by Jill Sanders
By the time Sawyer walked out of the room, he was pretty sure everyone on the force hated him.
The rest of the day he and Carson drove around town and answered petty calls—shoplifting at the local grocery store, high school kids throwing rocks at the cars on the highway, and even a woman who needed help breaking into her car after locking her keys and her ancient, blind Chihuahua in her sedan at the gas station.
Half an hour before he was due to clock out for the evening, he and Carson were called into the chief’s office.
When they stepped in, the chief got up from his desk and shut the door behind them. Whatever it was, it was serious.
“We’ve received a call from the state PD. A small plane carrying one of our elite townsmen has gone down over the Atlantic coastline. We don’t have much detail at this time, but”—the chief handed Sawyer a piece of paper— “they’re searching. We’ll need to inform the wife.”
Sawyer read the printout.
Isaac Clayton 24 years old. Lawyer for Clayton Law firm, New York, NY.
Rose Clayton 24 years old. Artist. Wife.
21 Sorrow Cove Bend, Twisted Rock, New York.
“Have they found anything?” Sawyer asked, handing the printout to Carson, who immediately sighed and shook his head.
“Not yet. The plane’s tracking device last had him in the eye of a pretty bad storm over the Atlantic. He’s supposed to be a pretty good pilot, but… these things happen. There was no mayday call and he maintained radio silence until the plane disappeared. They’re waiting for clear weather to send the search planes out but have boats out searching now.” The chief walked over and sat down. “The Clayton family has lived in these parts for a while now. His old man has donated more money to our little town than I’ll make in my lifetime. So, this is a priority and I want my best officers knocking on the woman’s door. She needs to be handled with kid gloves.” The chief’s eyes turned to his. “Kid gloves. Got it?”
Sawyer nodded. “We’ll drive out there now.”
He’d driven by the massive mansion called Stoneport Manor—named because of an old stone sign with faded letters that sat at the end of the long driveway—more times than he could count, as it was only a mile down the road from his own place. They’d also been called out to her nearest neighbor’s house, which sat across the street from Rose’s place, a few times. Boone Schneller was a drunk, a troublemaker, and a downright pain in the ass. The man stockpiled weapons and shot at anything that crossed onto his land.
As Carson pulled the patrol car through the iron gates, Sawyer whistled.
“Yeah, I would’ve thought that someone would tear this place down rather than move in,” Carson remarked. “It’s been empty for as long as I can remember. I think the last residents were the André family.” He glanced over at him as he parked behind a BMW SUV. “Three generations ago.” Carson leaned forward to look out the car window at the massive house, then he turned towards him. “I’ve known Rose and Isaac since they were kids. Damned if I know how to handle this.”
Sawyer shook his head. “There’s no easy way. Have you had to perform a death notification before?”
“Nope. Well, once, but they knew he was going. Cancer. The man was as old as the hills.” Carson sighed and looked up at the massive mansion again. “Looks like she’s waiting to welcome him home.” He nodded, and Sawyer followed his gaze.
Sure enough, the downstairs of the house was lit up like a beacon in the darkness as the rain continued to fall steadily. Smoke billowed out of the chimney and he could vaguely smell some sort of meat cooking in the wind that blew the rain sideways towards the car windows.
“Better get it over with,” he suggested.
“I’ll let you take the lead on this. She’s about your age, sweet girl. I knew her father really well,” Carson added.
“Knew?” he asked before getting out.
“Her dad was on the force. Died in a shootout long before she was old enough to remember him. Her mother remarried and moved with her new husband to Pittsburgh to be closer to her older sister and her kids.”
He reached for the door handle. They made their way quickly to the cover of the front porch. Removing his hat, Sawyer rang the doorbell and was a little surprised when it opened quickly.
There was a soft glow behind the woman. Sawyer’s breath instantly caught at her beauty. The red dress fit her thin body perfectly, its low cut showcasing the most perfect pair of breasts he’d ever seen. Her blonde hair was tied up in a low loose bun at the base of her neck. Her blue eyes searched his.
A memory surfaced quickly of a younger girl with blonde hair and steel blue eyes. She wore a bright red swimsuit. He was at the local swimming pool the first summer he’d visited his grandfather, which meant he must have been eleven or twelve. The girl had just jumped off the diving board when he finally worked up enough nerve to approach her.
He’d admired the way she moved in the water, so naturally, so smooth. Driven by hormones, he’d made his way across the pool to talk to her.
She’d been laughing with a blond-haired boy as she sat along the side of the pool.
Sawyer sat next to her on the ledge of the pool and smiled over at her.
“Great dive,” he’d said, kicking himself for not thinking of something better to say to her.
The blond-haired boy splashed water at him and told him to get lost.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Sawyer said, his eyes still glued to the girl’s face.
“She’s with me.” The boy had moved up to sit next to the girl on the opposite side. The girl turned towards him.
“Sorry, I’m with him.” She had smiled at him and he’d felt his heart break for the first time in his life.
