Serve and Protect (Heroes of Evers, Texas #3)

by Lori Ryan

  Ashley stared at the woman. Clearly she was unbalanced. Ashley couldn’t for the life of her figure out what the woman was talking about. She hadn’t accused anyone of anything, she thought, before the realization crashed into her. Of course she had. This woman was talking about Bill Franks. But surely the fact that there was a skeleton in his backyard—and not the figurative kind—meant this woman couldn’t possibly think Ashley’s accusation was false.

  That level of denial didn’t seem possible. But Ashley remembered Garret telling her that Franks’ girlfriend had denied the truth of the molestation charges. That she’d refused to take her daughter from his home, even with the possibility that he might be released pending the trial.

  “Get out of the damned car,” the woman screeched with another shake of the gun as she literally stomped her foot. Ashley’s suspicion that the woman was walking a mental tightrope was confirmed. Seriously unbalanced.

  Ashley stepped from the car, not sure her legs would hold her. They did, but were still stiff and not feeling very strong. She looked around as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and realized there was some light coming from the nearly full moon above. She still couldn’t be sure where she was. The area was wooded and they seemed to have pulled into a small shallow at the side of the road. It couldn’t be described as a parking lot. More like a parking area for one or two cars at most.

  Wherever they were, it wasn’t a main hiking area, that’s for sure. It gave new meaning to the phrase, “off the beaten path.” If they were in one of the state parks between Evers and Austin, they weren’t in a heavily travelled part. Ashley remembered that there were some more remote areas at the back of Inks Lake State Park and wondered if that’s where they were. That or one of another six or so possibilities. Granite Shoals, maybe? She wanted to groan as she ran through all of the places they could be.

  Her thoughts ran to Garret. She’d give anything to be safe in his arms, but he would be out with his friends all night. And she’d insisted he didn’t need to drive to her house that night. So he’d have no reason to notice her missing until tomorrow at the earliest. The library was closed on Sundays, so no one would expect her to show up for work the following day either. Her family would expect her for dinner, at least. So the earliest someone would notice her missing was tomorrow evening.

  She casually dropped a hand to her pants to see if her phone was in her pocket. Not there. And apparently not casually enough.

  “Don’t worry.” Crazy Chick held up Ashley’s phone. “I texted lover boy. Sent kisses and said goodnight. He won’t be expecting to hear from you again.” She was almost cheerful. It was eerie.

  Ashley took a deep breath, but wasn’t able to say anything before Crazy Chick spoke again.

  “Now we have to walk from here. Let’s go.” The woman clicked on a heavy-duty flashlight and pointed its beam to an opening in the woods. If she hadn’t pointed to it, Ashley never would have realized there was an overgrown trail there. It was narrow and covered with trees and branches. It wasn’t a path they were likely to run into anyone on, even if it had been daytime.

  The thought of entering these woods in the dark was terrifying. Doing so at gunpoint with an unhinged lunatic as her guide? Well, that plain sucked. But Ashley couldn’t think of any way out of it. If she ran, she could be shot. If she tried to fight the woman, she could be shot. The only thing she could think to do was to go along with her. To try to talk to her. To either gain a foothold to reason with her, or just buy time for some opening to act. Or for Garret to get to her.

  How on earth she thought Garret would find her was a mystery, but she held out hope. At least if she stayed alive, he had a shot at it. She stepped onto the path.

  “Where are we headed?” Ashley walked carefully, watching for branches or roots in the path as best she could. She wasn’t dressed for this. She had on slacks and a blouse with casual ballerina flats that slipped off her feet easily while at the library. On a hiking trail? They were like a written invitation to a twisted ankle.

  “An old cabin,” the woman answered simply enough.

  “Do I get to know your name?”

  “Michelle.”

  Ashley glanced back over her shoulder, but saw Michelle hadn’t lowered the gun. “And what are you hoping we can do out at this cabin?” Not that I’m at all sure I want to know.

