Bounty (Walk the Right Road) (2 page)

Diane chewed her gum and could feel both Green and Casey watching her with an interest she didn’t quite like. They had to know something was off with Diane, as she was rattled so far off the charts that everyone’s radar had to be beeping right about now. She was silently giving herself the biggest ass-kicking as she scrambled to get her head back in the game, struggling against her desire to just walk away and climb in her truck, as she wanted to, and drive. But she couldn’t do that. Her common sense was finally burning through the fear that had fallen over her ever since she got the call. If she ran away, they’d know something was wrong, and it wouldn’t take long for someone to start asking questions. There was no way she could allow that to happen.
Pull it together.
“You almost done here, Casey?” she asked.

Casey and Green exchanged a glance.

“Yeah, we’re about done. I’ll have more details once we head back to the morgue. So who do I send the report to?” Casey asked, darting a glance between Green and Diane.

“Me, for now.” Diane allowed herself to look at the girl as she was zipped into a black body bag and lifted onto a stretcher. “I’ll talk to you after you do the autopsy.” Diane started to walk away before she stopped and faced Green. “Don’t you ever call me onto a case again because you think I’ve got nothing better to do. I’ll start this investigation, but you find someone else from homicide to take it over.”

She didn’t wait for him to answer, and she ignored him when he called after her. She jumped in her SUV, slammed the door, and gripped the wheel so hard she could feel the crankshaft bending as she drove back toward Sequim. Only when she’d driven around the bend and the darkened highway was the only thing visible in the rear-view mirror did she relax her guard. It was then that an uncontrollable shaking took over her hands, her feet, every part of her, dissolving the iron mask she’d worn for so long.

“Since when do you ever nap?”

Diane jumped to her feet as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and her hand automatically slapped to her side, reaching for a gun that wasn’t there. She stumbled, knocking over her coffee mug. It shattered on the back deck, dark liquid pooling everywhere.

Her legs were trembling as she stared at Sam, who watched her with bright blue eyes. He was her former partner in the DEA, with a body and face that still had women falling at his feet. Even his wavy brown hair, a little on the long side, tied back, only added something to his southern gentleman charm, and that was without him having spoken one whisper of his slow, rich drawl, which always had the ladies drooling. He was frowning at her, so she bent down and picked up the pieces of broken mug, shifting her attention to something other than what a basket case she was.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. You okay?” There was concern in his voice, but he didn’t bend down to help her. He knew better. She was also pretty sure he didn’t see her as a woman, and sometimes that bothered her, not that she’d ever tell him.

“Yeah, just tired. Sorry, you startled me is all.” Diane dumped the broken mug into the trashcan at the back door. She fisted her shaking hands and squeezed the stiff muscles running up the back of her neck. “Want some coffee?”

“No, I’d like to know what’s got you so worked up.”

Diane strode back to one of the Adirondack chairs she’d been asleep in on the back porch and eased her size-ten frame back down. She gazed out into the forest behind her house. These five acres outside Gardiner were her home, her land, all hers. That morning, when she’d returned home, she reminded herself of who she was and everything she had. She had earned this, paid for it with her own money, with no help from anyone. No one could take this from her. No one could tell her what to do, how to think, and how her life was supposed to be just because she was a woman.

She could feel Sam watching her as he sat in the other lounger. Diane swallowed hard but kept staring into the forest, waiting for a sudden spurt of courage so she could speak.

“You know what Marcie said right after you called at the break of dawn?” Sam asked.

This time, Diane glanced at him before grunting.

He continued: “She said, ‘Something’s wrong. Get on the morning ferry and go see her.’ So here I am, and you know what? I’m sitting on the ferry, wondering why my old partner is calling just to say hi before the sun’s up. You don’t call anyone to say hi. You don’t make friendly calls. Well, you’re about the worst liar there is, Diane.”

Diane winced. “I don’t know why I called, Sam. I just…” She raised her hand and flicked it in the air, hoping—no, praying—that the sky would open up and her common sense would land on her. Frankly, she was screwing up big time with everyone. Why not just put one of those flashing neon lights over herself and shine it down with an arrow that said, “She’s hiding something”?

“I heard you had a murder last night. Odd one, though, young girl left in the middle of the highway, dressed in some pioneer getup. Green called me, too, just as I was going out the door, said you were acting all weird at the crime scene and that even Casey was wondering what was up with you, like you were PMSing or something.”

Diane slapped both palms on the armrest. “Oh, for the love of God. That damn prick Green thinks every woman who dares to have an opinion or refuses to put up with his bullshit is PMSing. That asshole called me in to investigate even though, by the way, it wasn’t even my jurisdiction, because he’s gotta make sure all you men stay home with your families, as if I’ve got nothing better to do. He knows damn well I’m back with OPNET. I fought to get that back, Sam. I’m not a homicide detective. And Casey…” She stopped, pressing her teeth into her tongue, because going that down that road, dissecting Casey’s character, was something she couldn’t do. She liked Casey even though it pissed her off what a sharp little shit she could be. That quality was great for solving crimes but not so great for scrutinizing Diane’s personal life.

“Since when are you letting Green get to you? You’ve always known he’s an ass-kisser, and I still don’t know why you’re back with the new trafficking team. I thought you were done with that after the leak we had, after everything fell apart around us, when Lance Silver planted those drugs in my locker. We damn near killed ourselves trying to bring Lance Silver and Dan McKenzie down, and look at what happened to Maggie, to Richard and Marcie. We’re all lucky we managed to get out with our skins and keep our asses out of jail, so why don’t you tell me what’s really going on, why this girl’s murder has got you looking like a deer who’s just figured out she’s pinned in the scope of someone’s rifle, about to be the main course for dinner?”

