Harlequin Intrigue July 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Carol Ericson

  The woman gave what, he imagined, was a standard polite smile. But then it wiped clear from her lips. In its place worry so acute it made Foster’s spine zip up to attention.

  “My name is Millie Dean and I need your help.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Millie had bribed Libby and Deputy Park with chocolate chip cookies to get back to the detective’s office and wait until he arrived. Libby was more than willing to let her back, but Deputy Carlos Park was huffier. He gave her a look she was all too familiar with but eventually took a few cookies back to the bullpen. Whipping up the yummy confections had been an easy price to pay for early access to the back hallway.

  After a long night of trying to find the truth in the dark, she’d wound up home, defeated. Larissa had shown up soon after and given her an ounce of hope she hadn’t expected to get.

  A lead detective had finally been hired to take Detective Gordon’s former position.

  Which meant Millie had a chance.

  And meant she had needed to talk to the new hire as soon as possible.

  Yet, after introducing herself, Millie’s nerves doubled.

  For many different reasons.

  First of all, the Dawn County Sheriff’s Department wasn’t exactly beloved anymore. Not after a thunderstorm and a subsequent flash flood had caused the former mayor to wreck into a ditch. Not after the FBI agent responding to the crash found something that led to uncovering a town-wide conspiracy. Not after the corruption that had hollowed out the town and forced most of the Kelby Creek’s high-ranking officials and employees, former sheriff and mayor included, into jail. Or sent some on the run.

  The event itself was so widespread and complicated that the entire town nicknamed it The Flood. A name still said with as much anger and deep feelings of betrayal and distrust as it had been the day the news broke of the corruption.

  Those who had been involved within the sheriff’s department hadn’t just broken the law, they’d shattered it. Their actions had given Kelby Creek a bad reputation that stretched countrywide and left the residents with a serious case of trust issues. Even with the new hires and transfers who had slowly been trickling in to restock the department and change its image for the better.

  Millie didn’t know if that was possible, but it was the reason why she was hopeful. Still, she didn’t know the detective and that made her uneasy of itself.

  Second, as Millie sat in the department, Fallon’s MIA six-month anniversary felt painfully more apparent. Unable to be ignored. All the days between when she’d seen him leaving her house to now had collected together and they hurt. She hadn’t gotten good news once, and now she was trying again to have a full-fledged conversation with a man with a badge. Trust or not, that made the vise around her heart squeeze tighter.

  Third, and nowhere near the severity level of the other two points, was the realization that the new detective was the same man she’d seen carrying a box into the house next to hers the night before. Which had to mean he was the man who had rented it. Her new neighbor. One with groomed, dark blond hair, forest green eyes, and a jaw that set hard in intensity as she began to explain why she was waiting in his office.

  “No one has seen my brother, Fallon Dean, since the beginning of December last year,” she stated. “Yesterday was the six-month anniversary of his disappearance.”

  Detective Lovett put his coffee down and grabbed a pen.

  “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-three. Twenty-four in September.”

  “And why are you just coming to us now about this after six months?”

  His expression hadn’t changed since he’d come into the office. Millie wished she could read what he was feeling and she wished the part of her that wanted to know didn’t also find him extremely attractive. That part of her was intrigued by him, despite the situation.

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve been here.” She hesitated, hoping to find the magic words to keep him from dismissing her. “I reported it the day after he went missing.”

  “So it’s an ongoing investigation?”

  Millie shook her head. “He hasn’t been found, but the case was technically closed four months ago.”

  That earned an eyebrow raise. His gaze flitted to the folders on his desk before responding.

  “A closed case means a concluded case,” he stated.

  Millie mentally bit her tongue, stopping herself from going on the offense.

  “The detective in charge of the case hit a dead end and gave up,” she said carefully. “Fallon is still out there and—”

  A knock on the side of the doorframe behind her broke Detective Lovett’s attention.

  Millie turned to the new face and felt her frown deepen.

  Deputy Carlos Park, his dark buzz cut, and muscles sculpted from an obsession with the gym, had eyes only for the detective.

  “Hey, Lovett, could I talk to you for a second?”

  “I’m in the middle of something,” came the smooth baritone. “Can it wait?”

  Deputy Park dropped his gaze to Millie’s. She instantly regretted bringing him cookies. He’d helped himself to them and taken several.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think it can.”

  The detective’s chair rolled backward as he stood. Millie turned in her chair, away from the deputy, fresh anger coursing through her. Lovett’s eyebrow rose again in question, but he didn’t ask anything of her.

  Which was good because she was already spinning a defense to give him when he came back. After Deputy Park tainted the image of her brother. Just like all the rest of the town would, given the chance. That was half of the reason she’d come in so early, hoping to catch the detective first.

  A lot of good that had done.

  “Be right back.”

