Dust Up With The Detective

Chapter Three

Splitting the blanket. Trimming away the deadweight. Losing one’s other half. Detective Jeremy Lawrence had heard them all, but they all meant one thing: he was divorced.

He thumbed the empty place on his ring finger where his wedding band used to be.

Genevieve had made such a big deal about the ring when they were first together. She hadn’t wanted him to wear yellow gold, claiming it would clash with her engagement ring—a ring she’d also picked out—and he couldn’t get silver as it would tarnish. He’d felt like an idiot standing there in the jewelry store getting told that tungsten was really the best option for him, but at twenty-two he’d been young and dumb and willing to put up with anything if it meant he got to marry her. Heck, he’d thought himself lucky. She’d been the cheerleader, the girl who could light up a room with a smile and, better yet, make him burn with want with the mere trailing of her fingertips.

Everything, all the way down to her name, had to be classy.

The marriage had been over the minute she had figured out he was just a regular guy, not the idealized version she must have had in her mind.

He reached in his pocket, pulled out the ring and let it drop on his dresser, the dresser he’d had since he was a child. It was funny how a piece of unloved furniture could last longer than a marriage. If nothing else, it proved that a dead oak was stronger than a life built on feelings. Maybe there really was something to being cold, lifeless...at least you could weather the storms.

None of it mattered. He’d gotten a daughter out of their screwed-up marriage. He could be thankful for that, even if Penny didn’t live with him. At least he had something to hold on to.

His father’s footsteps echoed down the hall toward his room; there was a knock on the door. “Jeremy, you in there?”

“Yeah, Dad. What do you need?”

“Your mother’s wondering when you’re going to run out to Robert’s. It would be good if you could get out there before dark,” his father said, as if he hadn’t heard them fighting over Robert for the last ten minutes.

It was funny; he’d been home just a few hours, but when he had set foot in the door it was like he had stepped back in time—parents fighting, brother missing and him searching for a way to escape. Just like when he’d been a kid, he’d found refuge at the neighbors’, but instead of being the one who needed to be saved, this time he’d paid them back for all the times Mrs. W was there for him. Finally things were coming full circle.

And just like the past, Blake had rushed him to the door while she made a point of being out-of-bounds.

He took one last look at the ring, now at home tucked safely away in his past. “I was just about to head out,” he told his father.

“Good,” his father said, turning to leave. “Oh, and Blake is here. Brought over some supper as a thank-you.”

He figured Mrs. W must have forced her to come over. It really was like all those years ago. He loved his family, but he needed to get the hell out of Butte and away from the ghosts that haunted this place—regardless of how beautiful one particular ghost was.

Blake stood in the living room, her hand on the doorknob. She was talking to his mother, who was sitting in her recliner. Blake’s uniform top was stretched tight over her bulletproof vest. The buttons gaped slightly, revealing a T-shirt underneath. As she moved, he caught a quick glimpse of her black bra strap, and he felt his body shift in response. There was just something so right about a woman who wore a uniform and sexy lingerie underneath.

He wanted to rip open her shirt and her vest, kiss the lines of her lacy bra, slip what he figured would be matching black panties down her legs.

Jeremy forced himself to look away, focusing on the painting of a meadow that had hung on the living room wall so long that there was a faint brown smoke line around it.

“Blake was just telling me that she has seen Robert lately,” his mother started. “Isn’t that right, Blake?”

Blake nodded.

“Apparently she was out to his place a few weeks ago.” His mother tapped her fingers on the armrests of her chair.

“It wasn’t anything that major,” Blake offered. “There was just a minor dispute. It was in the Montana Standard. I thought you must have heard.”

He hadn’t read the local newspaper in years, but Blake was right. It was surprising his mother hadn’t gotten a call from the phone tree. Her friends lived for nothing more than to read the obituaries and scan through the weekly police blotter.

“What happened?” Jeremy asked.

Blake chewed on her lower lip, and her gaze flickered to his mother, as if there was something that she didn’t want to say in front of her. “You know, just the normal thing.”

“Was it something to do with his wife?” His mother turned to him. “Tiffany has been threatening to leave him for months now. I told you that Robert needed your help. I wish you could’ve been here earlier, Jeremy.”

“Well, Mom, you know how it is. Work’s been busy,” he said, but he was focused on Blake and how she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

His mother said something under her breath that he was only too glad he couldn’t hear.

He made his way to Blake and opened the door. “You busy this afternoon?”

Blake glanced down at her watch. “Why?”

He waited for her to step outside and let the door close behind him. “I’d appreciate it if you can fill me in on what’s going on with my brother,” he told Blake.

