Chapter 20

"Better a diamond with a flaw

than a pebble without."

–Confucius

Rayne

"I don't give a damn, Richard," I practically yelled into my phone. "I want that report in my inbox in ten minutes or I'm going to haul my butt over and kick your skinny ass myself." I slammed the phone down without waiting for a response.

I paced the floor of my office until I heard the chime of the incoming email.

For the next hour, I read and re-read the autopsy and forensic reports on Mason John Williamson. The seventeen-year-old Madison High School student and football star had been found at the County Road Thirteen Motel with his throat slashed.

Mason had a few juvie priors, mostly for drugs. His father, Judge Williamson, had no doubt spent a lot of money to brush most of his juvenile offenses under the rug.

Madison County was in an uproar. There were no clues at the scene aside from some tire tracks in the parking lot. Those were from a car, not a Harley, so wouldn't lead to Jameson.

It was two days since the kid's death and Jameson getting jumped, and I'd just now gotten my hands on the crime scene reports. I'd spent the last two days worrying whether he'd left anything at the scene that pointed to him being there.

I'd also been keeping an eye out for the Reaper's payback. If I knew exactly who had jumped Jameson and killed Mason, I seriously wondered if I'd enact my own payback or just do my job.

The Reapers were bad news but, so far, they hadn't stooped to murdering any high school kids. At least not that I knew about.

When someone knocked on my door, I waved them in without glancing up from the screen.

"Got a minute?" Sabrina asked, stepping into my office and shutting the door behind her.

I groaned and flipped off my screen. "How did you get in here?"

She smiled as she sat down across from me. "I'm dating someone with a badge."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "The hell you are."

She laughed. "Well, we've gone out on a dozen dates in the past month." She shrugged. "I think it'll stick."

"Who?" I asked, still looking at her through narrowed eyes.

She rolled her eyes and, when I didn't waver, she threw her hands up, and said, "Owen."

I thought about it for a second. Owen was one of the good ones. Naive, young, and stupid in a lot of ways, but good to the core. No wonder he'd let her go at the Taylors that morning.

Not wanting advice on my own love life, I let it go and nodded. "Okay, you can date him."

Sabrina laughed. "Gee, thanks for your approval."

"What do you want?" I leaned back in my chair.

Sabrina sobered. "The Madison County High School kid's murder. Know anything?"

I shook my head. "You?"

She tilted her head slightly as her eyes ran over my face. "You're lying."

I mimicked her move. "So are you," I said just as firmly.

"Rayne, we can help each other."

"Why do you think that?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

She was silent for a moment. "Mason was a small-time dealer. Pot and roids mainly. He sold to most every football player around. He owed money."

"To?" I asked. So far, she'd given me more info than any of the reports from the local PD had on the kid.

"Local gang. Word on the street was that he owed them so much, they'd stopped selling to him and had moved on to threats," Sabrina added.

Which is why he'd gone to the Reapers for the deal, I thought. Trying to get more drugs to sell in order to pay his debts back.

"Okay," I nodded. "Thanks for the info."

"No." Sabrina laughed. "Now it's your turn."

I thought about what I'd found out and wondered what the blowback would be if Sabrina reported on it.

"Mason's throat was cut from ear to ear with an unknown weapon. His death was quick."

Sabrina's eyes narrowed. "Everyone knows this. What do you know?" She stretched the words out.

I sighed. "Whoever killed him stole everything except a brand-new pair of Air Jordans worth eight grand."

Sabrina jerked slightly. "Okay." She wrote something down in the little notebook she always carried around. "So our murderer doesn't know about sports fashion. What else did the murderer steal?"

"Cash," I said. "Drugs."

"What kind?"

"Roids. Pot," I answered. "Like you said."

"So, you think it was his old suppliers?"

I shrugged. "What's the word on the street?"

"Word is that it's his new suppliers." She leaned closer. "The Reapers. Declan, namely."

My eyebrows shot up. "Has he been seen?"

She shook her head quickly. "No, but he's built up quite the list of sins in his absence. Sort of like the boogieman. He's being blamed for everything from theft to toothaches." She leaned back. "Are you looking into the case?"

I lied and shook my head. "Out of my jurisdiction."

She sighed and glanced around my office. "I don't suppose you have any updates on Sharon's murder or Evelyn's hit-and-run?"

I thought about keeping quiet for a moment. These cases were closer to home. There was information I didn't want out there in the world. No use spooking the locals.

