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  Bryce jumped forward. “Hey, are you okay?”

  Embarrassed, she said, “Fine. Maybe a little lightheaded from standing up.”

  Again, she looked past Bryce, but Payaso was gone.

  “Let me get you a wheelchair, and we can get you out of here. I have your discharge papers. I was taking care of that this morning, too.”

  “How? Dr. Randal didn’t even know you were picking me up.”

  “Doctors aren’t the real bosses around here, the nurses are. Duh.”

  She should have expected that from him. “Is your doctor okay with you leaving work to take me home?”

  Bryce worked with the pathologist in the morgue. He loved his job and was getting used to the new doctor since his old boss retired.

  “I’m not working today. I was just doing paperwork on my own time, since I was here anyway. Oh, and Dr. McC says hi.”

  Kate slipped into her Vans, and pointed to the closet. “Can you just throw that stuff into a bag?”

  Bryce packed up her belongings, while Kate pulled her phone from the covers and ended the recording. She slipped the phone into the pocket of her sweatpants and started toward the door.

  At the door, her day nurse said, “Oh, no, you don’t,” and shoved a wheelchair at her.

  “Well, shit, I was hoping to walk out and show everyone how good I’m doing.” Kate turned, grabbed the arms of the chair and gingerly lowered her butt to the seat. “Guess I’ll just have to give my Miss America wave as you push me out.”

  Bryce and the nurse laughed, but Kate did raise her arm, cup her hand, and give a little wave all the way to the elevators.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you, Zane is at the house,” Bryce said as he helped her into his car.

  Chapter 2

  Bryce had warned Zane not to push, but they came to an agreement that he could be at the house, but not pick Kate up at the hospital. Sergeant Zane Gwilly was Kate’s boss, but more than that, he was her ex-husband. It killed Bryce to see how much they both still loved each other, but Kate was too stubborn to admit she’d made a mistake by divorcing him.

  He’d known Kate since they were kids, when Kate’s foster parents had brought him into their home. Kate and Bryce fought like blood siblings, but they also fought for each other. No one knew her like he did, and sometimes he thought Zane envied him that.

  “I can’t believe you want to see him,” Bryce said.

  “I banished him from the hospital weeks ago. It’s only fair for him to see I’m doing well. So he can see I can make it without him.” Kate settled into the seat.

  “I think you’ve made that plenty clear since the divorce. Please be nice to him. I’m not in any mood to mediate.” Bryce maneuvered his car out of the hospital parking lot and toward the interstate.

  Kate laid her head back and closed her eyes. “I need to ask him a few questions. Oh, and we need to pick up my pain meds from the pharmacy.”

  Kate started snoring a minute later.

  Thank goodness the pharmacist knew him, so he pulled into the drive-thru and picked up Kate’s meds. She jerked and snorted, then turned her head, so Bryce pulled her wallet from her bag and handed the I.D. to the tech. It only took a few minutes and they were on the road again. Kate didn’t wake up until they pulled into the driveway of the pecan farm she’d inherited from her long-lost grandfather.

  Bryce had fought the urge to move into the house, but gave in as soon as he found out Kate would be in the hospital longer than expected, due to complications from the surgery. In the month Kate spent in the hospital, he moved out of his place, selling about half his stuff, and putting the rest in storage. Though this antebellum home had plenty of room for his things, he didn’t want his modern tastes to clash with the tradition of the home. Besides, he didn’t need anything, since the house was fully furnished and stocked.

  Kate had walked into a sweet deal in which her grandfather’s trust, and the income from the leased pecan orchards, paid for the upkeep and taxes on her new home. She hadn’t even moved out of her place when she’d been shot, so Bryce had taken that task on, too, with a lot of help from Zane.

  Bryce liked Zane, but felt sorry for him, because he’d fallen in love with Kate. He knew Kate would eventually break Zane’s heart, and she did, even though it broke her heart, too. Kate would never take to commitment, but she sure tried to fight it. And poor Zane got caught in Kate’s web when she was feeling generous. Her generosity never lasted long.

