16. Unraveling
UNRAVELING
H ospital waiting rooms had their own kind of silence. Not the peaceful quiet of early morning patrols or the comfortable stillness of my house at night. This silence buzzed with anxiety, with unspoken fears and desperate prayers. The fluorescent lights cast everything in a sickly pallor that made even Caleb look washed out.
Liam hadn't moved in an hour, curled into Caleb's side like an injured bird seeking shelter. Their hands stayed linked, white-knuckled and steady. Watching them, something in my chest ached - not jealousy exactly, but awareness of what I didn't have. What I'd never had.
Jimmy was in surgery. Fourth hour now. The doctor had spoken technical terms - internal bleeding, skull fracture, broken ribs - but all I'd heard was violence. Someone had deliberately hurt Jimmy.
"Any word from Smith?" Caleb's voice cut through my spiral. His arm tightened around Liam as he spoke, protective even here.
"Still at Nina's." My own voice sounded wrong in the sterile air. "Reviewing security footage, interviewing staff. He's thorough."
"Good." The word carried steel. Caleb might play the steady rancher, but right then he looked ready for war.
"Jake?" Liam shifted slightly, eyes red but determined. "That note we found. You think-"
"We'll handle it." The sheriff voice came automatically, even though my gut churned. The note had been specific - a warning about keeping quiet. But quiet about what?
After a while we heard the doctor's footsteps echo down the sterile hallway before he appeared - Dr. Baker, who'd patched up half the town over the years. His face gave nothing away, that professional mask all doctors learn. My gut clenched as he approached.
"Sheriff Thompson." He nodded to me first - small town courtesy - then turned to Liam and Caleb. “He is out of surgery."
Liam's breath hitched. Caleb's arm tightened around him.
"The blunt force trauma to his temporal lobe caused significant swelling." Baker didn't sugar-coat it - never had. "We've placed him in a medically induced coma to help reduce the intracranial pressure."
Medical words. Clinical terms for someone beating Jimmy's head in with a tire iron.
"The skull fracture extends from his left temporal bone to the base." Baker gestured to his own head, mapping out the damage. "We've inserted an intracranial pressure monitor to track any changes. Right now, the numbers are higher than we'd like."
"But he'll wake up?" Liam's voice cracked on the question.
Baker’s hesitation lasted a heartbeat too long. "Once the swelling reduces, we'll begin weaning him off the sedatives. But with head injuries this severe, we have to be prepared for potential complications."
"What kind of complications?" The words scraped my throat raw.
"Memory loss is common with temporal lobe injuries." Again, that clinical tone. "Speech problems, difficulty processing emotions, personality changes. We won't know the full extent until he regains consciousness."
Personality changes. The thought of Jimmy - steady, wise Jimmy - waking up different sent ice through my veins.
"He also sustained multiple rib fractures." Baker continued, consulting his clipboard. "Three on the left side, two on the right. One punctured his lung, but we've repaired the damage. His kidney shows signs of trauma, but we're monitoring that closely."
Someone had worked him over systematically. This wasn't random violence or a bar fight gone wrong. This was fucking torture.
"Can we see him?" Caleb asked, his usual calm voice tight with anger.
"Briefly. He's in ICU, heavily sedated. Two visitors at a time, five minutes maximum." Baker’s expression softened slightly. "Talk to him. Some patients respond to familiar voices, even in coma."
Liam and Caleb stood together, supporting each other. I stayed back - they needed this moment more than I did. But my mind was already racing, piecing together a timeline.
Jimmy at Nina's bar. A stranger. An intense conversation. Then this.
"Sheriff?" Baker caught my arm as I turned to leave. "The damage pattern - someone knew what they were doing. This wasn't amateur work."
No shit. Every blow had been calculated, designed to cause maximum pain without being immediately fatal.
"Thanks, Doc." I managed to keep my voice steady. "Keep me updated on any changes?"
He nodded, already turning toward his next patient. Just another night in the emergency room for him. Just another broken body to fix.
But not for me. Not for our town.
Someone had tried to silence Jimmy. Had damn near killed him to keep whatever secret he knew buried.
They'd picked the wrong fucking town to mess with.
The station felt different at night. Emptier, somehow. Like all the day's lies and secrets settled into the corners once everyone had gone home. The overhead lights buzzed - needed to get maintenance to fix that - but I barely noticed anymore. Too focused on the statements spread across my desk, each one a piece of a puzzle I couldn't quite solve.
Liam's handwriting shook across the page: "Found him by the old stable. So much blood."
Caleb's statement read steadier, but the coffee stains on the corner told their own story: "Security camera caught movement at 2:47 AM. Night guard heard something at 3:02 AM."
