Page 5 of Vanishing Point (Bent County Protectors #1)

“The prosecutor isn’t going for it.”

Thomas didn’t look up at Copeland. He knew he’d see his own frustrations and powerlessness reflected back at him. “So what now?”

“I wish I knew.” Too many dead ends in the case, and Thomas knew he couldn’t blame the lawyers. They needed evidence, a case. They couldn’t go on his word and his gut.

But Thomas knew that guy had killed his wife and staged it as a suicide. There was too much history of assault there. Too many inconsistencies in how the body had been found.

And there just wasn’t anything he could do, unless they found some real damning evidence somewhere along the line.

It was time to take off for the day, and he had to get over to Wilde for yet another party. Copeland walked outside with him, neither of them saying anything.

But once outside, with radios and cameras turned off and put away in their cars, Thomas and Copeland faced each other.

“I got the name of a bar he frequents over in Fairmont,” Copeland said, squinting into the sunset. “Might find myself there tonight.”

They couldn’t both go. It was too obvious. Still, Thomas found himself conflicted. “I’ve got an engagement party to go to.”

“You’ve sure got a lot of parties to attend for a single guy.”

“You try never moving out of your hometown. Look, we can’t take risks here. The prosecutor is already being too careful. One wrong move, and he won’t look at anything we find.”

“I’m just going out for a drink, Hart,” Copeland said with a grin. “What could possibly go wrong?”

But Thomas knew. Copeland could push too far and screw the case. Still, for all his big-city brashness, Copeland wasn’t the type to botch a case. So Thomas just rolled his eyes. They parted ways, and Thomas got into his car.

The drive over to Wilde wasn’t too long. And he’d just make a quick appearance. Say hi to his cousins, his friends. Congratulate Dunne and Quinn. Then he’d go home and…

What? Wallow?

No. He’d just…go over the case again. So what if it’d be the hundredth time? That was the job. Tedious going over things until you found the one thing that led you to the next thing and so on.

He wasn’t giving up on this, not yet. Even if the prosecutor wouldn’t take it, that didn’t mean he had to stop investigating.

The party was being held out at the Thompson Ranch—a place that had once belonged to his no-good uncle, where his cousins had grown up. Amberleigh had passed away, but Zara and Hazeleigh still lived on the property with their husbands.

Cars littered the yard in front of the ranch house. Even with the cold temperatures, the front door was open. Thomas stepped inside. Chatter buzzed, people were packed into corners, and a makeshift bar was set up on the kitchen counter.

He could use a drink, he decided. Just one since he was driving home, but before he could greet people, wind his way through the crowd, he stopped short.

Standing there, hiding a bit in the corner, was Vi Reynolds.

She was watching Rosalie, who was in the kitchen pouring shots, with a slight smile on her face.

Her hair was down around her shoulders. It was dry, so it looked redder than when he’d seen her out at the Young Ranch.

It looked like she had on the tiniest bit of makeup, which reminded him of the first time he’d danced with her.

Homecoming. Ninth grade. She’d smelled like strawberries and smiled at him like she had all the answers to every secret in the universe.

“Hey, you made it.”

Thomas had to drag his gaze away from Vi and look at his cousin. “Hey, Zara.” He chatted with Zara for a minute, then tried to move away with the excuse of going to get a drink.

But he wanted to get to Vi. Old habits and memories from fifteen years ago apparently died very hard.

As he moved for the bar, he didn’t see her anymore. He frowned, scanning the room. He ended up having to congratulate Quinn and Dunne, answer Sarabeth’s—a teen he’d once saved from a burning building—determined questions for a gruesome story she was writing for school.

Once he got free of people, he surveyed the room again and still didn’t see Vi, but Rosalie hadn’t left yet, so—

He turned, just as someone was coming in from the hallway where the bathroom was.

And then they simply stood face-to-face.

“Oh,” she said on an exhale. “Hi.”

Her eyes had always reminded him of those bright cold days in the middle of winter.

A piercing kind of blue. And he wanted to laugh.

Everything that had happened to him in his fifteen years of being a cop could fade away in that color.

He could stand here, an adult man with a hell of a lot of experience under his belt, and still find himself tongue-tied over his high school girlfriend.

“Hi.”

She looked away, gestured toward the kitchen.

“Rosalie tricked me into coming. Her date fell through, and she said she couldn’t bear celebrating love alone.

