Take Down

by Jess Anastasi

  So they’d worked for hours, compiling what information Jake had brought with him concerning Hobbs’s life in Dallas, the night his brother had been killed, and the trial. Hayes had then helped him put together the beginning of a picture on what Hobbs had been doing since arriving in Everness a little over a six months ago. Honestly, they didn’t have much to go on at this point, but he was hoping in the morning, when he and the sheriff could go talk to a few people around town—known acquaintances and places he frequented—they might get a solid lead on how the man was connected to this mess. Or better yet, find that he was standing squarely in the middle of it.

  He bid the sheriff good night and declined the offer of a ride, wanting to walk off some of the tight frustration that’d steadily been winding up within him all day. The sooner they got Danny out of this hell, the better as far as his sanity was concerned. At least he wasn’t still being held in the interview room or locked in a holding cell. Stevens very easily could have insisted on doing either if he’d decided he’d had enough to get the DA to start the process of formally charging Danny.

  The night air was refreshingly cool as he left town and headed for his house. Not cold, but the temperature had come down enough that the slight breeze cleared his head as he strode quickly through the darkened streets.

  As he was passing by the Jones’s garage—on the opposite side of the street so he didn’t let himself get any ideas about knocking on Grant Jones’s door just to tell him what an asshole he was—he noticed the main door standing wide open, creaking a little in the tepid wind.

  He paused, debating whether to leave it or go investigate in case someone had broken in. Shaking his head at himself in admonishment, he started across the road because if it’d been any other business besides the garage, he would have already been inside and calling dispatch for whoever was on night shift. Part of him vindictively thought if someone had broken in, it was far less than what Grant Jones deserved karma-wise.

  As he stepped up the curb, however, his steps faltered at the splashes of bright red trailing over the pavement, glistening under the single light above the sign.

  Heart hammering, he hurried forward and pushed the gaping door wider, spilling out more light and revealing a solid trail of blood. The place was trashed, broken glass, papers, and other debris scattered in all directions. He didn’t take any of it in, however, just followed the trickle of red into the office, his boots crunching over broken glass.

  When he rounded the corner, he fully expected to find a victim or body—Grant Jones or someone else, he wasn’t sure. The fact that he found nothing but an alarming-sized puddle of blood and more destruction set off a conflict of relief and concern inside him.

  Pulling out his phone, he called in the crime scene, dispatch telling him the sheriff’s unit was on the way as he started heading back outside. Of course Hayes would want to take care of this himself. Pulse still thrumming as he wondered who the hell all that blood belonged to and where they’d gone, he then dialed Danny’s phone, only to jerk to a halt as he heard the echo of it ringing somewhere back inside. His heart slammed to a stop and then resumed at a frantic beat.

  “No, no, no,” he muttered frantically, the words running into each other as he rushed back inside, holding his own phone away from his ear to locate the source of the distant trilling. It led him back into the office and over to the pool of blood. He toed aside some broken pieces of trophies and papers, finding Danny’s blood-streaked phone beneath.

  All higher reasoning vacuumed from his mind and he stumbled, catching himself against the edge of the desk. “Oh fuck. Danny.”

  He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the pool of blood, trying desperately not to jump to the conclusion his mind wanted him to take. No. Danny was supposed to be at home, in his bed, waiting for him to get back. Why would he come here? What the hell had happened to cause all this destruction?

  The rumble of an engine broke into his whirling thoughts, and he unsteadily pushed off from the desk to rush outside. He had to get home. Maybe Danny was right where he was meant to be and the smashed-up garage and trail of blood had nothing to do with him.

  “Perez?” Sheriff Hayes jerked a step back in surprise as he burst out of the doorway and into the street. “What the hell is going on?”

  The sheriff glanced down, saw the blood on the pavement, and muttered a curse, but Jake ignored him, launching into a sprint down the street.

  “Perez! Where are you going?”

