Break for Me (3 page)

“I hear Pruitt sang like a birdy about some local connections.” Guy lifted his beer,
studied Dean over the top of the bottle. “Two years, though. Not much. It was a decent
bust. He should have gotten more.”

Dean sighed. Fuck, yeah. He should have taken his sorry ass home. “Two years is a
decent stretch for a first-time drug offense. He’ll bring in the bigger fish. I want
them, Miller. Those are the problems, the ones getting crystal meth into the hands
of the kids at school. I want
them
.”

“You always get what you want, I bet.” Jensen’s voice, low and soft, just barely reached
his ears.

Cutting his gaze over to her, he clenched his jaw. He really was just wasting his
time. Completely and utterly wasting his time. “Sure, Jensen. Nothing but a charmed,
blessed life. Something I guess you probably know all about. Sorry about taking the
cherry off your sundae, but like I said, I had a bigger goal in mind. Have fun sulking
about it.”

He shoved back and stood up.

Tate did the same, his eyes firing at him. “You stupid son of a bitch. You don’t have
a fucking clue.”

“Yeah?” Dean skimmed a look around the table. “I’ll just take my clueless self on
off. You folks have a nice night.”

“I don’t think so.” Tate slammed his bottle down.

“Tate.” Jensen passed a hand in front of her eyes. “Just let it go. He doesn’t—”

“Here we go.”

A black-haired young woman, her eyes strikingly similar to Jensen’s appeared, carried
a bucket of beer. She placed it on the table with a
thunk.
“Make sure you save me one, Guy. I’m going to need it after…” She paused, her gaze
landing on Dean. “Hello. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Chris.”

“Dean West. I’m leaving.”

Her eyes widened. “Oooh-kay. You’re welcome to—”

“No.” Tate cut in, his voice harsh. “He’s not. He’s got this idea in his head that
Jensen is sitting here drinking and pissed over a case.”

Chris’s eyes chilled.

The friendliness on her face faded. “Well. Aren’t you the asshole.”

She turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd.

Okay. Just what is—

“You were leaving,” Tate said.

He looked back, his gaze tripping on Jensen’s downcast head before catching the look
in Tate’s eyes, the grim set of Guy’s.

“What am I missing here?”

“None of your fu—”

“Oh, shut up,” Jensen said tiredly, flicking her brother a look. She drained her glass,
leaned forward, and snagged a bottle from the bucket, looking at it with acute dislike.
Then she shifted her gaze to Dean. The look in them chilled his blood, turned it straight
to ice. “Sit down, why don’t you, Dean? Let me tell you about my charmed, blessed
life.”

*   *   *

The story didn’t want to come.

She started, stopped twice.

In the end, she decided to give it like a report.

“There was a domestic dispute,” she said, settling on that word. “Loud fighting, ugly
words. Kids were in the house, but they moved to another room so they didn’t have
to see it. The wife ended up leaving—it’s thought that she felt the fighting would
stop if she wasn’t on the premises, but there’s no way of knowing.”

She glanced over at her brother. Tate had his hands fisted, head lowered. Every so
often, a ragged breath would escape him, his shoulders stretching the faded material
of his shirt. Ali rested a hand on the back of his neck, rubbed it in slow, soothing
circles.

I’m glad he found you,
she thought.
So glad
.

“Shortly after, the husband left. Police reports indicate he went to go looking for
her. Without success. Come morning, she had yet to return. Her car is missing, but
there is no indication that she left. No money is taken from the bank, she didn’t
take any clothes. There is no activity from the bank accounts, and yes, the cops did
watch. Days go by. Weeks.”

At that moment, Chris sank down next to Guy, her head resting against his arm, her
gaze on the table.

“Eventually, suspicion settled on the father and he was duly investigated. Nothing
came of it. But the children were taken into foster care for almost three years. Nobody
wanted all three children, so the two girls went to one home, the boy to another.
After a period of time, the state decided to return custody to the father. The son,
at this time, wouldn’t go back. The girls did. And still, there’s no evidence of the
mother.”

A ragged burst, almost a sob, but not quite, escaped Chris. Guy hooked his arm around
her neck and turned his head, murmured against her temple. Chris reached up, closed
one hand around his as tears started to fall.