Fifteen minutes. Fifteen fucking minutes where Jimmy lay bleeding while his attacker walked away.
My coffee had gone cold, third cup forgotten like the others. The clock on my wall ticked past midnight, each second taking Jimmy further from whoever he was before someone decided to crack his skull open.
A knock cut through my dark thoughts. Smith stood in the doorway, manila envelope in one hand, flash drive in the other. Good kid, Smith. Steady. Reliable. Everything a deputy should be.
"Got something, Sheriff." He crossed to my desk, movements careful like he was delivering explosives instead of evidence. "Footage from Nina's, plus statements from every bartender on shift."
The flash drive felt heavy as I plugged it into my computer. Smith hovered, hands clasped behind his back - parade rest, old military habit he never quite broke.
"Show me."
The video quality sucked, but Nina's parking lot appeared in grainy black and white. Timestamp read 11:47 PM. Jimmy sat at the bar, nursing what looked like his usual whiskey neat. Nothing unusual there.
Then someone slid onto the stool beside him.
"Wait." I leaned closer, something cold settling in my gut. "Can you enhance that?"
Smith was already typing, zooming in on the stranger's face. Except-
"Son of a bitch."
Not a stranger at all. That scar - the one that curved from temple to jaw like a question mark - I'd seen it every day for the past two years. Across the briefing room. In the break room. At every morning meeting.
Ramirez.
My deputy.
"Sir?" Smith's voice sounded distant. “Isn’t that?”
"Ramirez." The word tasted like ash. "Keep playing."
The footage rolled on. Jimmy and Ramirez talked, body language growing tenser by the minute. At one point, Ramirez leaned in close - threatening or conspiring, couldn't tell which. Jimmy pushed back from the bar, stood unsteadily.
12:03 AM: Jimmy stumbled toward the exit.
12:04 AM: Ramirez followed, casual as a fucking shadow.
12:05 AM: Both disappeared from frame.
"There's more." Smith pulled up another video - street camera this time. "Two blocks over."
Jimmy weaved down the sidewalk. Ramirez trailed fifteen feet behind, phone pressed to his ear. Making a call? Receiving orders?
"Got the cell records?"
Smith nodded, sliding another paper across my desk. "Tower pinged Ramirez's phone moving from Nina's toward the ranch between midnight and one AM. Then nothing until 3:30 AM when it reactivated near his house."
Dead zone. Or a burner phone.
My hands curled into fists, nails biting into palms. Two years. Two fucking years Ramirez had sat across from me at briefings, joked about coffee runs, been part of this department. This town.
"Phone records show multiple calls to a number in New York." Smith kept his voice neutral, professional. "Started about a month ago, increased in frequency last week."
New York. Jimmy's old stomping grounds before Oakwood Grove.
The pieces started clicking together - ugly puzzle with uglier picture.
"Pull Ramirez's personnel file." My voice didn't sound like mine. "Everything. Background check, references, disciplinary records."
"Already did." Smith handed over another folder - thicker than it should have been. "Found something interesting in his employment history. Two years ago, before he came here? He worked private security for some development company in Manhattan."
The same time Jimmy left New York. The same time he showed up in Oakwood Grove, looking for a quiet place to start over.
No such thing as coincidences. Not in this job.
My phone buzzed - Elliot, probably wondering why I hadn't come home yet. Home. When did my house start feeling like that?
Focus, Thompson.
"Chief?" Smith shifted slightly. "What do you want to do?"
Good question. Protocol said confront him, suspend him pending investigation. But protocol never met Jimmy in a hospital bed, skull pieced back together like broken pottery.
"Set up surveillance." The decision came easy as breathing. "Everything - phone taps, GPS tracker on his car, the works. But quiet. If he's working with someone in New York-"
"We want them all." Smith nodded, already moving. "I'll handle the paperwork myself. Keep it off the main system."
Smart kid. Trust no one until we knew how deep this went.
The station felt colder now, shadows longer. Every memory of Ramirez shifted, took on new meaning. The way he always volunteered for night shifts. How he seemed to know things about people's pasts without being told. All those phone calls he'd step outside to take.
Blind. I'd been fucking blind.
"Smith." He paused at the door. "The ranch's security footage - you see anyone else that night? Besides our mystery visitor?"
"No sir." His expression darkened. "But the cameras on the north fence were disabled. Professionally. Someone knew exactly where to cut the feed."
Someone with police training. Someone who knew ranch security protocols.
Someone I'd trusted to protect this town.
The evidence spread across my desk like an accusation. Statements, photos, medical reports - each one a reminder that I'd let a wolf into my fold. Given him a badge, a gun, authority over the people I'd sworn to protect.
