It shouldn’t surprise Gray. It was Josh’s style to go off unarmed without thinking about what he was doing, and because of his impulsiveness, Courtney had probably gone deeper into hiding.
Gray got it though. If Courtney was involved, then he couldn’t report the incident. Right or wrong, Josh would want to leave Halsey out of it. “Well, hel—”
“Before he passed out, he asked me not to call 9-1-1. He begged me to patch him up myself and leave the emergency people out of it.” Another heavy pause. “I don’t know what’s going on out here, but I have a real bad feeling that you should leave the Sheriff’s Department out of this.” Ashley had apparently drawn the same conclusion he had. “I can’t handle this by myself, Gray. I need you to come out here and help me.”
No, he’d covered too many things up for too people too many times. He couldn’t add one more secret to his list. Josh needed more help than he or Ashley could give him, and he couldn’t fix Josh’s mess for him. Not this time.
“If he’s bleeding internally, he needs a doctor.”
“But—”
“Call Phelps. Tell him what’s going on.”
“I can’t do that. Josh hates him, and he thinks Josh is... Never mind what he thinks about Josh. I can’t involve him.”
He sighed. Ashley was obviously having an affair with her boss. Could the situation get any worse? “Do you want him to bleed to death? Suck it up and do what’s right. If you don’t want to call 9-1-1, at least take him to the clinic and beg Phelps to help you.” He backed out of the parking spot with his phone still next to his ear. “I’m on my way. I’ll help you get him to the clinic. Just get Phelps to meet us there. Okay?”
A long pause. “Okay.”
The connection dropped and he slung the phone onto the passenger seat next to him. He had no other choice. This time he had to tell Halsey what was going on. He picked up the phone again and punched the speed dial for the sheriff’s private number.
****
Josh groaned as a jab of pain shot through him again. If he didn’t have a fractured rib, then something else was broken inside his chest. He’d heard Ashley tell someone on the phone that she feared he was bleeding internally, and he passed out before he could figure with whom she was speaking. He hoped he wasn’t bleeding to death. He hoped she wasn’t taking him to the hospital. But he also hoped she was getting him medical help. He could easily imagine every one of his internal organs shattered and crying out in pain. His whole torso screamed with every bump.
She had to have gotten help because he was certain she wasn’t driving the speeding car. His head rested in her lap and that was the only part of him that was comfortable, despite the pounding headache. Somehow someone had put him into the back seat of a sedan, and he had curled up in the fetal position, protecting his injured upper body.
He hoped to God she hadn’t called Phelps. The last thing he wanted was that low-life scumbag touching him.
His mouth moved, but nothing came out.
“He’s in love with you, you know.” Gray’s distorted voice came from the front seat.
Was he driving the car? Gray instead of Phelps. A little better, but not much.
Ashley laughed. “Really? Are you sure? I think he hates both of us.”
“He could never hate you, Ashley.”
He could never hate Gray either. Didn’t he know that?
“I don’t know about that, Gray. He thinks I’m in love with you.”
Quiet for a painful minute. What would Gray say to that?
“Why would he think that? You’ve never felt that way about me, even when I wanted you to.”
She shifted a little. Maybe she had become uncomfortable with the difficult conversation that she’d started. Ashley dove into things sometimes and then regretted her impulse.
“Did you ever want me to love you, Gray?” Her tone implied she thought he was teasing.
“Humph. I thought so once upon a time, a long time ago.”
No, Gray wasn’t joking.
“Before Caroline?”
“Before Jeremy.”
“Did Josh know that?” Her question was uttered so quietly he almost didn’t hear her.
At first, Josh thought Gray had replied and he hadn’t heard him, but then Gray’s voice seemed to echo around the car. “I would have never come between the two of you. Not on purpose. He was my friend. We’d still be friends if it weren’t—”
“If it weren’t for me.”
“No, we’d still be friends if it weren’t for Jeremy Haskins. Our secret ruined my relationship with him. And it ruined my relationship with you. Things have never been the same since.”
