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A pit opened in Ash’s stomach as he navigated to the right file in the department’s database— 2007 Missing Person/ Suspected Homicide- Cantrell, Darcy Megan. He opened the report and started reading through the initial investigation.
It was thin.
Hell, downright emaciated.
“What?” He rubbed his eyes and scrolled through it all again. Maybe he’d missed something due to exhaustion or—
Nope. That really was the whole thing. At least, it was all he had. An entire investigation boiled down to a few short reports, a single recorded interview with Donovan—and not even the first one Sheriff Jerry conducted—and a handful of crime scene photos. There was no DNA, no fingerprints. He didn’t even know what evidence the former sheriff had used to secure the initial search warrant for Donovan’s house.
This couldn’t be all.
Ash had worked with Sheriff Jerry for years before the guy retired. He had a reputation for toughness, holding his deputies to the highest of standards, and he was a thorough investigator. Ash had seen him as a mentor, and this kind of sloppy police work wasn’t like him at all.
Ash reached for the phone on his desk but stopped when he remembered it was almost midnight. And that was when he hit a wall, physically and mentally. He groaned and rubbed at the back of his neck with both hands. He had to shut down for a few hours, or he was going to crash.
Tomorrow. He’d call Jerry first thing and get this sorted. And he had to bring Donovan in for another interview.
He again reached for the phone. Got it all the way to his ear before he remembered the time and dropped it back into its cradle.
Tomorrow, he reminded himself. Darcy had already been dead for fifteen years. As much as it bothered him to wait, one more night wasn’t going to make that much of a difference to her.
chapter seventeen
“Well, look who’s back,” Zak said, completely unsurprised, as Donovan stepped into the room minutes before the therapy session was scheduled to start. “What happened to, and I quote, ‘fuck this. I’m done here?’”
“Told you, we always come back,” Sawyer said. “I’d say it’s like an abusive relationship, but it’s kinda the opposite of that.”
“Feels abusive sometimes,” Pierce signed.
Donovan ignored them all and took his seat without a word.
“Welcome back, Donovan,” Dr. Firestone said gently. “How have you been?”
Her expression was pleasantly blank—did they teach that expression in shrink school? —but he could still see the doubt in her eyes. And maybe a little fear. She thought she was talking to a man who had gotten away with murder.
Shit. He shouldn’t have come back, but he was here because—well, this ragtag group of veterans was all he had for friends. And with Sasha at work and the rescue out of commission, he was bored.
He forced his jaw to unlock. “I’ve been good.”
“Just good?” Zak prompted with a knowing smirk.
Donovan flipped him off, but there was no heat in it. “Yeah, okay. Better than good. I’m in my first real relationship since before my TBI, and it’s…” He couldn’t think of the right word. “Beautiful” came to mind, but the guys would laugh at him if he said that, so he settled on: “Amazing. She’s amazing.”
He couldn’t help but smile as he thought of Sasha. They’d spent every night of the last week together, sometimes at his place but usually at hers. He loved going to bed with his arms around her every night and waking her every morning with soft, slow lovemaking. He enjoyed flexing his rusty culinary skills to make her lunch every day because he hated the thought of her trying to survive on a protein shake and a piece of fruit. Her eyes always lit up when he walked into the clinic, like she was surprised he’d come. He hoped that in forty years, she’d still look at him like that when he brought her lunch.
“He has little hearts dancing around his head, doesn’t he?” Sawyer said. “I can hear them doing the samba.”
“He’s a goner,” Pierce said. “First Zak and now him? Is there some kind of love flu going around?”
Because Sawyer could still see movement, he usually understood most of Pierce’s sign language, but not today. “He’s a what?”
“Goner,” Donovan supplied, amused despite himself. “He said I’m a goner. And fuck you, dude. I’m gonna put money down on you catching that love flu next.”
Pierce’s eyes bugged. He shook his head and waved his hands in the universal signal for oh, hell, no! Then he signed, “I’m perfectly happy with my bachelorhood, thank you. And Raszta doesn’t like strangers.”
“How is the mop dog doing?” Zak asked, settling back in his seat.
Pierce had taken in Raszta, a Hungarian Puli, to train for urban search and rescue when they started their little doggie A-Team a few months ago. The dog’s coat formed natural dreadlocks, and he looked like the love child of a bear and a mop.