She waved goodbye to his mother through the glass storm door. “Look, I appreciate what you did with Megan, but I don’t want to get involved with you or whatever it is you have going on.”

“Whoa.” He breathed out, unsure why she had been so abrupt. “I just thought—”

She raised her hand. “No, stop. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I’m not upset with you. It’s just my mother.” She motioned toward her house.

She had every right to be upset after what she had walked into. It would have taken more than a little fried chicken to talk him down if he’d walked into a scene with someone holding a hacksaw over his daughter’s head. Unlike her, he didn’t know if he could have held back from shooting.

His gaze drifted to the utility belt at her waist. “Lots of calls coming in?” he asked as they walked across the lawn toward her house.

She slipped out her cell phone and glanced down at it. “To be honest, no. But I should be on patrol.”

“What time do you get off?”

“Not for a few more hours.”

“Well, if you aren’t busy, I would really appreciate you running to Robert’s with me.”

She looked up at him, her blue eyes reflecting the color of the sky.

“I would hate to be walking into a mess up there.” He silently hoped she would say yes, and it wasn’t just because he wanted her to tell him about Robert. It had to do with the desire that seemed to rise in him every time he caught a glimpse of her.

“You heading up there now?” she asked him.

He nodded.

She nibbled her lip again, making him wonder if he made her as uncomfortable as she made him. “I did want to talk to Robert, make sure everything had smoothed out. You could ride with me, but you know—”

“I’ll follow you up there.” He motioned toward his truck. “I’d hate to get you in trouble. We have to follow protocol.”

There was a hint of a smile as she looked at him. “You say that, but we both know you’ve always been the kind who likes to make his own rules.”

* * *

ROBERT’S HOUSE SAT off a dirt road, shrouded by trees and brush. On the neighboring property, old cars and trailers in varying stages of rust were parked in a haphazard pattern. Between the rusting carcasses were piles of downed trees and garbage. A few of the detritus hills were covered with tarps whose prime of life had passed years ago and now were nothing more than weathered strings broken up by little squares of blue.

He’d always hated this place, the world his brother called home. The drive that led to Robert’s house was a steady climb, and Blake was taking it at a crawl in her patrol unit, twisting and turning as she attempted to miss the washed-out ruts in the dirt. This wasn’t the kind of place in which one wanted to find oneself stranded. Everything about the deep woods spoke of danger, from the road all the way down to the twisted faces that peered out from the windows of the derelict homes they passed.

Rising from the brush was a building, still covered in Tyvek plastic wrap, as if any day the construction company would come back and finish siding the house they had built—only it had been years since they’d been there. The roof sagged in the middle from too many heavy snows and too little care.

His brother had always cared more about what was in the earth than what was on top of it, and it had even been that way with his wife, Tiffany. The poor woman had more than her fair share to deal with when it came to Robert. Then again, Jeremy wasn’t in a spot to judge anyone else’s relationship. For years, everyone had told him how great his marriage was, yet behind closed doors it was a different story—late-night fights about his schedule, the stress that came with being in law enforcement and the money. In the end, there was never enough money, time or even love.

Blake pulled to a stop and got out, waiting for him.

He parked next to her and met her at her car. “So, fill me in. What kind of trouble has my brother been getting himself into now?”

Robert had always fallen in and out of the bottle and usually directly into the hands of the law, leaving Jeremy to clean up his mess. The last time he’d talked to Robert they’d had one hell of a beer-fueled fight, ending with Robert on the ground and him promising to never lift another finger to save his brother’s lousy carcass. Yet here he was again.

“I was called here a few weeks ago, but it wasn’t for Tiffany, as your mother assumed.” Blake leaned against her patrol car, the round curve of her hips on full display. “This time, Robert was having an altercation with his neighbor, Todd O’Brien.” She pointed in the direction of the property that was full of rusted-out shells of cars.

“This happen before?”

She nodded and gave a slight shrug. “You know how it is—most people out here live with a militia-like mentality. It’s all about the guns, the freedom of speech and action. Out here the law is more of a recommendation than a reality. When something needs to be handled, vigilante justice reigns.”

It was funny. No matter where you were in Montana—whether in the city of Missoula or the hillsides on the outskirts of Silver Bow County—some of the same problems arose. Usually they centered on two things: guns and liquor. Sometimes he couldn’t help feeling like he lived in the Wild West.

Jeremy looked up at his brother’s house. The lights were off, and the doors were closed. Leaves littered the front porch. “You think Robert said something, and it set this O’Brien off?”

“We couldn’t make much of the situation. Neither wanted to press charges, but we left them both with a warning that they needed to bring the conflict down and keep it under control.” She sighed. “Without one of them wanting to press charges, there wasn’t much we could do. Your brother was pretty upset about the guns, though, wanted us to at least write O’Brien a ticket for a noise disturbance, but we hadn’t heard any of it.”

