrounded by trees, at the end of the property could be seen through the glass on the top half of each door.

Or at least where the glass had been.

One window was completely busted out.

Dane cursed beneath his breath as he got closer. There was blood on the broken glass. Someone had busted it in an attempt to escape. Dane cursed again as he shook the handle of one of the doors. The chains clinked their objections. If Rachel had broken out of the school, she must have been desperate.

Dane lowered his gun and kicked the door hard.

He should have been there sooner.

He should have—

Movement out of the corner of his eye made him spin on his heel. His gun came up high and ready.

“Dane?”

Rachel peeked out from under the closest set of bleachers. A boy was at her side.

Dane could have sung in relief.

While it had been years since he’d seen the woman in person, he realized right then and there he hadn’t forgotten the details of what made Rachel Rachel.

Her hair might be shorter, but it was still dark, smooth and straight. It framed a long, thin face with high cheekbones and a faint dimple in her chin. Her complexion was tanned, though, if memory served him correctly, Dane would bet it was a farmer’s tan. Rachel had always liked to go outside but wasn’t a fan of sunbathing. He’d often teased her when she wore shorts and her ankles and feet were different shades.

But of all the details Dane remembered, it was her eyes that made him feel like they were suddenly in the past.

Denim blue. Like a favorite pair of worn blue jeans.

They fastened to him now, a mix of emotions he didn’t have time to separate and examine. “Are you two okay?”

He lowered his gun but didn’t holster it. Just because he hadn’t seen the mystery men didn’t mean he was letting down his guard.

“Yeah, we’re—” Rachel started but the boy, Lonnie, interrupted.

“She cut herself good when she broke the window,” he said, voice stronger than Dane would expect in the situation. He motioned to her arm. It was pressed against her chest, her other hand cradling her wrist.

“It’s not that bad. Just a little blood. I’m fine.” She must have read the question in his expression. “I thought if it looked like we made it outside, they would go outside and we could hide and wait it out here.”

Dane couldn’t deny that plan was impressive, if not risky. “The van you said was out front is gone. And, as far as I could tell, the rest of the school is empty. Except for Gaven and the other student.”

Rachel had opened her mouth, worry already in her eyes, when he hurried to add, “Who are both fine and locked in the office.”

Rachel let out a sigh of relief, but her body didn’t start to relax until a welcomed sound started in the distance.

Sirens.

Dane flashed the boy a small smile. “Backup has arrived.”

* * *

THE EMT HAD cleaned and bandaged the cut along the top of her wrist but hadn’t gotten to scolding her until he’d looked at the swollen parts of her knuckle.

“You’re lucky the glass was already compromised,” he had said. “Or else you might have broken your hand instead. It’s going to hurt for a few days, regardless.”

Rachel had kept her mouth shut on the EMT’s commentary. While he had only been trying to help, he hadn’t been the one running through the school trying to keep away from men hell-bent on grabbing her and the kid in her care. She had broken the window because she was going to try to get Lonnie and herself through. They’d already used up their luck by losing the two men for a minute or two, giving them enough time to get into the gym. But the moment after she’d cleared the glass away, Rachel had made a split-second decision to keep hiding.

Guilt and worry and fear wound around her stomach, even though she was now safe. It was just dumb luck that the men had seen the broken window and believed what she had wanted them to. That she had run to the woods with Lonnie at her side. Once they’d seen the empty window, they’d run in the opposite direction, both swearing.

It could easily have gone the other way.

Now Rachel was sitting in the Riker County Sheriff’s Department, staring at a nameplate that read Captain Dane Jones and struggling to shake loose the added sorrow trying to creep in. Even without the morning she’d just had, being in the building was enough to turn her mood. Down the hall, years ago, she’d listened to Dane and his colleagues attempt to do their best to save her husband.

She’d seen the way their bodies had been as tense as hers as they’d gone through each scenario with vigor. The way their determination had kept their brows furrowed and their lips thinned. The way they’d tried to assure her everything would be okay.

