Gone From Me: Hearts of the South, Book 10 (17 page)

He reached the tree moments after Troy Lee. A massive weight smashed his arm and shoulder into the tree. Numbness rolled up his forearm, followed by a sharp wave of pain. The flashlight, which had accompanied his father through decades of law enforcement duty, was gone. “Damn it.”

“What now?” Troy Lee yelled over the noise.

He couldn’t clutch the tree and wrestle the belts. “Grab my belt with your free arm and hold on. Don’t let me go.”

A strong grasp tugged at his waist. As quickly as possible, he unbuckled the gun belt, threaded it through Troy Lee’s belt, and wrapped it around the tree. It cinched with a scant three inches to spare. “Brace your feet on the tree.”

The water pounded them, but with the tree at his back, he could catch his breath. Agony pulsed in his arm, matching the burn in his lungs. Already, his legs screamed at the work required to keep him upright against the tree.

He turned his head toward Troy Lee. The moonless night held little light, and he couldn’t see his partner’s face, let alone the road and bridge. They could be beyond a visual of it, for all he knew. “How far from the bridge are we?”

“As fast as we were moving? Hell if I know.” Stress and pain colored Troy Lee’s voice. “All right, boy scout, what do we do next?”

“We wait.”

* * * * *

“Stop checking your phone. You’re obsessive about it, and it’s annoying.”

Amy startled and dropped the offending object in her lap. Relaxed on the couch next to her, Savannah arched an eyebrow and popped a few pieces of popcorn in her mouth. Amy rubbed her palm over her thigh. “He’s late. He said he’d call if he was going to be any later than eleven.”

“Amy, he’s been late before.”

“I know.” All evening, she’d tried to focus on the adventure flick Savannah had rented for them, but as eleven grew closer and ticked away, her apprehension had grown. He’d said he felt better and he
was
better, but she still couldn’t shake the ugly statistics and the worry they aroused.

It didn’t help that his phone rang straight to voice mail, her texts to him didn’t show up as delivered, and the GPS app couldn’t pick up his phone.

Savannah dropped a comforting hand on her knee. “And if something was wrong, the department would—”

Her words strangled on the peal of the doorbell. Amy froze, then shoved her sister’s hand aside and ran for the door. She didn’t bother with the peephole, but flung the door open to find Madeline standing on the stoop.

Madeline’s pinched expression spoke of intense discomfort. “So, um, Calvert wanted me to come and stay with you… They didn’t want to send someone you didn’t know—”

“Where is he?” Her voice pitched on a note of panic and despair. Savannah’s warm hands closed on her shoulders. “What’s happened?”

“Floodwaters took his and Troy Lee’s car off the road about an hour ago.” Madeline lifted a hand and let it fall against her thigh. “They’re looking for them.”

“You know how to get there, right?” Amy hurried to the couch to grab her phone and tug on her shoes.

“Yes, but—”

“No buts.” Savannah closed the door behind them. “Take us there.”

“There” turned out to be deep in the southern end of the county, and getting there took forever. Red and blue lights from emergency vehicles and patrol cars sparked in the night, casting weird shadows on the surrounding trees. Madeline parked her SUV on the shoulder, and Amy scrambled out. The scene stole her breath. Spotlights shone on vicious brown water rushing through the broken roadway.

He was gone in
that
.

How could anyone survive in that? Debris—branches, logs, and a flash of white metal—clogged the rolling water. Bile crowded her throat, and her knees weakened. “Oh God.”

“Stop it.” Savannah held her up, but Amy sensed the tremors in her sister’s supporting arms. “You can do this. Come on.”

She’d expected a fight at the roadblock, but the second deputy who sometimes ran with Rob and Troy Lee was there, just inside the barrier. He met them there and waved another officer’s objections away. “She’s GBI and she’s Bennett’s wife.”

“What do you know?” Amy scanned the small groups standing along the roadway. The set, solemn faces sent foreboding through her in a shiver of revulsion.

“Troy Lee called in water over the roadway, but he called it a trickle. His next transmission was that they were caught in the water.”

“And that was an hour ago.” She gripped Savannah’s hand. She would not panic. Panic didn’t help anyone and would get her kicked out. She was damned if that was going to happen. She would be right here when he came back to her.

“The two department boats are in the water, and the DNR boat is on the way.” He jerked his chin toward the sky, where a helicopter made wide circles, spotlight flashing. “And the GSP chopper just got here.”

