“Same thing. I’m just doing what the army taught me. Be the best I can be. Putting the killing skills I learned to the test in the real world. You know all that Rah, rah! Go, Army! shit that lured us into enlisting in the first place. Now I’m supposed to pretend that’s not who I am?”
“People change, A-Rod.”
Her cell phone rang, and she looked at the caller ID. Then she smiled haughtily. Meanly. “Speaking of… putting my skills to the test in the real world, I do believe this is about a job.” She whirled away from me and took the call outside.
This conversation hadn’t gone well-not that I’d expected less. I’d told her some of the truth about J-Hawk, but if her reaction was any indication, I couldn’t tell her all of it. Especially not about the cancer.
But it bugged me, how had toe-the-line Major Hawley started selling prescription drugs? Just to feed his adrenaline-junkie side? Had it started when he was unemployed? Had he decided no one would notice small-scale stuff? But once he’d tasted easy money, had he moved on to bigger stuff? What if he’d unknowingly muscled into another group’s territory?
Cross the wrong people, like Saro’s group, who laugh at obeying the law, and bye-bye.
They’d kill him. Without hesitation.
So if I suspected J-Hawk’s death was a drug-related incident, when I wasn’t a professional investigator… why hadn’t Dawson come to the same conclusion? And if he had, why hadn’t he done anything about it?
Once again, someone beating on my door roused me out of slumber. Pity Anna hadn’t shot the idiot for disturbing her R &R. I squinted at the couch as I shuffled past. Huh. No Anna. That explained the lack of bullet holes in the door.
I flipped the locks and opened the door. My belly did a little flip.
“I see you took my advice and started locking up.”
“You doing door-lock checks across the county this morning, Sheriff? Or am I special?”
“Smart-ass.”
“What’re you doing here?”
“We need to talk.” Dawson brushed past me, stopping in front of the empty coffeepot. “You haven’t made coffee yet?”
“I was still in bed.”
Grumbling, he filled the grinder with beans. Poured the water in the machine. Dumped the old grounds and nestled a fresh filter in the basket before refilling it with freshly ground beans. It didn’t bother me that he knew his way around my tiny kitchen. In fact, it was sort of… sweet.
After he hit Start, he turned, resting his backside against the counter. Arms crossed over his chest. Chin set in a hard line. No shades masked the steely glint in his eyes.
Yeah, Dawson was pissed. I prepped myself for an ass-chewing session and mentally took back my “sweet” remark.
“Is there a reason you didn’t tell me you knew Jason Hawley prior to his employment with Titan Oil?”
“Yes.”
“What would that reason be?
“Because you didn’t ask me.”
“Goddammit, Mercy, that’s not-”
“The response you were looking for?” I supplied. “Tough. Maybe if you hadn’t been such a dickhead to me the night I found my friend murdered, I would’ve given you specifics. But when you’re tossing around threats, taking away my gun, accusing me, for Christsake, of murder, I ain’t about to offer anything up that wasn’t specifically asked.”
“And what about the next day? When you and John-John came into the office? I asked you specific questions then. You had ample opportunities to come clean about your previous relationship with him.”
“No. You gave me some bullshit theory about how my friend, a man I respected, a man I entrusted my life to, a man who’d literally brought me back from the dead, had somehow gotten himself robbed-and oops, too bad, so sad, accidents happen. He’s not from around here anyway, so who cares? Move on and forget about it. Well, guess what? I couldn’t.”
Dawson was by my side-in my face-in an instant. “What do you mean he brought you back from the dead?”
The damn man was a bulldog when it came to digging things out of me and the hell of it was I didn’t always mind. Didn’t mean I always told the gospel truth, however.
“Mercy?”
Hearing the softness in his tone, I tabled my intent to lie. Or hedge, anyway. “When Jason found me, under rubble and bodies, I was… dead. No pulse. Not breathing. He wouldn’t give up, even long after he should have.”
“Tell me everything. In detail. Right now.”
I retreated from his menacing stance and maintained a clinical detachment in the retelling. I left nothing out, including J-Hawk’s relationship with Anna. Needing something to do with my hands, I poured us each a cup of coffee, automatically handing Dawson his favorite Smokey the Bear mug.
“Does Jason Hawley’s murder have anything to do with you deciding to run for sheriff?”
“Yes.”
An exasperated noise rumbled in his chest at my curt response. “And?”
“And you want to know why I said yes? Not because of all the people claiming my father would be proud if I followed in his footsteps. Not because I have a burning desire to wear the snappy uniform and get paid to carry a gun again.” I locked my eyes to his. “What kicked me over was when I saw the customer lists you’d demanded, sitting unopened on your desk, days after Jason’s murder. I knew you wouldn’t give the case the time it deserved.”
The displeased muscle ticked in his jaw. “You don’t know why… you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“No? Are you denying you put a murder case on the bottom of your priority pile?”
“I’m damn tired of your accusations about my lack of dedication and direction as sheriff. Didn’t we go through this last year? With the cases involving Albert Yellow Boy, Levi, and Sue Anne White Plume? Didn’t you accuse me of apathy and ineptness then, too? Didn’t it come out in the end that I did my job?”
The jury was out on Dawson’s effectiveness as an investigator. True, Albert Yellow Boy’s death had been ruled an accident like he’d postulated. Theo Murphy had confessed to me about killing Sue Anne, not to Dawson. And my nephew Levi… well, I’d figured out who’d murdered him and lied to Dawson to cover for the person who’d killed the real killer.
“Yes, you got to the bottom of them eventually. But your focus has been elsewhere because of the election. I knew if you wouldn’t investigate Jason’s murder, I had to. No matter what. Even if it pissed you off.”
Even if it costs you something you’re only beginning to understand the value of?
Where had that thought come from?
And Dawson was as angry as I’d ever seen him. “Why are you jumping headfirst into the deep end of the pool when you don’t have the first clue about what’s underwater?”
My bitchy rejoinder, “I oughta leave the investigating to a crackshot professional like you?” dried on my tongue when I recognized the frustration in his eyes.
“I understand how a shared military history with life-and-death situations creates a strong bond. I did my time. There are guys I would’ve died for.”
“Then you understand why I owe Jason. He saved me.”
“Is that what this is about? You think you could’ve saved him?”
I notched my chin higher. “Maybe.”
“Trust me, Jason Hawley was beyond saving the second he showed up in my county.”
“You didn’t know him.”
He shot back, “Neither did you.”
I started to argue, but Dawson jumped back in first and came out swinging.
“Has it ever occurred to you that you wouldn’t have died if Jason and Anna hadn’t coerced you into going into the club? If you’d said no instead of feeling pressure to help them maintain a lie, you would’ve been safe in the hotel where you belonged. Jason Hawley should’ve gone out of his way to bring you back to life because it was his goddamn fault you died.”