Never again.
The sight of my house punched something loose in my chest. After the sterile hospital lights and station's harsh fluorescents, home should have felt comforting. Instead, it just reminded me how many people I'd failed that day. Jimmy in his hospital bed. Ramirez's betrayal burning in my gut.
But there was light in the backyard - soft, barely there. And a figure sitting in the grass, silhouetted against the stars. Elliot. Something in me steadied just seeing him there, like a compass finding north, like pieces of a broken world clicking back into place.
My boots crunched on the lawn, deliberately loud enough not to startle him. He turned, and fuck if that small smile, tinged with sadness around the edges, didn't make my heart stutter in my chest.
"Can't sleep?" My voice came out rougher than intended as I crossed the lawn, each step bringing me closer to the magnetic pull of his presence.
He turned, and even in the dim light I caught the redness around his eyes, the raw vulnerability there that made my chest ache. "Not tonight."
A wine bottle sat beside him, half empty. Without speaking, he offered it to me. Our fingers brushed during the handoff, sending electricity through my system that I was too exhausted to fight.
"Tommy finally crashed," he said after a while, voice raw and fragile around the edges. "Read him three chapters of his favorite book. Kid kept asking for 'just one more' like he knew- like he sensed-"
He stopped, jaw working against emotions too big for words. The silence stretched between us, heavy with all the things we weren't saying, all the ways this night was about to change everything.
"Bad day?" I asked, though I could see the answer written in every line of his body, in the way his shoulders curved inward like they were trying to protect his heart.
His laugh came out bitter, shattered glass where there should have been warmth. "You could say that. Found out I'm losing my kid for a month."
The words hit like a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs. "What?"
"His mother." He took the bottle back, drank deep like he was trying to wash away the taste of defeat. "Filed some bullshit emergency motion. Says moving here shows I'm unstable, that I'm trying to alienate him from her."
"That's fucked up." The words felt inadequate against the magnitude of his pain.
"Yeah." His voice cracked, a hairline fracture in his usual strength. "Know what's really fucked up? She's the one who pushed me into racing. Wanted the lifestyle, the fame, all of it. Then blamed me for never being home."
I stayed quiet, sensing he needed to get this out. He stared at the stars like they might hold answers, wine bottle dangling forgotten from fingers that trembled slightly.
"Should've seen it coming, I guess. The way she changed once the money started rolling in. Suddenly nothing was good enough - not the houses, not the cars, not even our kid."
My hands clenched into fists, thinking of Tommy's bright smile over pancakes, the pure joy in his laugh when he was just allowed to be himself.
"Started with tutors." Elliot's voice dropped lower, confessing secrets to the night sky. "Then specialists, coaches, constant criticism about his development. Like our son was some project she could perfect. Like being himself wasn't enough."
"Tommy's amazing just as he is." The words burst out fierce and protective, straight from my heart.
Elliot's head turned, something vulnerable and hoping crossing his face. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." I met his eyes, needing him to hear the absolute truth in this. "Kid's got the biggest heart I've ever seen. Smart as hell too, but more importantly? He's kind. That's not something you can teach. That's all you - the way you love him, the way you see him for exactly who he is."
The smile that broke across his face felt like sunrise after the longest night, like hope taking physical form. "He really likes you, you know."
Something warm unfurled in my chest, tender and terrifying in its intensity. "Sorry I missed him. Work-"
"Bad case?" His voice softened with genuine concern, and God, how long had it been since someone looked at me like that? Like my burdens mattered too?
Images flashed through my mind: Jimmy's broken body, Ramirez's face on the security footage, betrayal written in black and white evidence.
"Yeah." The word came out rough. "Someone I trusted turned out to be... not who I thought."
"Want to talk about it?"
"Can't. Not yet anyway. But thanks." The genuine care in his voice made something in my chest crack open.
We sat in comfortable silence, passing the wine back and forth. The stars wheeled overhead, witnesses to this moment of shared vulnerability. His thumb traced patterns on my palm, each touch like lightning under my skin.
"Jake?" His voice came quiet, uncertain in a way that made my heart clench.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. For letting us stay here. For being so good with Tommy. For making us feel like... like we belong somewhere again."
The raw honesty in his voice made my chest ache. Without thinking, I pulled him closer, until his head rested against my shoulder, fitting there like it was made for this.
"It was the night before a big event.” Elliot's voice came quiet, like he was sharing secrets with the stars instead of me. "Tommy was supposed to be asleep. I'd just gotten back from from it, wanted to surprise them both."
Something in his tone made my chest tight. His head stayed on my shoulder, but I could feel the tension building in him, like a storm about to break.
