She already had, she thought with a sigh. “I’m keeping my place.”

“Why wouldn’t you? You’ll make the grounds spectacular, put in the greenhouse you talk about, store equipment and Christ knows what other big-ass machine you’ll want. Your place is essential for High Country Landscaping.”

She jabbed a finger in the air as he strolled toward her. “See, you get me. That’s another way you—”

“Screwed everything up?” he finished.

“Yeah.” Surrendering, she framed his face with her hands. “I guess I’ll just have to live with it, and you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Zane waited with his sister while Charlene finished treating Traci’s injuries.

“I can go with you,” he began. “Help you get her and her mother moved into the shelter.”

“No, you’ve got a ton to do here, plus, it’ll give me some time to talk to Traci. It’s a big, scary step she’s taking.”

“Text me when you get her there.” He glanced at his watch. “I was hoping to hear from Lee by now.”

“Let Lee do his cop thing. I’ll do my counselor thing, and you do your lawyer thing. Add on host thing for a really big party.” She pulled his wrist over to check the time herself. “I’ll be back to pitch in there in a couple hours—and Silas, too, when he’s wrapped up the cop business. Emily’ll be over, too—with Audra. We’ll get it all done.”

“I’m thinking of it as Traci’s Independence Day.”

“It’s a good thought.”

But Zane knew his sister. “You’re worried she won’t stick.”

“She’s got plenty of support, but she’s also got a hard road ahead. We’ll be hopeful.”

He led with that hope as he helped Traci into Britt’s car, reminded her to call him, anytime, if she needed him. After thanking Charlene, assuring Allie he’d stay on top of things, he stood a moment on his hill. Quiet now, peaceful now, the lake below shining in the sunlight.

A perfect summer day, he thought, echoing Darby’s earlier assessment. The kind of day for taking a sail, eating potato salad, drinking a beer in the shade.

The kind of day where it seemed nothing hard or mean existed.

But it did, always would. Life meant you navigated the hard and mean, rose over it, pushed it back.

So he would.

* * *

After using the warrant to enter Traci’s house, having a conversation with Clint’s hard-eyed mother at her place, his brother’s slovenly—the word popped into his head—wife at hers, Lee deduced they’d already figured out something was up.

In Jed Draper’s place, three kids—two in diapers that needed changing—and a third with a nasty look in his eye and scabby knees—fought, wailed, whined until Lee’s head throbbed.

But Sally Draper never deviated from her story, one that matched her mother-in-law’s almost word for word.

She didn’t know where the men had gone—certainly not hunting! Fishing more like, camping out for a day or two. And if that ungrateful Traci said her brother laid a single hand on her, she was a liar on top of being a lazy slut.

Bea Draper, the matriarch, had run the same line, and added a few flourishes. How Traci had a terrible temper, threw things at her hardworking boy. Was clumsy as a two-legged mule, always tripping over things—mostly as she didn’t put shit-all away.

Lee took note of the field glasses in both houses, set on the sill of the window facing Traci’s backyard.

He considered it all as he made his way back to the house where Traci had lived, and what he’d found—or hadn’t found—inside.

She’d run off at dawn with only the clothes on her back and Zane’s card in her pocket. Yet inside he’d found only two handmade dresses, both cotton and as shapeless as what she’d had on. No jewelry, no makeup—not even a tube of lipstick—two cotton nightgowns his grandmother wouldn’t have worn, and not a single pair of shoes.

He’d grown up with a mother, a sister, had a wife, had lived with a girl he considered his own from her teenage years, so he knew something about what he thought of as female debris.

Nothing, just nothing normal inside that house.

And he hated, hated he’d had no power or authority to do anything about it. Until now.

He walked to the McConnells’, found them both outside working their garden.

With a hand pressed to his back, Sam straightened, nodded. “Chief.”

“Got some fine-looking tomatoes going there, Sam.”

“We do that, and plenty of them. We can give you some to take home.”

Lee scratched his chin. “Believe it or not, we got talked into planting some of our own this year. Just a couple bushes, but they’re doing okay. Sure would appreciate having a few words with y’all.”

“Figured you’d be by.” Mary Lou adjusted her glasses. “I made some lemonade fresh this morning. You come on, sit down in the shade.”

“That’d be right nice.”

“Kids are coming later on for a cookout before we all head to the lake to see the show,” Sam said as they walked.

“Should be a good one.”

While Mary Lou went in to get the lemonade, Lee sat with Sam on the porch, let out a sigh as he got off his feet.

“I want to ask if you heard or saw anything from over Clint Draper’s place last night.”

“Can’t say we did. We had the AC on, windows closed.” Sam let out a sigh of his own. “He hurt that little girl again, didn’t he?”

“I can tell you she lit out early this morning, pretty beaten up. Don’t suppose you saw her go, or saw where Clint went?”

“Wish I had. Never seen her drive, so I’m guessing she took off on foot. We’d have helped her if we’d seen her.”

“I know you would.” As Mary Lou came out with a tray of glasses, Lee smiled. “That sure looks good, Mary Lou.”

“She got away, honey,” Sam told her. “She left him this morning.”

Mary Lou set the tray down with a rattle. “Thank the lord. We worried when we saw you and the officers that he’d killed her this time. But she’s all right?”

“She will be. My information is Clint went off with his daddy, his brother early this morning. Hunting’s what I heard, fishing’s what Mrs. Draper the elder claims.”

“Hunting’s more like, and we heard some shooting when we came outside.” After handing out the glasses, Mary Lou took a seat. “The Drapers don’t trouble themselves with hunting seasons, No Trespassing signs, or anything else. They do what they want and when they want.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where they favor going?”

Now Sam shook his head. “I know they put up deer stands right on the property line, a few of them. And I’ll tell you the God’s truth, Chief, I wouldn’t go looking for them up in the woods, not when they’ve got guns and cover. You were to step foot on their land, they’d unload on you and call it just.”

“Bea Draper would’ve told them you’ve been around. They got walkies,” Mary Lou added. “It was around nine, I guess—and after we heard the shooting—I saw her walk over next door, go right on in like she owned it. She didn’t walk out happy. I guess she saw Traci wasn’t there.”