True Confessions

parts, but a guy’s jewels? That was plain cold-blooded. In the three years he’d remained in L.A., the case had never been solved, but he’d always figured the perpetrator had to be a woman.

“What was that?” Adam asked as he pointed to the mangled figure on the grass.

“I think it was your Wolverine.”

“His head’s chopped off.”

“Yep. How many times have I told you not to leave your toys around?”

“I didn’t. Wally did.”

There was probably a fifty-fifty chance that what Adam said was the truth. “Doesn’t matter. You’re responsible for your own stuff. Now pick up the pieces and throw them away.”

“Oh, man!” Adam complained as he scooped up the bits of plastic. “He was my favorite.”

Dylan watched his son stomp off before he restarted the mower. There were a lot of images he carried in his head that he would prefer to forget. The images still haunted him from time to time, but at least he no longer lived them. The biggest crime to hit Gospel since he’d been sheriff was the murder of Jeanne Bond by husband Hank. And while it had been unfortunate, it was one case in the past five years. Not one in the past five hours.

Dylan pushed the mower to the backyard and cut the grass around Adam’s swing set. His decision to move back to Gospel had almost been as easy as leaving. He’d left at the age of nineteen and attended a year and a half at UCLA before quitting to join the police academy. He’d been a twenty-one-year-old kid with ideas of catching the bad guys. Making the world safer. He’d turned in his badge ten years later, tired of the bad guys winning. He’d left Gospel a naive country boy with cowshit on his boots. He’d returned a lot older and a whole lot wiser. He’d returned with a much better appreciation for small towns and small-town people. Sure, everyone in Gospel owned a gun, but they weren’t shooting each other over the color of a bandanna.

The weird thing of it was, Dylan hadn’t even really realized he was tired of dealing with all the homicidal crazies until the day two-year-old Trevor Pearson had been kidnapped from his front yard and later found dead in a Dumpster. Dylan could always distance himself from other abuse cases, but Trevor was different. Finding that baby had changed him.

He’d gone home that night to his house in Chatsworth, taken one look at Adam sitting in his high chair with his little Tommy cup in one hand and Cheerios in the other, and decided right then and there he’d had enough. He was taking his son and going someplace where Adam could play. Where he could go outside and be a kid. Where his house didn’t have an alarm system.

Of course, Adam’s mama hadn’t been too happy about his decision. Julie had made it real clear she wasn’t leaving. He didn’t blame her, but he’d made it just as clear he wasn’t staying. They’d argued about Adam, even though there was never really any question that he would go with Dylan. Julie wasn’t a great mother, but he didn’t blame her for that, either. She’d never known her own mother and didn’t seem to have the instincts everyone just assumed females possessed. She loved Adam, but she simply didn’t know what to do with him.

And Adam hadn’t exactly been an easy baby. He’d been premature and colicky, making the first few months of his life hell for everyone. If he wasn’t crying, he was projectile vomiting, and instead of smelling like a sweet, powdery baby, he mostly smelled like an old French fry.

It was Dylan who’d walked the floors with Adam at 3 a.m., rubbing his back and singing him old honky-tonk songs. As a result, when Adam got old enough to reach out, he reached for his father.

In the end, leaving Julie had been real easy. Maybe too easy, confirming what he’d secretly suspected. He’d stayed with her for Adam. His decision hadn’t been as easy for Julie, but she’d done what was best for all of them. She’d signed custody over to Dylan, making only one demand: that Adam spend the first two weeks in July with her.

Dylan had come home with his year-old son, and he’d never regretted his decision. As far as he knew, Julie didn’t have any regrets, either. She now had the life she’d worked so hard for, the life she’d always dreamed of having. When he’d talked to her the week before to confirm her plans with Adam, she’d sounded happier than ever. She had what she wanted, and so did he. He had his son he loved more than anything on the face of the earth. A little boy who made him laugh even as he made him scratch his head. Adam was normal and happy. He loved his dog, and had an obsession with rocks. He collected them everywhere he went, as if they were gold. He had shoe boxes full of them under his bed. He gave them out only to grownups he liked, or to the girls at his school he wanted to impress.