However, perhaps the singular thing she remembered most from that day was just after the storm had broken outside and Dane had walked in. She’d been waiting for news, but the department had gone radio silent. Though, she realized later, the silence was for her. They were just waiting for Dane to come back. Waiting for him to tell her.

And there he had been, walking through the hallway with rain clinging to his clothes and sliding off his hair. He wasn’t walking with purpose. He’d been walking on reflex.

Rachel fisted her hand in her lap.

She had known the moment their eyes had met that David was gone.

That day had put a hole in her heart, one that had only grown as the year went on.

Now?

She looked down at the bandage on her arm and felt the dull ache of her swollen hand.

Now, after more time had passed, it was less of a hole and more like a window. She could see the memories in the distance and occasionally, if she opened the window, she could feel their joy and sorrow they often brought.

Rachel smiled to herself with no real mirth.

She’d been a widow for years and yet always around the anniversary of David’s death she found herself revisiting the day when the word was still so foreign. After the day she’d had, though, she supposed she shouldn’t be too harsh on herself.

The door behind her opened and Dane pushed through. He didn’t look at her as he put a file on his desk, along with his phone, and then settled into his chair. This had been par for the course between them after she gave her statement. He’d been avoiding her.

Just as he’d been doing for years.

An old anger started to weave itself around her chest again, making her hot.

She cleared her voice.

“Any luck finding the men?” she started, hopeful.

Dane was already shaking his head before she finished.

“No one has been able to pin down the men or their vehicle, but there’s an all-points bulletin out.” He met her gaze. His eyes were hard, dark. “We’re running your and Lonnie’s descriptions of the men through our database, seeing if anyone matches. Hopefully we’ll get a hit so we can make some moves.”

“And if they aren’t in the database?”

Dane’s expression softened, if only a little. “Don’t worry, we’ll find them. It’s not a matter of if, just a matter of when.” On cue, a knock sounded against the doorway. A man with a detective’s shield around his neck gave her a curt nod.

“Rachel, this is one of our newest detectives, Caleb Foster. You might remember Detective Matt Walker, but currently he’s enjoying his honeymoon.” Dane’s tone changed, if only briefly, to humor. “But it pains me to admit this, Foster here is more than capable of getting to the bottom of this.”

This time the detective chuckled. He extended his hand, which Rachel took with a smile.

“If Dane has faith in you, you must have deserved it,” she responded truthfully. The detective nodded and then all humor was gone.

“The chief is here and wants to talk to us ASAP. I tried to tell him you were busy, but—”

“But the anxious chief of Darby PD waits for no woman or man when he’s ready to get some answers,” Dane finished.

The detective nodded.

“All right, tell him I’m coming.”

Caleb said a quick goodbye to her and was gone as fast as it took Dane to get out of his chair. His brow was furrowed. He was already miles away from her.

And that brought the anger back.

“I’m going home,” she said before he could disappear on her again. “Unless there’s something else I need to do? Or there’s something else you need to say?”

Dane paused midstep. For a moment Rachel thought he was going to actually talk to her about something, but he did what the Dane from the past few years had done perfectly.

He took the easy way out and avoided her.

“No, that’s all,” he said. “We’ll call you if we have any more questions or need to follow up.”

“And how do I get back to my car?” she pressed.

“I’ll send someone in to take you back.”

Rachel knew her expression had hardened. She felt the anger tensing her up. Dane started to say something more but hesitated. She remembered a time when they’d had no problem talking.

But now everything was different.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he finally said, though his eyes were already on the door.

Rachel waited until he was gone to respond. “Thanks for picking up the phone.”

Chapter Four

Dane was a jackass, plain and true. He thought it the moment he left his office and he thought it through his meeting with Darby’s chief of police, Detective Foster, and Riker County’s sheriff, Billy Reed. A meeting that had gone over their limited facts and debated who would handle the case, seeing as it had happened outside the sheriff’s department’s jurisdiction.

