All That Matters (20 page)

After three high-speed passes up and down the road, slinging gravel and
cussin
’ a blue streak, he headed home, no closer to solving his problems, but finally able to face the gnawing fear in his gut.

He had to tell Faith about the car, but not tonight. It was already past one o’clock in the morning. Tonight he needed to hold her close, commit the feel of her to memory, and surround himself with her softness.

Would she leave when she realized she’d married a loser?
  
Would she and the baby be all right without him? Jeez
Looeeze
!
 
He sure as hell wouldn’t be all right without
her
. The precious time he and Faith had spent in each other’s arms would soon be only a memory. Could he settle for that? Would he? Not very damned likely.

He’d thought he could, at first. Thought his heart was immune to any more hurt. But that was long before she’d said those three words that turned him inside out, upside down, and every which way but loose. How could he ever go back to loving her only in his dreams?

F
aith heard the pounding on the door before Buddy Lee did.
 
She’d awakened sometime during the night to find him lying next to her, but she hadn’t bothered to look at the clock. When he’d stirred and flung his arm across her waist, she lay perfectly still, absorbing the warmth of his touch. Lying with her body pressed to his, she sighed and welcomed the delicious sensation created by their closeness.
Mmmmm
, lovely. She imagined sharing her life with this man who had shown her more love than she deserved.

The pounding grew louder.

She shook his shoulder. “Buddy Lee, someone’s at the front door.”

He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “What the hell could anyone want at this hour?” He pulled on his jeans, grumbling and stumbling all the way down the hall.

Faith followed, shivering with fear. Had Royce returned?
 
Instinctively, protectively, she crossed her arms over her tummy.

In the living room, Buddy Lee flicked on the small lamp by the sofa before turning on the porch light. Elroy Pike’s face stared at him from the other side of the tiny square window in the front door.

Buddy Lee yanked it open. “Elroy, what
the
...?”

A hot, muggy breeze accompanied the deputy sheriff as he stepped through the threshold. “Gonna have to take you in for questioning, Buddy Lee. Sorry.”

The man’s apologetic half-shrug didn’t quite ring true. He raked a sidelong glance over Faith while he spoke.

She stepped back, aware that Buddy Lee’s oversized t-shirt she’d worn to bed barely covered her hips. She tugged at the hem and frowned. Elroy Pike might be related by his marriage to a distant cousin, but she’d never liked him much. Liked him even less now.
 
The sly looks he always managed to aim her way reminded her of a back-alley tomcat on the prowl. Her cousin was more than welcome to him.

“Elroy, why do you need to question Buddy Lee? What’s wrong? Did Daddy send you over here?”

The lawman jerked his thumb toward Buddy Lee’s unzipped jeans and bare chest. “You’d better get dressed,” he said, before turning to Faith. “It’s only routine questioning, Faith.
 
Just doing my duty as a deputy of the county.” He slid a narrow gaze between them, arched an eyebrow. “Did I interrupt you two from...?”

“Oh, for
cryin
’ out loud, Elroy,” Buddy Lee muttered and took off in a trot to fetch a shirt. He was back before Faith could prod Elroy into an argument.

“If it’s only routine, then you shouldn’t have a problem explaining what it’s all about,” she demanded.

Buddy Lee came in, tucking his shirt inside his jeans. “Yeah, Elroy, what the hell’s so important you had to wake us up in the middle of the night?” He’d stuck his feet into a pair of scuffed running shoes, but left the tips of the laces untied to click across the tiled floor. “Did you find out who broke into my shop?”

Elroy shook his head. “This is a lot bigger than a B & E, Walker. You might want to call a lawyer or somebody to meet you down at the station.”

“If this is routine, why would I need a lawyer?” He eyed the deputy suspiciously. “Just tell me what the questioning is about.”

“I’ll do that very thing,
soon’s
we get to headquarters.” The impatient edge to Elroy’s voice was clearly audible.

