Uncovered: A Hearts of the South story

by Linda Winfree

  Chapter Four

  Silence coated the patrol car like smothering molasses. A tension knot at the base of Madeline’s neck pulsed. She should apologize, she really should, and take Tick up on his suggestion from yesterday that they just deal with the past.

  She should. But she couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come and Tick’s brooding presence did nothing to coax them forward.

  As she steered into a left-hand turn onto Scott Street, she cast a surreptitious glance at him. He slumped in the passenger seat, thumping his thumb on his knee and glaring out the window. Bad humor emanated from him in rolling waves.

  Yes, that was going to induce her to talk to him.

  “Stop here.” He flicked a finger at the small parking lot between the old fire station and an ancient row of shops. Madeline obeyed without comment. While she’d been away, the fire station had been updated into a physician’s office and the little set of shops held an insurance agency, a trendy gift shop and a beautician’s parlor.

  She idled to a halt along the sidewalk. A quick glance told her why he wanted to stop. Ash stood on the grass beside the doctor’s office, talking with a tall dark-haired man. She narrowed her eyes. A familiar tall, dark-haired man. That had to be one of Tick’s brothers, the family resemblance too strong to miss.

  Tick swung out of the car and she followed more slowly. Ash held one neatly bandaged hand aloft and made a chomping motion with his other. She cringed as guilt crashed through her. At least he was grinning about it, his white teeth flashing.

  He greeted Tick, his gaze sliding to Madeline as she joined them. She cast a quick glance at Ash’s companion. Yes, definitely a Calvert male. Tick’s brother Del, younger by a year, and always the quietest of the Calvert sons.

  Tick jerked his chin at Ash’s hand. “How is it?”

  “Not as bad as it looks, Layla says. She stitched it up, gave me some antibiotics. Said to tell you to stick to arresting people and let her do the medic stuff.”

  Tick’s reply was a noncommittal grunt. Del clasped his brother on the shoulder. “Glad you stopped. Have you got a minute? You need to sign the riders to that new policy.”

  “Yeah.” Tick shrugged and glanced at Madeline. “I’ll be right back.”

  They strolled to the insurance agency, leaving Madeline and Ash alone. She looked at his injured hand before meeting his gaze. The pale green of his eyes seemed to glow against his tan. Concern glinted in those eyes, and remorse curled through her again. The guy had been nothing but nice to her from the beginning. “I’m really sorry about this morning.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not. I was a bitch and you didn’t deserve that.” She waved at his hand. “Plus I got you hurt. Coming in to town probably messed up your whole routine today and—”

  “Mad, stop. Please.” He chuckled, a rich sound that seemed to roll through her and set off flutters in her belly. “Injuries are part and parcel of farming. Believe me, I’ve had worse than this. It could have happened even if you weren’t there. Besides, I needed to make a run by Twitty Feed and Seed anyway, so coming into town wasn’t a major hardship.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re too good to be true.”

  “See what you missed out on by not wanting to be friends?”

  “Can women and men really be friends?”

  He laughed, a deeper rumble that only intensified the flicker of attraction. “So did you talk to your mom?”

  “Stanton.” She grimaced. “Mama can be… Well, I figured Stanton would be more objective.”

  “Yeah, he’s pretty steady and straightforward.” He rested his hands at his hips and winced, lifting the injured one.

  Guilt stabbed at her once more. “I am so—”

  “Don’t say it. It’s over and done with, all right? An accident, pure and simple.” A gleam lit his pale eyes. “But if you’re hung up on it, maybe I’ll let you make it up to me.”

  “Really.” She tilted her head. “And how is that?”

  “Let me cook you dinner.”

  “I think you have that backward. I should be the one cooking for you.”

  “Yeah, but Autry let slip that you couldn’t boil water.” His bright grin flashed, warming her all the way through.

  “Yeah, and I told you I wasn’t in the market for a man right now.”

  “Which is why we agreed to be friends, remember?”