  He didn’t bother answering, lungs aching as he raced the block and a half to his house. All of the lights were off, and things looked too quiet as he rushed up the path and slammed his keys into the lock with a shaking hand.

  “Danny!” he yelled as he shoved through the doorway, flicking on lights as he went. He pounded to the bedroom, yelling Danny’s name again, hoping he was just asleep and about to get pissed about being woken up so rudely. He burst into the bedroom, finding the bed empty and rumpled—exactly the way they’d left it after Danny had taken his midmorning nap.

  He sagged against the doorframe, chest heaving and stomach hurting as he tried to catch a single thought that would make sense of this. His phone ringing in his pocket made him jump and he quickly pulled it out, seeing the sheriff’s name on the display.

  “Sir?” he answered, voice catching on the single word.

  “Did you find him?” Hayes asked in a grim voice, obviously having put the pieces together once he’d seen inside the garage.

  “No.” He gulped a ragged breath, willing himself to hold it together.

  “Anywhere else you think he might have gone?” Hayes was obviously trying for a professional, matter-of-fact tone, but since Danny was practically a son to him, he wasn’t quite pulling it off. Emotion wavered beneath the words.

  “No,” he whispered, swallowing down the lump blocking his throat. “No, I don’t think he would have gone anywhere else, not after everything that happened.”

  Hayes cleared his throat. “Okay, get back over here. I’ve got Detective Stevens and Peggy coming to secure the scene. You and I are going to start working on finding him.”

  He nodded, belatedly realizing the sheriff couldn’t see him. Except the man disconnected the call before he could agree, so he lowered the phone and then sucked in a breath, ruthlessly shoving down his emotions. After detouring into the bathroom, he splashed some cold water on his face and took a moment to get his shit together. Whatever had happened, Danny needed him right now. Needed him in cop mode. Needed him doing everything humanly possible to find him.

  And God help whoever was responsible for this. Between him and Sheriff Hayes, the full weight of Everness law and order would not stop until they got Danny back safe and sound.

  BACK AT the garage, Jake hadn’t been able to bring himself to go inside again. Stevens had locked down the scene, taken a thorough look through, snapped some initial pictures, and gotten a sample of the blood. A crime scene team were on their way from Houston but were still almost two hours out.

  Jake was ready to tear the town apart to look for Danny, but he knew without a lead, he’d only be wasting his time and energy.

  “What have you got so far, Stevens?” Hayes asked as the detective joined them outside where they were waiting next to the sheriff’s SUV.

  “Looks like someone trashed the place on purpose. Nothing seems to have been stolen, though we’d need Grant Jones to confirm if there are any valuables missing.”

  “He wasn’t home.” The sheriff nodded to the house next door. “I’ve got Olsen and Mullens out looking for him.”

  “And the blood?” Jake asked, voice rough because his throat had felt raw ever since he’d first realized Danny’s phone was in there.

  “DNA will take twenty-four to forty-eight hours to get back. It’s a lot of blood, but not enough to make me think someone bled out.” Stevens didn’t seem concerned enough about the possibility they had another missing person on their hands when the last one had turned up dead in th
e trunk of a car.

  “Anything else?” Hayes asked through a tight jaw, also seeming frustrated.

  “Most likely scenario? Danny Jones got it into his head to trash his old man’s garage—”

  “Danny wouldn’t—” Jake started, but Hayes shot him a hard look that shut him up.

  “Whole town is talking about you all,” Stevens continued pointedly. “So Danny trashes the place, but Grant Jones catches him in the act. They fight, things get out of hand….”

  “You’re saying you think one of them killed the other?” Jake finished when the detective trailed off. His whole body started going numb. It wasn’t Danny. He wouldn’t do that…. Would he?

  “Probably not on purpose, more like heat of the moment. I’m not willing to say who all that blood belongs to until one of them turns up. I’d say right now, either Grant or Danny is out there somewhere trying to work out what to do with a body.”