Faith had heard enough. Her hands fisted at her waist, she glared at the deputy with fire in her eyes. “Now you listen to me, Elroy Pike,” she huffed. “Law or not, you can’t jerk Buddy Lee out of our home in the dark of night without telling him what the heck the accusations are. Who do you think you are?”

She was getting madder by the minute at the local law, and since she’d had more than a few skirmishes with them in her youth, she knew Elroy was an expert at blowing hot air. Not that he wasn’t a good deputy, but he simply had a bad case of “I’m a Lawman. You’re Not” when it came to doing things by the book. He didn’t mean to be a pompous ass, he just was. And that was on his good days.

He held up his hands to shield against her verbal barrage. “Now, Faith, don’t go getting on your high horse. There’s no accusations. Just some questions.”

“About what?” Buddy Lee all but shouted his frustration. “You got something to say, Elroy, you better go ahead and ask me now or forget it.”

When he put his arm around her waist, Faith could feel the tension gathering along his muscles. She
slid
her arm around his back to present a united front. A sneaking suspicion said her daddy was behind whatever this was all about. Elroy gave them such a patronizing look right then, she wanted to aim a good kick at his shins. Or higher.

“We’re staying right here until you explain what this is all about,” Buddy Lee said.

“Oh, all right,” Elroy snapped. “But I’m still gonna have to take you in.
Dammit
, I don’t make the laws, I just uphold ‘
em
. I don’t know why you can’t just cooperate. I
am
the deputy sheriff, you know.” Shoving his hat back, he mopped perspiration from his brow with a pristine, white handkerchief.

A sauna couldn’t be any steamier, Faith thought. Even at four o’clock in the morning, the air was saturated with the humidity of the Texas summer night, yet she stayed close to Buddy Lee’s side. Something in Elroy’s voice had fear tap-dancing up and down her spine. The dancing erupted into a full-fledged
Stomp
arrangement at Elroy’s next words.

“It’s like this. We just found Royce Webb’s body in the ravine down by the old railroad crossing. Coroner’s trying to determine cause of death.” Elroy cleared his throat while his gaze zeroed in on Faith’s bare legs, lingered a
nano
-second too long to suit her, then traveled up to her face. “Sorry I had to tell you like this, Faith. It would’ve been easier if Buddy Lee here had just let me take him in. I would’ve told him then. He’s got to come with me, anyway.”

Faith weaved unsteadily and was grateful for the support of her husband’s strong arm.
Royce is dead? Dear God, do they suspect Buddy Lee?
She closed her eyes against the squeamish churning in her stomach, but popped them open again the minute she heard Elroy fire off a round of questions at Buddy Lee.

“Where were you tonight? Can you account for your time, say from around ten o’clock to just after midnight? Did anyone see you during that time?”

“I was working,” came the clipped answer. The muscles in his jaw ticked, but he looked down at Faith with a reassuring smile. The warmth of his hand rubbing up and down her back soothed and comforted. Gave her hope and courage.

“Well, if you can prove it, Walker, then you’ve got nothing to worry about, have you?” Elroy said.

Faith stomped her foot and got right in the deputy’s face.
 
“Of course, he can prove it. Why would you doubt his word?”

Ignoring her, Elroy jerked his head toward the door. “We can finish this when we get to the station. Let’s go.”

She knew Buddy Lee couldn’t possibly be capable of murder.
 
Never. Besides, Elroy didn’t know about Royce’s assault. Or the reason for it. She wasn’t about to let him find out, either.

Before Deputy Sheriff Elroy Pike could protest, she wagged her finger under his nose. “I’m going with you, Elroy. Wait right here while I change my clothes. And don’t you dare take Buddy Lee away before I come back.”

She gave her husband a quick kiss on the cheek and hurried to the bedroom.

The two men waited by the door, just as Faith had ordered.