However, unlike Dane, Billy was a charmer. The people of Riker County loved their sheriff, and that included the chiefs of police from the towns and city that they encompassed. When Billy took office, he had worked hard to keep relations between all local law enforcement friendly, so when the time arose where they wanted to cash in some favors, it wasn’t frowned upon. At least, not for long.

Dane grabbed a water from the break room afterwards and sat down at one of the tables, relieved the chief had agreed to let them take lead. He wondered if he would have been able to talk the man into it had he followed through and become sheriff when he’d had the opportunity. He had a familiar pang of regret at the question. He remembered his younger self, eyes wide and mind set on leading the sheriff’s department when Sheriff Rockwell had been around.

But things had changed.

Now he was just the jackass who had gotten their off-duty dispatcher to take Rachel back to the school instead of doing it himself.

After all she had been through, there he was, still trying to put distance between them.

Guilt, old and new, created tension in his shoulders. Dane rolled them back. It didn’t help.

“So there I was, coming out of my doctor’s appointment, when I run into a very peculiar scene.” Dane turned to see the sheriff’s right-hand woman, Chief Deputy Suzy Simmons-Callahan, in the doorway of the break room, brow raised and hand on her pregnant belly. Even with a rounded stomach, Suzy was not to be taken lightly. “Chance Montgomery and that black cowboy hat of his asking the vet next door about dog crates and bubble wrap. Know anything about that? Because I can’t imagine that man being in town and not dropping by to see you.”

Dane nodded. “We met this morning. He’s following a case in Birmingham involving a series of thefts.”

“Dog crates and bubble wrap?”

“And radio equipment.”

Suzy sat down at his table, curiosity clear in her eyes. “And why is he here? We might occasionally work with other counties, but usually that county is next to us, not hours away.”

Dane sighed. He had planned on keeping what Chance had told him under his hat, but he wasn’t about to lie to Suzy. She was one of the few friends he’d kept throughout the past few years. He’d like to keep it that way for many more.

“A vehicle at one of the crime scenes was registered to Tracy Markinson.” Suzy looked down at her hands, brow pulling in.

He gave her a second to remember. Then it was written all over her face.

“It definitely wasn’t Markinson driving, if that’s what Chance was after,” she said.

Dane nodded. “That’s why he’s in Riker County. He’s following the vehicle’s trail.”

“And asking local vets about dog crates and bubble wrap,” she added with a grin.

“I never claimed to know his methods.” He mimicked the grin. “He told me he’d keep me in the loop if he did find anything, but I’m sure I’ll see him sooner rather than later, especially after what happened earlier.”

They both sobered.

“I’m glad Rachel and the boy were okay,” she said. “But I’ll tell you what I told Billy, it sure doesn’t make sense what happened. Though I guess a lot of the things we deal with don’t make sense to us. Some people just do what they want, and sometimes what they want makes my blood boil.”

“You’ve got that right.”

He didn’t need to ask Suzy to clarify her viewpoint. It didn’t make sense that Rachel and Lonnie had been targeted. Even if it had been a crime of opportunity, abducting two people in broad daylight in a public place was brave.

And stupid.

The worst kind of combination when it came to the criminal mind.

“And how are you doing?” she asked. It was Dane’s turn to raise his eyebrow. She clarified. “Not one but two reminders of the past all within one morning? That has to be interesting for you.”

“It definitely wasn’t how I thought today would go,” he admitted, hedging on a concrete answer. “But I guess part of living in and around small towns means that eventually we all run into our pasts. One way or the other.”

Suzy surprised him with a laugh. “If I was Deputy Ward I’d tell you that you sound like a fortune cookie.” She got up and patted her stomach with another laugh.

“Good thing you aren’t Deputy Ward,” he deadpanned.