  “Oh, he’s already here,” she said when she woke up.

  “I told you he was,” Bryce snapped. “Now don’t be a bitch.”

  Kate blew out a breath. “I’ll be nice. Besides, I need information from him, remember?”

  “I remember. But isn’t it a bit early to start worrying about investigating Newton’s death?”

  “What else am I going to do? Sit around and read books and watch TV? I did that for a month already.”

  Under his breath, Bryce said, “I’m pretty sure you mostly slept and irritated the therapists and nurses.”

  Kate smacked him on the shoulder. “I was nice to the nurses.”

  Bryce parked in front of the house. “Sure you were. Can you walk up the steps, or should I have a ramp put in?”

  Kate opened her door and stood, looking stronger than she had at the hospital. He saw her stiffen.

  “You okay?” He came running around to her side of the car.

  The ghostly look on her face scared him, but she said, “I’m fine. Help me get to the house.”

  Bryce reached out so she could put her arm over his shoulder.

  “No, not like that. Just be here to catch me, even though it probably won’t be necessary.”

  Bryce rolled his eyes as Zane came running down the stairs. He told Zane not to fuss over Kate, but Zane went all mushy in the brain where Kate was concerned. Especially since the shooting.

  “Let me help,” Zane said, reaching out.

  Kate stepped away from Bryce and held Zane’s arm. “I just need you in case I lose my balance.”

  Kate looked up at the porch, looking determined. Then she stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Are you okay?” Zane asked.

  Kate didn’t answer, and Bryce looked to the porch to see what made her stop. Nothing. The porch was empty, but one of the rockers swayed with the wind. How weird, only one of the chairs moved.

  “I’ll run inside and get some sweet tea.” Bryce sprinted up the stairs and disappeared inside the house.

  “She’s home.” Azizi stood in the kitchen, stirring mint into a pitcher of sweet tea.

  Bryce nodded. Azizi scared the shit out of him. According to Kate, Azizi was a permanent fixture on the plantation. She lived in the tenant house on the property and apparently came and went from the main house as she pleased. How did she know he was coming in to make tea?

  “She is. I have the servant’s quarters ready for her, so she doesn’t have to climb the stairs.”

  She added ice to three tall glasses and poured tea in them before saying, “It’s safer for her on the first floor.”

  “Safer?” Bryce didn’t understand.

  Azizi hummed to herself.

  Bryce heard Zane and Kate talking in the other room as he put together a tray of cookies, and cheese with crackers. He wasn’t sure what had come over him, since he was in no way a gracious host.

  “Did you really tell Rambone you weren’t coming back?” Zane asked.

  “That asshole, did he tell you that?”

  “He sent me a text.”

  “Well, it wasn’t his business to spread around. Now the entire department will think I’m a wuss. I just told him that to get him off my back.” Bryce could hear the smile in her words. She was glad Rambone had spread the word. He knew Kate’s plan.

  “Doesn’t matter anyway. He replaced you three days after the incident.”

  Did he just hear Kate growl? He’d better get out there before she ate Zane alive.

  “Incident? You mean
the attempted rape and murder of a police officer?” Bryce said as he walked into the room with the tray of snacks.

  “Thank you,” Kate said. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”

  Zane rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You know I wasn’t trying to lessen what happened. He did hire a guy, though. Chad Sousa. Odd fellow.”

  Bryce put the tray on the coffee table, and Azizi walked up behind him and placed the tray of tea next to it. “I thought you might want some of my special sweet tea,” she said.

  “She can’t have alcohol with the meds she’s taking,” Zane said.

  Azizi laughed. “Oh, no, honey, this is a different kind of special. Enjoy.”

  Azizi turned to leave the room, then stopped. She looked at something in the corner of the room, then looked back at Kate, who was looking at the same thing. Only Bryce didn’t see more than the coat stand and umbrella rack.

  Azizi left the room.