“Maybe you should have left me to take care of my own problem. You should have reported it. Maybe we wouldn’t have gone through all this mess.”
Gray didn’t respond, but his non-answer said more than any reply he could have made.
“Why do you think he drinks, Ashley?”
The car stopped with a jerk followed by the click and ratchet of the gear shifting into park.
She made a disgruntled sound. Obviously a question she wasn’t prepared to answer. The rush of a deep intake of breath and then a slow exhale brushed the hair on the top of Josh’s head.
“Because he broke you and Caroline up.”
He cringed. Hadn’t she heard a word he’d said? He had nothing to do with Gray and Caroline’s bust up. He had told her that. Why was she stubbornly holding to her misconceptions?
“No, he didn’t, Ash. My marriage failed without his help. Caroline knew we had a secret that we weren’t sharing with her. She felt left out...on the outside of our marriage looking in. Can you imagine how awful it must have been to know I had a loyalty to another woman that I couldn’t break and I couldn’t trust her enough to share it with her?” Gray snorted with apparent derision. “I don’t blame her for leaving.”
“I heard she was back in town.”
Gray laughed without mirth. “That story has been going around for months. Caroline is not dead.”
“No, Gray. I heard she was back in town. Alive.”
No reply for a whole minute. “Well, if she is I haven’t seen her. I think that’s just talk.”
She twisted, probably to look out the window, and the movement nearly killed Josh. He groaned in agony.
“What’s Halsey doing here?”
“I called him.” Gray didn’t sound like he was willing to argue or negotiate. He had used his I made a decision and I’m sticking to it tone.
“Why?” Ashley’s voice reeked of panic.
“Because I can’t add one more thing to my list of secrets. I’m full up. As it is, I’m having a hard time sleeping at night. I’m not covering for Josh. He’s gonna have to do some explaining.”
“Do you think it’s wise to push it with him?” No response for a moment. “I mean, he knows our secret now.”
That hurt Josh as badly as if Ashley had stabbed him with a knife. Did she really believe he’d sink so low as to tell their secret? It wasn’t his to tell. He was awake enough to be aware of everything around him, but he wouldn’t let on to them he’d heard their conversation.
Ashley was wrong. He didn’t drink because he thought he’d busted up Gray and Caroline. He drank because Ashley believed it, and what she thought of him meant more to him than anything else in the world.
A car door creaked open.
“You gonna tell me what this is about, Grayson?” Halsey’s booming voice pounded his aching head. The boss didn’t sound happy.
“Josh got beat up again.”
The plain unadorned truth sounded so raw.
Halsey grumbled something Josh couldn’t make out. “Well, it wasn’t Jared Crenshaw this time, was it? Who did it?”
Josh clenched his jaws tighter to keep from exploding. How did the old man know about that? Had Gray told him that too?
Gray sucked in a ragged breath. “I don’t know.”
“Grayson—”
“No, Sheriff, I really d
on’t know this time. Yeah, I knew about the time Jared beat him up, and I’m sorry we didn’t tell you about that. I agree. There have been too many secrets. But this time...this time, I told you because I’m tired of...”
That was almost a confession. Did Halsey have nothing to say to that?
“How did you know Jared beat him up?” Gray’s voice sounded strained.
“Lucy Kimbrough told me about it. She said she saw the whole thing.”
Now, that wasn’t true. How did Lucy know about it? He must have told her when... He groaned. He’d come to one night with his arm around her...in her bed. Had he told her his secrets while he was drunk?
“Is he coming around?” Halsey’s bass voice shook the whole car.
“Let’s get him inside.” Phelps’s irritating authoritarian baritone broke into his consciousness.
Ashley had gotten Josh medical help outside the hospital. But Terrance Phelps? Just what Josh hadn’t wanted. Just what he’d asked her not to do.
“What happened to him, Ashley? Did one of his girlfriends beat him up again?”
