Fall Into Me: Hearts of the South

by Linda Winfree

  Calvert was still giving him the look. Troy Lee shrugged. “She was…having a bad day.”

  Wrong thing to say. He knew it as soon as the words left his mouth and aggravated disgust bloomed on Calvert’s face. Troy Lee bristled under that too-familiar look. Damn it, he wrote more tickets than any deputy in the county. Hell, he probably wrote more tickets than any state trooper who worked Chandler County. So what if he’d let Angel off with a warning?

  “At least you didn’t trade her out for it.” Calvert snapped the book closed and shoved it back at him.

  This time the anger sent a flood of heat up his nape and into his face. He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. Opening his mouth always seemed to make things worse with Calvert. He’d damn well keep any comment to himself. God knew he was tired of the “at least” statements.

  He balanced the metal book on his palm and hooked his other thumb in his belt, forcing a relaxed posture. “So were you looking for me?”

  “Yeah.” The way Calvert bit off the single syllable didn’t bode well. Troy Lee cast about for anything he’d done recently that would fall under the umbrella of Calvert’s definition of dumbass.

  Nothing. He had nothing. The last few weeks had gone well, probably because Calvert, out on sick leave, hadn’t been around to push him into the cycle of being nervous, trying too hard and then fucking up accordingly.

  So what was he in deep shit for now?

  He sighed. “What did I do?”

  Again, the wrong thing to say or maybe the way he said it came off wrong. Regardless, the wall of disapproval grew at least another foot. He glanced sideways at Cookie, who’d been watching the interplay with folded arms and a bored expression. Now, the investigator shook his head, a pained grimace twisting his brow.

  Calvert rested his hands at his waist and leaned forward slightly, emanating the air of a pissed-off drill sergeant. “Let me tell you about the phone call I just fielded from Bubba Bostick. You know, the cochairman of the county commission.”

  Oh, shit. Shitshitshit. This was going to be about that ticket he’d written…damn. He braced himself, chewing the inside of his cheek again. He wouldn’t launch into an explanation that would only set Calvert off further.

  Would. Not.

  Blood flowed against his tongue. The sizzling knot of heartburn moved higher in his chest.

  “Your little method for coding your tickets?” Calvert circled a finger over his palm. “Seems Judge Barlow shared that information with Mr. Bostick. It also seems you wrote Mr. Bostick’s son a couple of tickets last week and he’s taking offense to how you coded his kid.”

  Yeah? Well, Troy Lee had taken offense to the little prick’s attitude.

  With Calvert’s color high, he’d keep that observation to himself. Actually, even flushed with annoyance, Calvert was still pretty pale. Was it too much to hope that the guy would have sudden complications from his surgery and have to go home for a few more weeks?

  Or maybe a year.

  “Troy Lee?” Cookie’s quiet voice broke between them. “Explain the system to me. I didn’t take the phone call so I’m lost.”

  “And maybe why the hell you need one,” Calvert snapped.

  “Maybe because I write at least twice as many tickets as anyone else on the department and I lose track of who’s who when I go to court.” The words were out, brimming with attitude, before he could call them back. He shifted his attention to Cookie. At least he could breathe when he had to talk to Cook. He straightened his shoulders. “All I do is code the corner of the ticket according to the driver’s attitude so I can refer to it in court. A smiley face for positive, a blank circle for neutral and a—”

  “A circle with a dot in it for the negative, right?” Calvert crossed his arms over his chest and scowled.

  “A circle with a dot…” Awareness dawned in Cookie’s gray eyes and he guffawed. “You drew an asshole on Paul Bostick’s ticket?”

  “He smashed his radar detector at my feet and called me a son of a bitch. Hell yeah, I drew an asshole on his ticket, after I wrote him a second citation for littering. He’s lucky I didn’t run him in.”

  “Good Lord help us.” Calvert rolled his eyes heavenward.

  “Does Bostick want me to drop the ticket?” Troy Lee tapped his ticket book against his thigh. If so, he’d fight that, politics or not. The kid had deserved the speeding citation. Maybe writing the littering one had been vindictive, but still…

  “No.” Some of the agitated aggression fell away from Calvert’s posture. “But he seemed to think it might be inappropriate to have assholes drawn all over the copies going through Judge Barlow’s office.”