  Millie nodded, tight and quick. It was only after he was out of the room that she realized she’d fisted her hands on her lap. Attractive or not, intriguing or not, new neighbor or not, Millie knew what was most likely going to happen next.

  Still, she had hope that Detective Lovett would be different.

  That he wouldn’t listen to those who had been at the department five years ago. That he would give her, and Fallon, the benefit of the doubt.

  People changed all the time. Fallon more than most.

  Did some of the town refuse to believe that? Specifically, those in the department who were still around?

  They sure did.

  After The Flood, it was like the pot calling the kettle black.

  “Sorry for the wait.”

  Detective Lovett appeared at her shoulder as fast as Millie noted the change in his tone. He apparently was, in fact, no different from the colleagues he’d most likely just spoken to about Fallon.

  Millie decided to cut the polite nonsense.

  She didn’t have time to dance around their past in the hope of being given a clean slate with the new hire.

  “You’re going to tell me that my brother ran away. That he’s been labeled a flight risk. That he’s an adult and that he didn’t go missing, he just left.” The detective kept his face impassive so Millie prodded him. “Am I wrong?”

  Lovett threaded his fingers together into a steeple over his desk.

  “I’m going off the facts, Miss Dean,” he said, voice even. “Fallon has a history of running away, one that started before what happened once y’all moved to Kelby Creek.” He looked down at the notepad he’d taken with him when he stepped into the hallway. There were several notes in tight, neat handwriting across the paper. “Four times between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Then one time here where, in the process of looking for him, a deputy was struck by a car and forced to retire because of the injury.” He looked up at her, his eyes a cool mint. “The former detective on the case found no hint of foul play, not to mention you buried the important detail that Fallon lef
t you a note. One that said he was leaving and that he was okay.”

  The note.

  The damned note.

  It was the biggest reason no one took her seriously.

  That no one listened to her reasoning behind not trusting it.

  Now Millie was trying not to yell. Not to raise her voice in the hope that being loud would make him understand.

  That it would make him see what she did.

  Yet she wasn’t fast enough to find the right words before he spoke again.

  “You have to understand my reluctance here. Leaving isn’t the same as missing.”

  Millie stood, Detective Lovett did the same. Now she could read him perfectly. He opened his mouth to continue, but Millie held up her hand to stop whatever it was he was about to say.

  “You know what? I was an idiot to come here of all places looking for help. After what this department did? I don’t know why anyone would ever come here looking for answers.”

  The detective’s jaw hardened. His nostrils flared just enough to show her that she’d hit a nerve.

  “What happened to the department, happened,” he rebutted. “But that’s not who we are now, and we’re working very hard to prove that to the community.”

  “Just like Fallon has worked very hard the last four years to prove he isn’t that kid anymore. He’s not a thoughtless runaway. That what happened, happened, but that’s not who he is now.” Millie grabbed her purse and angled her body to the door. She was mad, sure, but she was also hurt.

  She was also more than done with the conversation.

  She was going to find Fallon.

  She was going to save him from whatever bad had happened.

  She didn’t need the department, certainly not the detective who had judged her and her family without a second thought.

  Millie paused in the doorway and cut the man off with a parting shot.

  “You’ve known about Fallon for less than an hour. I’ve known him for twenty-three years. That note wasn’t written by him, and he didn’t leave because he wanted to.” She almost left then, but six months of not knowing propelled the words out before she could decide against them.

  “And not that anyone ever seems to care about this part but when Fallon ran away when he was younger, it was always because he was running from our stepfather. But our dad is gone and has been for years. That’s what scares me now. That’s why I came here hoping to get the help of someone without any biases, knowing I’d probably still get turned away. If Fallon ran away of his own accord, then what was he running from this time?”

  Detective Lovett didn’t answer. He couldn’t have even if Millie had given him time to respond.

  He didn’t know Fallon.

  He didn’t know her.

  And now he never would.

  * * *

  THE COLD CASES on Foster’s desk were still just as cold when he left for the day as they had been that morning. Some were from six years ago, others dated back to the late nineties. They were challenging, and he was more than up for each of those challenges.

  But he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit his focus hadn’t been 100 percent since Millie Dean had stormed out of his office.

  “Check into it if you need to,” Deputy Park had said earlier. “But the last time the department went looking for Fallon he was out in the woods smoking pot and eating gummy worms. Because of him Deputy William Reiner was hit by a damn car while searching the county road. Hear you me, wherever Fallon is, he probably doesn’t give a rat’s backside that anyone is wasting their time looking for him.”

  Foster waited a few minutes after Park left before deciding to pull Fallon’s file. He placed it on top of the cold cases he was supposed to be looking into and read the contents from first page to last during his lunch break.

  What Park had summarized in the hallway was most of what was in the files.

