Kaleidoscope

by Kristen Ashley

  “If it’s right, it’s right,” Chace stated quietly, and he would know.

  After his life turned to shit, when it made the turn back, he’d connected with Faye, gave her no space whatsoever from the start and from the first night he had her in his bed, he’d never slept another one without her at his side.

  “Dad’s Dad, Chace. You know him,” Deck replied. “He sticks his nose in anything he can when it has to do with his boys. Or, for that matter, fuckin’ anything.”

  “I know, Deck, but you’re not twenty-three and thinkin’ with your eyes and dick.”

  Now he was talking about Elsbeth, and Deck took no offense. They both knew that was the God’s honest truth with what went down with her, and they both had a bent toward stating it plain.

  “Elsbeth was sweet, when she wasn’t being a grasping bitch, but Emme, pure you,” Chace continued, his eyes drifted to the windows and he muttered, “Fuck, like she was made for you.”

  Deck looked to the windows and watched his girl smile, her dimple appearing as Faye burst out laughing. He saw Buford, flat out on his side by the one foot she had on the floor. Her other leg was tucked under her. She was leaned into Faye, hands up, still gesturing even as Faye laughed.

  Watching her, he couldn’t say he wasn’t thinking with his eyes and his dick. It was just that, this time, they weren’t disengaged from his brain.

  “Right,” Chace stated, and Deck’s eyes went back to him. “Freezin’ my ass off and salivating just watchin’ those chops cook, might as well take this time to fill you in without the women around.”

  He was talking about the case that the task force was still working to put the finishing touches on for the DA.

  “Give it to me,” Deck invited.

  “That crew we brought down, bein’ good. Not associatin’ with each other. Checkin’ in with their bondsmen. Keepin’ their noses clean. Dane McFarland, though, is also keepin’ his head down. Way down. He’s got a brother and sister tied up in that mess, but far’s we can tell, they’ve cut ties.”

  “Glad you’re keepin’ an eye on him, but like I said, he’s a fuckwad creep, Chace, but he’s not the ringleader. His best friend, that dealer, Danny, called the shots,” Deck told him.

  Chace nodded but replied, “I get why you’d think that. But the man McFarland had a meet with that night you searched Emme’s place the night before you were deputized by Kenton was not found for questioning. Nor was he implicated by anything you turned up. Plate I ran from his truck puts him in Carnal. Been by his house a dozen times since then. He’s not at home, boss says he’s on extended leave, family emergency, unknown when he’s comin’ back. That’s fishy, Deck.”

  It was.

  It was also a dead end Deck ran into weeks ago.

  “Nothing led to another party being involved,” Deck reminded him.

  “Seems odd this mysterious guy who’s since disappeared is takin’ a late-night meet with McFarland, don’t you think?” Chace asked.

  “I do. But I also turned over a lot of stones. I don’t know who that guy was, just found nothin’ to tie him with that crew. Also found nothin’ hot on him, no record, no known associations. And last, I did find that he has a family emergency. Mom’s got multiple sclerosis and she isn’t doin’ too good. Maybe he was buyin’ fenced property, somethin’ you’d do during a clandestine meeting, and fencing that shit is likely all the mental capacity McFarland had to give that crew. Buying stolen property isn’t legal, but as it stands, you got no call to get a warrant to search this mysterious guy’s place. He’s a dead end, Chace.”

  “I’m not feelin’ Danny, the dealer, as ringleader,” Chace replied, and Deck felt a moment of unease mostly because he wasn’t certain that was true either.

  McFarland’s best friend, “Danny, the dealer” was a far sight smarter than McFarland. Danny had a jacket that was more than a few pages long but nothing on him the last three years since it took him time to learn how to be smart.

  Danny was also good-looking in that dangerous way that might compel high school boys, who they expected were that crew’s chosen tools, to turn to the dark side.

  But there was something off about him in a way that even high school boys would likely read and therefore not follow it. Danny had danger and danger could be intoxicating. He just had no charisma.

