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  Still, Chace didn’t think the killer did the search. He reckoned the man got in, did his thing, and got the fuck out. Whoever went through Newcomb’s house took their time. A man with one, possibly two local murders on his hands would not hang around.

  This meant Bonar and the Boys had a team working Carnal and therefore shit hitting the town was shittier.

  Further, Bonar and the Boys were not thrilled to get visits from Frank.

  This was communicated through voicemail by Bonar and Chace’s father. He’d ignored both calls and listened only to Bonar’s message. He deleted his father’s without listening. This was because, from experience, he knew that even the man’s voice set his teeth on edge in a way that could stick with him for days.

  But he’d replied to Bonar in a text, Threat was made against Newcomb to a police officer. This was reported. Murder investigated by the book.

  This was all he said, he felt it said it all so he intended to say no more. After receiving this text Bonar had called him three times. Chace had answered the calls then immediately ended the calls without even putting the phone to his ear, taking away Bonar’s opportunity to leave a message.

  He gave up.

  But Chace knew they hadn’t.

  Chace knew Newcomb was a moron, racist pig who beat his wife but he was not stupid enough to keep the shit he had on those men at his house and he was a good enough father not to want it close to his kids. Where he kept it or who he gave it to either still had it and were in danger or it had been found and the threat was over.

  Frank was looking into the former and not coming up with much.

  They’d have to wait and see if it was the latter.

  If this wasn’t enough to make his thoughts heavy, there was more.

  The library.

  Chace had made five calls to the president of the City Council asking for specifics about the future of the library and when the library’s possible closure would come up for public discussion at an open Council meeting.

  Although all his calls and messages were taken by Cesar Moreno’s assistant, Chace had not received a call back.

  Chace knew Cesar Moreno, the City Council president. He knew him as a good man, a family man and a devoted husband. The kind of husband who still held hands with his wife even though they’d been married eighteen years. The kind of father who was always at his three sons’ baseball games. The kind of father who doted on his only daughter like she was a princess.

  In fact, his daughter’s Quinceañera last year was such a huge event, it was still talked about. Well-attended, most the town invited, no expense spared and all of the traditional ceremonies, such as the Thanksgiving mass, the donning of the crown and the changing of the shoes were performed.

  Chace knew Cesar well enough he was invited to the Quinceañera but since Misty was still alive and he’d have to bring her, as he usually did when they received an invitation as husband and wife, he declined attending.

  Cesar knew Chace enough to understand.

  Misty had been devastated. She liked a good party, a chance to dress up and a further chance to strut around on Chace’s arm. This was why he very rarely gave her those opportunities. That and he couldn’t stomach spending time with her.

  Cesar had also kicked in the instant shit went down at CPD. His hands were tied when Arnie was at his zenith of power and he didn’t like it. But he was smart enough to keep quiet about it in order to protect himself and his family from being targeted and he did what he could within the Council and as an advisor and leader in the town.

  Therefore, the moment he could begin clean up, he did. Openly, honestly, quickly, no red tape and a great deal of communication. The goal was to communicate to the town that the storm had passed and it was a dawn of a new day. Chace knew he threw himself into this including spending countless hours engaged in reorganizing the Department, searching for replacement personnel, hiring and working with consultants and holding town meetings to gather feedback and keep citizens informed.

  So his non-response to Chace was a surprise Chace didn’t like and further didn’t get. From what he knew of Cesar, he was a civic leader, a cultural leader, a respected businessman and a decent family man. He was honest, direct and approachable.

  This was not his MO at all.

  And Chace didn’t like it.

  “Please don’t curse.”

  Faye’s voice took him out of his thoughts and he asked, “What?”

  He felt her eyes on him so he glanced at her before looking back at the road as she repeated, “Please don’t curse in front of my family.”

  “Faye –”

  Her hand gave his a squeeze and he felt her body lean toward him as she went on, “You should be you, of course, but Dad’s a deacon at church. He mows their lawn and trims their shrubs in the summer. Mom designs the Sunday programs. And Mom gets mad at me when I say ‘frak’ and that isn’t even a real curse word. But she feels the meaning behind it is enough. I’m twenty-nine but she still hands me guff without hesitation.”

  He gave her hand a squeeze back and replied, “First of all, meetin’ your family, I’m not gonna swear. Second, there’ll be kids there so I’m not gonna swear. And last, when your Dad came for his talk, he swore. Repeatedly. One thing your kid doin’ it, she’s a girl, a pretty one at that, as a parent, you feel you can tell her off for it no matter what her age. But a man talkin’ to a man, they’ll say what they like.”

  “Dad cursed when he talked to you?”

  Her tone was cute, breathy, disbelieving and Chace grinned through the windshield.

  “Yep.”

  “Really?” she whispered.

  “From memory, he said ‘asshole’ more than once, ‘shit’ more than once and if you count ‘piss-ant’, he said that more than once too. There might be others and I don’t recall him droppin’ the f-bomb but he sure as fuck didn’t shy away from colorful language.”

  “Holy frak,” she breathed and at that Chace smiled through the windshield.

  Then he quit smiling and dropped his voice low to assure her, “Baby, it’s all gonna be good.”

