“Sure, Fairhurst. Come on in.”
When he stepped in and closed the door behind him, she raised an eyebrow. Then offered a sad smile. “Your sister?”
“Yeah.” The first time Dani had dropped Sammy off with him and disappeared, he’d been at his first police job in Dubois. He’d gone to his parents for help.
They’d started talking about having Sammy taken away from Dani and never letting Dani haveanyaccess to her ever again.
Gard still felt guilty about that—how close he’d come to ruining Dani’sandSammy’s lives. Because Gard knew that his parents would havenevershown Sammy an ounce of love.
Luckily, his parents hadn’t wanted to explain taking care of their granddaughter to their important friends, so Gard had weaseled out of that plan. And he’d vowed never to go back to his parents for help again. In fact, he hadn’t spoken to them since.
In the end, Dani had shown up just three days later, apologetic and ready to get help—the very first time she’d ever admitted she had a problem. Gard had been hopeful.
She’d made it two years that time. He’d been at Bent County the second time Dani had dropped Sammy off and lit out. Gard hadn’t asked for help—too burned by his parents. He’d just done his level best to take care of Sammy and do his job.
When Dani had come back after a week, Gard had decided it was time to get proactive. Not just rehab—family therapy, adding him as a legal guardian of Sammy, and the three of them moving in together.
That had lasted six years. Dani had disappeared twice in that time. The first time Gard had tried to handle everything himself,but Sammy had been old enough to really get it and he’d been at his wit’s end, enough to say something in passing to fellow deputy Laurel Delaney—she hadn’t been married or a detective yet at that time.
Without judgment—or involving any DFS authorities—Laurel had tracked down Dani and given him the information. So, the second time it had happened, he’d gone to her again. She’d been a detective and Delaney-Carsonby that time, but she’d done the same thing. Tracked Dani down to some flophouse up in Hardy.
Gard had promised himself that time, he wouldn’t drag anyone else into things. The next time Dani screwed up, he was done. He’d been young and naive and hadn’t understood child development at all—but now he’d been to therapy, he’d read the books, and he understood that Dani’s behavior was likely to impact Sammy as negatively as his own parents’ cruelty had.
But here he was. Still trying to protect Dani.
Because ever since then, she’d slowly rebuilt her life. The first year had been iffy, and included some setbacks, but she hadn’t disappeared anymore. The second year had been good for all of them. She’d even been the one to come tohimand said he needed to move out, so she didn’t have a safety net. So she could prove to all of them she was done falling back.
That had started really good years. Dani surviving, staying put, staying clean. Sammy thriving—she was so smart and doing so well in school, happy and involved andloved.
Gard had stepped back farther and farther, until their relationship had begun to feel normal instead ofcodependent.
Of course, he’d always be Dani’s safety net, and Sammy’s for that matter. No matter what he told himself, he couldn’t let that go.
Case in point. This discussion he was having with Laurel.
“She could lose custody if I file a missing persons, so I don’t want to go that route yet, but she’s cut off communication withSammy and that isn’t like her.” He was really holding on to that even though experience told him nothing was ever really different.
Laurel asked the relevant questions—when had Sammy last seen her and where. What did he think might have happened. What did he want Laurel to look into.
“I’ll poke around,” Laurel agreed. “Off the record.”
“You know I appreciate it.”
“Any time, Corporal.”
Gard knew Laurel meant it. She’d never once acted put out or given him a lecture about working within the system. Still, it left him feeling…heavy with guilt that he couldn’t figure this out himself. That he couldn’tsolveany of these problems like he wanted to.
So he went through the morning with that heavy weight on his shoulders, and it certainly didn’t lift at noon when he radioed off duty, went home, and changed into plainclothes, switched out his county-issued gun for his personal one
Hehadplanned to pick up Sammy, not have her spend extra hours at the bakery, but… It just didn’t sit right, and he knew his gut was all sorts of messed up when it came to his sister and her choices, but he’d made a deal with himself: If she contacted him or Sammy, he’d back off.
Until she did, he got to look for her. And since he couldn’t do it on the county’s time, he’d do it on his own.
First, he went to Dani and Sammy’s apartment in Fairmont. He had a key, so he let himself in. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Some kind of clue of where Dani’s head was at. What Sammy had said at dinner the other night still stuck with him. That Dani had been worried about money.
Sheshouldhave asked him, and he couldn’t understand why she didn’t. In the past, she’d never had any problem asking him for money. Though that was usually when she was using.
Just another tick in the column ofabnormal. Because Dani had apattern, damn it. People didn’t just deviate from fifteen-plus-year patterns without a big reason.
