Lost in Tennessee (11 page)

The flashlight app still worked. She and Chubsy winced as a thousand points of white LED light assaulted their eyes. Kate shone the light on the body. The legs lay in the washout, but the torso was in the forty-eight inch pipe. Kate looked at Chubsy, who calmly sniffed at the legs. His silent confidence steadied her. She bent low and walked into the pipe, straddling the body. Fine silt made for a soft bed. Clear water ran over that bed but only a few inches deep. The last of the rain from the days before. The body, unable to sink in the pipe the way the legs had in the ground, wore a wet and matted sweater, the face pitched to one side, blond hair cast in all directions. With a steadying breath, Kate used a gloved finger to rake the hair from the face.

She closed her eyes and hung her head. “Dear God. Angie.”

B
utch closed the door after his brother left around four in the morning. Kate curled in the corner of the couch beneath a thick blanket, Chubsy stretched across the floor below her. The dog usually slept at the big house with the other dogs his parents kept. This one made an exception tonight.

Butch squatted down and ran his fingers along Kate’s jaw. She hadn’t said a word in hours. “Time to go to bed, Katie.”

Kate shook her head and whispered in a rusty voice. “There’s no point. I have to be up in two hours anyway.”

Butch kept his touch light. “Take the day off.”

“I can’t. I have things to do. Meetings.”

“You can’t do them on no sleep.”

“I don’t think I would sleep even if I closed my eyes.”

Butch understood. He had gone to watch, to help pull Angie from the stream. Jeb wouldn’t let him down into the water, but Butch had seen her. He had seen Angie when they put her on the stretcher, before they zipped the black bag over her head. She hadn’t been in the water long, but neither the water nor the animals had been kind.

Kate looked into his eyes with an eloquent misery on her face. Dark smudges dulled her bright eyes. Her brows pressed together and up in an unanswerable query.

Butch read the exhaustion and suspected she was afraid of nightmares. Hell, he was, too. Butch left her to pull a pillow from his bed. Then he considered doing something he had never done in this house: locking the doors. He punched his bed, angry that somebody made him feel threatened in his own home, in his own town. “Screw that. If somebody wants a piece of me, let them try to take it.” He pulled the revolver from his bedside table.

His air of righteousness lasted until he stepped into the living room. The strong woman he’d come to admire looked beaten. He didn’t care what happened to him, but he wasn’t alone anymore. He locked the front door then the back door before going to her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Lying down.” Butch put the pillow against the arm of the couch. He tucked the gun under the couch, the butt within easy reach. He took the blanket from around her shoulders and then stretched out, taking her body with his. He draped the blanket over them, tucked her in, wrapped his arm around her waist, and buried his nose in her hair.

Kate squirmed away from the edge of the couch. “We don’t fit.”

“We fit just fine.” Butch locked his arm down, trapping her against him. He felt the tension that racked her body and drew little circles on her back to ease it.

“I’m afraid.” She whispered the confession against his throat.

“I have you. Just rest, Katie. We’ll get to the bottom of it in the light of day.”

B
utch woke to the bright light of day and the dark scowl of his brother. He propped himself up on one elbow and looked for Kate.

“She’s not here,” Jeb said in that cold, emotionless tone of his.

Butch fell back on the couch. “What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty, you dumb son-of-a-bitch. How long has she been living here?” Jeb paced in front of the couch with fisted hands. His teeth clenched tight enough to make the muscles of his jaw twitch.

Butch stared at the ceiling. “Who said she was living here?”

Jeb pulled the pillow from the floor and brought it down on his brother’s gut. “Don’t. Just don’t. I saw her stuff in my room.”

Butch rolled off the couch and looked up at his brother. “Your old room. You don’t live here. Why are you snooping around my house?”

“How long?” Jeb asked quietly.

“Since Sunday night. She was staying in one of those flea bags on 31. I couldn’t leave her there. I just couldn’t.”

Jeb kicked the couch making it up jump back three inches. “Goddamn it, Butch. You have a freaking hero complex. You don’t have to save every woman with a sad story and a pretty face.”

“This is different—”

“Different? Of course this is different. Every damned one of them is different, except they’re all the same! What the hell is wrong with you?!” Jeb stalked away from Butch as he ranted.

