Fall Into Me: Hearts of the South

by Linda Winfree

  Dropping her hand, she grabbed her bag, dragged it close enough to retrieve her phone. Ignoring the new voice-mail icon, she scrolled through her contacts and dialed, waiting through five rings until another voice mailbox picked up. “Julie? It’s Angel. Call me please. I’m not feeling well and I need you to open the bar. Thanks. Talk to you later.”

  She dropped the metallic rectangle to the floor. Levering both hands on the wood, she pushed herself up, first to kneel, then lurching to her feet like an aching elderly woman. With a listless movement, she pushed the door closed. Her throat hurt, raw and sore from retching, tight and closed from fear.

  In the mirror over the table by the door, she caught a glimpse of her reflection: red eyes, disheveled hair, trembling mouth, too-pale skin. “You don’t have to do this,” she whispered to the frightened woman in the mirror. “You don’t.”

  Wasn’t that the easiest thing to do? To make it simply go away?

  “No one would have to know.” She wrapped her arms close, tight, tighter, as tight as she could get them, and addressed herself again. “Not Jim, not Cookie.” She darted her tongue over dry, chapped lips. “Not Troy Lee.”

  You’d know, the bruised blue eyes seemed to whisper back from the glass.

  “Don’t you get it?” The words came in a fierce hiss. “Jim’s married. Cookie has someone new. And Troy Lee…”

  She couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t articulate what she knew was done and over and lost now. On a shuddering sigh, she touched a fingertip to the glass. “What the hell am I going to do?”

  “You’re whipped.”

  Troy Lee frowned at Chris’s amused commentary. “What are you talking about?”

  “How many times have you called her today?” Chris placed three white canvas bags under a trio of low red crates. From his “stay” position at the bottom of the steps leading to the prisoner exercise yard, Hound watched with eager eyes.

  “Twice.” His face burning, Troy Lee returned his phone to his belt, hoping he didn’t look as sheepish as he felt. Angel hadn’t called him back, and yeah, checking his phone every few seconds was stupid. Mondays were busy for her; he knew that. A trickle of sweat made its way down his back. Even under the weak winter sun, the damn vest was hot. The muscles in his thighs twitched with the afterburn of running miles of hills. “But this call was legitimate. I needed to know if she wanted to go to the holiday party with me so I could RSVP.”

  Chris paced a few strides from the crates and shot him a mock-pitying look. “Miss Lydia doesn’t need that list for another week. I repeat, you’re whipped.”

  Hound stared longingly at the red containers, shifted his limpid gaze to Chris and made a low whine, big canine body quivering with anticipation.

  “What would you know?” Troy Lee lowered to sit on the second tread from the top. “You haven’t had a date in so long, people think you’re gay.”

  “Heh.” Mild amusement colored the sound as Chris flipped him off. The door behind Troy Lee clanged open and Chris jerked his chin toward the top of the steps. “Hey, Cookie, how many times have you called Tori today?”

  “I haven’t.” Cookie stopped on the step next to Troy Lee. Chris fixed Troy Lee with a “see?” expression. “Texted her a couple of times this morning about the holiday party.”

  Smirking at Chris, Troy Lee waved a hand between them. Chris shook his head. “Y’all are sad.”

  Troy Lee rested his elbows on the step behind him. “You’re just jealous.”

  “Hardly.” Chris turned his attention to the dog. “Hound, search.” The German Shepherd responded immediately, springing forward, running around the three crates, nosing them under Chris’s stream of encouragement. “Atta boy, Hound, find it. Hsst. Where’s it at, huh? Where’s it at, boy, find it. Hsst. Hsst. Come on.”

  With a whine, Hound paused at the middle crate, pawing and scratching at the top before sitting and eyeing Chris with adoring expectation. Chris stopped on the other side of the red box. “Is that it?”

  Hound laid a big paw atop the crate. Chris leaned down, lifted the plastic and pulled out the white bag. He held it aloft so Cookie and Troy Lee could see “cocaine” written across the front in large block print. “Good boy. Good dog.”

  He pulled a tennis ball from his BDU pocket. Hound perked up but didn’t leave the sit position. Chris tossed the ball across the worn grass. “Go get it.”

