“No. Better to wait and see how long it takes for him to hit bottom first.”
My chest tightened. “So this has happened before.”
He hesitated. “A time or two.”
“How long does it last?”
“Usually a few days, but one time a few years ago it lingered for a full week. Ruth was fit to be tied with that one.”
I looked up at him. “Marco, it sounds like Max is an alcoholic.”
He shook his head. “Max has had a shit life, and an even shittier father. Wyatt may have escaped that man’s hold, but Max is trapped in a headlock. Some days he can’t handle the stress and the pressure and he…escapes.”
“Seems like a shitty way to live. He did not look like he was enjoying his little vacay from life.”
“It is a shitty way to live, and he’s doin’ the best he can given the circumstances.” I heard an edge of irritation in his voice.
“And what are those?”
“He was never supposed to live this life. He had plans. Dreams. His mother had set money aside for him to start a business after college graduation. We were going to go to Nashville. He was going to start a live-music tavern, and I was going to help him. But then his daddy came callin’, sayin’ the golden boy had fallen from his throne and the spare was now the heir. Max was just supposed to drop everything and jump.”
“And he did,” I said. “He dropped out of school and came home.”
“That bastard wouldn’t even let him finish his last semester,” Marco said in disgust. “Wouldn’t wait three months. He had to go home now.”
“Why didn’t he say no?” I asked.
Marco released a bitter laugh. “You don’t say no to Bart Drummond, especially if you’re a Drummond boy.”
“But he wasn’t living here. He’d already escaped. He could have finished school and carried on with his plans.”
“And he likely would have if not for one person.”
“Who?”
“I was with Max when he got the call. In a stone-cold voice, he told his father to go to hell. But then Emily came to Knoxville a few days later. She just showed up at the front door to our apartment. She told me that she needed to speak to Max alone and could I please give them some privacy. If it had been Bart, I would have told him to go fuck himself, but it was Emily, so I left.
When I came back an hour later, Max was drunker than shit. Sure, he’s always been a drinker, but that night he got blackout drunk. He was trashed. I asked him what had happened, and he said he didn’t want to talk about it. He was like that for three days, didn’t go to class, didn’t shower or leave the apartment, just drank himself into a stupor. Then I came home from class one afternoon and found him packing up his clothes. When I asked what he was doing, he told me he was goin’ home.”
“What did she say to change his mind?”
“I have no idea. He refused to tell me, but once he’d made the decision to go home, there was no reasoning with him.”
“You came back too,” I said.
“Not until after I graduated a few months later.”
“But you didn’t have to come back,” I said. “You could have escaped.”
“Without Max?” He shook his head and sagged into his crutches. “I meant what I said upstairs. We’re like brothers. More so than his real one.”
Part of me wanted to defend Wyatt, but from what he’d told me himself, the brothers hadn’t spoken for years until Seth’s death.
Marco let out a long sigh. “Hang the sign. We’ve got an investigation to run.”
“So we’re not letting this go?”
“No,” he said, his voice gruff.
“But this isn’t an official investigation. Now that Greta’s gone too, the sheriff’s department might take this situation seriously. Do you want me to call them?”
“No,” he said, so sharply I jumped.
He rubbed his forehead, then added, “Not yet. It’s too soon for them to look into Greta, and we both know they won’t do anything about Lula.”
“Do you think Greta was kidnapped for knowing too much about Lula?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “We need to go see Melody and get more answers.”
I agreed, but I couldn’t help wondering if he was now trying to find Lula and Greta to protect his friend, because I was certain Max was involved in this somehow. It was only a matter of how deep.
Chapter Seventeen
Marco may have gotten Melody’s number, but he didn’t call her before we left the tavern. I didn’t question him—he was the deputy, and he knew her besides. He likely had his reasons. On the way to Ewing, we passed the state park where we’d had our showdown with Carson Purdy. Marco cast a quick glance in that direction and a tiny shudder rippled through his body.
I put a hand on his arm, and he reached his left hand over his chest to cover mine. He only kept it there for a moment, and neither of us said a word, but the unspoken message sunk in deep. We shared a bond after that night. But I wondered if this would break it.
Marco would always be loyal to Max. I was loyal to him too, but Marco and Max shared a deep-seated connection that seemed to transcend man-made laws.
Was that why Marco had gone into law enforcement? To protect Max?
I wouldn’t let myself dwell on the fact that Max had fired me. As drunk as he’d been, Marco might be right: he might not remember firing me. But I would.
A few miles past the state park, Marco turned left on a narrow road that didn’t even have a street sign.
Trees edged up to the sides of the road, and its gravel shoulder couldn’t be wider than about six inches. We were out in the middle of nowhere, but then again, everywhere out here felt like the middle of nowhere.
After we’d driven about a half mile and only passed three houses, I asked, “How’d you know how to get here without an address?”
“Oh, Melody Hightower’s been on my radar for a while now. I didn’t have her phone number, though, so it seemed like a good excuse to get it from Angie.”
