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Surprisingly, the kid seemed to accept the news without complaint, sighing only once. Probably some kind of record.
Jack pulled into his driveway.
Lexi grabbed the keys, jumped out of the truck, and ran to her house.
Maggie stayed back. “I’d like to talk to you about Anton sometime, and exactly how you know him.”
Glancing toward her house, he nodded. “Sure.”
He’d meant to compliment her voice—the sound of an angel—but she was gone like the wind before he had a chance. She belonged in the choir or someplace where others couldappreciate that distinctive, almost pleading sound. Not that he was any expert, but he did have a pair of ears, which hadn’t failed him yet.
Today’s sermon from the pastor might have been encouraging if they could have applied to him, but some things were beyond forgiveness. Surely, God wanted everyone to stop being a bunch of whiners, anyway. He didn’t believe in begging God for help any more than he believed in therapy. Weaker people needed God. Not him. The thing to do was pull yourself up by your own sheer willpower.
Sooner or later he’d do it, too, with the same single-minded determination that got him through military school and into the Marines. From the Marines he’d found a place in the Marshal Service, a place he belonged. No whining. He never had before, and he wasn’t about to start now.
On the other hand, James Butler was probably smiling today seeing him in a church pew again. The man had never missed a Sunday until the day he died.
If not for his grandfather, his life would have turned out quite differently. He might still be living with his mother, might have even been the one to find her dead from the drug overdose. But he’d been spared all that when Child Protective Services had intervened and placed him with his grandfather, the one man who’d sworn he’d never give up on him.
He couldn’t give up on himself, either, but what he’d done so far wasn’t working. Maybe it was time to try a new tactic. Dr. Logan had said that the pills were only a temporary measure, but he didn’t believe it. Neither was it likely that his colleagues had accepted the excuse that he’d taken a personal leave of absence to take care of a family issue. He wondered what Kim had told them, if anything.
They probably thought he was nuts, loco, off the deep end. And every moment he spent away was another moment hefailed to convince them otherwise. Still, if he returned now, as Kimberly thought he should, he couldn’t face any of them.
Not when he could barely look at his own reflection in the mirror.
Chapter 7
Jack sat in the patrol car at the intersection of Main and Second Street.
Ryan sat beside him in the driver’s seat. “If something doesn’t happen in this town soon, I might just have to poke my own eye out for the excitement.”
So far, drivers had obeyed every stop sign, every stoplight of the three in town, and the speed limit. Of course, everyone managed to do so when they saw the cruiser in traffic.
Jack fought to keep his eyes open, because he’d worked the swing shift the night before. Now he worked the morning shift at Lonnie Smith’s request. Might as well work because he still wasn’t having much luck with sleep.
“What do you have against peace and quiet?” Jack asked.
“I’ve now had enough of it to last me a lifetime.” Ryan, an ex-professional competitive skier sidelined by a career-ending injury, apparently hadn’t adjusted to the slower pace in Harte’s Peak.
“Not what you had in mind growing up playing cops and robbers?”Jack asked.
“Yesterday I spent the day on the side of the highway catching speeders. Ben Bailey whipped out a fake ID. A bad one, with the picture scotched-taped on and barely in place. It’s the most excitement I’ve had in weeks.” He sighed.
“Catch Vera again?” Jack lifted one eyebrow.
The owner of The Bean, Maggie’s boss, was notorious for whipping through town in her BMW as though the speed limits somehow didn’t apply to her. Worse, she seemed to think her good looks entitled her to talk her way out of tickets. Not with him, though Ryan was an easy target.
“Nah. That would have made my day.” Ryan grinned.
Ryan definitely had a crush on Vera. “Why don’t you just ask her out?”
“I do, about once a month.”
“Well, don’t give up. Sooner or later she’ll give in,” Jack said with a laugh.
“What about you? Have you asked out your neighbor yet?” Ryan wiggled his eyebrows.
“Me? What makes you think I would ask her out?”