Shaking off the memory, he opened his mouth to speak, but his partner beat him to it.
“Evening, Rose.” Carson stepped into the light of the porch. “This is my new partner, Sawyer. May we come in?” he asked.
The woman’s blue eyes darted between them.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked. Her voice was low and smooth, but he could hear the concern.
“It’s best if we come in,” he said gently. Her eyes moved back to his and he could tell she saw the sorrow in them. He hated this part of the job, telling someone their loved ones wouldn’t be home for dinner, or ever. It was harder than anything he’d ever done before, even being shot at.
She moved back, and, without a word, they stepped into the foyer. The place was bigger than he’d imagined. It needed a lot of work, but he was surprised at how solid it felt.
“Rose, it might be best if we talk in there.” His partner nodded towards a room with a fireplace.
They followed her into the warm room, which was lit by the glow of the fireplace and candles set on a table full of wonderful-smelling food. The sight of the table she’d set for her husband’s homecoming caused an ache to spread in his chest. Here is what he’d always dreamed of having with Ann, he thought somewhere in the back of his mind.
“Why don’t you—” Carson started saying as he motioned towards the sofa.
“Just spit it out.” The woman straightened her shoulders and braced herself. Sawyer could see in her eyes that she had guessed something bad was coming.
Setting down his hat, he moved closer to her, just in case she passed out.
“We’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news.” He took a deep breath. “Your husband’s plane disappeared this afternoon somewhere over the Atlantic coast. There’s a search party out looking…”
He didn’t make it any further before the woman started slipping. Reaching out, he easily caught her and gently picked her up.
“Set her down here.” Carson motioned towards the sofa. “I’ll go get her a glass of water.” He disappeared into the back hallway.
Sawyer held onto the woman for a moment. She was smaller than she looked and weighed next to nothing. Her dark lashes lay on her pale cheeks and his eyes moved to her red lips as he laid her gently down
on the leather cushions.
“Here.” Carson handed him a glass of water. He set it down on the table as he gently nudged the woman to wake up.
When her blue eyes opened, he saw raw and pure sorrow fill them as realization struck her. He vowed then and there that he would someday be loved half as much as this woman had loved her husband.
Three
Life goes on… almost one year later…
The hardest part about losing Isaac was the looks that everyone gave her whenever she went into town. She’d filled the lonely days and nights by throwing herself into work on the house or into her art, and she’d managed to subdue the ache that sleeping alone had caused. But seeing her friends and the people she’d known her entire life look at her with pity had almost been too much to bear.
Here it was, a week before the year anniversary and she was still treated as if Isaac had just died yesterday. The way people talked to her brought up the old hurts again and again, like pouring lemon juice on a paper cut. She winced inwardly every time someone asked, “How are you doing?” in that tone that really said, “Your husband is dead, and I feel sorry for you.”
It drove her mad. It was one of the reasons she found herself going into town less often and having things delivered to the house instead.
She’d taken a few calls from Sean, Isaac’s father, but for the most part, up until this point the man was giving her a cold shoulder. His calls were short and to the point, all business. Isaac’s will had been signed months after their marriage and was solid since Sean had witnessed the signing himself. All assets had been quickly and neatly transferred into her name after the standard waiting period when a person goes missing was up. In this case, Sean had filed for the certificate of death himself. He’d conveyed his reasoning to her via a very short phone conversation three months after Isaac’s disappearance.
“I’ve filed for a certificate of death for Isaac,” Sean had said briefly after she’d answered the phone. She noted that he hadn’t even asked how she was doing.
“You…” she’d stammered.
“It’s important for us for closure to tie up any loose ends. This will clear the way for the firm to execute Isaac’s will quickly.”
“His…” At that point she hadn’t even thought about money.
“I know this is difficult on you, which is why I’ve moved forward on your behalf. You should see the documents come via currier soon, and the bulk of Isaac’s life insurance will be automatically deposited into your account. If you have any questions, you know how to reach me.”
She had swallowed and closed her eyes as more tears rolled down her cheek.
“For what it’s worth…” Sean’s voice had softened and changed. “I couldn’t have asked for a better daughter-in-law. Isaac truly loved you.”
When the line had gone dead, she’d lain there on the hardwood floor and cried until morning.
For those first three months after Isaac’s death, all work on the large manor had stopped. She’d called the foreman and told him not to bother since she was pretty sure she was going to sell the place and move out of the drafty old mansion.
Family came and went. Not even Isaac’s father stayed long after Isaac’s funeral. Fake funeral is how she thought of it since they had buried an empty coffin.
Sean Clayton had been his normal charming self during the entire ordeal. He’d always presented himself as if an audience was in the wings waiting to applaud or boo at a moment’s notice. She’d brushed it off most of the time since Isaac had assured her that he was very important and had to uphold his reputation for some of his more important clients. But she would have liked to have had a private moment alone with the man at the funeral, if just to feel some sort of closure in the mess that was her life.