With the sun beating down on his bare back and shoulders, Dylan mowed the lawn below his deck and across his yard to the fenced pasture. Dylan and Adam’s horses, Atomic and Tinkerbell, stood beneath the shade of several pines, dozing, indifferent to the sound of the engine. When he was through, he pushed the mower to the weathered barn to the left of the pasture and stored it beside his John Deere.

He filled the trough with fresh water and then turned the hose on himself. Bent at the waist, he let the cold water run over his head, the back of his neck, and down the sides of his face until he felt his brain freeze. He straightened and shook like a dog, sending a spray of water in all directions. Droplets slid down his spine and chest and were absorbed in the waistband of the soft Levi’s hung low on his hips. He rinsed grass clippings from his boots, then reached for the spigot and turned it off. He thought of standing in Paul and Shelly’s kitchen earlier that day, washing his hands and listening to Ms. Hope Spencer.

“Flora and fauna,” he scoffed. Who in the hell ever used words like “flora and fauna”? And he’d bet his left gonad that her idea of communing with nature was to open the sunroof of her car as she tootled down Santa Monica Boulevard.

He wondered if she ever smiled, really smiled with her blue eyes shining, full lips tilting up. He wondered what it would take to put a smile like that on her face. Another place and another time, he would have liked to try.

She was too perfect. Her clothes, her makeup, her everything. She was the kind of woman his hands just itched to mess up real good, but for a lot of reasons, that kind of itch could get him into trouble. Especially with a woman like her. A writer spelled out big trouble in neon letters for him and Adam.

It wasn’t uncommon for writers to spend time in the wilderness area, working on travel guides or backpacking articles. Only MZBHAVN didn’t look like she spent much time in the great outdoors. He didn’t know the real reason for her move to Gospel, but he had a few doubts about her story. It was best if he just stayed away from her. Best if he didn’t even think about her, because when he did, it reminded him of exactly how long it had been since he’d made love to someone besides himself.

He walked around the side of the house to the front porch and reached for his shirt. Adam was making a mess out of the shrubs again, but Dylan couldn’t work up enough energy to care. He pulled his T-shirt over his damp hair and shoved his arms through the holes. The shrubs could wait for another day.

“Are you about done?” he asked as he tucked the ends of the old cotton shirt into his jeans. “I think it’s about time we cooked those trout we caught today.”

Adam put down the shears and dug into his pocket. “I found a pretty rock. Do ya wanna see?”

“Sure.”

Adam jumped off the porch as a Dodge truck turned into their dirt drive.

“Don’t be rude,” Dylan warned as he watched Paris Fernwood pull the truck to a stop. She got out and walked toward them with a cake in her hands.

“I don’t like her,” Adam whispered and shoved his rock back inside his pocket.

“Be nice anyway.” He looked up and smiled at Paris. “What have you got there?”

“I told you I’d bring you an Amish cake.”

“Well, now, isn’t that sweet?” He nudged his son. “Don’t you think that’s sweet?”

Adam’s idea of being “nice” was to purse his lips and not say a word. He didn’t like women paying attention to his father. Not one little bit. Dylan didn’t exactly know why, but he figured that it more than likely had something to do with Adam holding onto a fantasy that his mama would someday come and live with them.

Dylan picked up his cowboy hat and brushed his hair back with his fingers. “I’d invite you in, but I’m afraid you’ve come at a bad time,” he said and pushed the hat down low on his forehead. “Adam and I are busy cutting back these shrubs.” He reached for a pair of hedge trimmers and whacked off some foliage. “Adam, why don’t you take that cake from Paris and run it in the house.” Dylan had to nudge him a few more times before he did what he was told.

“I really can’t stay anyway,” she said and turned her head to watch Adam walk away. Her braid fell over her