“Who’s manning the boats?” Madeline asked.

“Calvert and Cook in one, Reed and Wilson in the other. They’re certified in water life-saving. The county volunteer fire departments haven’t completed the certification process yet.”

Memories sparked in Amy’s brain, those long hours next to the lake while the boats crisscrossed the water, spotters looking for Rob’s dad. That water had been sun-warmed and tranquil, nothing like the rushing monster before her, and even when they’d found him, it had been too late.

“Amy, please don’t think about that.” Savannah whispered the plea next to her ear. “Please.”

“I won’t,” she breathed. She would think about his eyes that night on the couch, when he decided to finally fight for her. She would think about his voice swearing she would always be what he wanted. She would think about the future they were planning.

And she’d wait for him to fight his way back to her.

* * * * *

The water lapped at his collarbone. He shivered, his teeth chattering so hard his jaw hurt. At least the cold unique to moving water had numbed the pain in his arm. Too bad it couldn’t do anything for his burning legs. They’d started huddling a while back to retain warmth, and being able to lean into one another took off some of the muscle strain, but every muscle still trembled and ached.

He nudged Troy Lee with his elbow. “We gotta go up.”

“Shit.” Agonized weariness lurked in the single syllable. Troy Lee exhaled hard, a hand over his mouth to preserve body heat. “All right, let’s go.”

As they’d done twice earlier, they shoved up the tree, taking the belt with them, pine bark scraping at any inch of exposed skin. The water pulled and tugged at them, waiting them out, waiting for exhaustion to make taking them easy.

A helicopter made another broad sweep, and this time, they didn’t bother to yell. Sometimes they could barely hear each other, and shouting themselves hoarse at a pilot who couldn’t hear them seemed the height of fancy. The helicopter brought hope with each pass, though. If the chopper was up, that meant the boats were out.

If the chopper was up and the boats were out, no one had written them off yet.

Rob rested his head against the rough tree. Thoughts of his dad, that last day, crowded his mind. The chopper had been up that day too. “Did you cry when your dad died?”

For a long moment, he thought the water had carried his words away without Troy Lee hearing them.

“Like a baby.” He almost didn’t catch Troy Lee’s subdued response. “The night Christopher was born too. All of a sudden, I had this boy, who I was going to have to raise to be a man, and I needed my dad.”

The water gentled a moment, then rushed back with a vengeance. A wave slapped at him, stinging cold and burning his nostrils with dank water. He coughed, his throat raw.

Why had he ever thought this might be an easy way to die?

“What about you?” Troy Lee’s voice pulled him back. “Did you cry?”

“No.”

“It’s different for everybody, I guess. I’d had a few days, watching him in ICU. When he was gone, I broke.” Even over the water and muffled by a hand, he could hear Troy Lee’s harsh breathing. “Your dad’s death—it was sudden, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes, though the night was as black as the backs of his eyelids. “He drowned in a boating accident. The boat capsized on Lake Blackshear. He wasn’t wearing a life vest and once the boat went down, he struck out for the bank. He never made it.”

Silence, cut only by the sounds of water and cicadas, pulsed between them.

“Don’t think it, man.” Troy Lee’s fierce voice flowed over him. “You’ve fought too hard to give up now. We’re both going home. You hear me, Bennett? We’re both going home.”

“I hear you.”

“Let me hear you say it.” The command brooked no argument.

“We’re both going home.”

* * * * *

Arms crossed over her aching stomach, Amy leaned against a patrol car and kept her eyes trained on the darkness beyond the staging area. They were hours in, each moment passing in an agonizing crawl. The boat from the Department of Natural Resources had finally joined the search, but her hope at having a third boat make a rapid difference had only died a rapid death.

A flurry of activity near the green DNR truck drew her attention. A Chandler deputy separated himself from the small group there and hustled toward them. “Parker, the sheriff and Wilson got a body. They’re calling in the coroner.”

A body? Amy bit back a pained moan and made herself straighten. They didn’t know it was Rob. They didn’t. Until she had to see it, she would hold on to hope.

“Shit damn
fuck
.” Madeline’s angry voice overrode Parker’s quiet curse. “I’m going to kick that guy’s insensitive ass. Bennett, I’ll see what I can find out for you, okay?”

Amy nodded and rubbed at Savannah’s arm now wrapped protectively across her. “Thanks.”