  Actually, Scott Barlow thought it was the funniest damn thing he’d ever seen. Or so the young judge had told Troy Lee after a pick-up game of hoops one Saturday morning.

  Cookie heaved a sigh and shook his head. “Troy Lee, couldn’t you use a numerical system instead? One for positive, two for neutral, three for negative?” He quirked an eyebrow at Calvert. “Don’t you think that would satisfy Bubba?”

  “Probably.” Calvert passed a hand over his jaw. “Just no more assholes, all right, Troy Lee?”

  No more other than the one standing in front of him. “Yes, sir.”

  “Then get back to work.” Calvert swept a hand in the direction of Troy Lee’s unit. “And if someone is doing seventeen over, write ’em a ticket, whether they’re having a bad day or not. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir.” He rubbed his palm over the burning in his chest and tried to remember that Calvert was fifty percent of the reason he’d wanted this damn job in the first place. Definitely a hundred percent why he stayed. Before it was all over, he’d find a way to show the son of a bitch he had what it took.

  Chapter Two

  “You really have to lay off that kid.” Mark Cook eyed Troy Lee’s unit as the deputy pulled onto the blacktop and headed toward the county line. Mark swung the unmarked unit in the opposite direction, toward town. “You’re going to break him.”

  “Someone needs to break him,” Tick muttered from the passenger seat. He grimaced and passed a hand over his side. “He’s going to be the freakin’ death of me.”

  “You know what the problem is, don’t you?”

  “Other than the fact he has the common sense of a fence post?”

  Mark ignored the smart-ass rejoinder. “You’re just alike.”

  Tick’s head whipped in his direction. “What?”

  “He’s just like you when you were a rookie.”

  “Yeah, I doubt it.” Tick snorted. “I was never that damn…stupid.”

  “No, you were worse. Trust me. I remember.”

  “You’re—” The sudden jangling of a Gary Allan song cut him off. He lifted his cell, glanced at the display and groaned before lifting it to his ear. “Hey, Aunt Maureen.”

  Mark smothered a chuckle. Tick rested an elbow on the door, shading his eyes while he listened.

  “Aunt Maureen, I really don’t think—”

  Even Mark could hear Maureen’s agitated squawking as Tick tried to get a word in.

  “Aunt Maureen…Aunt Maureen. You’re getting all worked up over nothing. I’m sure there are going to be no strippers out at the Cue Club.”

  Mark choked on a laugh. Tick looked sideways at him and shrugged, eyebrows lifted in his where-does-she-get-this-stuff expression.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m sure. The county has an ordinance against exotic dancing… She said what? A den of iniquity?” Tick sighed. “Aunt Maureen, that’s just Angel’s sense of humor. I’m sure she was teasing you. Yes, ma’am… Yes, ma’am. Goodbye. Yes, I love you too. Bye now.” He snapped the phone closed and laid it on his lap. Laughing, he dragged both hands down his face. “Sweet Jesus.”

  “Strippers at the Cue Club?” Mark slowed to take the turn onto 112. “That’s hilarious.”

  Tick shook his head. “Obviously, Angel Henderson was teasing about hiring strippers and changing the name of the place to the Den of
Iniquity and Aunt Maureen took her seriously.”

  “The Den of Iniquity?” He could just imagine those words coming out of Angel’s mouth, accompanied by one of her wicked winks. He shifted in the seat, little pitchforks of guilt stabbing at him. Something about the way she’d looked at him when he’d stepped out of the patrol car earlier said his not returning her messages had been a bad thing. Actually, taking her to bed when he didn’t intend to pursue a relationship had been a bad idea too, but he’d been so wrapped up in falling the rest of the way in love with Tori Calvert that it had taken days for that reality to sink in. He’d been a bastard all the way around with Angel.

  “That’s what your badge bunny said.”

  Mark slanted a swift glare in Tick’s direction. “Don’t call her that. She’s not a cop groupie and you know it.”

  Genuine contrition flashed over Tick’s features. “Yeah, I know.”