  “So what about this Sousa guy?” Kate asked.

  “He’s just different. Doesn’t really seem to want to be a cop. I like him, and yet he gets on my nerves.” Zane grabbed a glass of Azizi’s special tea and took a long sip. “Mmmmm.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not coming back until I find out who killed Newton. He saved my life. I owe him that much.” Kate picked up her glass of tea and sipped. “Well, that’s different. I like it.”

  Bryce heard Azizi chuckle from the kitchen. He wondered if Kate and Zane heard it, too.

  “You’re in no shape to investigate anything.” Zane set his glass down hard on the table. “Besides, the case is closed.”

  Bryce picked up the glass and put a coaster under it. He planned to just sit and watch this train wreck go down.

  Kate sat her glass down a little more delicately, but Bryce had to put a coaster under hers, too. What was coming over him?

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. There wasn’t even an investigation.” Kate tried to stand, then he could see she thought better of it.

  “Look, the captain said they had evidence of a member of Barrio Azteca doing the shooting. The gun had been used in another shooting by a Barrio Azteca gang member. Newton had been honing in on their territory, along with poaching Payaso’s business. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they killed Payaso if you hadn’t.”

  “I don’t believe it. And even so, how is Barrio Azteca infiltrating clear up here in East Texas? They’re from El Paso.” Kate ran her fingers through her hair, and caught her breath when she tried to sigh.

  “They go clear up into Colorado, Kate. They are getting bigger every day. And they have deep pockets, so they can buy good cops. Imagine if they are in the pockets of a bad cop.”

  Kate leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her middle, then adjusted them away from her injury. “Imagine what they’d do if they knew the cops were pinning a murder on them when it wasn’t true.”

  “No, Kate. You’re gonna stay far away from this. Cops are not friends of this gang. They are ruthless. And by that I mean, they kill their own kind ruthless. This isn’t something I would let you do if you were one hundred percent healthy.” Zane made the mistake of pointing his finger as he spoke.

  Kate sat forward too quick and winced, but it didn’t stop her. Then she looked in the corner, turned a little pale, and stopped for a second. Then she said, “Let’s make this perfectly clear. You are no longer my boss, and no longer my husband. You don’t get to now, nor did you ever, get to tell me what to do with my personal time. So you won’t be letting me do anything, because it’s none of your fucking business.” Kate stood. “Get out!” She walked into the kitchen.

  Bryce stood. “I think it’s time for you to leave. She doesn’t need to be agitated. Why do you even try? You know she’s gonna investigate. That guy saved her life. She’s sure he’s dead because of what he did.”

  Zane picked up his glass of tea and finished it in one gulp. He slowly placed it back on the tray, then stood.

  Bryce knew he was baiting him, so he smiled and waited. Then he slowly got up and walked to the front door, holding it open for Zane. “Don’t stop by without calling.”

  Zane glared at him as he strolled across the room and out the door.

  Bryce almost locked the door behind him, but he wanted to hear what Kate had to say, so he slammed the door and jogged to the kitchen, slowing just before entering.

  “He’s with you still, isn’t he?” Azizi was saying to Kate as Bryce entered the room.

  “What are you talking about?” Kate asked, a little paler than she had been in the living room.

  “The man, he follows you. I can see his shadow,” Azizi said.

  Kate’s eyes went wide. She pulled her phone from the pocket of her sweat pants and sent a quick text. Bryce’s phone didn’t buzz, so she hadn’t sent it to him.

  She set her phone on the counter and said, “I’m going to take a nap. I don’t feel so well.”

  When Kate closed the door to the servant’s quarters, Bryce hustled across the room and picked up her phone. She’d texted Zane: What’s the name and number of the LEO PTSD Center in Dallas?

  Chapter 3

  8 weeks later

  They say shit rolls downhill. Well, police sergeants must be at the bottom of the hill, because Zane always seemed to be covered in everyone else's shit. And they say that after a while, you can't smell the stuff because you're around it all the time. He knew that wasn’t true, because he could smell when shit was going to hit the fan. Yep, he could smell it from a mile away.