A low chime drew Savannah away. She pulled her phone from her pocket, read the screen and typed out a reply before slipping it back into place. At Amy’s inquiring glance, she shrugged. “Mom and Dad are here. In Coney, I mean. I convinced them to wait at the local all-night diner. They do not need to be out here.”

“Definitely.” They would be worried about Rob and her, and she couldn’t do strong and hold up under their concern right now. She needed to focus on Rob and Rob alone.

“It’s not him.” Madeline approached at a jog. She stopped before them, hands shoved in the back pockets of her jeans. “Reed and Wilson did find a body wedged into a debris field around a tree, but it’s not Farr or your husband.”

“Recovery’s going to slow them down.” She knew the frustration was callous, but whoever the poor soul was, they were beyond help. Rob had been in that water for hours, and a recovery might pull all three boats out of looking for him.

Madeline shook her head. “Calvert insisted they stay on rescue. He asked Botine to send in a GBI recovery team. They’re on the way with the county coroner. Listen, I’m going down to the staging point, so Deputy Dumbass doesn’t get another chance to upset you, okay? I promise I’ll keep you updated.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” She didn’t watch Madeline walk away, but kept her gaze trained on the water flowing through and eating away at the road. She blinked hard, eyes stinging. “Savannah, that water’s got to be freezing.”

“It probably feels like it, but it’s not.” Savannah wrapped a warm arm around her waist. “If it’s in the sixty-degree range, we’re good. He’s fit, which means he won’t exhaust as fast as someone who isn’t. He’s stubborn and he loves you, which means he won’t give up.”

“No, he won’t.” Amy glanced sideways at her and lifted her chin. She squeezed Savannah’s hand. “He’ll fight for me.”

* * * * *

An arm draped over Troy Lee’s shoulders, holding his partner’s back to his chest, Rob fought off a yawn and the overwhelming urge to sleep. He wasn’t sure where his shivering ended and Troy Lee’s began, and when the tiny shudders slowed, he pounded his hand against the other man’s chest. “Don’t go to sleep.”

“I’m not.” Troy Lee pushed back, the movement of trying to gain better purchase with his feet. “That would be stupid.”

The last word slurred a bit. Rob jostled him. “Walker would love to see this. Imagine the jokes.”

“Walker can kiss my ass.” Troy Lee shook his head with a violent motion, cold water and warm blood dripping onto Rob’s hand. “I’m bleeding again.”

“Yeah, I know.” The same piece of unknown debris that had slammed Rob’s arm into the tree had done a number on the side of Troy Lee’s head. “Scalp lacerations bleed a lot, remember?”

Troy Lee didn’t respond, his weight sagging to an unbearable point on Rob’s arm and the leather binding them to the tree. He rotated his wrist and smacked his fingers along Troy Lee’s jaw, hard. “Wake up, man.”

“Hit me again, and I will kick
your
ass, Bennett.” Troy Lee jerked his elbow into Rob’s midsection, taking his breath. “Son of a bitch.”

“Stay alert and you won’t have to bother to kick my ass.” God bless America, he was tired. He let his head fall against the tree, bark scratching at his already tender scalp. A shudder moved through him, the shivers tapering off. His lashes fell.

“Bennett.” Troy Lee’s elbow slammed his ribs, and he jerked from the half-doze with a yelp. “Listen.”

He strained his ears, accustomed now to the constant gurgling of water and the distant whop-whop of helicopter blades. The distinctive hum of an outboard motor joined the din. “It’s a boat.”

Hope surged through him, bringing a wave of energy. He sucked in a lungful of oxygen. “Hey!”

Troy Lee joined him in shouting, the water and the wind trying to carry their yells downstream. Yards away, a spotlight played over the trees opposite them. The spotlight bounced across the stream. In the dark, they could still be missed.

And he wasn’t sure they could hold out until daylight.

He nudged Troy Lee’s shoulder. “Wave.”

Grimacing at the renewed pain, he wedged his injured arm under Troy Lee’s armpit and brandished his good limb. They yelled again, louder, arms moving wildly in hopes of catching the bright beam.

The light glanced over Troy Lee’s chest, glimmering off his badge. The beam tracked right for a few more feet, then moved back.

“Troy Lee! Bennett!” Calvert’s voice carried to them, and Rob sagged on a relieved prayer of thanks.