  Hayes muttered a curse under his breath and strode away. Jake didn’t want to believe it, but he could see in the sheriff’s face the older man also thought it was the most likely scenario. But there was one other possibility. He left Stevens to hurry after the sheriff.

  “Hayes,” he called as the man crossed the street and then took to pacing. “What if it didn’t happen like that?”

  “What-ifs don’t help us now, Perez.” The sheriff’s face was pale under the streetlamp. “We need cold, hard facts.”

  “Danny told me someone had been following him. Someone who matched the description of Leroy Hobbs.” There was a desperate edge to his voice, but no matter how hard he tried to get it under control, it wasn’t going away. Every instinct within him was telling him he had to find Danny now, before it was too late…. If it isn’t already. The traitorous thought left him feeling sick and clammy. “We should be looking for Hobbs as well as Danny and Grant.”

  Hayes shook his head, expression pinched. “We don’t have the resources; it’s already stretching us looking for the two Jones men. And we never did find anything connecting Hobbs to Danny’s case. I’m sorry, but I think in this instance you might be letting what happened in the past cloud your judgment. Stevens is right. The most obvious explanation here is the pair of fools had a falling-out that ended badly. One or both of them is bound to turn up eventually, and then we’ll have our answers.”

  Before he could reply, a call came in on the sheriff’s radio. The older man sent him a nod and then turned away to answer it.

  Dammit.

  Was Hayes right? Was he not thinking straight when it came to Hobbs? The situation certainly looked exactly how Stevens had spelled it out. But his instincts were telling him there was more beneath the surface. He just had to figure out what it was and how it connected to Danny.

  The sheriff returned with a grim set to his features. “Come with me.”

  Not waiting for him, Hayes crossed back over the road to catch Stevens.

  “Just had a call from Olsen, who spoke to a couple of people at Monroe’s. Seems Danny and Grant had a very public blowout. Grant was drunk and said some rather unsavory things when Danny walked into the bar earlier this evening. Danny was obviously pretty upset and took off; Grant left not long after him. No one has seen either of them since.”

  “Fits the theory,” Stevens said, a note of satisfaction in his voice at being proven right.

  Jake wanted to punch him in the face.

  Instead, he dragged a hand through his hair and stepped away to suck down some air. God only knew what Grant had said to Danny. The deep-seated hurt he’d seen simmering in Danny’s eyes whenever he talked about his father—

  Perhaps it wasn’t such a stretch of imagination to theorize Danny had come in here with the intention to wreck the place if he’d been angry and hurt enough. He basically had twenty-three years’ worth of pain, disappointment, confusion, and anxiety crammed inside him. It was probably amazing he hadn’t detonated before now.

  A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and he pulled himself out of the stewing thoughts to glance at the sheriff.

  “I’m going to Monroe’s to speak with a few people, see if we can’t track their movements. You coming?”

  “Yes, sir,” he murmured, taking one last glance at the garage now morbidly decorated in yellow crime scene tape.

  Danny, what the hell happened?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  THE BAR was emptying when they arrived—probably not surprising considering it was creeping into the early hours of the morning. After a quick chat with old man Murphy, the sheriff located a few people who’d been around when the altercation had occurred between Danny and his father.

  It seemed Grant Jones had stumbled in around 5:00 p.m., already well on his way to being drunk and steadily kept up the drinking throughout the evening. Danny had come in just around sunset and tried to leave again as soon as he’d seen his father, but Grant seemed determined to have it out—the alcohol likely stripping any inhibitions the man still held about telling Danny exactly what he thought.

  Jake stood back and listened while the sheriff got rough versions of events from three different people, his stomach getting tighter and tighter each time someone recounted the words Grant Jones had flung at his son.

  Finally, when he couldn’t stand it any longer—because the urge to go out and search for Danny was swiftly being replaced by the urge to find Grant Jones so he could pummel the man into next week—he took himself over to the bar and slid up onto a stool. A whiskey appeared in front of him, and he glanced up to see old man Murphy nodding at him.