F
or such an early hour, the police station in Granite City was buzzing with activity. Two hookers, decked out in identical black leather mini-skirts, their sequined tops tighter than tattoos, were arguing vehemently with the sergeant behind the desk while a belligerent, spike-haired, body-pierced, young boy about fifteen, wearing droopy, over-sized
camo
pants and shirt, waited for his angry parents to finish speaking with the arresting officer.

Faith knew exactly how the teen was feeling, the scene reminiscent of one or two of her own experiences. A particular one came to mind, when Buddy Lee had stood by her in this very same spot and boldly stated he was the one with the spray paint can, not her.

She cringed, remembering how she had kept silent and let him take the blame, along with the sentence of community service every Saturday for the next two months. Saturdays had been his days to work at the local gas station, so, of course, he’d lost his job. She hadn’t realized then that the job was his only source of income. Yet he’d never said a word in his own defense.
 
Not to the police or to her furious daddy, who told her to stay away from “white trash like that Walker boy.”

Faith remembered pretending not to notice the grim set of Buddy Lee’s mouth when he stormed past them, out of the police station. Remembered, too, that she hadn’t seen much of him the rest of that summer. His daddy had been sent to prison, and to make up for the loss of his better paying job, Buddy Lee took up a night job stocking shelves at the supermarket. The graffiti on the water tower mysteriously disappeared overnight. Buddy Lee’s doing, of course.

She felt small and unworthy of his friendship right now, yet her heart was so full of love and admiration for the boy he’d been and the man he’d become, she feared it would burst.
 
She’d make it all up to this tender, caring man she’d fallen deeply in love with.
 
Somehow.

B
uddy Lee and Faith followed the deputy into a smaller office down the hall and took their seats in the only empty chairs in front of the desk.

An eerie sense of
déjà vu
swept over Buddy Lee. It had been a long time since he’d seen the inside of this place. Damn, it gave him the willies, being here with Faith again. He half expected her daddy to show up, spewing his familiar brand of criticisms like before.

Elroy hooked his hat on the hanger by the door and took a seat behind the cluttered desk. Buddy Lee thought the lawman looked a little too smug, but kept that opinion to himself.
 
For now. Royce’s death, no matter how it happened, couldn’t be connected to
him
, since he’d been facing off with old man Morgan at the time.

He rubbed a hand over his face. Shoot, he couldn’t tell the authorities where he’d been or why. That would mean explaining about his missing Mustang—which they were gonna find out anyway— and
that
would lead to questions about why he’d let Royce blackmail him in the first place. He sure as hell couldn’t reveal Faith’s secret. And where
was
his car, by the way? If it hadn’t been found with Royce, he must have hidden it somewhere.
 
Or maybe he’d already sold it.

His head started pounding with the mother of all headaches.
 
No matter what he said, he was gonna wind up looking bad. How had his life landed in this swamp full of alligators in such a short time?
 
The luck of being
Boyd’s boy
, no doubt.

Elroy flipped through a stack of papers on his desk and pulled out one, picked up a ball-point pen and pointed it at Buddy Lee. “Now, let’s get down to facts, Walker.”

Faith jumped up before Buddy Lee could restrain her.

“You have the facts, Elroy.” Her outburst was accompanied by a frenzy of arm-waving and fist-shaking. “He told you he was working. What part of that don’t you understand?”

Buddy Lee grabbed her hand and pulled her back into the chair. “Hush,
darlin
’. Just hush.” He turned his face away from the sheriff and lowered his voice so only she could hear him. “Don’t say any more or you’ll just make it worse. Please?”

She scowled at him like he was the enemy here and slumped back in her seat. He took that as a "Yes." At least, she wasn’t yammering anymore.
Sheese
!

“Let’s start with where you were at ten-thirty last night, and you tell me what you were doing right on up to about one o’clock this morning.” Elroy got up and walked around to the front of the desk, hitched his hip on the edge and folded his arms across his chest. “Do you usually work that late? Was anyone there with you?”