  “Just keep going. We need to get there and get off the trail.”

  Because someone might see us out here?

  Ashley actually laughed. No one would see them. There was no need to rush. Especially since she wasn’t at all sure Michelle wouldn’t kill her as soon as they got there. Hell, for all Ashley knew, the woman had pre-dug her grave out at this cabin. And just like that, Ashley was picturing digging her own grave at gunpoint next to an abandoned cabin in the woods. Fabulous. For the first time, thinking like a writer wasn’t fun. Not fun at all.

  *

  Garret let himself into his apartment after two in the morning. He probably shouldn’t have had so much to drink, but he’d decided as long as he wasn’t making the drive to Ashley’s, he might as well relax and enjoy himself. It had been a long time since he’d gone out with the guys. And he’d done the right thing and hitched a ride home, leaving his car at the bar for the night.

  He looked at the clock and considered texting Ashley, but thought better of it. She’d be in bed and he didn’t want to wake her. Walking to his bedroom, he couldn’t help but scan the living room and the kitchen as he passed by them. They were plain. Serviceable. A man’s apartment for sure. A man who obviously lived alone.

  He continued down the hall to his room and shucked his jeans and shirt before sliding into the bed. What he’d once thought was a great bed now seemed empty. Pretty lonely, in fact. He liked slipping between Ashley’s sheets much better. And it wasn’t the fact that her sheets were softer or that she had all those fluffy pillows or the pretty headboard. He couldn’t care less about those things. It was Ashley. Her soft body curled up against his. The way she’d toss a leg over him or turn and snuggle that sweet ass of hers into his groin as she slept. The way he could wake her with his hands or mouth or—

  He groaned. He needed to stop. All the alcohol he’d drunk wasn’t enough to dampen his libido, as evidenced by the raging hard-on he now sported. But it was enough to keep him from getting in the car and going to see her. Letting his mind explore her body in his imagination sure as hell wasn’t helpful. He tossed a pillow over his head, shut his eyes, and tried to think about something else.

  But when he’d managed to force his mind from Ashley’s curves, he was left thinking about how much fuller his life had been since she’d stepped into his world. And how much more he liked the nights when he was with her. How much more like a home her house felt. And not because she had photos and knickknacks or whatever they were. It was her. It was the fact that her smile and laughter filled the space.

  He rolled over and grabbed his phone and scrolled to her last few text messages, reading them with a grin. He’d see her tomorrow and make up for tonight. He turned off his phone and put his hands behind his head, thinking about Ashley and all the ways she made his world a little better. He was pretty sure he fell asleep with that dumb ass grin on his face.

  23

  Garret’s morning was shot to hell before he even woke up. Doug called, dragging him from a deep sleep.

  “Yeah?”

  “Captain just called. Got a 10-56A out in Burnet, but there might be signs of foul play. He wants us to take this one since Ganley is out this week.” Attempted suicide. Those were never fun. He supposed it was better than a suicide that had been successful.

  “Okay. Coroner on the way?” Garret stood and pulled on the jeans he’d worn the night before, then thought better of it. He’d been in a smoky bar for much of the night. He pulled them off, put on a pair of black slacks, t-shirt, and shoulder holster.

  “En route.”

  “Any ID?” Garret was asking because they both knew if the
y had an ID, that might mean there were family or friends present, and that always made these things hard. Especially with a suicide attempt. They could be exceedingly messy and hard for family members to witness.

  “None yet. Young woman. Late twenties, early thirties. She hung herself from a tree. Unconscious when she was discovered. It didn’t sound like they thought she would make it through the next twenty-four hours. Now you know as much as I do,” Doug said and hung up the phone.

  Garret finished his morning routine, which was short and efficient, then left to meet Doug at the location his partner had texted him. He wasn’t looking forward to this. No matter who the woman was, when someone took their own life, it was never an easy scene to process. There were too many “what ifs” and “if onlys”—what if she’d just reached out to someone? If only someone had been with her instead of her being alone. If only she’d hung on just one more hour. Just one more day.

