The Closer He Gets

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Tess really wanted to ask why he chose to remain rootless. It seemed especially odd considering his hobby was turning derelict houses into beautiful homes.

  The two of them were virtual strangers, she reminded herself. The fact that he didn’t feel like a stranger could be explained by the shocking experience they’d shared. Followed by another

  experience that would have been more traumatic if he hadn’t come the moment she’d called.

  As she’d known he would. But...how?

  Tess didn’t think she’d been brooding that long, but Zach’s eyes narrowed slightly. His expression had changed, too, becoming guarded.

  “Um...” She groped for something to say. “Well, I hope those names are useful. I can probably think of some others if you get desperate.”

  “Thank you, Tess.” He rose and stood looking down at her for longer than was comfortable, his thoughts unreadable. “Keep being cautious,” he said at last. “I have a feeling my deadline for reconsidering will be up tomorrow morning when I walk in the door to begin a new workweek.”

  That meant that, like her, he had Sundays and Mondays off, Tess assumed.

  She stood, too, hoping she’d feel less vulnerable when he wasn’t towering over her as much. “You’ll be careful, too, won’t you?”

  His expression softened. “I’m a tough nut to crack.”

  That meant he thought he was too tough for anyone to challenge.

  “Have you insured your new house yet?” she said with sudden urgency.

  Looking surprised, he said, “Actually, the bank required it.”

  “Oh. Of course, they would.”

  “Some would say that burning down my new house would be doing me a favor.”

  He wasn’t taking her seriously. Tess wanted to shake him.

  “Deputy Hayes is big and mean, and he’s a cop, too. You’re not invincible.”

  “If something happens to me, investigators would look at him right away.”

  “But from what you’ve said, he has friends.” Tess couldn’t dismiss this sudden conviction that he was in danger. Hayes had to feel special rage for Zach, who was supposed to back him, not turn on him.

  “Hey.” Zach’s voice was suddenly deeper, a little husky. His mouth tipped up on one side. “You’re worried about me.”

  She frowned. “Of course I’m worried about you! And you’re not taking me seriously, are you?”

  “Yeah, actually, I am.” His smile disappeared, an odd expression replacing it. His voice became huskier, halting. “I think...if we weren’t under scrutiny, I’d ask you to dinner.”

  Something a lot more complicated replaced her frustration. “I...thank you.” It came out as a whisper.

  His gaze briefly lowered to her mouth then lifted. “Just out of curiosity.” That husky note was still there. “What would you have said?”

  “Yes.” Her knees gave out and she plunked back down onto her old chair. “I already invited you to dinner, remember?”

  Satisfaction curved his mouth. “Good reminder. And now I’d better get out of here before I do something I shouldn’t.”

  He was gone before she could open her mouth to ask something stupid. Because she knew what he’d had in mind.

  And if her knees were weak just because he looked at her that way, Tess couldn’t imagine how she’d feel if he actually kissed her.

  But then she remembered what he’d said about being rootless. “When you know you’re going to move often...”

  Tess made a face. Maybe it was just as well he hadn’t really asked. She’d reached an age where she was beginning to wonder whether she’d ever meet a guy interested in permanence. She wanted a family.

  Zach didn’t even want furniture to encumber him.

  Well, the issue wouldn’t arise. It could take forever until Andrew Hayes was convicted at trial. She’d read about trials starting, when she’d forgotten the details of the original crime because it had taken place as much as two or three years before. What if the deputy was never arrested? Or was exonerated? Would Zach be able to stay on in Harris County, a renegade in the sheriff’s department?

  He was already considered a renegade, she felt sure, and because he was so new on the job, he’d have nobody to back him up.

  Being honest about what he’d seen, standing up for what he knew was right, had the potential to cost him a whole lot more than it would her. Knowing that scared her even as it increased her resolve to armor herself against his appeal. She hated the idea of not seeing him again...but knew it would be a whole lot healthier for her if she didn’t.

  * * *

  ZACH’S PHONE DIDN’T ring often these days. A few friends had called to give him a hard time about his move to a Washington State backwater, all wanting to know if he was ready to throw in the towel and come back to Portland yet. He expected those calls to become more infrequent. A couple of the guys he’d worked with would stay good friends.

  Otherwise he only had an occasional work-related call. None yet from Bran, but then, they hadn’t exchanged numbers. What with Zach’s couple of days off, they hadn’t crossed paths, either.

  So when his phone rang as he was debating whether to have another piece of pizza or not, his first thought was that it could be the new neighbor, Dean Thompson, calling to fulfill his wife’s promise of useful names.

  Wait. What if Tess was in trouble again?

  He groaned when he saw the displayed name—Mom—and even considered not answering. But, shit, they didn’t talk often, and he did love her even if he harbored a whole lot of anger toward her, too.

  He wondered if he could get away with not telling her about his latest move and the reason for it.

  “Hey,” he said. “Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

  “You could call me, too,” his mother complained.

  “I know, I know. I stay busy, that’s all. Uh, what’s up with you? Things going okay with—” he had to think to come up with his current stepfather’s name “—Henry?”