  Millie Dean had come to the department when she couldn’t find her brother over a weekend. All she knew was that his car was gone too and that the note she’d found on her front porch wasn’t from him. Detective Lee Gordon had been assigned to the case and, as far as Foster could tell by his language used in writing the report, he had mostly focused on finding the car.

  He hadn’t found it or Fallon. Not even a trace.

  Foster moved the folder off to the side for the remainder of the day but, like the thought of his sister, Foster would catch himself glancing at Fallon Dean’s life boiled down into three sheets of a paper and a picture that that same sister had most likely provided.

  Foster was an only child, but that didn’t mean he was apathetic to Millie’s worry. Her pain. His career so far had shown him monsters, victims and survivors. He’d had to deliver devastating news to families just as he’d been able to deliver justice for what happened to them.

  He’d also never gotten a case he hadn’t closed, even if he didn’t like the outcome.

  It was the argument his captain in Seattle had used to try to keep him in the zip code.

  Every day you’re doing real work here. That town? Everyone is already against you before you even put on the badge. It’s like quicksand. Wouldn’t you rather stay here where you know you can make a difference instead of rolling the dice and hoping for the best?

  Foster had answered with what he still believed to be true.

  He needed a change of scenery, and what better way than to do that while also trying to help an entire town?

  A town that included Millie Dean.

  Eyes the color of sunlight shining on syrup.

  The same eyes that had pleaded with him before narrowing in anger.

  Now, hours later and sitting in his driveway, there Foster was thinking about those eyes again.

  It didn’t help that the woman herself could be seen through the front window, bustling around inside her house.

  Foster didn’t mean to, but he stared for a moment and replayed their conversation in his head. Then he did something he’d always done in his career. He put the memory of her from his office on mute and read her body language instead.

  Anxious. Worried. Genuine.

  She truly believed something was wrong. So much so she’d chanced going to a place she clearly didn’t like, knowing there was a good chance she’d be turned away. Regret at that choice had tensed her body right before anger at being dismissed had. Then, before she’d even stood, Foster had realized it was him who had been dismissed.

  And he hadn’t liked it.

  Not one bit.

  Foster sighed, locked his truck and went inside his house. Belatedly he realized he could see into one of the woman’s rooms from his small kitchen. He decided to avoid that window as he changed out of his dress shirt and slacks and into more comfortable clothes. He checked his email, thought about a few of the cold cases he’d looked into earlier, and finally gave himself permission to put all work matters away long enough to eat.

  Corruption and conspiracy aside, it wasn’t as though a small town like Kelby Creek was all that exciting. Not like Seattle had been.

  So, Foster grabbed a beer, heated up a frozen meal and plopped down on the one chair he had in the dining room with every intention of forgetting about the outside world for a while.

  But then he heard his neighbor’s front door shut and curiosity made him go to his kitchen window, beer in tow. Millie Dean herself was hurrying out into the darkness to her car.

  The motion sensor camera at the corner of her driveway came on.

  “Oh hell,” Foster breathed out.

  Millie had a flashlight in one hand and a baseball bat in the other. She took both into the car with her. Foster put his beer down.

  “Well, that can’t be good.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The town of Kelby Creek was a warm place.

  From spring to summer to C
hristmas Eve, there was a good chance its humidity was fogging up your glasses and making you sweat. It was at most times unforgiving.

  The night was no different.

  Millie’s shirt stuck to her skin, her jeans wrapping her thighs with a cling that was wholly uncomfortable. Her curls were a ball of chaos atop her head in a bun, giving her neck the space to sweat openly instead of beneath the weight of her hair. Even the bat in her hand was starting to slide in her grip.

  It wasn’t pleasant.

  Neither was the darkness around her.

  The Kintucket Woods acted like a barrier between Kelby Creek and the outside world. Pine trees, oaks and wild underbrush had taken over most of the expansive boundary, but there was one section that Millie knew of that had a clearing.

  One wide enough for a tent, a small campfire and a young boy in need of an escape.

  Millie had long since left the beams from her headlights behind at the road. Now the flashlight in her other hand showed a path of dirt and roots and nothing else. No footsteps that she could see, no signs of someone else walking the same way.

  Not that there was any other sign of life around her either.

  The branches and leaves overlapping above hid the moonlight almost completely. Like the light switch had been flipped off on the world around her. It made the usually comforting sound of cicadas and frogs chirping an eerie one.

  Millie held down a shiver of anticipation and fear as she marched on, hoping that the second she was at her destination, every worry about Fallon would disappear with his smiling face.

  Though she knew it was an impossibly long shot.

  You’re here because you don’t know what to do next, she told herself. Again. And because this was his safe place.

  Millie took one step into the clearing and felt her hopes crash into the underbrush, despite readying herself for it to be empty.

  She still tried. “Fallon?”

  Her call fell flat.