"I believe the two are connected," I said, surprising Sabrina and myself.

"You do?" She leaned forward. "Why?"

I took a deep breath. "For now, that's all I have." I stood up. "You can see yourself out." I motioned towards my closed door.

"Rayne," she whined. "You can't say something like that and expect me to leave." She took my arm. "Give me something more."

I shook my head. "Report it," I said, "just like that. What I said." I locked eyes with her and she stilled.

"You're using me?" She gasped slightly. "Seriously?"

I smiled. "Have a good day. I'll make sure to root for you and Owen." I opened my door and motioned for her to leave.

"I hate you," she whispered with a slight smile as she passed by, then she stopped suddenly. "I'm glad your mom is okay. She scared us all. She's home now?"

I felt my heart sink as I nodded. "We hired a full-time nurse to watch her. The last round took everything she had left out of her."

Sabrina touched my arm. "I'm praying for her."

I nodded, fighting back the fear and worry I always felt when remembering finding Edith on the floor. Waiting to feel the weak pulse under my fingertips through my own rapidly beating heartbeat. Hearing her raspy breathing as I waited for the ambulance.

Randy and I had sat up all night by her hospital bed, wondering if each breath she took would be her last. Just as the sunlight broke in the hospital room's windows, she'd woken up and we knew she was out of the woods.

That was the worst fear I'd felt in my life. Until Jasmine had called me that next morning and told me that Jameson had been jumped.

I didn't know how much more my heart could take at this point.

I watched Sabrina leave. I wanted to leave the two of them to their own demise. Sabrina's relationships never worked out. She was too much like me. Stubborn. She poked her nose into too many parts of a person's life. There were no secrets around either of us. We were both strong-headed women not afraid to speak our minds.

Then I thought of Jameson and smiled. Maybe Owen was like Jameson and liked that about Sabrina?

"Got a second?" Randy asked, walking towards me.

"Sure," I said.

"Let's go for a ride."

I locked my office and fell in step with him. It wasn't often Randy asked me to go for a ride so as we walked out, several people watched with curiosity.

Randy drove in silence and the second we hit the county road, I knew where he was heading. Our favorite fishing spot.

Shit. This had to be bad news.

We only went up there nowadays when things got worse than worse.

"Mom?" I asked softly.

"She's good," he answered quietly. "This isn't about her."

I nodded, understanding he wouldn't say anything more until we were sitting on the old pier. We'd spent a summer building the thing when I was in junior high.

When we climbed out of his car, he surprised me by pulling his fishing poles from the trunk. "No live bait, but we'll make do." He handed me the tackle box.

We walked side by side down the trail we'd forged over the years until we stepped out into the clearing where our lake sat.

When we were each seated on the pier, fishing poles in hand and our first lines cast, he finally spoke.

"I'm retiring." He blurted it out, much like you would bad news, quickly and loudly.

"It's about damn time." I laughed. "God, I thought you were dying."

He glanced sideways at me and then shook his head. "Damn it, girl, you are the best of us."

I laughed again and nudged his shoulder. "When's the big day?"

He took a deep breath. "Soon. No one knows but you and Edith. After the other day, well, I need to be with her."

I nodded. "Agreed."

We sat there in quiet, the bugs buzzing over the top of the water, the fish not biting, the late summer wind barely blowing the treetops.

"I have someone in mind to fill my shoes," Randy broke into the silence.

"Not me," I said quickly.

Randy chuckled. "No, not you."

"Who?"

Randy glanced at me. "I'm hoping he'll want to stick around after he's done cleaning up our town."

"Jameson," I whispered.

"I'll appoint him until there's an official election. But everyone knows, once you get your foot in the door, you stick. I glanced at his file, and he's more than qualified. Hell, he's far more qualified than I was when I took over. About the same age too." Randy used the back of his hand to wipe a bead of sweat from his brow. "I forgot my hat," he mumbled.

That couldn't be right. Randy couldn't have taken over as chief of police when he'd been Jameson's age.

She thought about it and then groaned. "I'm old."

Randy laughed and wrapped an arm around her. "Not yet. Besides, you'll always be our little girl." He hugged her.

"I'm glad you're retiring." I sighed against his chest. Then, before he could answer, my line tugged and I pulled in the first fish of the evening.

Later, when we walked into the house loaded down with six cleaned fish, Edith and her new in-home nurse, Nelly, were sitting at the kitchen table having tea.