  Watching Chris reward the dog with play, Troy Lee shook his head. The guy’s most meaningful relationship was with a four-legged furry beast and he was ragging Troy Lee about being whipped?

  “How do you feel about having me for a ride-along this afternoon?”

  He startled at Cookie’s quiet question. Nerves jumped in his gut, and he came to his feet. “Am I in trouble again?”

  “Nah.” Cookie laughed. “My unit’s going in for routine maintenance. Figured if I tagged along, you could fill me in on that chase-response training you took over in Tifton.”

  “Yeah.” Relief filled him, the tension draining away. Man, he had to find a way to get beyond the constant fear of screwing up. He rested his hands above his gun belt and looked sideways at Cookie. “I can do that.”

  “Come on then.” Cookie tilted his head toward the department building. “Let’s go 10-8 and get started.”

  Unable to bear being inside the silent house, Angel fled outside to the yard and worked herself ragged. She attacked the gingko tree at the back corner of the house with the pruning shears, even though it was the wrong time of year for that. She divided daylilies, not caring that doing so in the cold would shock the roots. She weeded already immaculate beds, tunneling beneath the damp mulch with her bare hands to dig out the tiniest of sprouts. Through it all, she kept her mind a careful blank.

  After replacing the shears in the shed, she grabbed a rake and tackled the gravel area around the small building, dragging precise circles in the small stones. Maybe she should open the bar herself after all, call Julie back and tell her she felt better. Maybe if she picked up and went on, pretended everything was normal, it really would be.

  She gazed at her hands on the rake handle, nails jagged and broken, dirt embedded under them. Lower, soil stained her turquoise boots and streaked her bare legs. Lord, she hadn’t even changed, had just marched out here in her brown cotton dress, legs and arms exposed, wearing her beloved custom boots. A giggle burbled up from her tight throat, morphing into a rough sob. Hot tears burned her eyes and she buried her face in the curve of her arm, braced atop the rake. Breathing in hard, she forced herself back into control. No thinking, just work.

  Yes, she needed to go do her own inventory, go open the bar. With a shaky inhale, she lifted her head and brushed at her face, leaving gritty trails on her skin. She replaced the rake on the tool rack and locked the shed. Leaning down, she rubbed at the dirt on her legs, achieving no more than merely spreading the rich black soil.

  A shower, a night working, time spent pretending everything was normal and okay.

  She could do that.

  “It’s all about assessing the risk.” Troy Lee slowed to swing onto Tuton Road from Highway 112. Cookie lounged in the passenger seat, an elbow propped on the door, his gaze alert and interested. “Like an equation, you know?”

  Cookie rubbed his forefinger over his mouth. “An equation.”

  “Yeah.” Warming to the topic, Troy Lee relaxed, navigating the familiar road with one hand on the wheel. “You take the variables you know—the roadway, the traffic, whether it’s a felony offense—and you combine them with the ones you don’t, and you come up with a risk ratio. If the ratio is too high, you drop out of the chase, try a different tactic.”

  “Makes sense. You should redeliver that. I’ll talk to Tick, have him set it up on the training schedule.”

  Troy Lee swallowed a rude retort. Somehow, he doubted Calvert would trust him to redeliver anything without screwing up the entire department. He braked for the crossroads at US 19, continued across on River Road, swe
rving to the other lane to avoid the rumble strips before the railroad.

  “Troy Lee.” Cookie cleared his throat. “He’ll come around to you, but you have to give him a chance.”

  “Right.” Troy Lee took his gaze from the road long enough to glance narrow-eyed at Cookie. “Two and a half years, Cookie. I’ll own my screwups. I got caught up in the excitement of that first chase and ran the engine hot. I fucked up the Schaefer warrant. Yeah, there’s other stuff too. He can’t see beyond any of that. He doesn’t want to see beyond it.”

  “He’s forgotten what the learning curve can be like.” Cookie tapped a knuckle against the window. “But I think he’s got a whole new one and that’ll open him up with you.”

  “Maybe I don’t want him to open up with me.” Shit, now he sounded like Ellis when she was pouting about one of Christine’s rules. “Maybe I just want him to leave me the hell alone.”

  “We both know that’s not true.” Cool calm blanketed the quiet words. “You want to be like him.”

