Author: Mary Burton
Category: Suspense
Go to read content：https://readnovelfree.com/p/18571_4
Deke stared at the bag, illuminated in the halo of the flashlight. “She’s a highly decorated officer. I want whatever facts you can dig up before I talk to her.”
Never ask a question without knowing the answer first. They’d learned the lesson in the cradle from their father, the late Buddy Morgan, a legend in the Nashville Police Department Homicide Squad. Most kids got bedtime stories. The Morgan kids heard recaps of homicide cases. Not a surprise all of the Morgan children had gone into law enforcement. Their other brother, Rick, worked homicide with Deke, and baby sister, Georgia, was a forensic technician.
Of all the Morgan children, Deke looked the most like their father. Old-timers said he was a carbon copy. Rick, the next in line, was a slighter version of Deke. Alex shared their dark coloring, but his features were more aquiline and narrow, like their mother’s. Georgia, adopted when she was days old, was the outlier when it came to looks. She favored her birth mother’s strawberry-blond hair and freckles, though when it came to temperament, she was all Morgan.
Deke and Rick loved homicide and, no doubt, would do the work until the city forced them to take the gold retirement watch. Alex didn’t see himself in TBI in the next decade. He made no secret about his political ambitions.
“Okay. I’ll keep digging.” Alex checked his watch. “I’ve got to go. Georgia is singing tonight.”
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Georgia sang on her off nights in Rudy’s. Her musical talent had also been a gift from her birth mother. No Morgan brother could have identified a musical key or note, even if presented with a lineup. “I texted her and told her I was here. She understands.”
“Right.” They might not like it, but they understood the demands of being a cop.
Deke’s lips lifted into a rusty grin. “You sure you want to go to Rudy’s?” A retired cop owned the bar, which had become a favorite hangout for anyone wearing a badge.
“I told Georgia I’d be there.”
“You’re going to get hassled.”
A smile tipped the edge of his lips. “They can try.”
Deke laughed. “I remember when you were a kid. Mom bought you that stupid striped shirt. You were in the fourth grade?”
“Fifth.”
“You got all kinds of teasing over that shirt. And instead of trashing it, you wore it every day for two months.”
“Became known as my fighting shirt.” Alex had never gone looking for a fight, but when one found him, he never backed away. After eight weeks, the shirt had been torn, mended, and bloodied more times than anyone could remember. When it vanished from the wash, his mother had denied responsibility, but they all knew she’d finally thrown it out. Alex could handle the trouble, but their mom could not.
“Georgia also tells me you have a date.”
Alex could have asked how his sister knew about the date but didn’t bother. She had radar, a fact he’d accepted long ago. “Yep.”
“I thought she was joking.”
“No.”
“So who’s the lucky girl?”
“Leah Carson.”
“The veterinarian who takes care of Rick’s dog?”
Their brother Rick had been a canine officer who’d been allowed to adopt Tracker after the dog had been retired. “Yes.”
“How’d you meet?”
“Rick is boarding his dog at the vet’s kennel. I told him I’d check on Tracker while he was gone.”
“What’s special about Leah?”
“She’s Deidre’s new best friend.”
Deke nodded. “You set this up.”
“I did.”
“How’d you get Rick to board Tracker?”
“Told him I needed an undercover officer with four legs. He liked the idea of his canine working again.”
“And now you and Deidre’s friend are going on a date?”
“That’s right.” Digging his phone out of his pocket, he texted Georgia. RUNNING LATE. GIVE MY DATE THE HEADS-UP. BUY HER A DRINK. BE THERE IN TWENTY.
“What do you know about her?”
“Not much. But that’s the point of a date. To learn.”
“Mixing business with pleasure?”
When it came to catching the bad guys, lying came naturally to Alex. He did what he had to do. In his personal life he never lied. Leah was the first time black and white had muddied to gray.
“Leah’s the only personal friend Deidre Jones seems to have these days. Wouldn’t hurt to find out what she knows about Deidre.” Alex’s phone dinged with a text. WILL DO. He slid his phone back into his pocket. “Have you gotten me a rundown on Deidre’s recent cases?”
“On my desk. I’ll send it tomorrow.”
Neither one of them liked the idea of investigating Deidre. But good cops went bad for all variety of reasons, and when they went bad, Alex had the unpleasant job of mopping up the mess. “I’ll call you when I have something.”
“Talk only to me.”
“Understood.”
Chapter Two
Saturday, January 14, 8 P.M.
Until death do us part.
The freshly tattooed wedding vow ran along the twenty-six bones of his spine, entwined by a thorny, flowerless vine that coiled around and cut through the neatly scripted letters. A delicate sparrow fluttered above a jagged thorn and the word Death.
Each prick of the tattoo artist’s needle had been a painful reminder of the love he carried for his sparrow, a lovely wife who, confused and misled by lying friends, didn’t understand the true depth of his commitment.
Though she’d left him, he’d never stopped keeping tabs on her, and he’d tracked her to her rented town house near Nashville’s West End Park. He’d cried when she’d begun flirting shamelessly with men. When she’d begun sleeping with them, hurt had turned to rage. His little lark had turned into a whore.
Now, he sat in his dark truck parked at the corner of Fourth and Broadway. Across lanes of traffic, he watched her sitting in her car, the engine running. He knew her routine well. When she went out, when she met her new friend for a glass of wine, when she arrived at and left work. No detail was too small. Not one iota missed.
She got out of her car, locked it, and, hands tucked in her pockets with head ducked against a cold wind, and marched up Broadway. She paused at a honky-tonk called Rudy’s and, for a moment, stared into the large window, studying the crowd.
A slight smile tweaked the edges of his lips. “Looking for me, babe? Think I’m inside?”
After a pause, another woman approached her, and the two exchanged laughs before she tugged open the front door and they moved inside. He knew the other woman as well. His wife’s new best friend.
He shifted forward in his seat, leaning against the steering wheel as he watched her through the window. Rudy’s, buffered from the cold and alight with music and laughter, was packed with customers.
His wife pulled her scarf free and opened her jacket as she lingered on the fringe of the crowd. She wore a long-sleeved black turtleneck that accentuated her full breasts. Black hair hung loose around her shoulders. He didn’t like the new look. Too dramatic. Bossy. She’d made so many changes, and he hated them all.
She smiled and raised her hand. His gut twisted, imagining the smile for another man. Even with dark hair, she was a pretty woman, and men wanted her. Pretty women like his wife didn’t go to bars unless they wanted to find a man. His sweet wife now consorted like a barhopping slut.
Jealousy knifed through anger, allowing the sadness to bleed free as images of those perfect first days of their relationship flashed by. She’d once looked at him with such trust and unfailing devotion, as if only he could make her world better. Her love had empowered him, stroked his ego and washed away the demons of his own troubled past.
Those days had been perfect. And they were gone.
Now, his wife melted into the crowd, no doubt nestling into another man’s embrace. Kissing him. Touching him. Whispering seductive words in his ear.
He gripped the edge of the steering wheel and push
ed his spine into the seat, grinding hard leather into the fresh tattoo. Pain shot up and down along his spine, firing along all the tender nerves in his back.
“I gave you everything. And you left me.”
The men and women who streamed into the bar all had a look. Short hair. Swagger. Frequent glances from left to right before entering. A tug of a jacket over a sidearm. Counting secondary exits. This wasn’t an ordinary bar. It was a cop hangout.