Nelly was a middle-aged black woman who had worked at the hospital for almost a decade before deciding to start in-home services. She had a daughter a few years younger than I was who was in college in Georgia to become a nurse.

The woman's husband was a deacon at the church Randy and Edith went to. Both of my parents had known Nelly and her family as long as anyone else in town. They liked her, trusted her, and knew she was a perfect fit to watch over Edith until her chemotherapy was finished in three weeks.

"This is a surprise," Edith said when I walked over and kissed her cheek.

"We caught six fish. I caught four of them," I said, "which means he's going to cook them up for us." I motioned towards Randy, who chuckled.

"That's the rules," he said, setting down the cooler with the fish inside and then walking over to place a kiss on Edith's cheek. "How are you?" he asked her as he looked towards Nelly.

"Good," both Edith and Nelly said at the same time.

"Talk to me about work," Edith said, turning to me.

While Randy cooked, I filled Edith in on every single boring detail of my life since I'd seen her last.

Since I couldn't say much with Nelly there, I stuck to the basics. We had all agreed not to talk about Jameson with Nelly around. Not that we didn't trust her, but there was a code that cop families went by—don't share secretive information with outsiders.

As much as Randy and Edith trusted Nelly, she wasn't part of the family.

We ate grilled fish, rice, and grilled vegetables and chatted about the coming cool season. Nelly filled us in on her daughter's school and the boy she'd met at the hospital.

By the time I left that evening, I desperately wanted to swing by Jameson's place. I wanted to stay with him that night. To fall asleep in his arms and make sure he was okay.

Seeing the cuts and bruises on his body had pained me. Knowing what had happened to him pissed me off. I used the anger to fuel my investigation into Mason's murder.

I had details the cops in Madison County didn't—that two large men had jumped Jameson. That Jameson was in the room. The time frame of his arrival. Knowing that whoever jumped him and killed the boy had taken off with his motorcycle, wallet, phone, guns, the drug money, and drugs.

Knowing this, I had tracked Jameson's phone to a dumpster behind a bar in Madison County. I planned on staking out the bar that weekend. I would have gone sooner, but the place was only open on Friday and Saturday nights. I wanted to see if there were two very large men hanging about.

Crawling into bed that night alone, I stared at my last message to Jameson. He still hadn't replied.

"How are you doing? Bruises healed? I miss you."

My last three texts had gone unanswered. Was he avoiding me for a reason?

He'd told me he'd dropped his guard because of me. The guilt of that weighed heavy and had kept me up at night. I could have cost him his life.

Was he trying to pull away because he was afraid or because he'd come to his senses?

So much doubt plagued me, and by morning I was in a piss-poor mood. Deciding to face my fears head-on, I drove into town to Jameson's building. I would grab a coffee and pastry at the bakery downstairs before I marched my ass up those stairs and gave the man I loved a piece of my mind.

Seeing Jameson sitting at the corner booth had me pausing and swallowing all my anger.

His head was bent over, a cup of coffee gripped in his hands tightly. He looked bruised, lost, tired, miserable.

When he finally glanced up at me, his eyes widened slightly and locked with mine. I could tell instantly that everything I'd questioned had been wrong.

He'd probably spent the last few days sleeping and trying to recover from the beating he'd taken.

I motioned with my head towards the counter and ordered my food and coffee. When I sat in front of him, putting a plate of pastries between us, he smiled up at me.

"Hey," he said softly.

"Hey," I said and sipped my coffee. "You look like shit."

He chuckled, then winced. "Bruised," he mumbled.

"More like broken," I told him. "You should have gone to the ER."

He shook his head. "Too many questions."

"About that. What's the story going around." I nodded towards him. "What are you telling everyone that happened?"

"I laid my bike down in the rain the other night. Which is why my bike is MIA," he said with a sigh.

"Smart." The story would fly. He looked like a man who'd gone down on a wet road. "I found your phone," I said.

He frowned at me. "Where?"

"The last time it pinged off a tower it was at a bar not far from the motel. I'm going to check it out Friday."

"No," he said firmly.

I arched my brows. "I thought we'd established how this works." I motioned between us.

He sighed. "Yeah, right. Please don't go."

I smiled. "Wanna come with?"

He thought about it and then nodded. "Hell yeah."

"We can call it our first official date," I added with a smile.

He chuckled in return. "I'd like that."