Sugar Creek (24 page)

But if Walter knew—well, maybe it was more obvious than he thought.

And besides that…he knew Walter was right in a lot of ways.

And he knew Anna was dead. Whether she’d drowned or been grabbed by some scumball pedophile—it only made sense that she was dead, that she’d
been
dead for twenty-three years now.

But he’d hit upon another big difference between Walter’s situation and his. Besides the fact that Walter knew where Judy was, Walter also knew…it wasn’t his fault she was gone. Mike didn’t have that luxury.

Just as that sobering thought settled around him, he raised his gaze to see—shit—that goddamn purple Mustang racing over the horizon! Just as fast as before. Mike hit the trigger on his radar gun—eighty-eight. Son of a bitch.

But he had a few more seconds’ warning this time, so he dropped the gun, flipped on his lights and siren, and hit the gas pedal. He got his cruiser onto the road just after the bastard blew past him.

Feeling less caught off guard this time, Mike floored
it and got on the asshole’s bumper. The siren wailed and there was no way the guy didn’t know he was being pursued, yet he didn’t slow down a bit—in fact, he picked up speed! Of course, given that it was likely a stolen car, what else did Mike expect?

He stayed with him, but driving this fast on winding country roads was dangerous as hell and took every ounce of focus—he couldn’t even free a hand to call for backup. When he dropped his gaze to the license plate—shit—it was mostly obscured with dried mud. Of course, if the vehicle
was
stolen, the plates had surely been changed or altered by now anyway. With each curve, Mike’s stomach lurched and his heart beat faster—but he wasn’t going to back down and let this idiot keep terrorizing Destiny’s roads.

Then they hit a straight stretch and—holy shit—Mike spotted a loaded hay wagon up ahead in the same lane, undoubtedly pulled by a tractor, just creeping along. It was a common sight around here, and the tractor couldn’t be going more than fifteen miles an hour—but the Mustang wasn’t slowing down. Mike realized the idiot was planning to pass the tractor—at the precise moment he spied a car coming in the opposite direction.

When the Mustang gunned into the left lane and went flying toward the oncoming car, Mike’s heart rose to his throat. It was close—way too fucking close—and Mike slammed on his brakes, hard, just in time to watch the Mustang whip back over in front of the tractor as the other car veered to miss him, two tires hitting the gravel shoulder. Before Mike knew it, the oncoming car, a late-model mid-size, was off the road, careening through a fence into a recently mowed cornfield.

The Mustang was gone—long gone—yet Mike had no choice but to let it go as he brought his vehicle to a halt and jumped out. The tractor and wagon in front of him had stopped, as well. A second later, Johnny Fulks, head
of the Destiny City Council, got out of the damaged car—but he didn’t look to be injured, thank God.

“You okay, Johnny?” Mike called as he sprinted toward him.

“I think so. What the hell was
that
?” The middle-aged man appeared understandably ruffled.

“I’m pretty sure it was a stolen car, actually. Going upwards of ninety at times.” Mike just shook his head, disgusted.

Johnny peered back at his
own
car. “Looks like I’m gonna have to be towed.”

“Well, I’m just glad you’re okay.”

As Mike reached the other man, Fulks nodded. “You’re right—coulda been a lot worse.”

But talk about understatements. The Mustang could have easily killed Fulks, or the farmer pulling that hay wagon.

Despite the fact that there was no way to cite the other driver, Johnny filled out an accident report—and Mike hung around until a tow truck arrived and pulled the car from the meadow. Then he set off to the nearest house with the unpleasant task of letting them know about the damage to their fence and cornfield.

By the end of the day, he felt…pretty damn inept. He knew it wasn’t his fault, but why was he wearing this uniform if not to prevent bad shit from happening? And what the hell was the deal with that stolen Mustang? Mike was convinced, more and more now, that it was indeed the missing car from the northern part of the state. So why was someone in a stolen vehicle using Destiny-area highways for a goddamn racetrack?

Back at the station, Mike checked the database again to see that, sure enough, the hot Mustang was still missing. Of course, few stolen cars were ever recovered—but for him and his gut feeling, it was almost confirmation that the Cleveland car was this one.