  “Maybe I did.” Troy Lee pressed the brakes harder than necessary, the car sliding a little as it came to a rest at the Highway 3 stop sign. He glanced both ways, tapping his fingers on the wheel. On 3, a Honda swung around the curve, approaching the intersection, fast. “Maybe not anymore.”

  “You’ve got a damn stubborn streak a mile wide, don’t you?”

  “Get it from my dad. He called it persistence.” The Honda flashed by in a blur of gray paint and Florida tags. “Holy shit, he’s flying.”

  “Yeah. Turn after him.” Cookie gestured with a finger, but Troy Lee was already turning in behind the small car, closing the gap with a hard foot on the gas. Brake lights didn’t flare as Troy Lee had expected, but the driver’s head bobbed. Checking the mirrors. Instincts pricked to life all down Troy Lee’s spine.

  “Call Chris.” Troy Lee stabbed a finger toward the radio and flipped on his blue lights. Still no brake lights. Sure enough, the Honda sped up rather than slowing down. Troy Lee’s speedometer crept upwards as he kept pace. He spun the chase variables through his head, the logic blending with the instinct. “There’re drugs in that car.”

  “I think you’re right.” Cookie already had the mike in hand, rattling off Chris’s call number and a request for location, following that with a call to dispatch, asking for a run on the Honda’s tags. “You gotta stop him before he hits town too.”

  “Somebody needs to meet us north of town, to put out the spike strip before he hits those double bridges—”

  “Chandler, C-3.” Deb’s calm voice from dispatch cut him off.

  “Go ahead, Chandler.”

  “Tags are registered to a 1992 Honda Accord, Brad Richards out of Tampa. Has active felony wants and warrants.”

  “10-4, Chandler.” Cookie’s words faded into a stream of syllables, Troy Lee’s concentration focused on navigating the twisting back highway and watching the other driver’s every move. Chris’s quiet voice came across the radio as he called in his location and his intention to cut across the PSC service road to intercept the chase.

  “C-8 to C-5.” Vann Starling hailed Chris. “I’m south of you on 3, right around the curve. Stopping to deploy the spike strip.”

  “Chris needs to come on this way.” Troy Lee shook his head, steering tight into the double S curve before the Stinson place. Adrenaline surged into his system, sharpening his senses, slowing time around him. “This guy’s gonna shoot right onto Haven Road.”

  “No, there’s no way—”

  “Cookie, he’ll take Haven and try to lose us. Tell Chris to come on.”

  His tone tight, Cookie complied. Sure enough, as they cleared the curve and headed into the straightaway, the Honda jumped forward and Troy Lee pressed harder on the accelerator to stay with him. White flashed beyond Dale Jenkins’s pecan grove, a glimpse of Chris’s car before he came around the upcoming curve. Brake lights flared briefly on the Honda and it veered to the right down the red clay surface of Haven Road.

  “Shit,” Cookie breathed, and triumph spurted through Troy Lee, blending with the mix of anger and adrenaline. He took the same right, hard, with Chris falling in behind.

  Red dust bloomed behind the Honda, obscuring the road. Damn, he was glad he’d driven this sucker as often as he had, in endless patrol circles. He could map out the geography in his head, the way he could envision notes on sheet music when he played. After the first curve, the dirt road opened up enough to allow him passage around the Honda. If he got out in front, he and Chris could hem the son of a bitch in, force him to stop.

  Driving with one hand, he snatched the mike from Cookie’s surprised hold. “Chris, we’re gonna stop him after the curve, before the Harris place.”

  “Got your back.”

  As soon as the way opened up, Troy Lee punched it, coming along side the Honda. Shit, they needed a third car, to make a true box, but they could do this. He pulled slightly forward, eyeing the access points as he did so. All he needed was a damn tractor or a pickup to pull out in front of them.

  Like silk clockwork, Chris angled in behind him, the two of them working in tandem to force the Honda to slow and finally come to a sliding halt in the ditch.

  “He’s gonna bail.” Cookie unlatched his seat belt as Troy Lee slammed the gearshift to park. Metal clanged on metal, paint scratching with a shearing sound as the Honda’s driver’s door banged into the passenger door of Troy Lee’s unit.