  “Well, you got Mom. I’ve never seen a bouquet of flowers this big.”

  She was not wrong.

  Chace hadn’t ever bought flowers for a woman and seen the results so he didn’t know a fifty dollar bouquet was that huge. He frequently sent flowers to his mother. But he called in the order and rarely saw the result since he rarely went home. Further, he spent seventy-five dollars on his mother’s flowers. Which, from the arrangement currently lying across Faye’s lap that Holly at the flower shop made up, with a gleam in her eye after he told her how much he was wanted to pay, meant his mother’s were likely enormous.

  So it was no wonder his Ma always called, beside herself with joy when she got them. He thought she was just being sweet.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he told her as he turned down the road northwest of town that led to the Goodknight house, a road nearly directly opposite where Chace’s house was located at the south.

  “Liza will probably be inappropriate one way or another,” Faye stated which meant she either ignored him or was so deep in her anxiety, she hadn’t heard him.

  “Faye,” he squeezed her hand, “it’s gonna be all right.”

  “And she might have a drama or… you know, just so you know, she isn’t adverse to fighting with Boyd in front of people. Even the kids. If it gets rip-roarin’, she’ll tell the boys to go to another room but she doesn’t care who else witnesses it.”

  “Faye,” he gave her hand a gentle jerk then held it tight and strong, “I want this to go well for you but, no offense to your family, I do not give a shit about it. I don’t go to sleep with your family. I don’t wake up to your family. I give a shit about you. But honey, that said, honest to God, I’ll like them. I know this because I’ve lived in the same town as them for thirteen years and I already like them. Gettin’ to know them better means I’m just gonna like ‘em more. That goes south for
some fucked up reason, it doesn’t change the fact that I’ll be goin’ to sleep with you and I’ll be wakin’ up with you and the rest of it, we’ll deal. Yeah?”

  She didn’t reply.

  Chace had to let her hand go to make the turn into her folks’ drive and he did both as he prompted again, “Yeah?”

  He got no reply until he halted behind a silver Toyota 4Runner.

  When he did that, she blurted, “You come from money and you handle elegant champagne glasses that had to cost a mint like they’re plastic.”

  His head turned to her to see her face was pale and plainly anxious in the dash lights.

  Fuck.

  This was a surprise.

  Fuck.

  He put the truck in park, switched off the ignition and lights and turned to her.

  “Come here,” he ordered quietly.

  “I’m right here, Chace.”

  “Come here,” he repeated.

  “But, I’m –”

  “Baby, come here.”

  She leaned deep into him, stretching across the cab of his truck and resting a hand on his thigh.

  He lifted a hand to the side of her neck, slid it back and up into her silken hair and he pulled her two inches closer.

  Then he said softly, “I make almost double what you do and live in a ranch-style, four bedroom house on fifteen acres south of town. I got a manageable mortgage because my Ma’s folks left me a trust. That trust isn’t a fortune but it’s a whack. I dipped into it to get the house I wanted to live in and build a family in. I will not touch it again until I get married and have kids. Only then will it be used to make my house a home and to give my kids an education. It will be used for nothin’ else unless, God forbid, there’s an emergency.”

  He pulled her an inch closer even as he moved an inch closer to her and kept talking.

  “I got a small nest egg that I do what I can to make bigger just because it’s smart. I invest in a retirement plan that will augment my pension because when I’m done and livin’ the good life, I’d like that good to be better. I take two vacations a year, both to bodies of water where I can fish ‘cause I got ski slopes all around and I can go boardin’ whenever the fuck I want. I wear jeans and cowboy boots and I’ll trade up this truck this year because it’s four years old so it’s time. I’ll eat at The Rooster for a special occasion but even though that food is the shit, I’m just as happy with Rosalinda’s and that is no joke.”

  He moved his other hand to curl around hers on his thigh and kept quietly going.

  “My mother bought me those glasses, darlin’. That was the first time they were ever taken out of the cupboard she put ‘em in. There is other shit in that house Ma got me she thought I had to have and probably all of it is expensive because she can afford it and that’s her way. There is absolutely no shit in that house that belonged to or was purchased by Misty. What those glasses say was my life. I walked away from it when I was seventeen, I never went back, I’ll never go back and I don’t miss it. I don’t give a fuck about champagne glasses. They could be plastic for all I care. They break, they break. You broke, I’d care. Champagne glasses, no. Now you got it all so are you with me on this shit?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, her eyes peering deep into his.

  She was with him so he gave her the rest of it.

  “I already know that family in there is better than the one I grew up in, honey,” he whispered back. “Money and status don’t mean shit. It’s character that means somethin’. My father doesn’t have that. Your father does, he married a woman who has it and together they built a family that has it. You’re nervous and twistin’ shit in that pretty head of yours to make you more nervous. Stop it. This is gonna be fine.”

  “Okay,” she said quietly.

  “Now you got a job ahead of you and that’s to try real hard not to be cute. When you’re cute, it makes me wanna kiss you in a way a deacon at a church, who still curses just not in front of his daughter, will not like. Since you’re cute all the time, this is gonna be hard for you. But I’m askin’ you to try.”