Suzy waved him off. “You did good today, Captain. Just make sure you don’t stay here all night. Like your cowboy friend said, we’ll keep you in the loop if anything happens. Until then let’s trust our women and men out in the field.”

“Sure thing, Suzy.”

Dane watched her disappear into the hallway and finished off his water. She was right. It had been years since the Saviors of the South had terrorized the department. In the time after, he’d managed to limit how much exposure he had to reminders of that fateful day. Even when it had been hard.

His thoughts went back to a pair of blue eyes.

Angry blue eyes.

Dane pulled out his phone. He went to Recent Calls.

Who were the men who had gone after Rachel?

And why?

* * *

HER NEIGHBOR MARNIE GABLE was front and center the moment Rachel drove up to her house later that night. No sooner had her door opened than she was enveloped in a tight, teary embrace. Marnie’s wild hair of curls even seemed to be trying to pull her in.

“You could have died,” she squalled.

Rachel rubbed her back and smiled. “But I didn’t.”

Marnie pulled back so Rachel could see the shine in her eyes but didn’t let go. “But—”

“But I didn’t,” Rachel interrupted. “I’m here and okay.”

Marnie was a ball of energy at any given time, but as Rachel gently pulled away from her, she saw that the girl was barely holding it together. She had really been scared.

Rachel felt a tug at her heartstrings.

Marnie wasn’t just a neighbor, she was the daughter of her neighbor. Rachel had somewhat adopted the young woman, just twenty-one now, as a friend when she was a teen. Her parents often traveled for work and Rachel had been the ideal babysitter, if only for location. Both of their houses were out in the most rural part of Darby. It was a fair drive from town no matter where you were coming from. There was even a good distance between their two houses. Marnie used to ride her bike over. Now she drove her beat-up green Beetle.

Marnie didn’t seem to believe her claims of being okay. She detached herself and moved to the side so the security light could help her see Rachel better. Her eyes widened when they took in her bandaged wrist and bruised knuckles.

Rachel beat her to addressing them.

“Just some minor aches and pains,” she hurried to explain. “Nothing too bad.” Rachel tried on a reassuring smile and walked around the woman to the front porch. She pulled out her keys.

“I just don’t get it,” Marnie said, following. “Who were those creeps? What were they doing?”

A burst of cool air pushed against them as they moved into the house. Rachel felt tension she didn’t realize she’d been holding start to seep out. From the back of the house a string of meows started.

“That’s the mystery of it all,” Rachel responded. She made a beeline for the kitchen at the side of the house. The sliding-glass door that lined one wall showed the soft glow of the garden lights she’d set up along the side deck. It was comforting in a way. “It’s still an open investigation.”

June the Cat’s meows got louder. Rachel pulled her dry food from the pantry and headed for her bowl. She paused before pouring. “Wait, how did you hear about what happened?”

Marnie managed to look sheepish. “I heard about it on the radio, or at least, they said something had happened at the school. After that I kind of went into snooping mode. Called a few people until I found someone who knew something.”

Rachel gave her a stern glance. “What have I told you about looking into the gossip mill?”

Marnie huffed but answered.

“That the answers aren’t worth the trouble,” she said. “And just looking for those answers usually only makes more gossip for others.”

Rachel nodded. June the Cat looked up at her with mild interest.

“Well, I was worried,” Marnie grumbled. “So sue me.” She went to the breakfast bar and plopped down. Rachel took advantage of the silence to reheat some leftover lasagna. She cut an extra piece and slid it to her guest. It was enough to get the young woman talking again.

“I just can’t believe it happened is all,” she said around a bite. “And they haven’t even caught the men? I mean, what if they didn’t just try to grab you because you were out in the open? What if it’s you they wanted to begin with?”

Rachel was already gearing up to combat Marnie’s worries but came up short. Not because what Marnie had said made sense—she’d already entertained the thought, though she’d pushed it away just as quickly—but because light moved across the deck.

Headlights.