But she couldn’t bail on her boss’s engagement party, and Audra’s a big, mean stick-in-the-mud who hates parties, so I had to come and let Audra watch Magnolia.

” She gestured over to where Rosalie was taking a shot with the bride-to-be.

“I think she just wanted a designated driver.”

“She’s a tricky one.”

Vi laughed. “Yeah. I assume you know the bride or groom?”

“Both, kind of. Two of Dunne’s brothers are married to my cousins. You remember Zara and Hazeleigh, right?”

“Sure. The triplets.”

“Amberleigh passed away, so it’s just the two of them now. With my parents in Arizona, and their mom passed, I tend to be folded into the holiday celebrations, so I’ve gotten to know Dunne and Quinn. Besides, I deal with Quinn and her PIs, like your cousin, at work from time to time.”

“No escaping the ties in Bent County, is there?”

He wasn’t sure she said that disparagingly or with a kind of wistfulness. He’d never left, so he couldn’t really imagine. Maybe it was both. “You said you’ve been back for a while, and it’s taken me this long to run into you.”

“And now we’ve run into each other twice in two weeks.”

“Must be fate.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes, but her smile didn’t dim. “You don’t believe in fate.”

“Didn’t.”

“Oh really? And what changed your mind?”

He thought about the stories he could tell, about people in this room alone. The horrible things they’d seen, but something had brought them to the other side. A better, happier side.

But those weren’t his stories to tell. Still, he had some of his own. And one even involved her, sort of.

“About eight years ago, when I was still a very young and eager deputy, two armed men stormed the station to free someone we had in holding. They were connected to the mob, on the search for their boss’s kid. It was a whole thing.”

“Clearly.”

“Anyway, seconds before they come in and fire the first shot, I was standing at the front desk talking to someone on the phone. I hung up, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye on the ground. A little flash of silver. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, probably, but it was a dime.”

He watched her face, the bolt of recognition that changed her expression from a little uncomfortable, to more invested.

“I remembered how you always said a dime was a sign from your grandfather saying hello. I didn’t think any spirits were saying hello to me, but still, because of your story I bent down and picked it up.

The first shot—that likely would have got me in the head—missed me.

” He could still remember the way the sound had exploded around them, just as his fingers had brushed the dime on the floor.

“They still shot me—but in the side. It was bad, but I survived it.”

“That…wasn’t fate,” she said but was quiet. Maybe shaken.

In fairness, it was probably too much to bring up at a party when they’d barely seen each other in fifteen years. Because it had been bad. The worst he’d ever been hurt, though not the first or last time. Still, he couldn’t deny that he always remembered that dime.

“Felt like fate to me.”

She blinked, then looked down and away. He should find something more casual to talk about. Something…about the old days or…the weather. “Can I grab you a drink? Maybe we can—”

She held up her phone. “I have to go call Audra and check in on Magnolia.”

Ouch. He nodded, and even though the rejection hurt, he kept his smile in place. “Sure.”

“It was…nice seeing you again,” she said, clearly just trying to be polite and not meaning it at all . Then she smiled a little and turned to walk away.

Well, it sucked, but he figured that was that.

But he watched her go, and she looked back over her shoulder. Their eyes meeting. He knew he should keep his big mouth shut, but history was a hell of a thing.

“You know I gave you my number, but I don’t have yours,” he said, across the few steps she’d taken away.

He watched her hesitate. But hesitation wasn’t refusal, and he’d hold on to that, even if she didn’t give him her phone number.

Then she stepped back toward him, held out her hand, palm up.

He typed in his phone password, then handed it over to her. She went to Contacts and added her name and number. For a moment, she hesitated again, then looked up at him and gave him the phone back.

“I can’t promise I’ll answer if you call,” she said, very seriously. But that wasn’t a don’t call . She was conflicted. He could be respectful of conflicted.

“Okay, then I’ll text.”

He watched her try to fight a smile and lose. He felt all of fourteen again, but she nodded once before she turned away and weaved her way through the crowd.

V I HADN’T MEANT to start dating Thomas.

Again.

Over the next few weeks, it just seemed to…

happen. He’d started with texting her, like he’d said at the party.

Sometimes he’d ask if she remembered something from high school.

Sometimes he’d ask if she’d seen a movie or liked some band—usually one she’d never heard of.

When he asked if she wanted to go out to see a movie, she’d told him no.