Butch sat up straighter, narrowing his eyes at his brother. Jeb had been gone a long while. What did he know about Butch’s life, the choices he’d made? It had been a long time since he’d needed his big brother around, a longer time since he’d had him. “It’s none of your business what I do and who I do it with.”

“She’s fucking living here.” Jeb spoke quietly again and narrowed his gaze. “What does she do?”

Butch didn’t know which was harder to take: the yelling or that damned cold, superior tone. He dropped an arm over his eyes wanting to ignore both. “She’s an architect. That Cicada building is hers.”

Jeb kicked his brother’s leg, his tone softening with disbelief. “Shit. You really are the biggest idiot on the planet. Does Mom know?”

Something in that little kick was the Jeb he grew up with, the one he missed. “No. And no one knows she’s staying here.”

Jeb laughed sardonically. “Clyde, after last night, everyone knows she’s living here.”

“Son of a bitch. Sometimes I hate small towns. This is going to be one hell of a long day.”

“Tell me about it. I’m meeting the boys back out here this morning. I’m hoping the daylight will tell us more than the night did. Do you have any coffee?”

Butch rolled and came to his feet. “If we’re lucky.” He hoped Katie had left him a pot of her special brew. Maybe after a cup or ten, he’d feel human again. Mostly full, the pot of coffee felt warm to the touch. Butch poured two cups and heated them to scalding in the microwave.

Jeb sipped, nodded. “This is good coffee. Better than you ever made. That’s what? Nutmeg?”

“No idea.” Butch settled against the counter and nursed his own. Jeb looked so tall and sure standing in the kitchen of their childhood home. He’d been up later than the rest of them, yet here he was, back at it without a word of complaint. “How do you do this job, Jeb? How can you look at that…this…what people do to each other day in and day out?”

Jeb shrugged it off. “If I didn’t do it, somebody’s going to think it’s all right to come into our town and hurt our family, our friends. Somebody has to draw the line. Somebody has to say, ‘Not on my watch.’”

“What are you going to do for Angie?”

Jeb’s face changed, hardening again into that familiar stranger. “I’m going to do my job. I’m going to find the son-of-a-bitch who hurt her and lock them away in a small room where the sun doesn’t shine for a hell of a long time.”

Butch noted the set in Jeb’s jaw, and his admiration for his brother grew.

“I need to ask you some questions. You want to do this now?”

Butch’s eyes widened, and he had to force his hands to relax. “Yeah, let’s get this done.”

“Sit down.” Jeb pulled a notebook from his pocket and sat at the kitchen table. “When was the last time you saw her?”

Butch took the chair across from Jeb. “I told you that last night.”

“I know, but tell it to me again, and don’t leave anything out.”

Butch nodded and gulped the coffee. “Sunday night, Katie and I went up to the Sly Dog again after we moved her things into
her
room. Trudy, Hyde, and a few of the others were there, Angie included.” Butch walked Jeb through the night, focusing on Angie.

“What time did you leave?”

“We didn’t stay long, maybe a little before nine. Katie had to work yesterday. Do you know that woman woke me up at half past six
in the morning
? Who gets up that time of day?”

Jeb rolled his eyes. “Was Angie still at the bar when you left?”

“Yeah. She was. I’m certain.”

“Did you give her money?”

Butch shook his head, his gaze on his coffee. “Not much. I gave her a little and told her it was the last. I did it, Jeb. I told her I was cutting her off.”

“What did she do?”

“Nothing. She didn’t get a chance. I saw Katie ready to leave, so I made my excuses.”

“Were you serious? About cutting her off?”

Butch pressed his lips together tightly. He had been serious about ending the support, but he hadn’t told Finch when he talked to him after the piano delivery. He didn’t want to look at the ‘why’ too hard, afraid of what he might see. “Yes. I was going to cut the amount of the checks over a few months.”

“You didn’t see her after the Sly Dog? Yesterday?”

“No. I didn’t see her, talk to her, or think about her until last night in the town square when you asked whether I’d seen her.”

Jeb fell back into his chair. “When was the last time you were back by the pond?”

“Sunday afternoon. I took Katie for a ride on the tractor. We went to the pond, but we weren’t over by the drain pipe. Before then, it was about a week. I’d been making the rounds to see what needs to be done.”

Jeb leaned forward. “You planning on staying?”

“I can’t say I really have plans. Right now, I’m not planning to leave.”