At first, she’d been so stuck in depression that she’d been on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She never left the house, didn’t see anyone, and had even turned Hunter away when he’d showed up to visit her. Then, one evening, she’d had a wakeup call when Officer Sawyer had stopped by. He claimed that he’d driven by the place and, seeing all the lights off, had stopped in to see if she was okay.
He had stood on her doorstep, his hat in his hands, much like he’d done the night he’d come to tell her Isaac had disappeared. The memory had flooded her mind and she’d been in a haze, so much so that she’d hesitated in asking him inside. Then she had remembered that the lights were off because the fuse had flipped, and she hadn’t wanted to go down to the basement to fix it herself.
She’d invited him in and had instantly felt embarrassed at the state of the house. She’d taken to sleeping on the sofa next to the fireplace, and her blankets and pillows were piled up on the cushions. There were dishes, used tissues, and clothing strewn all over the room. She hadn’t cared one bit until Sawyer had stepped into her home.
Embarrassment hit her hard and fast. What had she become? She’d allowed herself to sink into the worst kind of depression.
Even Hunter had stopped coming around after she’d yelled at him when he’d complained that there was no food in her refrigerator and that she was starving herself to death. Her brother had tried to talk her out of her depression by bringing her flowers and food, but she’d just let the flowers die and the food had all spoiled when she didn’t eat it.
Sawyer walked in that night and acted like nothing was wrong as he chatted and avoided all her dirty clothes. He crouched down to stir the fire and added another log to the dying embers. She hadn’t even realized she’d been cold until he gently set a sweater over her shoulders.
“You’d better wear socks or slippers. This old floor is probably cold.” He’d nodded to her bare feet. She looked down at them and gasped at the fact that she hadn’t painted her toenails since the day before Isaac had crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. Her toenails were long and colorless, and she quickly found a pair of socks and pulled them. “I’ll go down and check the fuse box if you show me the way.”
She walked towards the basement door and opened it. A burst of cold air rushed up the dark stairs and he turned towards her.
“Is there an open window down there?” he asked.
“No.” She frowned, trying to remember what the basement looked like. She hadn’t left the main floor of the house since the days following Isaac’s funeral. That thought had tears slipping down her cheeks.
“Hey.” Sawyer had touched her shoulder lightly. “It’s okay, I’ll check it all out while I’m down there,” he’d assured her before disappearing into the darkness.
She turned and glanced around while she waited for him to return. It was as if she were opening her eyes for the first time in months.
The place was a disaster. When she spotted a pair of silky underwear that Isaac had purchased for her on their honeymoon sitting on the floor by the fireplace, where Sawyer had just been, she gasped and rushed over to pick them up. Tucking them into the pocket of her sweater, she moved around and quickly tried to hide the mess before he came back upstairs.
She happened to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the fireplace and gasped again.
She’d lost weight, almost ten pounds, she’d wager. Her once shiny hair was tied in a ragged knot on the top of her head and crazy wisps hung in every direction. Her face was bare of any makeup, and the dark rings under her eyes were so blue, she swiped at them, thinking that it was dirt.
Pulling the clip from her hair, she redid the bun to the base of her neck and straightened her sweater to cover herself more. No wondered he’d placed the sweater over her shoulders. She’d only been wearing a thin white camisole and a pair of Isaac’s pajama bottoms. She had, at one point, worn a couple of his dress shirts, but now they were piled on the sofa. She was using them as a pillow and burying her face in them each night, so she could be surrounded by his scent.
The lights flickered and suddenly the power was back on in the house. She groaned as the light showed her just how far she’d slipped.
It looked worse in the
light, and she immediately wished for the darkness again and closed her eyes.
A pair of strong hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her against a hard chest. For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine it was Isaac who held her so close and so gently. Then Sawyer spoke and broke the fantasy.
“Easy, it’s not as bad as it looks.” His voice was lower than Isaac’s had been. His chest reverberated with each word spoken. It was a soothing sound, but it disturbed her just the same. She pulled away and wrapped her arms around herself.
“I hadn’t realized…” She turned to him. “Thank you.” Her chin rose, and she straightened her shoulders. “I appreciate you fixing the power.”
“It was no problem.” His green eyes ran over her and she could tell he wanted to say more, but instead, he swallowed. “There’s a broken window in the basement you might want the workers to see too soon.”
“Thank you, I’ll call them tomorrow about it.” She mentally berated herself for stopping all the work on the place. Isaac wouldn’t have wanted her to give up on the place or herself. She made a move towards the door and he picked up his hat and followed. She closed her eyes when she noticed the silk bra that went with the underwear she’d stuffed in her pocket sitting underneath it.
His eyes remained on the red bra, then slowly moved up to her eyes. She could tell he was avoiding lowering his eyes to where her nipples poked through the thin sweater she wore over the silk camisole.
“You might want to dress a little warmer until they get your heat back up and running. Winter is still officially here, and I’d hate for you to catch a cold,” he said smoothly.