Silence lapsed. For a long, long moment, nobody spoke. Then she reached for the bottle
of Sam Adams on the table and tilted it back, hating the taste of it, but needing
something to wet her throat. She wanted whiskey, wanted it bad. Turning her head,
she found Dean was still watching her.

“She disappeared fifteen years ago this summer—almost fifteen years ago exactly.”

“Six days,” Tate said, lifting his head, staring across the table at her.

“Six days,” she echoed.

“And we’re still waiting.” Chris’s voice was thick, almost choking on the tears.

“Still waiting.” Some part of Jensen wanted to believe there would be an answer, something.
Somewhere. But the cop knew better. After fifteen years, what sort of answer would
they get?

None. That’s what.

She tipped her bottle to Dean and smiled. “So, as you can probably understand, counselor,
as much as it burns my ass, and it does, to see a cockroach like Pruitt get a slap
on the hand, I’ve got other things on my mind tonight.”

*   *   *

Unable to think of a single thing to say, Dean just sat there for what felt like hours.

In reality, he realized it was just minutes. Slowly, he pushed back from the table,
taking a minute to look from one face to the next, lingering on the Bell siblings.

“I’m sorry.” He knew there was more he should say, more that he should do, but he’d
intruded on what he realized wasn’t just a private thing, but a painful one.

And he’d done it with his own selfish motives in mind. Yeah, he had a thing for her,
but maybe if he’d taken a minute, looked around, he might have seen it.

Silence met him and he just lingered, feeling awkward and uncertain of what to say
or do. So he just nodded and turned, moving through the crowd and making his way to
the bar.

The beer he’d grabbed on his way in was no longer going to touch it. He needed something
stronger and he needed it now.

Wedging himself into a space at the bar, he caught the gaze of the bartender, Adam
Brascum. Adam lifted a brow and nodded to the bottle, raising his voice over the music
that was slowly gaining in volume as the night grew later. “Another?”

“No. Something stronger. What kind of whiskey you got?”

A faint grin lit the man’s face. “One of those nights, huh?”

Dean nodded. “Fuck, yeah, man.”

Without saying anything else, Adam turned and looked at the counter behind him. “Folks
around here keep it simple—and local—for the whiskey. Jack Daniel’s and Wild Turkey
for the most part. I have some Maker’s, too.”

“Maker’s. Straight.”

He brooded while he waited for the drink and then as Adam pushed it in front of him,
before he could disappear, he caught his eye one more time and jerked his head behind
him. “Chris Bell—she work here?”

“Yep. Not at the minute, though. I let her kick off early.” Adam tossed a towel over
his shoulder and leaned his hands on the bar. “There a problem?”

“No.” At least not on her part. Blowing out a breath, he said, “I…”

Adam looked up as somebody started calling out orders. He pulled a couple of beers,
mixed up a cocktail, all without breaking stride. “When did you move here?” he asked.
“Two years ago? Lexington, right?”

Dean wasn’t too surprised by the question. He might have lived in Lexington his whole
life, but he knew how the small-town grapevine worked. His mother’s people came from
places ever smaller than Madision. Bracing an elbow on the bar, he waited until Adam
pushed the drinks toward the server and then started on the next set. “About that.
Why?”

“I saw … well.” Adam shrugged. “I won’t lie and say not much gets Tate Bell stirred
up. He’s got a temper. But you had Guy on edge, too. Takes a lot to get him steamed.
Then there was Chris, storming back up here, half torn between crying and screaming.
Only one thing will do that to her.” Adam paused, looked down. “There’s been trouble
around here before. You didn’t know about Nichole, their mom. Jensen will understand,
once she gets through the next few weeks.”

Dean opened his mouth to say it wasn’t just Jensen, but Adam was already gone.

And really, although he hated to give anybody unneeded grief, when he wasn’t able
to sleep that night, it was Jensen’s face he’d see.

Lifting his glass, he stared down into it.

Yeah, he sure as hell should have just taken his ass on home.

*   *   *

Eyes gritty, Jensen stood on the sidewalk, watching as Guy all but carried Chris down
the street.

Tate and Ali paced along next to her.