Jeremy nodded. “My brother has a way of pissing people off and getting in trouble. You out here often?” Somehow it felt like a poorly timed come-on.

She nodded, with a faint smile like she had heard it, too, but was letting it go. “Your brother has some issues...but I always said you can’t judge someone by their family.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You think?”

“I’m nothing like my mother—at least I hope not.” She laughed. “And from what your mother’s told me, I assume you’re nothing like your brother.”

There was something in her voice that made it clear she didn’t necessarily like Robert. But did that mean she liked him? He shook the thought from his head. He couldn’t read anything into this.

She made her way up the front porch and knocked on the door.

There was no answer.

“You think he’s still working in the mine?” Blake asked.

“Probably. We can run down there and take a look. It’s not too far,” he said, motioning her to follow him as he led the way down the well-worn path that headed to the Foreman Mine.

Though he tried not to, he kept glancing back, making sure she was okay. Each time he checked on her, she looked away as if she was purposefully avoiding his gaze. The air between them filled with the crunch of dead pine needles as they hiked.

“He mine copper?” she asked, as if she was as uncomfortable with the silence between them as he was.

“Yep, but he finds gold and other heavy metals, as well. Makes a decent living, but you couldn’t get me to do what he does.”

“Mining is hard work.”

“That’s not it,” he said. “I couldn’t handle being underground all day, every day.” Though, as he said it, it reminded him of his own job. There he was usually sitting behind his desk, exploring the dark corners of a crime, looking for any clue that would lead to the mother lode.

“You scared of the dark?” She looked at him with a teasing smirk. “It’s good to know that even a tough guy like you has a weakness.”

It wasn’t the dark he was afraid of. No...it was the fear of the world collapsing in around him. He’d already had it happen once when his marriage ended. He wasn’t about to open himself up to such a failure again.

He glanced over at her, catching her gaze. “We all have weaknesses.”

She slipped slightly, catching herself with the help of the branch of a small pine.

He took her hand. Her sweaty fingers gripped his just long enough for her to get her feet under her, but she quickly let go to brush herself off.

“Ha!” she said, her cheeks turning a light shade of red. “I guess my weakness is walking.”

Jeremy laughed, the sound out of place in the quiet, stunted forest. For a moment he considered holding her hand the rest of the way down to the mouth of the mine, but she didn’t seem like the type who wanted help, and he couldn’t just elbow his way into her life—she wasn’t his wife. She wasn’t anything but a former crush. In truth, he didn’t know her anymore. All he really knew was that she had her daughter, her mother and a job that, when she spoke of it, made her entire body tense.

He motioned for her to take the lead, admittedly because he wanted to watch her butt but ostensibly so he could make sure she was safe as she steadily made her way down the hill. He wasn’t disappointed as he watched her. She moved with a quiet grace, smooth and steady as she carefully picked her way between the granite boulders as they headed into the maw of the earth.

Blake took out her flashlight and clicked it on. “Is this it?” she asked, motioning toward the dark, cavelike entrance.

In truth, it had been years since he’d been to the mine. The last time he’d been there the opening had been easily identifiable. Yet as she flashed her light downward, all he could make out were mounds of pegmatite-rich, reddish dirt.

“It should be here. Right here.” He frowned. Grabbing his phone, he clicked on the light and moved into the muddy hole. “There should be a way in here.” He prodded around, but the ground that filled the entrance shaft was as solid and compact as cement.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Blake asked.

“I thought so.”

There was something wrong. The dirt in the entrance was wet, but it hadn’t rained in a month. And even though the dirt that filled the shaft’s entrance was compact, the ground under their feet was loose, compressing as he shifted his weight. It had to have been freshly exposed.

He took a step forward. His toe caught on a loose rock, tripping him. He shone his light at the ground. Beneath the cobble that littered the area was a crushed lantern—the lantern Robert hung on the entrance of the mine any time he was underground.

“You don’t think—” Blake started.

Jeremy stopped her with a raise of his hand. He couldn’t stand hearing what he already knew—the mine had collapsed.

He prayed Robert wasn’t inside, but the lamp told him all he needed to know. Robert was trapped, and there was only a slight chance he could still be alive.

Chapter Four

The insides of Jeremy’s hands where covered in blisters. Dirt caked his nails, and his knuckles were bloody where he had torn them against the earth, but the job of freeing his brother had been too big for one man.

Blake watched the firefighters milling around outside the mine, taking a break from their attempts to break through the concrete-like blockade that filled its entrance. They had been at it for hours. They’d finally gotten an excavator on-site and received the go-ahead to start a full excavation. From the look on Jeremy’s face, it had already taken too long.