“Your mom wasn’t coming over tonight, was she?” Rachel asked, hopeful.

Marnie put her fork down. She shook her head.

“She’s in Tennessee for the week.” Rachel pulled out her phone.

“Great,” she muttered. It was dead. The battery rarely lasted an entire day without needing a charge. She’d been meaning to get a new one for months.

Marnie peeked over her shoulder. “Are you expecting anyone?”

“No, but I also wasn’t expecting you.” Rachel gave her a quick smile but it didn’t stay long. She left her plate and hurried into the bedroom and straight to her closet. She bent in front of the safe David had insisted they have and typed in the combo. When Rachel turned around holding a handgun, Marnie was there to gasp.

“Stay here,” Rachel warned.

Marnie’s eyes were the size of quarters but she listened.

Rachel went into the hallway, slowly moving across the hardwood to the front of the house. Her earlier insistence that she was okay started to fade away. The weight of the gun in her bandaged hand helped remind her that things could have turned out a lot differently this morning. And they still could. Every step she took toward the front door ate up her calm.

Was she overreacting?

Had she just been in the wrong place at the wrong time at the school?

Or were the men coming for her?

She tightened her grip on the gun. Her nerves shook her hand. The muscles in her legs readied to run. It didn’t help matters when a booming knock sounded against the front door.

She paused, a few feet from it.

There were no windows to show her who it was, so she walked softly to the peephole. Holding her breath, heart in her throat, Rachel looked through it.

“Holy buckets.” She breathed out and lowered the gun to her side. She opened the door in time to catch Dane’s fist in midair. He was quick to take in her expression and the weapon.

“Before you use that on me, know that, in my defense, I called you. Three times, in fact.”

It wasn’t lost on Rachel how much seeing the man made her feel better. Just as seeing him standing in the gym, cursing at the chained doors, had this morning. Capable, sturdy, a force to be reckoned with. Handsome, too. Though that wasn’t anything new.

“I just realized my phone died,” she said, trying to get her heartbeat back on its normal path.

Dane motioned to the gun. “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re more cautious than not. It makes my—the department’s—job easier in making sure you stay safe.” His eyes strayed over her shoulder as footsteps echoed up the hallway.

“Everything okay?” Marnie called out.

Rachel turned to find the woman holding something in her hands. It surprised a laugh out of her. “Yeah, Marnie. Everything is fine, but is that my bedside lamp?”

Marnie shrugged.

“I wanted to help,” she said defensively. She raised her chin a fraction, proud.

“Well, you can help by putting that back. Please.”

Marnie rolled her eyes but went back into the bedroom.

Dane grinned.

“I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t just barge in,” he said. “If a bullet didn’t do me in, the lamp just might have.”

A look she couldn’t place passed over Dane’s expression. He took a small step backward and jutted his thumb over his shoulder. His truck was parked at the mouth of the drive, since there was no true curb around the property unless you drove back to the two-lane that connected to the town. “Everyone’s still looking for the men, but until we have more information, I thought I might hang out here for a while, just as a precaution.”

Rachel couldn’t stop her surprise from surfacing.

“Deputy Ward is keeping an eye out on Lonnie, too,” he added.

She recovered. “Oh, yeah. Well, that’s good. Especially after everything Lonnie went through today. Better safe than sorry.”

Rachel omitted that she felt another surge of relief having someone so close. It was only after he started to turn away that she wondered if that feeling was because her someone just happened to be Dane.

“Okay, well, charge your cell and give me a heads-up if anyone else is coming over,” he said, already moving down the steps. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Hey, Dane.”

The words left Rachel’s mouth before her mind could catch them. Dane turned, but his expression was blank. He was shutting down.

Again.

Still, Rachel was riding the high of feeling relief and, after the day she’d had, she didn’t want it to stop.

“You could stay inside,” she said. “In the spare room or on the couch. It isn’t like you haven’t slept on either before.”