  Mom’s last husband had been ten years younger than her. This one was ten years older.

  “He’s driving me crazy,” she said fretfully. “He’s retired, you know. All he does is follow me around. I have to lie about where I’m going just to get away from him for an hour!”

  What was new about that? Zach wondered cynically. Hadn’t she always lied to her husbands when she was running around on them? Although she’d get to an age where she’d lose interest in having multiple sexual partners, wouldn’t she?

  “Maybe he needs some new hobbies,” Zach suggested diplomatically.

  “The man doesn’t have any.” She paused. “He used to play golf but he herniated a disk in his back so that’s out. He’s like...like a new puppy! I don’t know if I can stand it.”

  Husband number five was history. He just didn’t know it yet. Poor Henry, Zach thought.

  “I just bought a new house,” he offered, to get off the subject of his soon-to-be-ex stepfather.

  “I suppose it’s another one of your dumps,” his mother said with a sigh.

  “Yep, and this is a good one.” He described the house at length and everything wrong with it, hoping he’d bore her and she wouldn’t ask for his new address. “I haven’t moved in yet,” he added hastily.

  “I assume it’s in Portland?”

  Zach hesitated, wanting to lie but knowing eventually he’d have to come clean with her. And then he thought about Bran. Her son. God. What would she say if he told her he and his brother had had dinner and beers together the other day? That Dad was dead? Would she care?

  “Zach?”

  “Just trying to think of how to tell you this,” he said finally.

  “This?”

  “I took a job in Clear Creek. With the county sheriff’s department
, not the Clear Creek PD. The house I bought is here in town. It’s... I don’t know, ten blocks from where we lived.”

  Where we lived. That was as euphemistic as saying, He passed on.

  The silence extended so long he wondered if she’d hung up on him.

  “Why would you do something like that?” she whispered.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “You know it’s coming up on twenty-five years.”

  “Of course I know!” his mother cried. “Do you think I forget for one minute?”

  Sometimes he wondered. Aside from dragging him along every time she’d ditched another husband, she hadn’t been a bad mother. But maybe that was because he’d made sure he was never any bother. That lesson had been hammered into him by seeing repeatedly what happened when boyfriends or husbands began to annoy her. Or bore her. Or become too preoccupied with work or anything else but her. It was a hard thing to think about your own mother, but he’d come to doubt she was able to feel emotion of any real depth.

  “It eats at me,” he explained. “I want answers, Mom. I’m here to get them.” Zach knew he sounded implacable and didn’t care.

  “How could you possibly find out anything after all this time?”

  He frowned, bothered by something in her voice. Did she hope he wouldn’t find any answers?

  “I need to try.” He closed his eyes. “Mom, Bran is here.”

  Her “What?” was so soft he barely caught it.

  “Turns out he and Dad never moved away. Bran is a cop, too. A detective with the sheriff’s department.”

  “I never dreamed...”

  “You knew they were still in the house at first.”

  “Because it would take time to sell!” she cried. “The way everyone looked at your father, how could he bear to stay all these years?”

  “Bran said Dad was too stubborn to go. He thought he’d look as if he was running away. So he just kept staring ’em down.”

  Her voice got even smaller. “Have you seen him?”

  “He’s dead, Mom.” It felt awkward to say, even if he didn’t know whether she’d care. “Lung cancer. Bran says he never quit smoking.”

  “Of course he didn’t!” she snapped, sounding more like herself. But her tone became tentative when she asked, “Do you think if I flew up, Bran would be willing to see me?”

  Taken aback he said, “I...have no idea.” Why did she even want to renew a relationship with the son she’d let go? Yeah, Bran had been a butt, but she could have put her foot down and said, “I’m your mother and you’ll spend vacations with me whether you like it or not.”

  Of course, Dad could have said the same thing to Zach. Neither parent, he’d been long aware, had behaved like the adults they theoretically were. For each, the hurt of being rejected by a son must have been one too many blows. Zach had seen his brother as in league with his father and rejected them together. It was no surprise if Mom had felt the same way, or if Dad’s bitterness spread to include Zach.

  What an unholy mess, he thought bleakly.

  We shouldn’t have been asked to choose. We shouldn’t have been allowed to choose. Maybe he wouldn’t be as screwed up now if he hadn’t lost his father and brother.

  “Will you ask him?” she begged.

  He let out a breath, not seeing an alternative. “Yeah. When I see him again. I don’t know when that will be, Mom. Our...meeting didn’t end on a great note. We both remembered why we hadn’t seen each other in twenty-five years.”

  That silenced her.

  They ended up talking for a few more minutes, exchanging small news, the kind neither would remember five minutes from now, but it served as a decompression.

  Only at the end did she say “Please” again, with the result that he reiterated a promise he knew he’d regret.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE STENCH WAS UNBELIEVABLE. Zach wasn’t two feet into the locker room at work when his eyes started to water. Jesus, it smelled like something—or somebody—had died in here and been left to decompose. No wonder the room was empty at an hour when deputies tended to hang out and trade jokes before taking on the stress of their day.