  Her bubblegum lips twitched then she replied softly, “I’ll try.”

  Staring at her mouth, he muttered, “And you’ll fail.”

  “Chace –” she breathed and his eyes shot back to hers.

  “You’re bein’ cute,” he warned.

  Her ear dipped to her shoulder and her brows inched together.

  Cute.

  “I just said your name.”

  “All it takes.”

  Her head righted, her eyes went hooded, her lips parted and she gave him her look.

  Then she gave him more cute and he was fucking thrilled to take it.

  “Seriously,” she whispered, near reverent, beyond adorable, “you’re fraking awesome.”

  He loved it that she felt that way.

  And he hoped to Christ she always would.

  Chace grinned before he used his hand to pull her close and dip her down so he could kiss her nose. They could have an audience but she was chewing gum. He tasted her, especially with the additional element of bubblemint, they wouldn’t head inside for fifteen minutes.

  Then he pulled her back and stated, “Let’s go in.”

  She nodded, started to move away and he let her go.

  He waited for her to round the truck before he took her hand and guided her to the lit front door.

  He’d been out this way on numerous occasions when he was in a cruiser on patrol and for a variety of business during his tenure at CPD. The road that led to the Goodknight house did not dead end at the hills west of town but meandered up them and through the mountains. There were ranches off that road, a couple of units of rental condos for residents and for vacationers and, higher up the mountain, a few large homes owned by wealthy residents or kept as second houses to wealthier non-residents. He’d long since known where the Goodknights lived mostly because, after he’d spotted Faye, he put that one with the one of their name on the mailbox on the street and got two so that house hit his radar.

  Their house was split level and, by the look of it, built in the 70’s. Likely family room, dining room, kitchen and other common areas on the lower level, living room and bedrooms up top or vice versa. Seeing as from the road you couldn’t see an elevated deck leading off the upper level but instead a dug out patio leading from the lower one, he was guessing the family areas were down below.

  As they made their approach, they were, surprisingly, not greeted at the door. Instead, Faye let them in without knocking and while Chace was closing the door to the March evening Colorado cold, she shouted, “We’re here!”

  That was when it began. Something Chace thought he was prepared for.

  Something, he was not.

  A night in a normal, average family home with a normal, average family that was nutty, loud, opinionated but funny, immensely close and teasingly loving.

  They were still standing on the stone tiled landing that had a half flight of stairs leading up to an open space living room to their left and a half flight leading down straight into a kitchen right in front of them. Upon Faye’s shout, two boys, her nephews, Jarot and Robbie, came racing up the steps. The older one had dark brown hair with a hint of red. The younger one had Faye’s hair.

  He thought they were racing to greet their Aunt Faye but he would immediately discover they weren’t when they both came to rocking halts in front of him, tipped their heads back and spoke in unison… loudly.

  “Show us your badge!” Jarot demanded on a shout.

  “Gun!” Robbie screeched.

  Apparently, it had been shared with the boys he was a cop.

  “Um… can Detective Keaton show you his badge after you say hello to your Auntie Faye, I introduce you to Detective Keaton and maybe he gets a drink, sits down and relaxes?” Faye suggested in a practiced-sounding tone that was mixture of mild exasperation and “aren’t my nephews adorably naughty?”

  “Right,” Jarot backed down, moving toward Faye and
allowing her, with a soon-to-be nine year old’s obvious reluctance, to give him a short hug and an even shorter peck on the cheek.

  “Gun!” Robbie repeated on a screech, ignoring his aunt completely.

  “Robbie! Mind your manners!” a woman reproached and Chace’s eyes went to the stairs.

  Chace had seen Faye in town with her sister, Sondra and Silas and it was her sister, Liza, who was approaching.

  God had seen fit to grant Faye with her father’s unusual blue eyes and her mother’s unusual auburn hair. He’d seen fit to grant Liza Newman with her mother’s dark brown eyes and her father’s dark brown hair. Both were nice but Faye’s combination was a knockout while Liza’s was simply appealing.

  That said, she was attractive but her hair was cut short. A style that she wore well and it suited her but it was something Chace did not often find appealing. She’d had two children but her ass and tits were less abundant than her sister’s on a frame that both women inherited from their mother. Same height, same tiny waist, body meant to be hourglass, not streamlined. This meant she took more than passing care of herself and therefore likely dieted. She didn’t look gaunt or in a bad mood because she needed a sandwich since she’d only had a protein bar between breakfast and now. But it wasn’t a look that Chace found appealing either.

  Last, Faye was wearing a little jeans skirt through the belt loops of which she’d threaded a bright scarf that she’d tied off to one side in a bow. Up top, she had on a dark green, lightweight sweater under a canvas jacket. The sweater fit well and its neckline had bits that draped in interesting ways making the sweater do what only Faye could naturally do. It hinted at skin and curves without highlighting either at the same time drawing your attention to both.

  She was wearing a pair of cowboy boots he’d never seen before that were sweet in their own right but even sweeter on Faye. Fawn suede heavily embroidered with bright stitching. The stitching included yellow and orange that was random detailing, there were some green stitched vines and last there were vibrant pink flowers.