“Think Chris is ever going to figure it out?” she asked.

Tate hunched his shoulders and busied himself studying the sidewalk. “Come on. Let’s
get you home.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m right around the corner. I’m okay to walk.”

“Yeah, and we walk the same direction, so let’s go.” Stubbornness written all over
his face, he jammed his hands into his pockets and stood there.

She snickered. “I bet Guy goes home and sits on his couch, composing sonnets about
his beloved Tink.”

Tinker Bell, the nickname they’d given Chris back when she’d just been a kid, had
stuck with her throughout her teenage years, thanks to the woman’s love for the mischievous
little fairy. It fit, too. Chris and Jensen both had large, slightly tilted eyes,
and their features were best suited to pixie-like haircuts. But while Tink worked
for Chris, it didn’t work so well for Jensen and they all knew it.

Tate cut her a dark look and growled, “Just shut it, Jensen.”

She blew him a kiss. “Guy and Chrissie, sitting in a tree…”

Ali laughed.

Hooking her arm with the other woman’s, Jensen started to walk. “Tate sees it, too.
He just pretends otherwise. He can’t stand the idea that his best friend has the hots
for his baby sister.”

“I’m not hearing this,” Tate said, falling into step next to them. “I’m not. I’m just
not.”

Chatting with Ali, ignoring her brother, she let some of the tension, some of the
pain of the day fall away.

Maybe that was why she didn’t see him sitting there until she was almost on top of
him.

Or maybe, just maybe, she’d been waiting
to
see him.

Tate’s grumble came from deep in his chest and she stopped, shot him a look. “Cut
back on the testosterone, bub. I didn’t like it in high school and I don’t like it
now.”

“I—”

“Come on, baby. I think Jensen is big enough to handle herself.” Ali slid her arm
around his waist as the man sitting on the porch of the big old house across the street
lifted his head, all but lost in the shadows.

Nothing could hide his eyes, though. Jensen felt his gaze, all the way down to her
toes, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

Every inch of her seemed to sizzle, seemed to burn.

As Tate continued to hover, she looked over at him. “Go on,” she said softly. “I’m
fine.”

Then she stepped off the curb, feeling her heart start to hammer against her chest.

There hadn’t been a single time outside of the job when she’d sought Dean West out.

She’d
thought
about him.

She’d thought about him
a lot
.

But she’d never looked him up. Crossing the street to talk to him made her feel nervous,
almost as nervous as she’d been in high school when she went to go ask Tony Castillo
if he wanted to go to the prom with her.

That
hadn’t gone so well. He’d been convinced
prom
meant
sex
. She’d disabused him of that notion, with no small amount of physical force and she’d
had to hide her bruised, torn knuckles from her dad for the next few days.

She hadn’t been able to hide them from Tate, though, and he’d dragged Tony out of
his car when he’d been sitting in the parking lot behind McDonald’s a few days later.
Tony had paled whenever he saw her for the rest of the school year and his pretty
face had taken more than a few weeks to heal up.

While she knew this wasn’t going to go over like that, she was still dragging her
feet.

His dark eyes, the color of melted milk chocolate, cut toward her and then he focused
on the glass he held.

Whiskey splashed into it as he refilled his glass.

“Brascum needs to expand the kind of liquor he carries in there,” he said without
looking away from his glass. “Nothing against Maker’s or Jack, but they aren’t the
end-all, be-all of when it comes to whiskey.”“I’m more for rum.” She eyed the glass
he held. “Although it’s been a day. Mind?”

He passed the glass without saying a word and she tossed it back, felt the burn of
it, sighed as it hit her belly. She passed it back and he took the glass but instead
of refilling it, he just held it. After a moment, he put it down and lifted his hands,
clasped together like he was praying. “I got words I need to say to you, but I’m not
sure where to start.”

“Don’t.” Staring out at the dark street, she thought back to how often she had to
hear the very words he probably felt he had to say. “I’ve heard them all before, Dean.
They change nothing, you know. I’m raw right now, but the wounds are old. You didn’t
know. It’s cool.”

“No.” He shook his head and said, “It’s not cool. Maybe these are old wounds, but
I was taking digs at you over a personal thing and that just makes it more of a problem
for me.”