  “I can’t, I’m on duty.” He began to push the drink away, but Murphy stopped him.

  “You’re not in uniform. And you look like a man who needs a stiff drink.” Murphy set his gnarled hands on the bar and leaned a little closer. “You won’t do that boy you love any good if you’re falling apart.”

  He eyed the elderly gentleman in surprise. It was unusual for someone of his generation to be so open and understanding about things.

  “How’d you know?” Town gossip, he supposed belatedly.

  Murphy shrugged. “People talk and I see things. Like two very rumpled, satisfied-looking young men leaving the storeroom in the hallway a few nights past.”

  “But we—”

  Murphy cackled a dry laugh. “You really think waiting a few minutes apart made it any less obvious? Besides, you both had the same goofy grins on your faces. Stupid in love, by the looks of things.”

  His heart kicked against the inside of his chest, and he glanced down at the whiskey, closing his hand around it as his eyes burned.

  “Shit,” he muttered, fighting down the emotion. He tossed the alcohol back in one long swallow, leaving Murphy patting his hand in an almost fatherly gesture.

  “There’s a good lad.”

  After he pushed the empty glass away, the sheriff came over to lean against the bar, expression taut, deep lines carved around his mouth and eyes. He looked like he’d aged ten years in a few hours. Probably not surprising since Grant and Danny were practically his family.

  “I’ve filled Stevens in. Considering the threats Grant made against Danny’s life, the detective has decided we’re looking for Grant as a probable suspect and Danny as the possible victim.”

  Jake swallowed down the residual burn of the whiskey trying to creep back up his throat. Maybe one drink hadn’t been enough.

  “Any other leads on where either of them went after?” His voice came out hoarse as he forced away the theory Stevens had come up with. He couldn’t let it sink in. He had to believe Danny was still alive. Blind hope was the only thing keeping him together at this point.

  “Seems Danny walked off toward the garage, but Grant left in his truck,” the sheriff answered with a hint of displeasure in his tone.

  “He was that drunk and no one stopped him from driving?”

  “Considering the foul mood he was in,” Murphy interjected, “don’t think anyone was game to try taking his keys from him. ’Sides, if y
ou ask me, he probably deserved to go headfirst into a tree after what he said to Danny.”

  The sheriff shook his head slightly. “You know better than that, Murphy. If he killed someone else instead—”

  Hayes broke off and swallowed, gaze snapping away as he clearly struggled to keep his emotions in check.

  “I’m sorry, Alan,” Murphy said, voice low and gravelly with regret. “If I’d thought he was going after Danny like that, I never would’ve let him leave.”

  “No one could have known,” Hayes murmured in reply, pushing back from the bar. “Call me if you hear anything.”

  The barkeep gave a somber nod, and Jake thanked the man for the whiskey, pausing to leaf some notes out of his wallet. Murphy shook his head, however.

  “On the house. Oh, and by the way, I hear tell Danny’s in need of a new job.”

  He paused after climbing off the stool, almost asking how the man knew that, but duh, small town. He’d never seen such a vibrant and effective gossip vine.

  “Let him know when he turns up there’s a position here for him. I’m gettin’ on. Wouldn’t mind handing the reins over, and I know Danny worked some bar down in Houston.”

  “I’ll tell him.” He wanted to thank Murphy for his stubborn faith that Danny was okay and they were going to find him safe and well. They had to. If they didn’t—

  He couldn’t even finish the thought, as if his mind simply refused to go there. He murmured one last thanks to Murphy and hurried out of the bar to catch up with the sheriff. When he got outside, he spotted Hayes standing by his SUV talking on the radio, expression grim.

  “They found Grant Jones,” the sheriff reported to him in a carefully neutral voice once he got off the radio. “Drove his truck into a ditch a few miles out of town and passed out.”

  “Danny?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.