Page 7
SEVEN
Meredith brushed her teeth and ran a brush through her hair. It had been a long day, and she was exhausted. But yesterday she’d promised to talk to Gray, so that’s where she was headed.
She pulled her phone off her desk and looked to see if he’d canceled.
Hey. I know it’s late. I was thinking about ordering a pizza. We can eat while we talk?
He’d sent the text thirty minutes earlier. Ten minutes ago he’d added.
Pepperoni? Mushroom? I know you don’t do olives.
So, they were having pizza. Fine. And how did he know she didn’t like olives?
I like pepperoni. Or Hawaiian. Or meat lovers. Or white pizza. Or margherita.
The dots popped up.
Sounds good. You headed this way?
In five minutes.
She closed everything up and locked her office. When she stepped outside, she saw Gray walking toward her, phone to his ear. “Yeah. Can you deliver it to the station?” A pause. “Perfect. Thanks.”
He slid the phone into his pocket. “Pizza will be ready in about thirty minutes.”
“Do we need to talk outside?” She hoped not. It was freezing.
“No.”
“Did you think I would get lost?” She pointed to the police station that she could see from her office.
“No.”
“Then is there a reason you came out here to meet me?”
Gray was surprised by her question in a way that made her think he wasn’t entirely sure of the answer. “Would ‘I’m a gentleman’ suffice?”
Surprisingly enough, it did. “Yes.”
“Good.” He held out a hand in the direction of the office. “It goes against my nature to have a woman walking around outside in the dark alone. Even here.”
“By here, you mean Gossamer Falls?”
“Yes. I grew up in a city. It wasn’t safe after dark.” His words were clipped, and she got the distinct sense that whatever had made him think that was a painful thought. A bad memory.
“So this isn’t because you think someone’s going to snatch me off the street in between my office and yours?”
Gray didn’t answer.
“You do think someone’s going to snatch me?”
“No.”
“You didn’t quite stick the landing on that one, Chief Ward. If you’re going to say no and expect me to believe it, it would help if you believed it yourself.”
“I don’t think you’re in danger in the middle of town.”
“But you haven’t ruled it out as a possibility?”
“I never rule out anything.”
He held the door to the station open and ushered her inside.
He nodded to the officer behind the desk but didn’t speak. Meredith didn’t feel like letting it slide. She turned around and walked backward as she greeted the man. “Why good evening, Officer Dawkins. How are you?”
He stood and winked at her. “I’m just fine, Dr. Quinn. And yourself?”
“Lovely. Thank you.”
“I heard tell you kept Mrs. Frost from threatening public safety yesterday. Sure do appreciate that.”
Meredith gave him a faux salute. “You aren’t the only one who can serve and protect.”
She turned and flashed a smile at Gray. The expression on his face made no sense to her. Was he angry? Frustrated? Annoyed? “What? You didn’t expect me to walk past him without speaking, did you? He was two grades ahead of me in school. I’ve known him my entire life.”
He leaned closer. “I’m not opposed to you speaking to people, but I didn’t expect you to stroll in here and flirt with my officers.”
Oh no he did not go there. “Are you serious right now?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
She waited until they were in his office to respond. He helped her with her jacket, and she allowed it, but that didn’t mean she was going to take a seat until this was resolved. “First, I was not flirting. I was being friendly, unlike—oh, I don’t know—you, who walked in and barely acknowledged him. It would have been rude for me not to say hello. I am not rude.”
She tried to flip her hair, but somehow it got caught in her earring. Annoying, but not enough to make her stop talking. “Second, it was one officer, not multiple officers.” She tried to find the strand of hair that was stuck. “Third, he’s married. He and his wife teach the first- and second-grade Sunday school class at my church. He’s a friend. I speak to my friends when I see them.” She’d managed to get most of the hair loose, but not the final little piece that must have wrapped itself around the hoop twenty times while she was trying to untangle it.
“And fourth, if he wasn’t a married man and I wanted to flirt with him, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”
A vein throbbed in Gray’s temple. “It would be when he’s on duty.”
“Nope. Still not then.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I figure that because, unlike poor Jeremiah out there, I’m not one of your employees.” She was verging into “you’re not the boss of me” territory, and she didn’t want to go there. “I’m allowed to flirt, or not flirt, with anyone I want. You’re too good of a boss to penalize an officer for something that’s out of their control.”
She managed to get the earring out of her ear, but it was still tangled in her hair. She looked around the office. “Did I not put a mirror in here? I need to fix that.” She tried to see her hair and the earring in it but couldn’t twist around enough to find it.
“Let me.” Gray was there. Right in front of her. His hands were in her hair before she had a chance to argue. And then she had no oxygen to manage it. “There’s a small mirror by the coat tree.” His voice was low and soft.
She managed to suck in some air, but it was embarrassingly loud. “I can—”
“No. You can’t. You’ve really managed to make a mess of this, and there’s no way I can let you cut your hair. You love your hair.”