  “You get anything on any kids?” Deck asked.

  “Got three who are possibles, one in Carnal, two in Gnaw Bone. Other teachers say they had unusual bonds with the teacher McFarlands, Dane’s brother and sister. Also said the kids were often in their rooms when class was out, before school or after. Sat down and had chats with those kids at the school with the principals and their parents. They gave us nothing but they did it cagey so I figure they got something. Hopin’ the parents will feel the same and turn at least one to doin’ right. But days are passing, we’ve applied mild pressure, and nothing.”

  “You still got enough to take that crew down,” Deck pointed out. “Direct links to the storage unit where they kept the stolen property. Fingerprints on that property. DNA in the stolen cars that were seen at the houses hit at the times the crimes were committed. Eyewitness reports of either the suspects or their cars in the vicinity of the houses when none of them lives anywhere near, indicating they were casing them prior to hit. This gets closer to trial, Chace, you know the drill. They’ll start pointing fingers and making deals.”

  “Still not feelin’ good that whatever that crew did to induce high school kids to commit felonies is in the wind,” Chace replied.

  “That shit feeds from a source, Chace. You cut off that source, it starves and dies.”

  “Those kids still committed felonies, Deck,” Chace returned.

  “Eyewitnesses saw shadowy figures who they reckoned were young. In other words, we don’t even know any kids beyond the one who got intimate with his dad’s gun was involved.”

  Chace held Deck’s eyes. “I get you. I also got a feeling.”

  Deck knew that feeling. He’d had it. Hell, he had it now with this case.

  “You want me to keep diggin’?” Deck asked.

  “You ever finish an assignment knowin’ in your gut it’s not done?” Chace asked as reply.

  He hadn’t. Never.

  Fuck.

  Deck drew in a deep breath.

  Chace kept talking but did it quietly.

  “Makes me all kinds of happy you found her, man. She’s it for you, written all over her but also stated clear every time her eyes turn to you. Glad you got a woman like that, looks at you, you light her world.”

  Fuck, Deck liked that.

  Chace wasn’t done.

  “I get why you’d focus on her. But this shit is not done, man. You know it. You feel it like me. You just got good things in your life right now, so you don’t have the time to focus on it. You put a stop to that mess as it stood, but there’s more out there that has not come to light. It’s buried deep. So deep, you didn’t even find it. And where there’s deep, there’s dark. Our work is not done.”

  “Got other jobs that pay as I charge, Chace, and shit I need to see to with Emme,” Deck told him, and Chace’s brows drew together.

  “She okay?” he asked.

  “Seems so,” Deck answered. “Just too okay. Too adjusted. Too together for a woman who disconnected from life for years. That shit went down with McFarland, she’s cool with it. She fell in with me…” He shook his head. “She hasn’t had a lot of men, Chace, but she’s let me in, and deep. Time spent together is good. She’s funny. She’s sweet. She pisses me off in a way that I like it. The sex is fuckin’ great. It’s like we’ve been together for years and she’s had practically zero practice with this shit. We talked about what happened to her when she was a kid, she’s totally okay with it.”

  Chace cut in, his tone disbelieving. “Totally okay with it?”

  Deck nodded once. “Completely. Forgives the guy. Even defends him. She came back into my life, I called a friend in Denver to lo
ok into things, just checkin’ up. The man who snatched her, clean. Lives a good life and does it honest. Still, got a bad feelin’ in my gut about that too, so he’s still on him.”

  “What’s your bad feelin’ about this guy?”

  “It isn’t so much about him. It’s about Emme. Things she’s said, I think she’s connected with him since he got out of prison.”

  Chace’s chin jerked back. “No fuckin’ shit?”

  “Had eyes on him and ears on his phone for weeks. Nothin’. Just a feelin’. But I get those, they’re rarely wrong.”

  “She’s doin’ that, that would not be good, man,” Chace noted.

  “You’re tellin’ me somethin’ I know,” Deck replied.

  “Victims of shit like that, especially kids, things can get twisted.”