She tried to smile. She really did. She tried to remember the man who had been her husband’s best friend. The man who had been her friend. The one who had smiled and joked and never turned down an invitation from them to come over.

But time had a funny way of making memories hurt, even when they were good ones.

And maybe that showed.

Dane shook his head and averted his gaze. “I can’t.”

He went back to his truck without another word.

Then, all at once, Rachel felt her anger returning.

This time it was aimed at a man named Marcus. Not only had he taken her husband from her, he’d all but taken her friend, too.

Chapter Five

Rachel took her coffee out onto the back patio the next morning. It was her second cup and not strong enough to combat her nearly sleepless night. Every time she seemed to close her eyes, there was the sandy-haired man smiling at her. Then there was Overalls grabbing her hair. Both images together and separate had gotten her out of bed and roaming the house. Or, really, going to the front windows and peeking out to see if Dane’s truck was still there.

It had been.

Every single time.

Now she was trying not to think too much and just hoping the caffeine would kick in and make her feel less sluggish. And more normal.

The sun shone through the tops of the pine trees and warmed the wooden rail she was leaning against. The side patio would always be her favorite spot in the world, she was sure. Worn, in need of a new coat of stain, and filled with past moments when she’d spent countless hours across its surface, it was Rachel’s idea of peaceful.

She looked out toward the creek in the distance. It wound around the two acres of her land in a half circle before going through the next two properties. She remembered how much she’d disliked having water near the house when she’d moved into David’s family home right after they married, perpetually afraid of flooding that never came. Now it was her favorite feature. She supposed there was some comfort in the fact that no matter how unexpected the turns her life took, she could look out at that creek and watch it keep going the same way it had been going for years.

It didn’t stop for tragedy.

It didn’t stop for sorrow.

It didn’t stop just because there were bad men with bad intentions out there.

It just kept going.

Rachel sighed into her coffee.

Clearing her head wasn’t as easy as she’d hoped.

Her thoughts turned to Lonnie. If she was having a hard time coping with what had happened, then she had to believe Lonnie might be struggling, too. Playing it tough in the schoolyard or in the hallways was one thing. He might have held it together at the school and in the department before his uncle had picked him up, but now that it had had time to settle?

Rachel tightened her grip around the coffee cup. She kept her gaze on the creek. There it was, apathetic to how rapidly her thoughts jumped from fear to worry and then to anger.

Yesterday had felt like one long dance between her and Dane, both trying to move around each other without getting too close. She knew why she’d done it. Anger and frustration. But him? He’d pawned her off on a stranger once she needed to leave the department. The old Dane? Her friend? He wouldn’t have left her.

But he had.

Yet, even after years of no contact, when danger had found its way to her, Rachel’s first instinct had been to call him.

Because you still trust him.

“Hush it,” she responded into her coffee.

The coffee complied.

Something moved against her hip, earning a knee-jerk reaction of nearly jumping out of her skin. Her coffee sloshed over the edge of the mug. “Sweet crickets!”

Even with the coffee and the soothing creek in the distance, she couldn’t deny that she was still on edge.

Rachel finagled the vibrating phone from her pocket and shook some of the coffee off her other hand. The Caller ID showed Dane again.

“To be fair, I called to try and not scare you.”

Rachel looked from the phone to the patio stairs. On the path that led from around the house to the front porch stood Dane. Trying to look apologetic.

Rachel put her hand to her chest and took a deep breath.

“I guess I’m a little jumpy this morning,” she admitted. Dane nodded but kept to the bottom of the stairs. He was still wearing his button-down and jeans, but now there were bags beneath his eyes, too. He hadn’t slept. “Is everything okay?”

“Detective Foster thinks he found a potential lead. He and Billy are looking into it.”

“Good.” The faster the men were caught, the better.

Dane ran a hand across his jaw and nodded. “No suspicious activity was reported at Lonnie’s by Deputy Ward and no one other than your friend came or went last night.”