  She’d done anything but agree to that, but she didn’t demur. Instead, she gave in to the smile tugging at her lips and glanced away. Farmerboy or not, he was a smooth charmer, that was for damn sure. She could like him, if situations were different.

  “Dinner, huh?”

  “Yeah. We’re going to be friends, and friends do those kinds of things—have coffee together, dinner, movies. Come on, what do you say?”

  Anticipation licked through her, the first positive emotion she’d felt in what had to be forever. “All right.”

  “Great. Seven work for you?”

  “Seven is perfect.”

  He rattled off directions to his home and she recognized the location as what had been a long-abandoned farmhouse. Remembering the fallen-down state of the home before, she couldn’t wait to see what a bachelor’s touch looked like on it.

  “Well, I’ve got to go. I still have a lot to do today.” He gazed down at her. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  And she couldn’t. Suddenly, Tick’s ill-temper and all the junk of their past didn’t weigh quite so heavily. She watched Ash walk away toward the battered pea-green Ford that listed to one side a little forlornly.

  Her day was definitely looking up.

  Tick’s gloomy disposition couldn’t dim her newfound optimism. Somehow, Ash’s easy acceptance loosened the knot in her throat. When she and Tick stopped at a convenience store for something to drink, she didn’t fire the engine immediately. She couldn’t look at him but gazed instead across the dusty gravel parking lot and cleared her throat.

  “I’m sorry, about this morning.” Pushing the words out hurt, her pride stinging.

  “Yeah.”

  She wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel until her knuckles ached. She wouldn’t give in to her normal response to his animosity. No matter how badly her temper itched to be turned loose, she would hold it.

  “I think you were right yesterday.” Those words tried to stick in her throat. “For this to work, we’ve got to deal with the past.”

  “Really.”

  “Tick.” She darted a glance at him. He gazed out the passenger window, a cup of coffee balanced on his knee. “I’m not proud of it, you know. What I did.”

  “I imagine not.”

  Her anger flared and she swallowed. “Do you have to make this so damn hard?”

  He turned his head, a banked irritation burning in his dark eyes. “What do you want me to do, Madeline? Say it’s all right? Let you off the hook as easily as Ash did this morning?”

  “I can’t believe you’re still holding a grudge this big. Aren’t you the one in the church pew every Sunday morning? I thought there was this whole thing about forgiveness in the Bible.”

  “It’s not a grudge. I forgave what you did a long time ago, Madeline. Forgetting is something else entirely.” He lifted his cup for a cautious sip. “You can damn sure bet after this morning, Ash and I both will be more careful around those alligators. Know why?”

  A sick feeling settled in her stomach. “Why?”

  “Because if the gator bites one of us once, that’s the gator’s fault. If we let it happen a second time, that one’s on us. Alligator behavior doesn’t change much. Ours should.”

  “You’re comparing me to an aggressive reptile with a brain the size of a walnut.”

  “No, I’m saying your behavior hasn’t changed in the last eighteen years. You still act and speak without thinking about the consequences. You’re still focused on how everything affects you and the hell with everyone else. You’re dan
gerous, Madeline, and I’m not going to sit here and lie and say being in this car with you on patrol, having you work in my department doesn’t scare the shit out of me. Because your traits are the ones that get other cops killed.”

  He paused a second and the sick churning in her gut worsened. His mouth tight, he met her gaze.

  “But you already know that, don’t you?”

  The words slammed into her and the nausea threatened to overwhelm her. It was one thing to have the guilt in her head…quite another to have Tick Calvert throwing it in her face. She knew what she’d done, that Jack had paid for her impulsivity, and she sure as hell didn’t need Tick’s reminder. She flexed her hands on the wheel and swallowed hard, her vision blurring. She blinked, hard.

  “You bastard.”

  “Yeah, we already covered that one today.” He sounded bored. He lifted the cup to his mouth again, and she fought the urge to knock it out of his hand, to scream at him, make him take back those awful, damning words. She sucked in a deep breath, trying to get herself under control, trying to smother the sob that wanted to be set free.