  He let himself out the door and hung up, bracing against the task in front of him. This was shaping up to be an extremely shitty day.

  *

  Cora knocked again but Ashley didn’t answer the door. Her car was in the driveway. Knowing Ashley, she had walked over to the diner to meet someone for breakfast. Ashley’s little house was close enough to town that she often walked wherever she needed to go.

  Cora used her key to let herself in and grabbed a cold glass of water. She had biked over and still needed to bike the four miles back. She scribbled a note to Ashley, telling her to call when she got home, and let herself back out the door. She wanted to see if she could catch a ride up to their parents’ house later that afternoon for dinner. Not because she really needed a ride. She simply hadn’t been seeing as much of her sister since the hot cop had come along, and she missed her. Hopefully, Ashley would call and they could have coffee before going out to see the rest of the family for dinner.

  She hopped on her bike and pedaled off, determined to make it home before ten when the Texas heat would make biking unbearably hot. But when she drove by the house a few hours later and pulled in the driveway, she couldn’t help but wonder if Ashley had come home yet. It was almost two o’clock and Ashley hadn’t called, despite Cora’s note from that morning, but her car was still in the driveway.

  She remembered a few weeks ago when Garret had found Ashley huddled in the closet, and a small bit of worry formed in her belly. But Ashley had been doing really well lately. And surely when Cora had come in the house that morning, if Ashley had been upset or sick or something like that, she’d have called out to Cora.

  Cora let herself into the house and checked the bedroom. No sign of Ashley. She looked on the kitchen counter and found her note right where she’d left it. She pulled her phone from her pocket and texted Ashley.

  Hey, where are you?

  It took several minutes before she got an answer. She had a feeling Ashley would tell her she was with the hot cop, as Cora liked to refer to him. They’d been spending a lot of time together lately. Cora almost felt a little awkward, like maybe she shouldn’t have bothered them. Who knew? Maybe Ashley had spent the night at Garret’s house and they were still in bed late into the afternoon. Her phone beeped with an incoming text.

  Just at the library working.

  Cora frowned. She’d driven by the library a minute before and it was dark. As dark as it should be, since it was closed on Sundays. And Cora knew perfectly well Ashley didn’t go in to work on her day off. She worked hard. She loved her library and often went the extra mile for it, but she didn’t work on Sundays. Cora swallowed her disappointment at the lie and texted back a quick, ok c u later message before leaving Ashley’s and locking up.

  She was bothered and couldn’t help but wonder why Ashley felt she needed to lie instead of just letting Cora know she was with Garret. Maybe Ashley felt the need to lie since Cora wasn’t dating anyone. Hadn’t had a date in over a year. Had no hope or prayer of a date for the foreseeable future.

  And now she felt fan-freaking-tastic. Cora pulled out of the driveway and decided to head to her parents’ house early. Maybe her mom would let her be her taster in the kitchen like she had when Cora was younger. Then she could feel like a desperate lonely woman who was also destined to be a ginormous woman in a tent dress ten years down the road.

  Fabulous.

  *

  Garret looked at the clock on the wall and rubbed a hand down his face. His day had gone from shitty to worse and back again. They’d arrived on scene at the attempted suicide, to find out the victim had been admitted to the ICU unit and, if she survived at all, she’d likely have brain damage. She might never wake up. The doctors hadn’t let them in to see her, but since she wasn’t conscious there wasn’t much they could do there anyway. They asked for a crime scene technician to be permitted to fingerprint her so an identification could be made and the family notified.

  They’d processed the scene and found what could be evidence of a struggle, or could have been the victim’s own footprints as she struggled to set up the log she’d tipped over to facilitate her hanging. They’d collected as much evidence as possible, given what little there was, but for now, their priority remained finding family and friends who could answer questions and help lead to more information.