"Found them in our bed." The words cracked like breaking glass. "My old friend. The guy I'd trusted with almost everything. And she just... looked at me. Like I was interrupting something inconvenient. Like our whole life together was just... nothing."
"Jesus." My hand found his in the dark, squeezing tight. He gripped back like it was the only thing keeping him anchored to earth.
"Tommy heard everything. The shouting, the accusations, her throwing shit at me when I said I wanted custody." His voice shook with remembered pain. "Kid's too smart, you know? Picks up on everything. Probably knew before I did that his mom had checked out long ago."
The rage that flooded me felt different from my anger about Ramirez. More personal, more visceral. Protective in a way that scared me with its intensity.
"She didn't deserve either of you." The words came rough, honest, straight from some deep place I usually kept locked away.
He lifted his head, looking at me with those green eyes that seemed to see right through my carefully constructed walls. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." I reached up without thinking, brushing away the wetness on his cheek. My thumb lingered there, tracing the constellation of freckles I'd been trying not to memorize. "Tommy's amazing. And you-"
I stopped, caught by the vulnerability in his expression, the way he leaned almost imperceptibly into my touch.
"Speaking of amazing," I managed a small smile, trying to lighten the moment before I drowned in the depth of feeling between us, "been wondering about this mysterious career of yours. You some kind of rock star I don't know about?"
His laugh came surprised but real, warming something in my chest. "Close, but not quite." A playful glint entered his eyes, replacing some of the sadness. "I used to race. World Racing Champion, to be specific."
"Champion huh?" The genuine shock in my voice made him grin. "Well shit, that explains the speeding ticket."
"In my defense, your roads are very tempting."
"That what you're calling it?" But I was smiling too, heart lifting at seeing some of his usual spark return.
Our eyes met, and something shifted in the air between us. The playful moment slid into something deeper, more charged. His hand was still in mine, thumb tracing patterns that sent electricity up my arm.
"Jake." My name came out barely above a whisper, loaded with everything we hadn't been saying.
The stars wheeled overhead as I looked at him - really looked. At the way moonlight caught his freckles, how his eyes held both strength and vulnerability, the slight tremble in his lower lip that begged to be kissed.
Fuck it.
The kiss felt inevitable, like gravity or fate or some other force I'd never believed in until now. His lips were soft, hesitant at first, then pressing closer as surprise melted into acceptance. My free hand cupped his jaw, thumb brushing his cheek where tears had fallen earlier.
Time stopped. The world narrowed to this: the warmth of his mouth, the way his fingers tightened in mine, the quiet sound he made when I deepened the kiss - something between a sigh and surrender.
Then he pulled back, and reality crashed in with all the subtlety of a tidal wave.
"I-" He stopped, those expressive eyes now clouded with something like regret, like fear. "I should sleep. Tomorrow's going to be..."
He didn't finish, but he didn't have to. Tomorrow he was losing Tommy for a month. Tomorrow everything would change.
"Right." My voice came out rougher than intended, heart cracking along invisible fault lines. "Of course."
He stood, movements uncertain for the first time since I'd known him. "Jake, I-"
"It's okay." But it wasn't. Nothing about this was okay. "Get some rest."
He nodded, taking a step toward the house before pausing. "Thank you. For listening. For everything."
Then he was gone, leaving me alone with the stars and the ghost of his kiss on my lips, the weight of everything unsaid pressing against my chest like a physical thing.
Fuck.
The wine bottle sat forgotten in the grass, nearly empty now. Like my chest. Like this whole night.
Had I just made everything worse? Crossed a line that couldn't be uncrossed? Taken advantage of his vulnerability when he needed a friend, not... whatever the hell this was becoming?
The stars offered no answers. Just kept spinning overhead, indifferent to the way my world kept tilting on its axis, to the way my heart felt simultaneously fuller and more hollow than it ever had.
First Ramirez's betrayal, now this. Some cop I was - couldn't even trust my own judgment anymore. But the memory of Elliot's lips against mine burned like a brand, like a promise, like everything I'd never known I wanted until it was right here, slipping through my fingers.
The way he'd pressed closer before pulling away. How right it had felt, even if just for a moment. Like pieces of a puzzle I hadn't known was incomplete finally clicking into place.
Tomorrow would bring what it brought. Custody battles and criminal investigations, all the complicated pieces of our separate lives colliding in ways we couldn't control.
But right now, sitting alone in my backyard with the taste of wine and possibility on my tongue, I let myself feel everything I'd been trying to ignore.
Want. Need.
The night kept its secrets, wrapping around me like a promise I wasn't sure I was ready to make.
Or maybe one I'd already made without realizing it, the moment a certain ex-racer and his son had walked into my life and made my house feel like home.