Now that the sighting was no longer an isolated, one-
time incident, Mike decided to fill Chief Tolliver in on the situation—and even though he knew no one could blame him, as he did so, he somehow felt all the more useless and angry.

And apparently it showed, since Walter said, “You did what you could, Mike. And at least you were there to help Johnny out.” Walter then reached up to twist his gray mustache, a gesture he often made when thinking things through. “We’d best alert the police in the surroundin’ areas. He might go ninety, but he has to stop sometime, somewhere, and a car like that’s bound to stand out.”

True, yet it didn’t make Mike feel any better.

After some computer work at his desk—including sending out the alerts Walter mentioned—Mike powered down and got ready to head home. And his eyes fell on Anna.

It was a somber end to a shitty day, and the sight of that little white dress reminded him once more:
I can’t really save anybody.

And if he did as Walter suggested, if he slid her picture into his desk drawer, it would only make him feel worse. Because to let go was…to give up. To stop hoping anything about her disappearance would ever be discovered.

And he knew that with every damn year that passed, with every damn day, it became less and less likely any new information ever
would
turn up—so a smart man would finally start finding a way to let it go.

But the problem was—Mike never stopped needing to know. Never. He never stopped yearning for answers. He never stopped thinking and wondering and lamenting it all. And he knew he never would—not until his dying day.

Like the last time they’d gone to the park, Tessa and Amy picked Rachel up at Edna’s. And again, they had insisted it was a gym shoe sort of day. Except for working out, Rachel didn’t really
have
gym shoe days in Chi
cago, so it was a hard reality to grasp. “But would it
hurt
anybody if I wore some attractive boots?” she’d asked Tessa.

“No, but you might hurt
yourself
. We’ll be climbing up metal bleachers and walking around in dirt. Wear the gym shoes, for God’s sake.”

So she finally had, along with jeans and a fitted bright yellow tee with flowers embroidered on the front. “How’s this?” she’d asked the girls. “Casual enough for ya?”

“Perfect,” Tessa droned, clearly exasperated, as Amy said, “Who cares—let’s go!”

“All right, all right,” she replied, adding one of Edna’s favorites: “Simmer down.”

When they reached the park a few minutes later, the atmosphere was a lot different than their previous visit—the parking lot was filled, and cars lined the road. They got lucky, taking the spot of someone just leaving, near the ball fields.

“So, Sue Ann’s husband plays on one of these teams?” Rachel asked as they got out. Sue Ann had mentioned at the café that she and Sophie would be here.

“Yep,” Amy said as they started toward the crowd. “Jeff plays with Logan and Adam and Mike.”

“
Mike
,” Rachel repeated dryly, then halted in place. “No one could have mentioned to me before now that
Mike
is involved in this?”

“What difference does it make?” Tessa asked, shrugging. “I mean, since it’s just sex between you and him, as you keep claiming.”

Rachel ignored Tessa’s dubious look and glanced back and forth between her friends, feeling uncharacteristically sheepish. “Well, I don’t want him to think I’m here…because of him.”

“You’re not,” Amy said, looping her arm through Rachel’s. “You’re here with us. Just three fun chicks hanging out in the sun.” Then she motioned around them to
the busy park. “And besides, you’re not exactly the only person here—he might not even notice you.”

But why didn’t that prospect make her feel any better, darn it?

“And what if he did think that? Would that be so bad?” Tessa asked. “I mean, you guys have had sex—that kind of proves you don’t mind being around him.”

True enough. But she still felt weird about him knowing that. Especially after the big” See ya,” which she promptly reminded her friends of as they wove through the people standing around the softball diamonds.

“So this is where he ‘sees ya,’” Amy said. “No big deal. That’s what you keep telling us about you and him, right?”

“Right,” Rachel agreed at the reminder, and it was a good point. So why was her stomach churning?

On the opposite side of the fence, guys were cheering each other on, and yelling warnings to be ready on third and stuff like that—when the girls spotted Sue Ann excitedly waving them over to a spot low on the bleachers. “Thank God you guys are here,” she said when they reached her. “Sophie and I spread out all our stuff to save you seats, but I think people wanted to kill me.”