  “Let’s get one more thing out in the open, Madeline.” He leaned to set the cup in the holder. “I have no intention of letting your impulsivity and lack of foresight get me killed. I have a boy at home, and I’ll be damned if he grows up without me because you did something stupid. If it comes down to me or you, I have no problem telling you that I’m the one walking away. So don’t get any delusions that we’re partners or anything more than what we are—two cops with distinctly separate agendas. Don’t think I’ll ever make the mistake of trusting you again.”

  Without reply, she turned the key in the ignition, her hands shaking. She’d barely pulled onto the highway when the radio crackled. “Chandler to C-2.”

  He reached for the mike. “Go ahead, Chandler.”

  “We have a possible 10-109D, 183 Miller Court.” At the ten code for a death, Madeline’s ears pricked up.

  “Affirmative, Chandler. C-2, C-4, en route.” He replaced the microphone and gestured toward the intersection ahead. “Turn left—”

  “I know where it is.”

  She flipped the lights on but left the siren silent, and increased her speed, taking the turns smoothly. Anticipation of a different sort flickered through her. She was a homicide detective, after all. This was what she lived for.

  The small ranch house at 183 Miller had been the town’s rental whore as long as Madeline could remember. No one lived there permanently—people moved in, stayed weeks or months, and moved on. The result was the little house’s forlorn air, as though it was always waiting to be abandoned once more.

  Damn, it was sad when she could relate to an inanimate building.

  Shaking off the depressing musings, she shifted into park at the curb and swung out of the car to join Tick on the walk. Moving boxes sat stacked next to a large rolling trashcan. Tick approached slowly, one hand on his unsnapped holster, his gaze flicking over the front of the house.

  The front door swung open, and Madeline tensed, reaching for her own gun. Something familiar about the woman who stepped onto the porch tugged at Madeline’s remembrance, and she frowned. That wasn’t…it couldn’t be.

  No fucking way.

  The cosmos couldn’t be out to get her that much.

  Sunlight glimmered off bottled-blonde hair that needed a root touch-up. The woman’s big blue eyes locked onto Tick with the speed of a homing missile and Madeline stiffened further. Shit damn fuck.

  Obviously, the cosmos wasn’t through with its weird joke on her yet.

  The blonde stopped on the top step, a hand over her heart. “Oh my Lord, Tick Calvert. I am so glad to see it’s you. There is a skeleton under my house.”

  Fucking hell, it was her. From the sudden tightening of Tick’s posture, Madeline was sure he’d recognized her as well. Madeline sucked in a deep breath. This was not going to be pretty.

  Tick stopped, one hand still resting on his holster, one foot on the bottom step. “Allison?”

  She nodded, a wild blend of emotions passing over her face—fear, surprise, reminiscence, attraction, longing. “Yes, I just moved back a few days ago to take a job at McGee’s.” She waved a hand behind her. “I’m renting until I find something permanent and I went into the crawlspace to look at the pipes—I was afraid there was a leak—and there is a body under there.”

  “You mentioned a skeleton?” At Madeline’s question, Allison Barnett turned her attention on her. Madeline squared her shoulders under the rabid hatred that filled the woman’s blue gaze as soon as recognition sank in.

  “Yes.” Allison shifted her gaze back to Tick, dismissing Madeline as something beneath her notice. Madeline rolled her eyes. No surprise there. Allison’s voice took on the breathy quality that had half the senior boys panting after her when they’d been in high school. Even then, though, she’d been fixated on Tick Calvert. “There are bones and a pair of shoes, some fabric too.”

  Tick slanted a look at Madeline and shrugged. “Might be animal. A dog or raccoon or something that got under there and died.”

  Madeline nodded, examining the foundation. From this point, she didn’t see any holes for an animal to enter through, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one in the back.

  “Let’s check it out.” Tick lifted his gaze. “Can you show us, Allison?”

  “Of course.” She gestured toward the door and fell into step with Tick as they entered the house, gazing up at him while she led them through a small living room overflowing with kitschy home décor items and into the adjoined eat-in kitchen.