“Shut up, Terrance.”
A door opened and banged against a wall. Hard. The clunk clunk of wheels on uneven pavement. Rough hands dragging him out of the car and depositing him on a hard surface. No doubt they had moved him onto a gurney.
“I can’t stay.” Gray’s tired voice echoed around the car.
“Gray, you can’t leave me with this.” Ashley didn’t sound pretty when she whined.
“I’m sorry. I have to go. Someone found Jared’s truck.”
“Well, now maybe we’ll get some answers.” Halsey’s observation rattled all of Josh’s bones.
Not good. Not good at all. He obviously hadn’t hidden it well enough. When Tori Downing processed it, she’d find his fingerprints all over it.
Chapter Fourteen
Early Tuesday morning, thunderclouds rolled and bunched together in the southwest. Gray shivered from the sudden drop in temperature and not just from the climate. The weather seemed as dark and cold as Tori’s mood. Whatever had pissed her off at Victoria House still had her panties in a twist.
He wasn’t in the mood to untwist them.
It seemed like forever before he located the site where the truck had been found. The old Chevy was stuck in a ravine down a steep embankment. He pulled onto the shoulder of a seldom-used county road that skirted the far end of Ashley Ridge, trained his high beam lights downhill, and killed the engine before exiting the car.
He headed toward Jared’s truck without glancing back to see if Tori followed. If he kept moving, maybe he wouldn’t think too much about how it stung for her to still be mad at him. If she was going to give him the silent treatment, he wasn’t going to give her any satisfaction by trying to break her out of it. He didn’t like being punished for something... Well, he had lied to protect her, but he still didn’t get why that made her so mad.
A tiny bit of conscience nagged him, telling him he ought to rethink his position on the subject, but he stubbornly refused to consider the possibility he might be wrong.
She followed him down the path cut through the woods by the truck, grumbling under her breath with every step. He didn’t care what she was fussing about. She was a big girl. She could take care of herself and get down the hill without his help.
Their feet crunched loose rocks and broken limbs from the damaged landscape. He slid a little and spread his arms to maintain his balance. As he came to within ten feet of the truck, the first splat of the rainstorm plopped onto his head, followed closely by a gust of rain-laden wind. He shook to dislodge the droplets that clung to his hair and glanced over his shoulder to see if Tori was keeping up.
Sparkling drops of water clung to her chestnut hair and glittered like jewels in the bright glow of the car headlamps. An appealing picture. He whipped his head back around before she noticed him noticing.
He dug his heels into the dirt and surveyed the path the truck had ripped through the forest. Small rocks tumbled past him. The sound of Tori’s athletic shoes sliding in the loose soil clattered behind him. She slid to a stop beside him, so close he could feel her heat. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Being near her wasn’t going to be easy.
“Couldn’t we do this after the sun came up?”
He winced. Her tone nearly chopped him in half. “Do you think the rain is going to wait until it’s convenient for us?”
She muttered something he couldn’t make out. “Who called it in?”
“Matt Brown. He hunts along the ridge. When he told her the plate number, Myrtle decided she had better call me first, and I’m glad she did. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else messing with the truck before we had a chance to look at it.”
She seemed to accept his explanation and pointed toward the ground beneath them. “Shattered glass.”
He nodded. “Looks like the windshield busted.”
Dark gray clouds scudded against a darker background.
Her face turned skyward. “We’d better get it processed quickly before the storm breaks.” She moved around him, taking her time and placing her feet carefully. “It traveled.”
“A good hundred or more feet. How fast do you think it was going?”
“Judging by the damage to the landscape and considering the yardage, pretty fast. Fifty-five, maybe sixty miles an hour. Plowed right through some thick foliage.”
The crumpled hood testified to a hard and fast impact.
“I can’t believe that whoever was driving this survived. Look.”