She did, although she had no idea how Gray knew that. She’d had shorter hair when she was younger. And then she’d cut it after a breakup, which had been stupid because one of the big rules of breakups was not to make any major hair decisions without talking to your best friends first. But she’d been short on friends at the time. And she’d thought a pixie cut would make her happy.
She’d cried for an extra week, and everyone thought it was because of the guy when it was really because of her hair.
His fingers brushed against her jawline. “We can’t be defeated by an earring.”
“No.” Her voice was a whisper.
“As for your earlier comments, you’re right. I was rude to Dawkins. It wasn’t intentional. I was just trying to get you inside and safe.”
He pulled the earring free and handed it to her. “And you have always demonstrated that you are a much better person than I am. Which is why I shouldn’t have been surprised when you made the choice to be kind even when I wasn’t. It’s good for me to be reminded that kindness from you isn’t the same thing as flirting. Please accept my apology for jumping to conclusions.”
Meredith couldn’t figure out what was happening. He wasn’t mad anymore. But even though he was being calm and gentle, she couldn’t shake the sensation that he was further away from her than he’d ever been before.
Gray took a seat behind his desk. He needed the desk between them. No. He needed miles between them. Maybe a few states. A country?
If he moved to the Caribbean, he could find a job as a dive instructor and forget that he’d ever known a girl with gorgeous hair, a smile that could stop the world—or maybe just his world—and who he could never, ever have.
Right now what he needed was for Meredith to go home. But he’d invited her here. He’d ordered pizza. Better to get this over with.
He pulled a legal pad from his desk and then put his laptop in front of him. “Okay. Let’s see how much we can cover before the pizza arrives.”
Meredith blinked a few times, then put the hoop earring back in her ear. “Okay. What do you want to know? And full disclosure, I’m bound by HIPAA regulations. I can’t talk about my patients.”
“I understand that. I don’t want you to discuss anything dental or medical. Although I would like to know more about the reports you gave to Kirby and the social worker.”
Meredith reached into her bag. “I thought you might say that. I made copies.” She handed him a stack of forms. “My guess is that these documents don’t exist in Neeson County. They’ve probably been destroyed. Or lost. Kirby made it a point to mention to me, twice, that they ‘aren’t as fancy’ as we are down here in Gossamer Falls.”
“He’s using their paper system as a way to hide things?”
“I can’t prove it. I can’t prove anything. I’m a dentist, not an investigator. But if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...”
Gray scanned through the documents and then set them on his desk. “Are these your only copies?”
“No.” She rushed to add, “Not that I don’t trust you. I do. But if this building burned down, I wouldn’t be shocked. Especially now that Steven Pierce has been moved.”
Steven Pierce had been moved for his own safety. Ideally, few people would have known about his presence in their jail. But with the way his mother was squawking to the press at every opportunity, there’d been no way to keep it under wraps.
“True. Although if he’d stayed here, that might have made us an even bigger target. I suspect his criminal overlords are none too happy with dear Stevie right now.”
“I can tell you for a fact that Steven never went by anything other than Steven. That whole ‘dear Stevie’ thing of his mother’s is an act.” Meredith hopped out of her chair and went to the mini fridge in the corner of his office. She opened it, extracted a bottle of water, and looked at him. “Do you mind?”
“Help yourself.” He tried not to think about how much he liked how comfortable she was in his space.
“Do you want one?”
“No. I’m good.” He pointed to the thermos on his desk.
“Coffee? For supper? How do you sleep?”
“It’s water. I don’t drink coffee after two p.m. Well, not usually anyway. And I sleep just fine, thank you very much.” It was true. Sleep had never been his issue. His nightmares usually found him while he was wide awake.
She opened the bottle of water, took a sip, and flounced into the chair. “Good to know.” She took another sip, then put the lid back on the bottle. “Look, I’m not sure if I have the answers you want. But I’ve been thinking about it today, and I might know how to find them.”
Gray didn’t like where this was going, but he knew Meredith. He had no chance of stopping her unless he heard her out. “I’m listening.”
Meredith handed him another piece of paper from her bag. “After we talked last night, I decided it would make our time more efficient if I organized my thoughts. So I wrote this up at lunch today. I wouldn’t recommend letting anyone see it.”
Gray scanned the page. He was only two lines in before he stopped and looked at Meredith. “You heard this?”
“I did. And now that you know, you can understand why I won’t discuss it with my family. I won’t put them at risk any more than they already are by association with me. If it got out that they knew?”
Gray pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes. And I agree. Let’s start at the beginning.”
Meredith glanced behind her at the closed door. “Can anyone hear us?”
“No.”