  The access panel to the crawlspace stood open, resting against the avocado refrigerator. Tick and Madeline knelt on either side and he shone the bright beam of his small Maglite down into the darkness. Allison leaned on the counter, arms crossed over her chest. Madeline sensed the waves of malevolence rolling off the woman.

  Tick might have forgiven, but Allison Barnett sure as hell hadn’t.

  “I don’t think you can see it from there,” Allison said. “It’s farther down, like where the sink and the stove meet. I could see the wiring for the stove when I was down there.”

  Nodding, Tick rested his hands on his knees. “We don’t both need to go. If it’s human and there’s forensics of any kind—”

  “We don’t want to further contaminate it,” Madeline finished for him. Excitement spiked along her nerve endings once more. “I’ll go. I’m smaller.”

  She pulled her own flashlight free and slid awkwardly into the short, narrow space. Spider webs hung in long strings from the joists and a damp, moldy smell lingered in the air. Holding the light between her teeth and using Tick’s bouncing beam as added illumination, she crawled forward. Water dripped from a gray pipe to her right. There was the heavy electrical wiring for a big appliance.

  The remnants of a shoe lay before her. Extending from the ground next to it was a long, yellowish bone. It disappeared under the dusty soil. But above that, protruding from the dirt was a small, distinctive bone fragment. A metacarpal.

  A human finger.

  “Calvert,” she called over her shoulder and began the painstaking process of backing up the way she’d come, trying not to further disturb the scene.

  “Yeah?”

  “Call the coroner and the crime scene unit.”

  While they waited for the forensics team to arrive from the GBI office in Moultrie, Madeline examined the outside of the house. Allison seemed distraught that there’d been an actual dead body under the house she’d lived in for all of six days, and Tick’s focus ended up being directed at calming her down and helping her make arrangements for somewhere else to stay. Allison was eating up being reconnected with him, and her pleasure at the turn of events made Madeline sick.

  If she’d ever forgotten why she disliked Allison Barnett so much, here it was in all its clarity—the girl had always been a tad off, a tad obsessive, when it came to Tick, almost as if she lost some part of herself in his
presence.

  Madeline had to give him this, though, as she rounded the corner of the house and walked to where the pair stood talking at the porch—he was nothing more than consummately professional with Allison. As Madeline joined them, he snapped his cell shut and returned it to the clip on his belt. “Tori will be here shortly. She’ll help you get settled somewhere tonight. I’m afraid until the initial scene investigation at least is finished, you can’t stay here.”

  “Thank you so much, for everything.” Allison touched his forearm lightly. “You don’t know how I appreciate this.”

  “Madeline.” He stepped to the side, jerking his chin toward the street. “Crime scene van is here.”

  Madeline avoided Allison’s eyes, concentrating instead on Tick’s professional mask. “The foundation is sealed all the way down to the concrete apron. There are a couple of really small vents but it looks like the only access is through the panel in the kitchen.”

  The arriving crime scene technicians and Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents stopped to greet them.

  “We’ll walk you through.” Tick signaled for the young deputy who’d arrived also. “Allison, Deputy Farr will stay with you until Tori arrives and then you can get what you need from the house.”

  During the hours that followed, as the crime scene unit removed the skeletal remains and made a painstaking record of the area and all possible evidence recovered, Tick surprised her by not only listening attentively to her theories but allowing her to take an active role in the investigation. She’d not expected that from him, certainly not after his statements earlier that day. Some of her tension and apprehension drained away, leaving her focused on the intricate puzzle inherent in the remains and their location.

  Once the skeleton, remarkably complete, lay arranged neatly in the body bag, Madeline and Tick hunkered on either side of it. He sketched a finger over the pelvic area. “Female?”

  “Looks like it.” She kept her voice pitched low, out of the sense of reverence the dead always inspired in her. No gallows humor so popular with other detectives for her. Each victim was a real person, one who deserved respect and justice. “She’s been here a long time too. At least five years, as dry and clean as those bones are. Decomposition is complete.”