He pointed at a dent with some black paint flecks still clinging to the mutilated metal. Lucy’s truck wasn’t black. “It looks like another car might have collided with the rear bumper.” He shook his head. “It’s hard to tell though. Crenshaw’s truck was a wreck already. That could have happened last week or last month or even last year.”
Just as he made his evaluation, the clouds burst and bombarded them with a deluge the likes of which Arkansas hadn’t seen in three years. Lightning streaked the sky over Ashley Ridge. He counted to ten before the boom of thunder followed. The storm was moving quickly. It wouldn’t be long before the slash in the earth made by the truck turned into a muddy quagmire.
“Well, this should cure the draught.”
Water pounded the vehicle and it was hard to tell how much was pouring through the shattered windshield.
Gray finally dared turned toward Tori. “I don’t think we’re going to get anything useful off the truck now. We might as well go back to town.”
Her eyes popped with fresh irritation.
What have I done now? He didn’t know how much more of her attitude he could handle.
She grumbled something indistinguishable.
“What was that?”
“I said a little rain isn’t going to melt me. I’m not the wicked witch of the west.”
Now, what was that all about? Tori was incomprehensible. She was mystery. She was enigma. She was practically unsolvable. Like the case.
She stuck out her chin. “We can still pull trace and prints from the interior if we’re careful not to let them get wet.”
“The windshield is smashed. Whatever is in there will be ruined before we can pull anything. I’ll have it towed back to the garage, and we can do what we can there. We’re wasting our time out here.”
“You really think so? What if I have a different opinion? What if there’s a crucial piece of evidence that gets lost if we don’t do our job right here, right now? What are you gonna tell Halsey this time?”
Was she serious? Was she implying he was going to lie about this situation? That was really uncalled for. The two situations were nothing alike. No one’s reputation was on the line here. There was nothing unusual about taking a vehicle back to the garage for further processing when the environment had the potential to compromise evidence.
“Okay, that’s it,” he snapped. “What is wrong with you?”
“Wrong with me?” she snapped back. �
�Nothing. What’s wrong with you?”
She turned and started climbing the mud-slicked hill toward his car.
“Don’t walk away from me, Tori.” He clawed his way up the embankment after her. Then stood and shielded his eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of her. Rain slashed across the muted glow of the car’s headlights. “I think you owe me an explanation.”
“I don’t owe you anything.”
“I don’t get it. What did I do wrong?”
She spun on her heel and nearly slid down the muddy slope. He grabbed her arm to keep her from falling, but she flung his hand off. “I don’t want you lying for me.”
He closed his eyes, waiting for his irritation to diminish before answering. “Halsey would have—”
“Unlock the door.” She shivered, wrapped her arms around her middle, and faced the vehicle.
Instead of opening the car for her, he grabbed her shoulder and turned her around. She wobbled a little but managed not to slip and fall.
“I don’t get it. Why was it wrong to spare you another scandal? I would think you would appreciate it. I would think you would be grateful, instead of treating me like I’ve committed a crime. I was only trying to protect you. Why is that so wrong? I’ve done nothing to deserve the treatment you’ve given me. What is your problem?”
“You,” she bellowed. “You’re my problem.”
He jabbed a finger in his chest? “Me? I’m your problem? It seems to me you came to Hill County with plenty of problems. I am not your problem. You are your own worst problem, Tori. No wonder they thought you were nuts.” He cringed. That was a low blow. There had been no need for him to go there.
The shock on her face nearly killed him. “I can’t believe you said that,” she whispered before spitting rainwater from her mouth, barely speaking loud enough to be heard over the storm.
He suddenly wanted out of there, so he reached into his pants pocket in search of his car keys. He fumbled for them, first in his left pocket and then in his right. He stared down the rain-slicked slope that he’d just climbed, his heart sinking. Were his keys down the hill in the rapidly coagulating mud?
She gasped. “You didn’t?” She yanked on the door handle but it remained stubbornly locked. “I don’t want to be stuck out in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night...with you.”
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