“Okay. Fine. For context, as I mentioned before, the Neeson church opens their doors for me, mainly so I can use the facilities. I was inside one day, and before I came out, I heard voices in the hallway. Deep voices. I didn’t recognize them. I assumed they were a couple of dads, although I typically see the moms. Not a lot of dads bring their kids to the dentist.”
Gray fought to keep an impassive expression on his face. But the thought of her alone in an empty building, even if that building was a church, sent a shiver of terror across his skin.
“I heard the first guy say, ‘Kirby’s ours. You don’t have to worry about that.’ Then the other guy said, ‘What about Nichols? He’s a straight arrow.’ And the first guy said, ‘We have a plan for him.’ And then the other guy said, ‘Really? Because I don’t think we can turn him.’”
Meredith swallowed hard, and her expression was grief-stricken when she continued. “The first guy used a few curse words and then he said, ‘The only kind of man who can’t be turned is a man who has nothing to lose. A man like Nichols has a lot to lose.’”
“There’s a Nichols on Neeson’s police force. Do you think that’s who they were talking about?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what they have on him?”
She shook her head. “No, but I might be able to get it.”
He wasn’t touching that. Not yet. “Do you know who the other two men were?”
She nodded.
“How do you know?”
“They were still talking when I came outside. I didn’t think they saw me, but it’s possible they did. And given what happened with my van, I’m leaning more toward the idea that they think I overheard them.”
“Who are they, Meredith?”
She looked at the paper she’d handed him. A paper that didn’t have any names on it. “Does it change anything if I tell you?”
“It might.” When she continued to hesitate, he asked, “Why don’t you want to tell me?”
“What if I’m wrong?” She threw out her hands. “I don’t think I am, but what I’m accusing them of is serious. I could ruin their lives. I won’t swear under oath about this. Hearsay is inadmissible. And this is all hearsay.”
“I’m not going to try to get a warrant based on what you tell me. And I promise to keep an open mind.”
She leaned toward him. “Trace Ledbetter and Winston Hardaway.”
Gray sat back. Winston Hardaway was Chief Kirby’s son-in-law. “How do you know them?”
Meredith ran a hand through her hair. “Winston is the same age as Cal’s older brother, Chad. Gossamer Falls High played Neeson High in most sports. We don’t play them as often now because they’re a smaller school. Winston was a phenomenal basketball player. He and Chad weren’t friends, but they were friendly. They wound up at a lot of the same camps and got along reasonably well. He has a scar on his temple. The story was he got it mountain biking.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“I never thought to question it until I started hanging out in Neeson. Lots of folks with random scars in Neeson. Makes you wonder.”
Gray made a note on the legal pad to mention the scars to the undercover agent. It might be nothing. Might be important.
“What about Trace?”
“Never met him or heard of him until this past year. His wife brings his kids in.”
“And?”
“He comes with them.”
“And that’s weird?”
“It doesn’t have to be. It isn’t always. But with him? Yeah. It’s weird. My clinic is tiny. I let an adult come in with the kids, but just one. He doesn’t like that. Wanted to know why he couldn’t come in too. I told him he was welcome to if he could fit. Or he could come in instead of his wife. He didn’t want to do that.”
“So he gave you a bad vibe?”
She gave him an apologetic look. “I told you I don’t really know anything. It’s a lot of thoughts, maybes, inklings, vibes. Not facts.”
“You don’t have to have facts to be right.”
“Fine. Then yes. He gives off a bad vibe. His kids aren’t afraid of him, but they’re still very young. His wife is flat-out terrified and so are other people. When they show up, there’s tension in the people waiting. Last time, there were at least five people in front of them, but somehow they wound up next in line. When I asked about it, Mrs. Ledbetter said her husband had somewhere to be and had asked the others if they would mind if they jumped the line.”
Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Gray had to bite back a smile. Meredith was such a mother hen. It had offended her, on the others’ behalf, that they’d been taken advantage of.
“There wasn’t anything I could do.” Meredith hopped up and started pacing the small area in front of his desk. “I wouldn’t have caught the subtext the first time. Maybe not the second. But by the third, I knew the people and the routine. Mrs. Ledbetter would never jump the line, but Trace didn’t hesitate. He has something on those people.”
“Did anyone say anything about it?”
“Obliquely. When the Ledbetters left, my next patient was someone close to my age. She’s friendly. We talk about music and hiking. So I said something like, ‘Mrs. Ledbetter sure did appreciate you letting them take your spot in line.’”
Meredith tapped the back of the chair with her fist. “She looked at me and said, ‘Dr. Quinn, he don’t wait in line in Neeson. Not at the post office, not at the diner, and sure enough not at the dentist.’ Then she looked like she wanted to cram every word she’d said back in her mouth so I just said, ‘Good to know.’ And I changed the subject.”
“You didn’t leave it there, though, did you?”
Meredith looked like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “No. I used a database of Mo’s to look up Trace Ledbetter.”
“And?”
“And I think he might be the scariest man I’ve ever met.”