Deck drew in a deep breath.
Chace kept talking but did it quietly.
“Makes me all kinds of happy you found her, man. She’s it for you, written all over her but also stated clear every time her eyes turn to you. Glad you got a woman like that, looks at you, you light her world.”
Fuck, Deck liked that.
Chace wasn’t done.
“I get why you’d focus on her. But this shit is not done, man. You know it. You feel it like me. You just got good things in your life right now, so you don’t have the time to focus on it. You put a stop to that mess as it stood, but there’s more out there that has not come to light. It’s buried deep. So deep, you didn’t even find it. And where there’s deep, there’s dark. Our work is not done.”
“Got other jobs that pay as I charge, Chace, and shit I need to see to with Emme,” Deck told him, and Chace’s brows drew together.
“She okay?” he asked.
“Seems so,” Deck answered. “Just too okay. Too adjusted. Too together for a woman who disconnected from life for years. That shit went down with McFarland, she’s cool with it. She fell in with me…” He shook his head. “She hasn’t had a lot of men, Chace, but she’s let me in, and deep. Time spent together is good. She’s funny. She’s sweet. She pisses me off in a way that I like it. The sex is f**kin’ great. It’s like we’ve been together for years and she’s had practically zero practice with this shit. We talked about what happened to her when she was a kid, she’s totally okay with it.”
Chace cut in, his tone disbelieving. “Totally okay with it?”
Deck nodded once. “Completely. Forgives the guy. Even defends him. She came back into my life, I called a friend in Denver to look into things, just checkin’ up. The man who snatched her, clean. Lives a good life and does it honest. Still, got a bad feelin’ in my gut about that too, so he’s still on him.”
“What’s your bad feelin’ about this guy?”
“It isn’t so much about him. It’s about Emme. Things she’s said, I think she’s connected with him since he got out of prison.”
Chace’s chin jerked back. “No f**kin’ shit?”
“Had eyes on him and ears on his phone for weeks. Nothin’. Just a feelin’. But I get those, they’re rarely wrong.”
“She’s doin’ that, that would not be good, man,” Chace noted.
“You’re tellin’ me somethin’ I know,” Deck replied.
“Victims of shit like that, especially kids, things can get twisted.”
This did not make him feel any better.
“Again, you’re tellin’ me somethin’ I know,” Deck said.
“You’ve spent time with her parents, you ask them?”
“Barry brought it up, what happened. He’s not over it. Not even close. I reckon Maeve’s got dark memories too. So unless it’s more than a gut feeling, I don’t want to bring that back or make them worry.”
Chace nodded. “So, what you’re sayin’ is, lookin’ into somethin’ that important, you don’t have the focus for an ongoing investigation.”
“What I’m sayin’ is, funds put aside to contract with me were not enough in the first place. It sucks, what was goin’ on. Even so, man, that kid hadn’t taken his own life, wouldn’t have even considered that job. Emme involved, that capped it. But on the face of it, jobs’ done, contract’s done. Far’s the task force is concerned, they got their man, in this case, four men and one woman. I do this, it’s my dime, my time and you know it. Neither the county nor the town have it in their budget to keep me on so I can dig deeper.”
He drew in another breath, knowing there was something off, that puzzle was not solved and equally knowing, no matter how much he needed to focus on Emme, he’d still never be able to live with that.
So he made a split-second decision and finished, “But you’re right. I know in my gut we’re missin’ something. So I’ll do it.”
Chace smiled and murmured, “Freebie.”
Deck shook his head but it wasn’t in the negative. He had no choice. Chace was concerned and Deck knew that puzzle wasn’t solved. Deck didn’t like unsolved puzzles, the money wasn’t there, so it was a freebie.
Then he said, “Need those kids’ names, man.”
“You got it,” Chace replied.
Emme’s voice came from behind them and they both turned to see just her upper body swung out the open French door, bare feet still firmly planted inside.
“Well, second priority, calling a cleaning service to clean your couch.” Her eyes moved to Chace, she smiled a sweet smile and her voice got soft. “First priority, getting Faye to the hospital since her water just broke.”
Deck’s eyes flew to Faye on couch. She looked like she was deep breathing and she had an arm wrapped around her belly.
She caught their eyes, lifted a hand and waved.
Chace was on the move and Deck watched Emme, still grinning at Chace, jump out of the way as he ran into the house.
Emme looked at Deck.
At the same time, they both smiled.
* * *
Five hours later…
“Jesus, does it take this long?” Deck growled.
“You’re a genius, honey, you know it does,” Emme replied.
Deck stopped pacing and looked down at his girl. She was sitting, looking up at him from her phone on which she was playing some game.
His eyes moved to Sondra Goodknight, Faye’s mother, who was sitting across the hospital waiting room, reading. Her daughter Liza, head back, eyes closed, headphones in, foot tapping, was sitting next to her.
Sondra’d had three kids. Liza two.
Then he looked at Silas Goodknight, Faye’s father, who was, like Deck, pacing.
“Sit down next to me,” Emme invited, bringing his attention back to her to see she was patting the seat beside her.
Was she insane?
“I can’t sit,” he told her.
“Pacing is not going to make the baby come faster,” she pointed out.
He knew that but his boy was in there. Chace. A man who went through hell and came out the other end walking straight into heaven. This baby solidified the destination of that journey. All Chace Keaton ever wanted he was about to get. A good woman in his bed. A job he was proud of doing. And a family.
But Chace’s luck had not been the greatest—case in point, to get his happily ever after, he’d had to endure his woman being buried alive.