“Also good.”

He nodded again. It was off. Like the motion was on reflex. Like he wasn’t actually listening to himself. Rachel tilted her head slightly to the side, trying to figure out his thoughts. But, while she’d been good friends with the man years ago, it felt like a lifetime had passed between them. She could no sooner tell what he was thinking than she could tell what he was feeling.

“We’ll keep someone on both today, but I need to go relieve Henry from Lonnie’s until another deputy can step in,” he continued. “His kid has the flu and his wife woke up with it, so he needs to hustle home.”

Rachel felt herself perk up. “So you’re going to Lonnie’s right now?”

She already was turning with her coffee cup in hand.

“Yeah, just long enough until someone comes and relieves me.”

“Can I come with you?” Rachel was positive it was exactly what she needed to feel better. She could either sit around worrying about the boy, or check on him herself. Maybe even talk to his uncle and learn a little bit more about his home life, too. Maybe set some of the rumors straight when it came to the teachers at Darby Middle. “I mean, I can take my own car if you’d like,” she added. “I just—I’d like to see how Lonnie’s doing.”

Dane surprised her with a small smile.

“If you don’t mind me stopping by somewhere that has coffee, I’m fine with you riding along.”

It was Rachel’s turn to smile. “I can do you one better.”

* * *

THEY SET OUT from the house a few minutes later with two cups of homemade coffee, a Tupperware container filled with cookies, and too many things left unsaid between them. Dane had already known that Rachel asking to come along was a possibility, but until she’d asked, he hadn’t known what he was going to say in response. He’d planned his day around sticking close to her while working the case from a stationary spot—which he’d gotten good at over his career as captain—so if she wanted to leave, coming along with him definitely made things easier.

Or, at least, the work side of things.

Their personal issues weren’t as easy to work around.

So Dane decided not to address them at all. He was going to treat Rachel like just another civilian. There was a bigger picture. One he’d hopefully see when the men were caught.

He didn’t need to, nor had the time to, get lost in the past.

“I’m surprised that Marnie girl didn’t stay the night,” he said once they were on the county road. “She seemed ready to fight by your side. Never seen a lady brandish a lamp before.”

He kept his eyes on the road but heard the smile in her voice when she answered.

“You’ve seen a man brandish a lamp?”

Dane felt his smile pull up the corner of his lips. “Actually, I have.”

And so Dane ate up the time between the outskirts of Darby to the other side of town by relaying the story about Marty Wallace, drunk as a skunk, coming into a restaurant to confront his cheating girlfriend. Who’d just happened to be on a date one table over. Dane had barely saved the new beau from receiving a whack upside the head by a fancy lamp when he restrained the cursing-like-a-sailor Marty.

“Want to know the kicker? After he got out of jail, he went back to the restaurant and picked a fight with the owner.”

Rachel let out a small gasp. “Why did he do that?”

“The lamp that he broke cost five hundred dollars. Marty didn’t want to pay it.”

“Five hundred dollars?” She whistled. “I don’t blame him. I might have started a fight with the owner, too. Did he end up paying it or did he get arrested again?”

“Billy ended up feeling so bad for him that he talked the owner out of pressing charges.” Dane couldn’t help chuckling. “Then Billy managed to convince the man that the lamp was too ugly to be worth that much, so the owner went out and got a new one anyways.”

Rachel laughed a good laugh. Dane hadn’t realized how much he had missed the sound.

“That’s our sheriff for you,” he added. “A fearless leader with a bleeding heart when it comes to overpaying for lamps. I don’t know what Riker County would do without him.”

This time Rachel didn’t laugh. He glanced over. Denim blue. Staring straight ahead.

“You know, I always thought you’d run for sheriff.” Her voice sounded different. Off. Distant. “Wasn’t that a part of your five-year plan?”

There it was.

One of those unsaid things. Dane fought the urge to tense up.