  Oh, hell, he thought between one step and the next. Sure as shit, everyone else knew whose locker stunk and why.

  His muscles tightened, making him battle ready even though it was a waste of adrenaline. He stopped in front of his locker, his stomach churning. He didn’t look forward to seeing what was in there.

  Was anybody watching for the fun of seeing his reaction? Zach didn’t as much as turn his head. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. He sure as hell would be making a formal complaint, though. If Hayes and his asshole friends thought they could terrorize him with impunity, they were in for a surprise.

  Making sure absolutely nothing showed on his face, he dialed his combination.

  With a clang, he opened the door and gazed at the rotting obscenity lying on the bottom of the locker. It was...a rabbit. He thought. He refused to as much as gag, even at the sight of the maggots.

  Instead he calmly closed the door, whirled the dial and walked directly to the patrol sergeant’s office, making no eye contact on the way. He’d be lucky if one of his molars didn’t crack.

  At his knock Luis Perez called, “Come in.” The minute he saw Zach, he grimaced. “This have something to do with that god-awful stench?”

  “Which everybody has just been ignoring? For how long?”

  “I’m told it appeared this morning.” Perez sighed and pushed back from his desk. “We both know who this message came from, although he probably didn’t deliver it in person. But I suppose I’d better come take a look.”

  “The smell is worse than the morgue during an autopsy,” Zach warned.

  The middle-aged sergeant grunted. He didn’t pay any more attention to deputies who happened to be loitering than Zach did.

  Despite the stink, Perez’s face stayed utterly impassive. He waited while Zach opened the locker, contemplated the rotting creature inside and said, “I want pictures.”

  “Fine.” Zach slammed the locker again. “Looks like I’ll be a little late getting out on patrol.”

  “You shouldn’t have to clean it up,” Perez said, sounding more human.

  “Yeah? Who’s going to? Andrew Hayes?” Anger vibrated in Zach’s voice.

  The sergeant grimaced.

  “I’ll do it,” Zach said shortly, “once there’s documentation.”

  Turned out Perez was pretty good with a camera. Zach wondered if he was afraid something would happen to those pictures for some mysterious reason if an evidence technician took them. Everyone was subject to pressure.

  Zach snapped on latex gloves and grabbed a couple of plastic garbage bags.

  He was bending over to slide one of them around the carcass, gagging despite his determination not to, when behind him someone said sharply, “Son of a bitch!”

  Zach recognized the voice. He turned slowly to see his brother, obviously breathing through his mouth. Zach stepped to one side and gestured with a flourish.

  Bran’s expression hardened.

  Seeing his distaste improved Zach’s mood marginally. At least his brother hadn’t been part of this.

  “Lucky you got here in time to view the latest warning,” Zach said, turning back to his task.

  By the time he got the damn thing in the bag, he was swallowing bile. Mumbling obscenities beneath his breath, he was surprised to turn to find Bran standing at his elbow, holding out a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle.

  Zach nodded his thanks and went to work scrubbing. Finally done, he wordlessly carried the whole mess, double-bagged, out to the Dumpster. When he returned, Bran was waiting, leaning with one shoulder against a locker. He didn’t say anything as Zach took everything out of his locker a
nd closed it.

  Then Zach said grimly, “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get to work.”

  He hoped the vile stench hung around for days. He’d made a decision: he wouldn’t be using a locker again.

  * * *

  BRAN WAS PLENTY pissed when he stalked into the detective bullpen. The simmer heated to a full, rolling boil when he saw a smirking Rich Delancy leaning back in his desk chair, feet stacked on his desk, hands clasped behind his head. “You might want to avoid the locker room,” he suggested.

  “Been there.” Bran stopped right beside Delancy’s desk. “Was there something funny about it I missed?” he asked coldly.

  “Where’s your sense of humor? You know that saying about payback being sweet?” The idiot laughed. “Sometimes it stinks to the high heavens.”

  In a quick, violent motion, Bran knocked the bastard’s feet off the desk. Delancy’s chair fell backward, thumping against the desk behind him.

  He roared to his feet. “What the—?”

  Another detective jumped up. “Cool off! For God’s sake, we don’t brawl on the job.”

  Bran speared him with an icy look. “Usually we don’t commit murder on the job, either, and assume we’ll get away with it because, hey, we’re all good ol’ boys, aren’t we?”

  Neither of the two men he was facing moved. Out of the corner of his eye, Bran was aware that their lieutenant had stepped out of his office.

  The smart thing would be to go sit at his desk. He didn’t know the man his little brother had become well enough to step out on a limb for him. His brain was telling him to think this through before he shot off his mouth any more than he already had.

  Maybe the sickening taste in his mouth left from the fetid odor in the locker room had short-circuited his common sense. He didn’t know. Because he kept staring hard at Rich Delancy, his fingers curled into fists. “Have you ever really looked at my face?”

  His fellow detective’s complete bafflement was obvious. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe I should say, ‘Have you taken a good look at Deputy Carter’s face?’”