  Silence descended, broken only by the whir of tires on blacktop and the occasional crackle of radio traffic. Mark watched the road, pine trees and the lime mine flashing by, and waited. He could almost feel the thoughts running through Tick’s head and no way was the conversational minefield over that easy.

  Tick was too damn stubborn to let it go and Mark knew it.

  He tapped his thumb against the steering wheel. Wonder if they’d make the Delta Pines crossroads before Tick—

  “You slept with her, though, didn’t you.” The quiet comment was more a statement of fact than a question and the underlying condemnation set Mark’s nerves on edge.

  “Really none of your business, Tick.” He flexed his fingers around the wheel. “I never asked you about the string of blondes, remember?”

  “You’re dating my little sister. That makes it my business.” Tick fidgeted against the seat with the movements of someone who’d given up on finding a comfortable position. “And the blondes were different. I wasn’t sleeping with any of them.”

  “Your little sister is twenty-seven and old enough to make her own decisions without your approval.”

  “You’re thirty-nine and less than a month ago you were still indulging in one-night stands with women you didn’t bother to call again.” Tick drummed his thumb against his knee. “And I’m supposed to be okay with this whole thing between you and Tori?”

  “The horse is dead, Calvert. Quit beating it.” Mark rolled his neck, trying to relieve the sudden tension sitting there. Hell, he wasn’t proud of his past, but he didn’t need his partner throwing it in his face every time he turned around either.

  “So explain to me how I’m supposed to believe you’re going to treat Tori differently than Angel or your other playmates.”

  Goddamn, he was like a dog with a worn-out bone. Mark tightened his fingers and loosened them once more. Stopping the car and whipping Tick’s ass was out of the question. The guy was recuperating from major surgery. Not to mention the fact it would make Tori mad and really solve nothing. When Tick got like this, the only thing that really made a difference was time.

  “Because.” Mark relaxed his jaw with an effort. “The difference between Tori and Angel or the others is the same one between Falconetti and Cicely St. John or Lynne Harris or any of the other blondes you went through when you came back from Mississippi and Falconetti had dumped your ass.”

  Let him argue with that.

  Tick fixed him with one long glare and turned away to stare out the window, still tapping his thumb against his knee. Fine. Let him stew.

  “Chandler, C-3.” The radio crackled, doing little to break the tension hovering in the car.

  Mark lifted the mike. “Go ahead, Chandler.”

  “10-50, 10-52 at the intersection of Stage Coach and Jackson Dairy. All other units are busy. Can you respond?”

  “10-4, Chandler. 10-76.” Mark replaced the mike and flipped on the light bar. He pressed down on the accelerator, and the police package Crown Victoria responded instantaneously with a muted roar and a rush of power. They were only a couple of miles from the reported accident and obviously an ambulance was on the way as well. Man, he hated that intersection, the site of two fatal wrecks in the last year.

  Pine woods flashed by, interspersed with fields recently stripped of cotton and peanuts. A heavy scent of cow manure and damp feed hung in the air and permeated the car’s interior via the air vents.

  The crossroads loomed, a late-model Ford pickup and a little red sports car jammed together. Steam rose from the crumpled hoods. Mark brought the unit to a halt just inside the intersection and grabbed the mike, calling them in as arrived at the scene and requesting dispatch of a wrecker. He released his seat belt and popped the trunk, sparing Tick a rapid glance. “Can you secure the intersection while I check the vics?”

  “I think I can handle that.” Heavy sarcasm laced Tick’s words, but Mark didn’t reply. Tick wasn’t supposed to be in a patrol car at all, just sitting behind a desk part-time until his six-week post-operative checkup, which was nearly four weeks away. When Falconetti learned Tick had worked a wreck, she’d have his ass.

  Mark couldn’t wait to tell her.

  He jogged to the Ford. The teenage driver was on his feet, already yapping into his cell phone. Recognition slammed Mark with a wave of irony. Paul Bostick.

  “You all right?” Mark looked him over—no obvious injuries other than a scratch to his forehead and a small cut on his wrist.

  “Yeah, I’m good.” The boy’s voice shook and he pointed at the cell. “I called Daddy. He’s on his way.”