I was about to ask why he was aware of her, but he’d just pulled up to a rusted mobile home nestled in a clearing in the trees. A chicken coop sat next to the house, surrounded by thin wire, and over a dozen chickens squawked at us as we got out of the truck. The entire yard was a giant mud bath.
Why hadn’t I thought to bring my snow boots? When I opened the door and stepped down, my foot sank a good inch. Leaning into the hood of the Explorer, I made my way to the front of the vehicle. Marco was having trouble finding purchase with his crutches as he tried to get to the front porch.
I was about to call him back, worried he’d fall and hurt his leg even more, when the front door opened. A woman wearing a pink fuzzy robe and slippers appeared in the opening, pointing a shotgun in our direction.
“What are you doing on my land?” she called out in a scratchy voice that sounded like it should have belonged to someone who’d smoked for thirty years. Her short blonde hair was sticking up every which way, and she looked about as far from the collected, polished Greta as a person could get.
“Melody,” Marco called out, lifting his hands up to the side of his head. “It’s me. Marco Roland.”
She frowned and squinted at him. I got the impression she needed glasses.
“What are you doin’ here, Marco?” She sounded leery, and perhaps with just cause—if she knew his name, she likely also knew he was a deputy sheriff, and she had the look of a woman who liked to skirt the law.
No wonder Marco knew where she lived.
“I’m here to ask you about Greta. Put your gun away.”
She seemed to consider his request, but it didn’t stop her from walking out onto the porch and resting the barrel of the gun on her shoulder. A medium-sized golden dog slipped out of the door and stood by her side, the hair on its back rump standing on end. It released a low growl.
“Easy, Critter,” she murmured.
Critter was a forty- to fifty-pound mutt tha
t looked like a Frankenstein that had been given the worst attributes of several breeds—an underbite, short golden hair, and a four-inch-long tail with a tuft of hair on the end. Its head looked disproportionately small, and its back legs seemed longer than the front.
“Where’s your uniform?” Melody asked. “And who’s she?”
“I’m not here on official business,” he said, taking a step closer. His crutch slid and he struggled to maintain his balance. “And this here’s Carly. She’s Max’s new waitress, fillin’ in for Lula while she’s gone.”
She looked down her nose at me. Literally. But her gaze seemed unfocused. Was she high? “Greta said Lula came back.”
“She did, but she’s gone again,” Marco said. “We’re tryin’ to find her.”
“What’s that got to do with Greta?”
“We’re not sure,” Marco said. “Can we come inside and talk?”
Melody’s face scrunched as she considered his request. Then she said, “No. Right here suits me just fine.”
It suited me too. I wasn’t sure I could make it the rest of the way to the porch without falling on my face, and Marco wouldn’t fare much better. Then there was the fact that I just plain didn’t trust her. There was no telling what she’d do to us inside.
Marco seemed to take her answer in stride. “I heard that Greta never came home last night. Is that unusual?”
“Not when she has a man,” Melody said, resting her hand on the porch railing. The dog sniffed at her slipper, and she gave him a kick.
I grimaced as the dog let out a yelp and skittered a couple of feet behind her.
Marco ignored the dog and asked, “Does Greta have a man right now?”
“Nope.”
“Any idea where she could be?” I asked.
She turned her hardened gaze on me. “Who are you again?”
“Carly. Carly Moore.” I considered moving closer to offer my hand for a shake, but I didn’t think falling on my butt would make a good impression. Besides, she didn’t seem the mannerly type.
“Well, Carly Moore, I’m not sure why it’s any of your business where my sister is.”
“Carly’s helpin’ me out,” Marco said, shooting me a look that said, Let me handle this. When he turned back to Melody, he said, “Has Greta felt threatened?”
That got Melody’s attention. “How do you mean?”
“Has she said anything about someone watchin’ her?” Marco asked. “Or someone warnin’ her to be quiet or threatening to hurt her?”
“Nope.”
“Was Greta excited about Lula bein’ back?” I asked.
Marco shot me a dirty look again.
“She ain’t got many friends,” Melody said. “Anyone smart moves on from this godforsaken place.”
“Why hasn’t Greta moved on?” I asked.
Melody was silent for a moment. “She stayed to help me. I got me a pack of kids and my man ran off. She helps bring in money.”
As if on cue, a little boy’s dirty face appeared between two curtains in the window.
“So she was happy to have her friend back?” I asked.
“Lula told her she was stickin’ around for a while, but Greta was worried her ex would run her off again.”
“Her ex?” I asked trying not to sound too excited at the prospect of getting a new piece of information. “Do you know who that is?”
She shook her head. “Shoot, Greta doesn’t know him from Adam. She only knows he’s some married bigwig. But Lula stopped seeing him a while back, and then someone came around the café last week, asking about Lula.”
“Wait,” I said, “if she didn’t know who Lula was seeing, then how did she know it was Lula’s ex?”
“Because it weren’t Lula’s ex,” Melody said as though I was too stupid to understand. “It was someone askin’ on her ex’s behalf.”
Why hadn’t Greta shared that information? “Did she know who the messenger was?”
“She said he worked up in Ewing.”
So she knew something about him. Was that because she’d recognized him, or had he introduced himself?