  Next, they’d had to drive half an hour outside Branson Falls to process a burglary. That case ended up matching several other cases in the statewide system, so they’d spent a few hours on the phone trying to track down details of cases in other jurisdictions to figure out if they were truly related.

  They’d topped it off by finding out one of their cases from a few months ago might be tossed out of court due to some errors in processing evidence over at the state lab. They’d be scrambling to see if they could find any further evidence to back the case if the original evidence got thrown out. But at several months out from the crime, finding anything new was a stretch.

  Garret was surprised to see it was four o’clock and he hadn’t heard from Ashley all day. Not since she’d returned his text this morning. He hoped that didn’t mean her day was turning out to be as bad as his. He knew she planned to work on her new book today. Maybe she got so buried in her writing, she hadn’t noticed the time.

  Hey gorgeous, miss me?

  He waited with a stupid grin on his face, expecting some kind of comeback having to do with Johnny Depp sweeping her off her feet or something. He got nothing. And nothing again when he texted twenty minutes later.

  “Everything okay?” Doug asked, looking up from where he’d been working on the last of the reports they needed to file before taking off for the day.

  Garret frowned. “Just can’t reach Ashley. No biggie,” he said with a shrug. He didn’t want to look like a lovesick goon in front of Doug, but man, he wished he’d hear from her. He wanted nothing more than to drive to her house and climb into bed with her. “It’s probably nothing. She eats dinner at her parents’ house every Sunday.” He glanced back at the clock. Four-thirty. Maybe she went over there early and was busy with her family.

  Part of him felt like a pansy for caring that she hadn’t called. For wondering if she was pulling away from him since she’d insisted he not come over last night, and didn’t seem all that eager to see him or talk to him today. But hell if he wasn’t just a little worried about that.

  Doug laughed at his partner. “Oh, she’s got you good, my man. She’s got you good.”

  “Good how?” Garret was feeling pretty defensive at the moment and it came through in his tone. Doug laughed harder. A couple of the other guys in the precinct wandered over and Garret had to sit and listen to Doug describe how desperate Garret was for Ashley’s attention. How he was texting her day and night like a pimply faced kid.

  Garret ignored them, but the words ate at him, because it was true. And he had a bad feeling that Ashley was avoiding him. Like maybe he’d come on too strong or was more into this than she was. He had thought there was something real starting between them. But maybe for her this had just be
en about sex and she was done with him now. Plenty of women had a thing for cops. Maybe she was just another badge bunny and she was done with him now that he’d given her what she wanted.

  But no. That didn’t make sense. She hadn’t even been intimate with a man in years. She wouldn’t just hop into bed with him and then move on. Would she?

  “Hey, you all right, man? I was just screwing with you.”

  Garret looked up to see that the rest of the group had walked away and his partner was now watching him intently. He shook his head. “Yeah, I’m good. Just need to go catch up on sleep.”

  Doug nodded. “You go ahead and take off. I’m almost done here. I’ll take care of these,” he said, gesturing to the reports he had been working on.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it,” he said as he pushed in his chair and straightened a few things on his desk. He didn’t like the fact that he was feeling much too raw at what seemed like rejection from Ashley. Hell, he didn’t even like that he was taking this as a rejection. So she hadn’t texted or called as often as she usually did. So she’d wanted him to have a guys’ night out last night. He was taking this way too personally.

  “See you in the morning. We can go over to the hospital and see if the doctor will let us see our Jane Doe. See if there’s been any change in her condition,” Doug said, and Garret was reminded that things could be worse. Somewhere, someone was likely missing this poor woman, worried to death for her, but unable to find her. He gave a nod as he walked away. He should stop being a whiny baby and suck it up. Just go talk to Ashley. Find out where things stood. Because if she wasn’t on the same page with him, if she didn’t see this going someplace serious between them, he needed to find out now while he could still walk away without committing his heart.