  This did not make him feel any better.

  “Again, you’re tellin’ me somethin’ I know,” Deck said.

  “You’ve spent time with her parents, you ask them?”

  “Barry brought it up, what happened. He’s not over it. Not even close. I reckon Maeve’s got dark memories too. So unless it’s more than a gut feeling, I don’t want to bring that back or make them worry.”

  Chace nodded. “So, what you’re sayin’ is, lookin’ into somethin’ that important, you don’t have the focus for an ongoing investigation.”

  “What I’m sayin’ is, funds put aside to contract with me were not enough in the first place. It sucks, what was goin’ on. Even so, man, that kid hadn’t taken his own life, wouldn’t have even considered that job. Emme involved, that capped it. But on the face of it, jobs’ done, contract’s done. Far’s the task force is concerned, they got their man, in this case, four men and one woman. I do this, it’s my dime, my time and you know it. Neither the county nor the town have it in their budget to keep me on so I can dig deeper.”

  He drew in another breath, knowing there was something off, that puzzle was not solved and equally knowing, no matter how much he needed to focus on Emme, he’d still never be able to live with that.

  So he made a split-second decision and finished, “But you’re right. I know in my gut we’re missin’ something. So I’ll do it.”

  Chace smiled and murmured, “Freebie.”

  Deck shook his head but it wasn’t in the negative. He had no choice. Chace was concerned and Deck knew that puzzle wasn’t solved. Deck didn’t like unsolved puzzles, the money wasn’t there, so it was a freebie.

  Then he said, “Need those kids’ names, man.”

  “You got it,” Chace replied.

  Emme’s voice came from behind them and they both turned to see just her upper body swung out the open French door, bare feet still firmly planted inside.

  “Well, second priority, calling a cleaning service to clean your couch.” Her eyes moved to Chace, she smiled a sweet smile and her voice got soft. “First priority, getting Faye to the hospital since her water just broke.”

  Deck’s eyes flew to Faye on couch. She looked like she was deep breathing and she had an arm wrapped around her belly.

  She caught their eyes, lifted a hand and waved.

  Chace was on the move and Deck watched Emme, still grinning at Chace, jump out of the way as he ran into the house.

  Emme looked at Deck.

  At the same time, they both smiled.

  * * *

  Five hours later…

  “Jesus, does it take this long?” Deck growled.

  “You’re a genius, honey, you know it does,” Emme replied.

  Deck stopped pacing and looked down at his girl. She was sitting, looking up at him from her phone on which she was playing some game.

  His eyes moved to Sondra Goodknight, Faye’s mother, who was sitting across the hospital waiting room, reading. Her daughter Liza, head back, eyes closed, headphones in, foot tapping, was sitting next to her.

  Sondra’d had three kids. Liza two.

  Then he looked at Silas Goodknight, Faye’s father, who was, like Deck, pacing.

  “Sit down next to me,” Emme invited, bringing his attention back to her to see she was patting the seat beside her.

  Was she insane?

  “I can’t sit,” he told her.

  “Pacing is not going to make the baby come faster,” she pointed out.

  He knew that but his boy was in there. Chace. A man who went through hell and came out the other end walking straight into heaven. This baby solidified the destination of that journey. All Chace Keaton ever wanted he was about to get. A good woman in his bed. A job he was proud of doing. And a family.

  But Chace’s luck had not been the greatest—case in point, to get his happily ever after, he’d had to endure his woman being buried alive.

  “Jacob, honey, please sit,” Emme whispered.

  He focused on her then moved close, crouching down in front of her.

  “They’ve had some bad times,” he shared quietly.

  She leaned close. “Those bad times, tonight, are officially over.”

  “Shit goes south for Chace.”

  Her eyes warmed, she leaned closer and lifted a hand to rest light on his cheek. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “She’s past due.”

  “That happens.”

  “She was buried alive, baby.”

  “Almost two years ago, honey.”

  Deck fell silent.