“Did she say where?” Marco asked.
She hesitated, then shook her head. “No.”
Marco leaned into his right crutch, and he seemed to be having trouble keeping his balance in the slippery mud. “Melody, do you have a photo of Greta I can show around?”
For the first time, Melody looked worried. “Show around where?”
“I’m not sure yet, but it could prove helpful.”
“Do you think something bad’s happened to her?” she asked, coming down a step.
“I don’t know,” Marco said. “You might be a better judge of that. You don’t seem all that worried. If she doesn’t have a boyfriend, where did you think she was last night?”
Melody pressed her lips together, then said, “I’ll get you that picture.”
She spun around and went into the house, but Critter stayed in place.
Marco tipped his head toward me and said in a hushed tone, “Something’s off here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why isn’t she worried? And why didn’t she answer when you asked where she thinks Greta might be?”
“She either knows where Greta is or she knows who intercepted her.”
“You mean took her,” I whispered.
He made a face. “I’m hoping she’s shacked up with an ex somewhere, but I suspect that’s wishful thinking. Still, I’m gonna ask her about Greta’s exes just in case.”
“Good idea.”
Melody came back a few minutes later, holding on to a photograph. “I found one.”
She went to the bottom of the steps and held it out to us, making it obvious we were going to have to wade through the mud to get it—meaning, I would wade through the mud to get it.
As I slogged my way over, Marco asked, “While we’re here, can you give me the names and numbers of some of Greta’s ex-boyfriends?”
She pulled the folded photo back as I tried to reach for it. “Why?”
“We’re hopin’ to find her, so we’re gonna ask around.”
She held the photo to her chest and narrowed her eyes. “You need to stay away from Tim Hines. That man is trouble.”
“So Tim Hines is one of her exes?” Marco asked. “When did they break up?”
“About three months ago. She was sleeping with another guy, but it didn’t work out.”
“Do you have a name for the other guy?”
“Nah, she said it was a one-time thing, but based on the way she moped around, I could tell it was more than that for her.”
Was she talking about Max?
“Did she break up with Tim Hines because of the other guy?” Marco asked.
“Nah, she broke up with him because he’s an asshole, but he always suspected she moved on to someone else. He couldn’t imagine she’d prefer to be sleepin’ alone than dealin’ with his bullshit.”
“How long was she with Tim?” Marco asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, sounding frustrated. “Less than a year, I guess. Maybe nine months?”
“Did she live with him?” Marco asked.
“Not at first. She was livin’ with me, helpin’ with the kids, but then she moved in with him after she and me had a fight. It happened around the end of the school year because she weren’t here to fix the lunches for the kids for the last-day-of-school picnic. But she came back from time to time, usually with some kind of bruises on her arms and once on her face. One time after she came back—toward the end of the summer—she had these awful bruises on her back, like someone had hit her with something long and skinny.”
“Like a belt,” Marco said in a tight voice.
Melody lifted her hand to her chin with a look of deep concentration. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”
“Did she go back to him after that?”
“She did, but she was back about a week later, sportin’ a nasty black eye. She admitted he’d hit her, and said she was
done bein’ his punchin’ bag.”
“How’d he take that news?” Marco asked.
“Not well. He came over nearly every night, trying to get her to come out, but he gave up after a week or two.”
“Did he try to break in or become violent?”
“Nah,” she said. “I mean, he yelled plenty, and sometimes he’d come here drunk and throw things at the trailer. He broke that there window,” she said, pointing to the boarded window to her right. “But he never tried to force his way in. And after a few hours, he eventually left.”
“How many times do you think he came over?” Marco asked.
“I don’t know. Seven? Ten? Enough to be annoying as shit, especially after he broke the window. I told Greta she either needed to tell him to go away or go back to him, because I was getting tired of his shit.”
What a lovely sister.
“Did she confront him?” Marco asked.
“I don’t know, but she said she’d take care of it, and he only came back one time after that.”
I couldn’t help wondering what had convinced him to stop. Given the expression on Marco’s face, he was wondering the same thing.
“Did he pester her at work?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” she said, waving the photo. “Old Mr. Watson wouldn’t put up with that shit. He even watched her in the parking lot to make sure Tim didn’t bother her comin’ and goin’ from her car.”
Marco nodded and seemed to be considering what she’d told us.
“But we ain’t heard hide nor hair of Tim in months. Since mid-August or so. What’s he got to do with any of this?”
Marco ignored her question. “You’re sure Greta wasn’t seein’ anyone else over the last year? Just Tim and the one-time guy? Was there someone new recently? Someone who could have made Tim jealous?”
“No one I know about, but she ain’t one to share her life and her feelings,” she said, emphasizing the last part with derision. “You know?”
Marco looked her dead in the eye, his body stiff. “Yeah. I know.”
“You think she took off?” Melody asked. “I’m goin’ out tonight, and she was supposed to watch the kids.”
“Honestly, Melody,” Marco said in a tone drier than burnt toast, “I have no earthly idea.”
Her Scream in the Silence: Carly Moore #2 Page 17