  Troy Lee didn’t take time to cringe, lunging out of the unit and into a sprint as the suspect scrambled across the Honda’s trunk and up the ditch incline to scale the wire fence. Shit, why did they always run?

  With Hound’s excited yelping and Chris’s voice calling in radio codes, he vaulted across the ditch, scrabbled for purchase on the slick clay, braced a hand on the fence post to jump the wire. The skinny kid had a slight lead on him across the pasture, but with a burst of speed, Troy Lee closed the distance. Hell if he was gonna tackle him and risk blowing his knee. Instead, he grasped a handful of T-shirt and slung the guy down, belly first. The impact wrung a grunt from the suspect.

  “You want to run from me again, man?” Cuffs in hand, Troy Lee planted his knee in the middle of the young man’s spine and captured one wrist, pulling it down to close the other cuff. He dragged the kid to his knees and kicked one ankle over the other. “You wanna run?”

  “Fuck you.” Hell, the boy was winded. And he’d planned to outrun them on foot? Shit. “You hear me? Fuck you!”

  “Fuck me? Fuck me?” Troy Lee searched him, retrieving a pocketknife and sticking it in his own back pocket to be inventoried. “Dude, I’m not the one in cuffs and about to go to jail. Word of advice for next time—don’t run from me. I take it personal, and I will catch your ass.”

  The kid responded by trying to spit on him. Sure he was secure, Troy Lee used the pressure points at his wrist to force him to his feet and turn them toward the road, just as Cookie reached them. He passed the knife over to Cookie, his gaze traveling beyond Cookie’s shoulder. Chris and the dog worked over the Honda, Hound’s tail wagging furiously as he hit on the trunk area. Two county units arrived and slid to a stop. Vann Starling and Steve Monroe climbed out to join Chris and take in the scene.

  Cookie’s gray eyes glittered with conquest and adrenaline. “You did good, kid.”

  Troy Lee returned Cookie’s wide grin with one of his own. Man, he couldn’t wait to tell Angel about this one.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tori peeked through the NICU window. Sure enough, she spied both Caitlin and Tick. Before she could buzz, Dawn Monroe appeared at the doorway. “Hey, Tori.”

  “Hi, Dawn.” Aware of the slumbering babies, she kept her voice low. “How is he today?”

  “Pretty good.” Dawn ushered her into the adjacent washroom so she could scrub. “We got to swap out the ventilator tube for an oxygen feed and his breathing seems stabilized.”

  “That’s great.” Tori slipped her arms into the sterile gown Dawn proffered.
>
  “Mama and Daddy in there are exhausted, I’m sure. If you could get them to take a break, eat something, that would be good. They need it.”

  “I’ll do my best.” She crossed to her brother and sister-in-law. Dawn was right. They looked completely dragged out. Caitlin sat in a rocker, her tailored cotton blouse open so Lee, clad only in a diaper and with his tubing artfully arranged to be out of the way, could rest with his tiny bare chest over her heart. They’d draped a thin blanket to offer a modicum of privacy, but his dark head remained visible. Tick had dragged up a chair, his fingers laced through Caitlin’s. He’d leaned his head back, eyes closed.

  “Hey, y’all.” Tori leaned down to feather a caress over Lee’s head. “Kangaroo care, huh?”

  “Yes.” Caitlin smoothed the baby’s back. “We just swapped out. I think he”—she nodded in Tick’s direction—“finally dozed off.”

  “Not asleep. Resting my eyes.” Tick’s voice emerged as a drowsy murmur. With a yawn, he straightened and rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. “What’s up?”

  “I had a meeting with the new head of counseling services here and thought I’d come take y’all to lunch.” Under her fingers, Lee heaved a shuddering little sigh. His lids lifted a moment, then dropped again. A rush of love, mingled with a sharp longing, swirled through her. Could he be more precious? The too-familiar fantasy, the one that had only recently taken root, of holding her own baby, Mark’s baby, rose and she suppressed the maternal desire. Way too soon to be thinking about that. Although she was. A lot. “Or, if you two want to grab something alone together, I can stay with Lee.”

  Her eyes filled with affection and a new uncertainty, Caitlin slanted a look at Tick. “I think I’d like to sit with him a little longer, since we’re going home tonight, but why don’t you go, Tick? You didn’t eat this morning.”