The three of them sat down and Rachel met Sophie, a pretty little blonde who looked remarkably like Sue Ann had back in the first grade.

And that’s when it hit Rachel—she’d known these women
that
long, since the first grade! Who could she say that about in Chicago? Something about it seemed…well, it just made her feel like…like maybe she belonged here a little more than she’d once thought. And it wasn’t a horrible feeling.

Sue Ann instantly began to regale them about the tournament, explaining it was down to four teams and “our guys just need to beat the Crestview Fire Department to play for the championship” of what was—according
to the banners across the back of the dugouts—the 7th Annual Destiny Fall Softball Tournament.

“Our guys are in the outfield right now,” Sue Ann went on—and that’s when Rachel spotted Officer Romeo at shortstop. Not surprisingly, he was yelling at the first baseman, who apparently hadn’t done something as well as Mike wanted. He wore long khaki cargo shorts that looked like they’d seen better days, and a red T-shirt with the sleeves cut out and the McMillan’s Hardware logo stretching across his chest in white. His thick hair was messy, he hadn’t shaved, and the muscles on his arms glistened tan with sweat. And despite all that, damn it, he
still
looked good.

As a player from the other team got up to bat, Mike crouched into position, legs apart, knees bent, and Rachel could almost feel his intensity from her place on the bleachers. She could tell he took this seriously.

Then, with his eyes still on the batter, he yelled, “Becker, guy on second’s lookin’ to steal—watch your back.”

“Becker” was Adam, on the pitcher’s mound, also looking shockingly good in old clothes and sweat. For her entire adult life, Rachel had been attracted to men in finely tailored suits, but this was starting to change things. Next, she located Logan on third, and Sue Ann pointed out her handsome husband, Jeff, in right field.

As the game progressed, Mike continued yelling at people—but he seemed skilled at the game, making several impressive stops, throwing a few guys out at first, and even hitting a home run. Rachel discovered, unexpectedly, that she enjoyed watching, and she supposed it shouldn’t surprise her to find out Mike Romo was Mr. Competitive.

It was in the sixth of seven innings that he finally caught sight of her in the stands. She knew the second it happened—back in shortstop position, he lifted his gaze from the batter to her, and then his eyes took on that sexy,
bedroomy look again. Or at least that’s what she
thought
, since he was pretty far away—but something about it tightened her chest and sent a surge of awareness to her panties, just like
every
time he looked at her.

That’s when the batter hit a line drive—right past Mike.

She saw more than heard him mutter, “Shit,” suddenly drawn back into the game as the center fielder was forced to chase down the ball, the batter running to second while a guy on third scored.

And as everyone around her appeared downcast to see the other team bring in a run that tied the game, Rachel could only smile inside. She’d driven Mike Romo to distraction—and despite herself, she liked it.

The skies were clouding over, a cool breeze blowing in, by the time the team sponsored by McMillan’s Hardware beat the Bleachers Sports Bar team in the championship game just after five o’clock. The victory felt particularly sweet to Mike since he knew some of the guys on the other team and they were big trash-talkers. Thank God he’d gotten his game face back on after Rachel had caused him to fuck up—damn, what was it
about
that woman?

“Glad we won, dude,” Logan said, dropping his mitt in the dirt near the bleachers, “so you can quit acting like an asshole.”

“He’s not acting,” Rachel called over from where she still sat with her friends—the rest of the crowd was already gone and only the small group of women remained.

Meeting her gaze across the space that separated them, he almost smiled at her silly, smart-ass comment. Jeff had made a beeline for Sue Ann and Sophie, and Adam had joined the group, too—so it only made sense for Mike and Logan to meander that way as well. Especially since Adam kept saying how attractive Rachel was, and something about that got under Mike’s skin.

“What’s up, Farris?” he asked, approaching.

She shrugged, smiled. “Not much. Amy and Tessa dragged me out here to watch you act like a Neanderthal. But it was refreshing to see that you treat everybody that way and don’t reserve it just for me.”

“Nope, he’s an equal opportunity jerk,” Logan said, but Mike let it roll off his back. He knew he was a hard-ass on the softball field and that he pissed off his teammates sometimes—but he got into the game and liked to win.