  Mark directed him to the embankment behind his unit, a safe distance from both vehicles and any oncoming traffic. “Sit down for me over here until the ambulance arrives so the EMTs can take a look at you.”

  He returned to the wreck and went to the driver’s side of the red car, which at one time had been a Mazda, the same make and model as Tori’s. The entire front end was demolished. Hell, soon as he could, he was putting her in something safer, like a Sherman tank. She was a horrible driver, an accident waiting to happen.

  The car door stood open, the driver, also a teen, sitting sideways and sobbing into her cell phone, big tears running down her face. Why did he just know those phones had had something to do with this wreck?

  The girl cried so hard she was incoherent. He hunched before her, visually assessing her for injuries. Like Paul, she seemed to have only minor cuts and contusions, an angry red streak cutting across her collarbone, most likely from the seatbelt.

  “Kaydee? Kaydee, are you all right?” The panicked female voice coming from the phone was audible even over the girl’s smothered wails.

  Mark gestured at the phone. “Your mom?”

  She nodded, fresh tears spilling over. He held out a hand for the cell. “Want me to talk to her?”

  She passed him the phone.

  “Do you hurt anywhere?” he asked before lifting the baby-pink rectangle to his ear. She shook her head, folding her arms around her knees as she wept. “Hello, this is Mark Cook with the Chandler County Sheriff’s Department. Who’s speaking, please?”

  “Oh my God.” The female voice broke. “This is Sara Davis, Kaydee’s mother. Is she all right?”

  “She appears to be okay.” He slanted a reassuring smile in Kaydee’s direction. “However, she has been involved in a traffic accident at the intersection of Stage Coach Road and Jackson Dairy. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes, thank you. I’m on my way. Are you sure she’s all right?”

  “I don’t see any visible injuries other than minor cuts and bruises, but an ambulance is en route.” Actually, the approaching siren told him it was just around the curve. “The paramedics will check her out, but she seems to be fine. Would you like to talk to Kaydee again?”

  “Please.”

  He handed off the phone to the slightly calmer teenager. The ambulance appeared, coming to a stop at the shoulder. One EMT jogged over to where Tick was talking with Paul. The second joined Mark at the car.

  “Hey, sweetheart, I�
��m Jim. Let’s check you out, okay? Hey, Cookie.” Jim Tyre opened his medical kit.

  “Jim.” Mark nodded. He let the medic take over and stepped back. Catching Tick’s eye, he mimed sketching the scene. Tick shook his head.

  Mark pulled his notebook and made quick work of drawing a rough outline of vehicle positions and skid marks. A pair of wreckers arrived moments later from Lawson Automotive, followed quickly by Bubba Bostick and both of Kaydee’s parents. For the next twenty minutes, Mark found himself taking statements while Tick handled worried parents. Finally, Mark issued Paul a citation for failure to control his vehicle. The kid trailed his father to the family SUV, an unhappy bent to his head and shoulders as Bubba read him the riot act for garnering a third ticket, as well as causing an accident, in less than two weeks.

  As Kaydee and her parents departed, Jim and the second paramedic, Clark Dempsey, approached.

  “Kids were lucky.” Jim jerked his chin at the skid marks on the other side of the intersection. “If he’d been a little farther the other way, she’d be dead.”

  “Yeah.” Tick glanced at Bubba’s departing vehicle. “Maybe his daddy can slow him down some.”

  “You look good, man.” Jim clapped a cautious hand on Tick’s shoulder. “But are you supposed to be back on active duty yet?”

  “Hell no, he’s not.” Mark hid a smirk behind his hand. He wouldn’t have to tell Falconetti. News of Tick’s on-the-road adventures would be back to her by nightfall.

  “Congratulations on the baby too.” Jim grinned, and when he rested his hands at his waist, sunlight glinted off his shiny new wedding band. “Rhonda’s already wanting us to start trying.”

  The devilish darts of guilt took aim at Mark once more. Angel Henderson had dated Jim off and on forever. Probably part of the reason she’d gone to bed with him on that first and only date had been her rebound situation with Jim’s sudden marriage.

  Shit, he really was a bastard.

  A bastard who needed to apologize, badly. In person.