  Emme moved closer, touched her mouth to his and pulled back an inch before she teased, “I find it fascinating, and indescribably hot, that the most intelligent, most logical man I know totally loses perspective when his best friend’s wife is having a baby.”

  He felt his lips twitch before he replied, “This does not bode well for you, Emme, we find a time when we’re in the same room and you’re pushin’ out my kid.”

  Her eyes flashed, her head jerking and it wasn’t the usual flash of fire he got.

  It was something different.

  Before he could ask, they heard announced, “Faye’s fine. Jacob’s fine. Everything’s good.”

  At hearing Chace’s voice, Deck straightened, feeling Emme come up beside him.

  Chace was smiling huge, relief and joy plain on his face.

  Deck held back, Emme sticking close, while Silas, Sondra and Liza rushed him for handshakes, hugs and happy tears. They received murmured encouragement from Chace to go to Faye’s room and in unison took off like a shot.

  Only then did Deck approach his friend, Emme coming with but this time not sticking close. She was giving the men space.

  Deck did not go for the handshake. He lifted his hand and wrapped his fingers in a firm grip around the side of Chace’s neck.

  They locked eyes.

  “Happy for you, man,” he whispered.

  Chace lifted his hand and reciprocated Deck’s gesture. “Yeah.”

  “Fuckin’ beside myself, Chace,” Deck went on.

  Chace nodded.

  “Bottom of my soul,” Chace stated, voice thick.

  “Same,” Deck replied.

  They held each other’s eyes until Deck rocked Chace back, let go and stepped away. Emme moved in for a hug but she let him go quickly so he could get back to his wife.

  Chace didn’t delay.

  “I’m going to go get coffees,” Emme told him. He felt her fingers curl around his and looked down at her. “Do you want to come with, give them some time and crash the party later?”

  He didn’t answer. He pulled his hand from hers, caught her on either side of her neck and yanked her to him, moving her head at the last second so she hit his chest cheek first.

  Her arms instantly slid around him.

  Holding her cheek to his heart with one hand, Deck curled his other arm around her.

  Both of them held tight.

  * * *

  One hour later…

  It was Deck’s turn and he was hogging the action.

  He just didn’t give a shit.

  “You wanna let my wife hold her new baby?” Chace called from his place st
retched out beside a tired but grinning Faye in her hospital bed.

  But something made him turn his head.

  When he did, he saw Emme, shoulders to the wall, removed from the folks in the room, likely because she didn’t know most of them and those she did she didn’t know well. But she had a grin playing at her mouth and her eyes on him.

  No. Her eyes—warm, sweet, the look in them she gave him when she told him she really liked him but slightly unfocused as if her thoughts were a million miles away—were on Deck holding little Jacob in his arms.

  His blood started running hot.

  “Deck, my son?” Chace prompted, his voice vibrating with humor.

  Such was her concentration, Deck watched Emme’s body jump with surprise and her head swung toward the hospital bed.

  Deck looked there too.

  “My namesake,” he reminded Chace.

  “Yeah. We gave him your name but that doesn’t mean you get to keep him,” Chace replied.

  Faye giggled.

  Deck smiled and started walking toward the bed.

  He was waylaid with a hand on his arm and he looked down to see Emme suddenly close.

  She was looking at Chace and Faye.

  “Two seconds,” she said softly. “I just want a snuggle. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not,” Faye replied.

  Her head tipped back to Deck and she held out her arms.

  Carefully, he transferred little Jacob into them.

  She curled him close, dropped her head to peer at the bundle she carried and murmured, “Hey, little man.”

  When she did, Deck’s blood already hot, he felt his heart start pumping hard, his gut clench, his chest get tight and his throat closed.

  But somehow, none of this felt bad. Instead, it all felt really fucking good.

  Fuck, was that what she felt when she was watching him?

  He didn’t get near as long to watch even though she didn’t take two seconds. She took more like twenty but then she moved toward the bed, bent in and gave Faye her son. But she touched little Jacob’s cheek before she moved away.