“I decided I wanted something different,” he answered. “Now I can’t imagine anyone other than Billy running the county. He’s a good man and good at what he does. Plus, I like my job. I may not be hitting the streets as much, but I still get done what needs to get done.”

It was all honest enough. His plans had changed and he was sure as sure could be that Billy had found his true calling. Dane, on the other hand, felt like he had found his in being captain. He might be a desk jockey most of the time, but he made it work. The only lie? It had taken a while for him to accept it.

“So what you’re saying is that you stepping out of your office to do guard duty isn’t on your normal roster of daily activities?”

Dane had to look over again. If only because of the humor he heard in her response. She was no longer distant. Dane was surprised. He thought talking about their pasts at any length would bring out the flash of anger he’d already seen several times in the past twenty-four hours.

“No, it’s not something I typically do,” he admitted. “I guess I just needed to hit my abnormal quota before the year ran out.”

Rachel snorted.

Silence followed. It settled in the cab of the truck like pollen to the ground on a summer day. Dane kept his gaze forward as he navigated an older neighborhood. Darby wasn’t the smallest town in the county, but it wasn’t the largest, either. This was one of the three neighborhood clusters within the town limits. It was also the oldest. All the strings of houses they passed revealed their age. Almost all of them showed disrepair, while some showed signs of renovation. It was also typically a neighborhood that housed a mostly older generation of residents. Not a popular children’s or young family’s neighborhood, if Dane wasn’t mistaken.

“Does Lonnie live with his grandparents?” Dane asked. “I wasn’t there when he was picked up and can’t remember if I ever knew what his relation was to his guardian other than that his parents are gone.”

“I don’t know much about their family life, but I know he lives with his uncle, Tucker. His parents passed away when he was a toddler.” Rachel’s voice held a whopping dose of concern as she continued. “If you believe the gossip at school, his uncle views him more as an obligation than family.”

He could tell Rachel didn’t like what she was saying.

Dane didn’t, either.

He kept quiet, though, and turned onto Amber Street. Henry’s car was parked curbside in front of the house. Dane pulled up behind it and cut the engine. He didn’t get out right away.

“I probably should have mentioned this before, but Henry’s wife, Cassie, the one with the flu?” he started. “She’s the one who took you back to the school yesterday.”

Rachel sighed.

“That’s just what I need on top of everything else,” she muttered. “The flu.”

Dane tried on another apologetic look and went out to talk to Henry. Deputy Ward was one of the newest additions to the department but, Dane had to admit, one of his favorite people to work with. Not only did he make Cassie, a friend and coworker happy, but he was a nice guy with a good sense of humor. Especially when it came to being a husband and a father.

“Sorry again, Dane,” he said through his rolled-down window. “Cassie’s sister is out of town...with my brother.” He gave Dane an exasperated look. “The first time they decide to go on some romantic getaway together and my house breaks out with, as my lovely wife put it, ‘exorcist-style vomiting.’” He ran a hand down his face. “If there was anyone else to help out, I’d call them in, but—”

Dane cut the man off with a wave. “Don’t worry about it. Deputy Medina said she was more than happy to switch.” Henry’s eyebrow rose. Dane cracked a grin. “She got tricked into helping with courtroom duty, and we both know how much she hates being in there. For her this is an ideal way to spend the day.”

“Glad I’m not putting her out, then.” Henry motioned to the house. “As for why I’m here, no one has showed up or left the house since I followed them here last night. In fact, you’re the only movement I’ve seen all night and morning. Anything interesting happen at your place?”

“No, just the same.”

Henry’s phone buzzed in his cup holder. Dane spied his wife’s name on the Caller ID. He laughed and tapped the top of the car twice.

“Go ahead and get out of here,” he said. “We can handle it.”

Henry nodded and was gone by the time Dane walked back to his truck. Rachel was standing next to it, a smile on her face and a container of cookies in her hand. When she looked at him, Dane felt like he was putting his feet back into that ice-cold water.

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