Whispers Under A Southern Sky. Joanne Rock
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to connect any dots. Part of it was because he’d reviewed the same map a hundred times. But it was mostly because he’d spent the majority of last night pacing the floors with his infant son. A baby he hadn’t even known existed until three weeks ago. A baby his ex-girlfriend had handed him on his doorstep along with the news that she had grown weary and needed a break from the two-month-old she hadn’t seen fit to tell him he’d fathered.
So he’d been parenting the infant alone for the last three weeks. Nothing like trial by fire.
“Any luck?” Heartache’s mayor, Zach Chance, walked into the town-hall conference room that served as Sam’s office most days.
With his patrician features and perfectly pressed collared shirt, Zach looked the part of a slick politician even though he was a fairly normal dude. For a tech-company millionaire.
Zach had cleaned up in the digital security market before returning to Heartache from the West Coast two years prior. He still managed his virtual company from Heartache, but he was now the mayor. He’d also been the one who’d twisted Sam’s arm into leaving San Jose to become Heartache’s sheriff. Both men had grown up in Heartache, so it hadn’t been that big of a sacrifice to come back.
Sam liked small-town living more as an adult than he had as a kid, even if some days he couldn’t keep his eyes open while working.
“Nothing yet.” He gripped his empty cup of coffee and pitched the paper container in the trash can. “We need more evidence before Jeremy Covington goes to trial, but I’ll be damned if I know where we can get it.”
His eyes felt like sandpaper when he blinked. Hell, he’d barely managed to find a clean shirt this morning, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he’d slept in the pants he was wearing.
“I’ve gone over and over Heather’s statement, too. And I’ll be damned if I can find anything that helps connect what she saw to Jeremy’s previous crimes.” Zach dropped into a chair at the opposite end of the conference table.
He’d recently gotten engaged to Heather Finley, daughter of Heartache’s previous mayor who’d died while in office.
Heather had been the victim of an attempted kidnapping last fall, and Sam had arrested Covington, a former member of the town council, and his son on a number of charges, including sexual assault and stalking. But since then he’d been having trouble building a strong enough case to ensure both Covingtons served serious jail time.
Both Zach and Sam were convinced that Covington had stalked and assaulted many other victims—including Zach’s own sister, Gabriella, ten years ago. Sam had followed Gabriella that night, worried because she had seemed depressed and secretive. He’d found her desperately fighting off an attacker. Sam had managed to keep Gabby from being hurt and chased the guy away. But her attacker had been wearing a stocking mask and it had been pitch-black in the woods around the quarry road, so he sure as hell couldn’t identify him and neither could Zach’s sister.
Now that they’d caught Covington, Sam and Zach’s family finally had an opportunity to see justice done after an event that had altered all their lives.
“I dug out the notes I made about what happened to Gabriella, and me, too. I wish we’d gone to the police.” Sam drummed his fingers on the conference table, thinking back to that long-ago summer.
“You were a foster kid who’d had your own run-ins with the sheriff,” Zach reminded him, letting him off the hook. “And Gabby had just wanted to get out of town.”
Sam, Gabriella and Zach had moved to the West Coast. Sam got a GED and took college courses, eventually enrolling in the police academy. Zach went to college and started his tech company. They’d both looked after Gabriella, who had needed intensive counseling. These days, she ran a support group for victims of cyberstalking and assault.
“And your notes are all admissible as evidence, thanks to you,” Zach continued.
Sam had written a report about that night and mailed it to himself, as well as local police, as soon as he’d turned eighteen.
He’d kept his own copy—unopened but postmarked—and given it to a superior officer at the police academy along with his application. The cop had filed it with his records, helping preserve the evidence so it was still admissible in the case against Covington.
“Not that my notes help much to connect that incident to him.” Sam had berated himself a million times for not pulling the mask off the guy’s face instead of running after Gabriella to make sure she was safe.
“We’ll find something.” Zach pounded a fist on the table, making Sam’s map jump. “We’re going to find more victims, and one of them is going to have the piece of evidence that ties it all together to nail Covington’s ass.”
Sam had thought so at first, but months into this case with little progress, he was starting to wonder. Shoving back from the table, he headed over to the pull-up bar he’d installed in an archway between the conference room and the kitchenette.
The chin-ups at least got his blood flowing when his brain shut off. Reaching for it now, he began to haul his body upward until his chin was parallel with the bar. Then he lowered himself slowly and repeated the motion.
“Why don’t people come forward to prosecute scumbags?” He didn’t understand why anyone would remain under the thumb of someone who hurt them.
“You have to ask? We had reasons for not going to the cops as kids.” Zach reached for a bowl of peanuts on the conference table. They were left over from a retirement party they’d given one of the women in the clerk’s office.
He tossed a nut in the air and caught it in his mouth while Sam kept pounding out pull-ups.
“Yeah, child services could have separated you and Gabriella once they realized your mom wasn’t taking care of you. I was afraid the cops would find out I’d beaten the guy up and send me to juvie since Gabriella didn’t want to tell anyone what really happened.” Sam had gone over and over their options in his head and knew they’d done the best they could at the time.
“Right. And everyone else who avoids talking to cops feels like they have good reasons, too.” Zach tossed another nut and centered his head beneath it so it fell straight onto his tongue before he chomped it.
Sam raised and lowered himself. Raised and lowered.
“They don’t, though. I went to the high school this week to talk to the kids, since the bastard tends to target teen girls. But all that most of the kids cared about was that their parents would take their phones away if they found out they were texting late at night. I don’t call that a good reason for not stepping up to do your civic duty.”
It was damn lazy and self-centered, in fact. He’d had a tough time responding to those kinds of concerns from the kids who’d participated in the discussion after his talk.
At their age, he didn’t have a home, let alone a cell phone. And even as a teen he would have done anything and everything to protect the people he called friends. He had, in fact.
So he couldn’t understand kids who closed their eyes when they saw their peers in trouble.
“But scaring them off isn’t going to help our cause,” Zach said as he pulled the map of the quarry closer to examine it. “We need those kids to think of us as their friends, dude.”
“Then you should have been the one to talk to them.” Sam released the bar and dropped to his feet, grateful that the rush of blood through his veins was chasing off some of the sluggishness. “I’m a walking zombie lately. No sleep isn’t exactly enhancing my public face.”
“Which was already so warm and fuzzy.” Zach never looked up from the map.
“I didn’t become a cop to play guidance counselor to a bunch of teenagers.”
“Well, this is Heartache.” Zach finally glanced up. “It’s not the kind of town that needs a lot of policing, so as long as you’re