“Dad and Mama like having you close. I like having you around where I can keep my eye on you.”

Butch gave him a weak smile. “Do you ever feel like you don’t belong anywhere? When I’m here, as comfortable as it is with you and Dad and Mama, I’m not part of this anymore. I don’t know the stories, I’m not part of the memories, and I feel like I’m missing out on the rest of the world. When I’m out there and playing, I feel alive. But then I go home to a cold hotel room, and I’m alone. I still don’t know the stories, I’m still not part of the memories.”

Jeb took in a deep breath and released it slowly. “Everything I’ve ever believed in is right here. I want you to stay. I miss my brother.”

There was a loud rap on the back door. “You in there, Sheriff?”

Jeb climbed to his feet. “I’m here, Duncan. Go on back, I’ll be right behind you,” he called out. “What are you doing today, Butch?”

“Working. The music’s pulling at me. I’ll also go see Angie’s mother, I expect.”

K
ate leaned over her foreman’s shoulder, checking the line on the concrete form as he worked. “It’s off. It can’t be off.”

“The line is fine. You’re off. Don’t you have something better to do than annoy me?” Dave Waters was as much her uncle as he was her foreman, but that only went so far during the working day.

Kate’s phone rang. Paula had better not be calling about somebody else crying on her shoulder. Some days it felt like she ran a daycare instead of a construction site. “What?” Kate barked loudly.

“Sheriff McCormick is here to see you.”

“Who?”

A baritone came through the phone. “Katie, it’s Jeb. I need to talk to you.”

Her voice pitched up an octave. “Does it have to be now? I’m in the middle of something.” She scowled as the men began to frame a critical wall.

“Yeah, it has to be now.”

“Five minutes,” she said and then spoke again to Waters. “Measure it again. If it’s not right, I’m gonna plant my boot squarely on your ass.”

“Three minutes,” Jeb said in her ear.

“I said five. Give me back to Paula. Paula? Give the sheriff some coffee, and make him comfortable. If he starts touching things, use the wooden spoon.”

“F
our minutes.” Kate thundered into her office. “We split the difference.”

Jeb crouched at the scale model, staring into the little windows.

“Impressed?”

Jeb wore his emotionless mask, but Kate heard the kid-like wonder in his voice. “Hell yeah. I can even see into the rooms. There are little people in there.”

“If you like that, you’re going to love it when we’re done.” She waited quietly while Paula brought her a fresh cup of coffee.

Jeb took a sip from his own cup. “You make damned good coffee. I believe this is the same brand you have at my brother’s house.”

“Family recipe. It’s a feature on all Riley projects.” Kate gestured to an empty chair. “I think we’re about done with the requisite small talk. I hope you’ve had a more productive day than I’ve had.”

Jeb sighed. “Between the tractor and the clearing you did, any physical evidence is gone.”

Kate stilled. She’d had a hard morning on the job. Two hours of haunted sleep made focusing a Herculean effort. She’d been worn down when she walked in to talk to Jeb, and now any remaining blood quickly drained from her face. “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t.”

Jeb pulled his notebook out. “The sign on the trailer says Riley. Architects and Engineers. That you?”

“I’m one of the architects. The lead one.”

“What about the other name on the trailer. Riley Brothers General Contractors?”

“The family business. It’s run by my father and uncle, supports my cousins. I’m wearing both hats right now.”

“How long have you been in our neck of the woods?”

“Three months. My foreman, Dave Waters, and I came down after the New Year. We hired men, set things up, and broke ground a few weeks later.”

Jeb didn’t react as he made notes. “You took the tractor out yesterday?”

“To clear the trees. Butch wouldn’t take any money for letting me stay at his house, so I insisted on working off my room and board in chores.”

Jeb leaned back, rocking the chair on two legs. “How did you meet Butch?” Jeb let the chair fall back to four legs. He seemed to relax a degree, taking notes as she told her story. “Did you do any other chores?”

“Butch was working by the road to hang your grandfather’s sign. I stopped for directions. Things didn’t work out, and I ended up back where I started but with a shredded tire. Butch let me stay. I wouldn’t call it a chore, but as a thank you, I fixed the tractor. A big-assed wrench was gumming up the works. After that, I snatched Butch’s to-do list. The stream was the first thing I tackled.”