“What do you know about me, Sam? I mean, really, we worked together, we were partners, but you know nothing about my past or where I come from.” She chanced a glance at Sam, who shrugged. He really didn’t get it. Geez, were all guys this stupid?

“I know all I need to know about you. Your past and where you come from are your business.”

Okay, maybe he wasn’t stupid. He was just being a guy.

“Well, you might change your mind about me if you really knew some of the juicy details buried in my closet,” she said. Now she was being coy, and she realized she’d cracked open the can of worms she’d sealed long ago. What the hell was the matter with her? She knew better than to play that game, especially about her past.

Sam got up, slid open the door, and strode into Diane’s kitchen. She listened to him rummaging in the fridge and started to get up when he reappeared with two beers. He handed her one of the shiny cans, already cracked open, and then sat down and took a swig. His muscles flexed in his bare arms, and Diane flushed when she realized she was staring at his snug black t-shirt. She’d never thought of Sam in a romantic way—he was Marcie’s, and they had a baby. Diane was just being stupid because, on top of everything else, she was lonely.

“It’s ten in the morning, Sam, and you’re bringing me beer.” She took a long swallow.

“Just call it liquid courage. If you need it, I’ll get you something stronger.”

“You may be sorry for asking, you know?” She took another swallow. He was right, as she felt the light buzz in her head that started to numb her fears. She needed the courage only alcohol could give.

“Let me hear it, Diane. Nothing you can say would ever change my opinion of you. We all have a past,” Sam drawled.

Wow, he sure was saying all the right things. She watched him, seeing him in a different way than as the partner who’d always had her back. “I wasn’t born here,” she began. “My mother was a sister wife, a fifth wife. She was only fifteen when she had me. I had seventeen brothers and sisters, but I was an only child to my mother. As a child, I didn’t know there was another way to live, because the house where I lived, the community I lived in, was run by one man, and my father was under him. I thought…well, I don’t know what I thought. I was just a scared, stupid kid. You did what you were told, and women had no say in anything. You were told where to live, what to do, what to wear. For God’s sake, the kind of underwear all us girls and women wore was dictated by the man who headed the community. They called him the bishop.”

Diane drained her beer and then watched Sam closely. It was the first time she’d seen his face so full of emotion. She squeezed the empty can, and Sam handed her a second beer. “Young girls weren’t safe, and my father decided when they married and when they were sent away. I knew my mother understood what he expected, and the wives fulfilled the obligation willingly, but I fought it, and my mother got beaten for it.”

“Where was this?” Sam asked and then roughly cleared his throat.

“Just across the Idaho border, a little spot nestled in a remote area of Canada. Mountains surrounded it, all private land. The people there, they’re protected, mostly by some of the women who are part of it.”

Sam didn’t say a word. He had a way of giving her all his attention.

“Do you know much about polygamy, Sam?”

Again he cleared his throat. “No.”

“They follow the teachings of a prophet. Where I was, we were part of a sect from Arizona. There are only a handful of these breakaway communities, but make no mistake: All of this is nothing more than a cult. It’s nothing to do with religion, even though they say they’re Mormons. The Mormon church has never condoned polygamy. In the community where I lived, was raised, I was taught that was the church, and the prophet and my father were the only ones who could talk to God, hear God. God would decree the oddest things, and I remember watching how my mother and all the women just accepted it. They did as they were told.

“We were taught that boys were snakes and best to be avoided. If a thirteen-year-old daughter was to be sent across the border to another community to be the wife to a man three times her age, she had no say. We were taught as children to obey. The prophet would receive a message from God, and he’d pass down those decrees to each of his wives and the other men in the community. Everyone was to obey and not have their own minds or wills. I had to watch as girls were shipped off to other sects as child brides, and I knew they were terrified.”

Diane drained her second beer. Sam had the oddest expression on his face, as if he was seeing her for the first time, and that pissed her off. “Don’t you judge me or pity me,” she said. She wanted to throw something at Sam, because the burning, un-reconciled ache that she hadn’t felt in years was creeping to the surface.

“What happened, Diane? It must have been something pretty bad,” Sam asked and glanced away. “You’ve never talked much about yourself. But I have to say I’m a little confused, too. I thought you were close with your father. Didn’t he pass away a few years ago? You got the call in the field that he had mixed up his meds. It was the first time I saw you fall apart.”

“That was my dad, not the man who was my father. There’s a difference,” she snapped. Her cell phone buzzed, and she jolted forward, her damn nerves on edge. She slid her fingers through her short brown hair and yanked, hoping the pain would ground her before she snatched her phone from her pocket. “Diane here,” she barked.

She could feel Sam watching her, and she didn’t like it one bit. Even though she’d just given him a snapshot of her past, she wished she could take it all back. She’d changed her mind; she really didn’t want him to know, because by knowing about something so dark, even though he didn’t know everything, he’d see her differently, and she couldn’t handle that.

“Diane, it’s Casey. Can you come down to the morgue? I want to show you something.”

“Just tell me what it is. I’m not really on the case.” The chair creaked beside her. She didn’t look over at Sam. She was so wound up and annoyed that she was picturing Sam’s disbelief over what she’d said.

“Well, if that’s the case, who should I be calling? Come on, Diane. I know you didn’t want this, and I’m not sure what’s going on, but you and Green have always butted heads. It’s not as if there’s a large pool of cops to choose from. I’m tired of being stuck in the middle.”

She could hear Casey’s sigh on the other end. At any other time, she’d have apologized, grabbed her keys, and driven down to see her, but Diane didn’t want any part of this, and she dug her heels in so hard she could feel the dirt caking in around her. She raised a fist in the air and dropped her arm, the one holding the phone. “You fucking prick, Green!” she cursed before pressing the phone back to her ear. “I’m on my way, but just so you know, this isn’t my case.”