  Peculiar, Texas was that East Texas small town where everyone says they want to raise their kids, even though those people don’t really know what it’s like, because they’ve never lived in a place like Peculiar. But Zane was born and raised here, this was his town, and he’d been “protecting and serving” for going on twelve years.

  Not small enough to be called a town, but not big enough to be a city, Peculiar sure lived up to its name. They had the tourist lake population from Memorial Day up until Labor Day, and as soon as the lake people left, the college kids came back. And then there was the transient population from the constant road construction along the highways and interstates. It was the transient population who brought the most trouble. Well, them and the drug cartels.

  Seemed no matter how much money was spent on the war on drugs, the voracious appetite of the American people spent more and more on them. Zane had the statistics. The United States drug addicts spent more on meth, heroin, cocaine and weed, not to mention prescription meds, than all other countries combined. Yet no one ever talked about the real problem, which was the users, not the suppliers. It’s a supply and demand business, and the police just couldn’t keep up with both.

  Zane crossed Newcastle Canal, over the railroad tracks to the tourist side of town, and was making his pass around Lake Peculiar. The days were getting shorter, and the population around the lake had dwindled, but he could still see a few bonfires with circles of people enjoying the mild night. The sun had long disappeared, but the coolers still had beer, so the campfires still burned. He was on the north side of the lake when he heard Dispatch come over the radio.

  “HQ to 303, please respond," followed by “HQ to 67, have you been in contact with 303?"

  Badge number 303 belonged to a patrol officer, Chad Sousa. Badge number 67 belonged to Zane. Sousa apparently hadn’t been responding to her transmissions.

  "10-4, he radioed in his Code 7…stand by…" Zane took his thumb off the mic and checked his laptop for the log. He thumbed the mic again. "He never logged 10-8?”

  "He still shows Code 7. That was 97 minutes ago," her voice cracked.

  Sousa was that guy, the one other departments might call “The Shadow.” He was the last to show up at a crime scene, and the first to go off his shift. He pushed the limits on everything. But when he did actually do the work, he was thorough and professional. The man wrote reports like a pro, but he’d only been a cop for a short time, according to his p
ersonnel records. Peculiar PD wasn’t his first rodeo, either. If Zane remembered correctly, he came from a bigger city before joining the ranks of the PPD.

  He radioed back. “Got a 10-20 on his vehicle?”

  All police vehicles were equipped with GPS, for the safety of the police force, and the safety of the officers. Zane waited for the dispatcher to return with an answer.

  “HQ to 67.”

  “67, go ahead.”

  “1215 Rainier Street.”

  “10-4, in route.” Zane put the mic back on its hook and flipped a U-turn in the middle of the intersection at County Road 4356 and Sandpiper Road.

  Then he did the thing many citizens like to bitch about cops doing: he ignored the speed limit and raced across town, rolled through a couple of stop signs, and skirted a yellow light. He did not, however, run any red lights. Kicking Sousa’s ass for taking an extended lunch wasn’t worth endangering someone’s life, or getting his cruiser number turned in.

  When he came up on Rainier Street, he slowed a bit, but it was well after midnight. Traffic was light, and he wasn’t worried about small children playing in the streets.

  As he pulled up to Sousa’s townhouse, he thought about the time they worked a home invasion. His guys secured the scene, and when Zane got there, he said, “Who’s doing the report?” and everyone looked around, scouting for the lowest ranking officer.

  Finally, he got pissed and asked, “Whose zone is it?” They all said it was Sousa’s. When Zane called him on the radio, damn if they didn’t hear his car start and see the lights turn on. The lazy piece of crap was watching them work the scene from the parking lot across the street. Unbelievable.

  So, having to take the time from patrolling his zone to come check on him didn’t surprise Zane. But it sure had his blood boiling by the time he got out of his Charger and headed toward his front door.