He stood rooted as her body crashed into his.
She was firm and soft at the same time, warm and moving, a humming embrace, breath in his ear, coils of hair on his cheek and lavender in his nose.
Abruptly, she pulled away. “Sorry,” she said, smiling. “Shit. Sorry. I just didn’t expect that.”
He smiled at the sight of her joy. “So you’re happy then.”
The front door opened and her father poked his head outside. “What’s going on out here?” He wore flannel pajama pants and a washed-out T-shirt that said Summit County Sheriff’s Department.
“It’s okay, Dad, I’m just out here talking to Sheriff Wolf.”
“Sheriff Wolf?”
Wolf held out his hand. “Yes, sir. Nice to meet you.”
“You’re the Sheriff?”
“Yes, sir.”
They shook hands. Her father’s grip was large and sweaty.
“Peter Cain. Operations Commander Summit County Sheriff’s Department. It’s a pleasure. What’s the occasion for your visit?”
“I was just going over some case points with Piper, er, Deputy Cain. It couldn’t wait, so I decided to stop by the house. I hope you don’t mind, sir.”
“No…” Her father stopped short. His eyes glazed over and Wolf could see the moment something short circuited. He turned around and went back inside, leaving the front door open.
Piper followed and poked her head in, and Wolf could see past her as her father sat back down in his chair and pressed a button on the remote control.
She shut the door and turned around with folded arms. The earlier joy had left her face.
“Well,” he said. “I guess that’s all I had. I have to head back to Rocky Points.”
“Long drive,” she said.
“Long drive.”
She gazed past him again, then locked her dark browns on his. “I have to think about it.”
“Of course. Yeah.” Her answer puzzled him, but he kept his face neutral. He looked in through the window at her father who was now rummaging through the refrigerator. “Well. Good night,” he said with a final nod, walking to the stairs.
“Good night. And, sir?”
He stopped. “Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
She shrugged.
“You’re welcome. Take your time with your decision. It’s a big one. I’ll talk to you soon.”
He stopped at the top of the steps. “Oh, and Piper?”
She poked her head back out. “Yes?”
“Be careful of those men up at the mine. It’s them. They did it. They killed Chris Oakley and Mary Dimitri.”
She stepped out onto the porch again, her eyes hardened. “You found proof.”
“Not yet. But it’s a matter of when, not if.”
“Okay. I will.”
Chapter 26
Piper Cain woke the next morning feeling more energized than she had in over a year. Maybe ten years, because not since her first day on the job up in Gallatin County could she remember feeling such promise for her future and such an alive buzz inside her.
She had the job.
“We’re out of milk!” her father yelled from the kitchen.
“Stacy’s bringing some when she comes over!” she said, buttoning up her khaki uniform shirt.
And she had her father.
She finished putting on her eyeliner, wondering if she would see the Sheriff again today.
And she had Sheriff Wolf as a boss.
All night she’d been thinking of how she’d thrown herself around his neck last night. She was half horrified about her reaction, and half glad she’d done it.
Pulling her arms around him had been like hugging a tree. The man’s body was rock solid and unwavering as she had crushed him in her embrace. His face had been sandpaper, his body stiff as wood. Maybe a bit soft in the middle, but she had felt the way he had flexed when she pressed into him. He had even smelled of some sort of pine deodorant. An all-around nice wood sculpture, that man was.
She shook her head. “Easy, Piper,” she said to herself in the mirror.
And then her mind drifted forward into a more realistic future, of her working in the county building down in Rocky Points, and her pathetic crush on her older, completely unavailable due to obvious professional conflicts that would land them both in the unemployment line, boss.
And what would happen to her father if she took him away from this place? Things really would turn sad if instead of looking out on Dredge Valley she gave him an apartment wall in downtown Rocky Points to stare at.
“Hello!” Stacy called as she came inside.
She blinked out of her thoughts. “Hi Stacy!”
She was on time as always. On the mark.
Piper strapped on her duty belt and went out into the great room. Light streamed in at a perfect angle, making the space sparkle.
“What happened to you?” Stacy asked.
“What?”
“You look especially chipper today.”
“Really?” She shrugged and went to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee into her to-go cup. When she turned around Stacy was still studying her. “How are the kids?”
Stacy tilted her head, eyeing her suspiciously, then beamed at the thought of her grandchildren. “Rambunctious as ever. They’re going fishing with their father today.”
“That’s nice,” Piper answered, but her mind was already on the day ahead. She was planning on doing her usual rounds around town, but she also wanted to do some snooping up at Rick Hammes’s house. Sleep had come in fits last night. In between vivid visions of life in Rocky Points and regrets of wrapping herself around David Wolf, and fantasies of doing it again, she’d also been cycling through the same images of Chavez shooting Rick Hammes and his dog. And then there was Wolf’s certainty that the men up at the mine had killed Chris Oakley and Mary Dimitri.
If Wolf was right, that meant the men from the mine had planted that gun in the woodpile outside of Rick Hammes’s house. It was brazen. Ballsy. Also stupid. She thought about when they would have done it, and realized it must have been Monday night, after they killed Mary Dimitri with the gun. That was the same night the neighbor had said he’d heard Hammes come home, because the dog had gone quiet.
Maybe there were more clues up there.