Blake walked up the hill toward Robert’s house and motioned for Jeremy to follow.

Jeremy walked beside her, his movement slow and numb. She had to do something, anything to help. For the second time that day, she felt powerless in her inability to control the events that swirled around them.

“Have you asked your parents if they’ve heard anything from Robert? Maybe he’s tried to call?” As soon as the words left her lips, she knew they were in vain. Of course he couldn’t call, but she had to say something to make the agonizing look on Jeremy’s face disappear.

“There’s no cell service in the mine—I can guarantee it.” His eyes darkened, and his face tightened, the sexy lines around his eyes deepening. “Besides, there’s no use in getting them up in arms. If we call them, they’ll ask too many questions.”

He was right. There was no sense alerting his parents that something was amiss if this was some kind of wild-goose chase. She could just imagine her mother getting a similar call. In a matter of minutes, Gemma West would have been on the scene and attempting to tell the crew exactly how they should be doing their jobs. No, family could wait.

She stepped up onto the porch and pressed her face against the window in the door. Inside Robert’s one-room cabin was an open sofa bed and a wood-burning fireplace. The walls were covered in pictures of elk and bear, and a mounted trout hung over the kitchen window. A gun rack hung over the bed, and a small-caliber rifle sat nestled in its grips. It was as if the place had been intentionally stripped of all things feminine.

“Do you think it’s possible Tiffany left him?” she asked.

Jeremy shrugged, staring ahead as if he was lost deep in thought.

“Is this what the house looked like the last time you were here?”

“What do you mean?” Jeremy moved beside her and peered inside.

“I...uh... I just mean I don’t see anything of Tiffany’s. Wouldn’t you think if she was still living here you’d at least see a stray hair tie or something? It’s almost like there hasn’t been a woman here in a long time.”

“Robert and Tiffany...” Jeremy gave a tired sigh. “They have more issues than National Geographic. They’re constantly at each other’s throats. If she left, good for her. It’s the best for both of them.”

Robert’s personal life was in shambles. Could that have meant he would have wanted to end things? As a miner, he had everything he needed to cave in the mine’s entrance. Maybe it had been his way of never being found.

On the table underneath the window was a ledger. She squinted through the glass as she tried to make out the penciled notes. She read the most recent one scrawled onto the time sheets.

September 23 Time in: 06:30 Time out:

The time out sat empty, echoing all the things it could possibly mean—or the one thing she feared most.

“Was your brother having any other issues? Anything going on as far as his mental health is concerned?”

Jeremy stepped around to the bay window and peered in through the glass. “My mother said he’s been agitated lately. Thought it had something to do with Tiffany.”

“Any signs of depression?” She instinctively looked toward the sofa bed, where the sheets sat in a rumpled mess at the end of the mattress.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to say. Robert has always been one who kept his cards close to his chest.”

There was something in Jeremy’s voice, almost as if there were pangs of guilt that rested just under the surface of his words.

“Do you think he would have ever tried to commit suicide?”

Jeremy jerked.

She shouldn’t have just thrown it out there. He was feeling something...some sort of guilt or perhaps vulnerability; she couldn’t be sure. She should have been softer in her delivery, but the officer in her corrected her. She had to ask the questions that needed to be asked. She couldn’t censor herself to spare his feelings.

“I would hope not,” he finally answered. “I would hope he wouldn’t do anything so stupid.”

“Stupid?” She thought a lot of things about suicide, and what a mistake it was for anyone to take his or her own life, but rarely did she think it was stupid.

“That’s not what I meant,” Jeremy corrected himself. “I would just hope that he would ask for help before he made the choice to end things.”

“You said he was tight-lipped.”

“He is...but...” Jeremy’s mouth puckered and his eye turned storm. “Look, he’s probably fine. Let’s not go there, okay?”

He’d shut her down. Not that she could blame him. Maybe he was right. Maybe an accident had caused the cave-in, and Robert was sitting in the mine, hoping someone would find him.

“I’m sorry, Jeremy.”

He seemed to force a smile, the lines of his lips curled in harsh juxtaposition to the rest of his face. “No...you’re fine. If I was in your position, I’d be asking the same thing.”

She nodded, not sure of what exactly to say that would make things less tense between them, but there was no fixing what riddled the air.

A fireman walked up the hill after them, stopping before he reached the porch. His cheeks were spattered with dirt and sweat. “We’ve broken through. Looks like the mine shaft is intact.”

“Great. That’s great,” Jeremy said. “Was there anything that could give us a clue as to why the mine entrance collapsed? Any evidence of explosives?”