“Be back,” he muttered, sliding off his stool and letting the phone ring until halfway to the door of the bar where he took the call. “Hope.”
“Hixon,” she replied shortly.
He pushed out the door. “The kids okay?”
“Yes,” she bit out.
He pulled a deep breath into his lungs and stopped on the sidewalk, looking unseeing at Main Street.
When she said nothing, he prompted, “Right, you wanna let me in on why you’re callin’?”
She did because she launched right in.
“I know you dislike me repeating myself, Hix, however, it’s important enough to me to make one final attempt to ask you to stop this Junk Sundays thing. It seems lost on you that I’ve been trying since they were born to teach them healthy habits. They have to live in those bodies for what I’m sure we both hope is a long time, so it’s important that they take care of them.”
“Hope, it isn’t lost on me. What also isn’t lost on me is both Shaw and Cor play sports, so the entire school year they’re training and conditioning. Mamie is in dance year round. In the summer, they all like to go and help your dad out on the ranch and that work is heavy. They aren’t sitting around playing videogames all the time. It’s one day and they don’t eat so much they puke. They just have a day to relax and let loose.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” she shot back.
“You’ve made that clear.”
“They need to be shown what’s right, Hixon. Not shown what’s right but there are exceptions. Right is right. There are no exceptions. And they need a solid foundation for that when it’s their turn to make good choices.”
“Hope, they’re not five years old,” Hix returned. “No offense, but it’s weird, a momma tellin’ her seventeen-year-old son what he can put in his mouth. Or her fifteen-year-old daughter. Or even Mamie. We gotta loosen our hold and let them make those choices. We can’t treat them like first graders until the second they take off for college.”
“Shaw has a man’s metabolism,” she retorted. “But it would not be good for the girls if they got heavy.”
Hix tried to hold on to his temper.
“Neither of our girls are heavy, they don’t have the build or the habits to go that way, but that said, I’m not a big fan of you giving them ideas that they’d be anything but perfect however they are.”
“Society is not kind to fat girls,” she snapped.
“Unfortunately, you’re correct. But how about we worry about that if either of them gives us any indication they’re going to put on too much weight?”
She said nothing, and since they were on the phone, Hix couldn’t tell if she was seething or scheming.
He’d find out it was the former.
“So this is your play.”
Hix blew out another sigh and replied, “I’m not playing at anything.”
“Yes you are. Making it more fun to stay at Dad’s than put up with Mom expecting them to make the proper decisions about important things in their lives.”
“I don’t let them throw keggers at my place, Hope,” he clipped. “We have donuts and chips and dip and watch movies and football for one day. Christ, it’s not a big deal.”
“It is to me.”
“Yeah,” he bit out. “And you’ve shared that. I’ve listened. I don’t agree. So we’re not talkin’ about this anymore right now and we’re not talking about it again.”
“Hix—”
“Later, Hope.”
With that, he disconnected, and since he was on call, he not only had to drink pop with his wings rather than beer, he couldn’t turn off the phone but he could turn off the ringer.
So he did that, put his ex out of his head and walked back into the bar to continue with friends, football and shit food.
It didn’t occur to him as he did that for the first time since she’d kicked him out, he had no trouble putting her out of his head.
It also didn’t occur to him that he would not have to go home to her after football with his buds and listen to her bitch about the fact he put down so many nachos and wings.
By the time he sat his ass back on the barstool, he just ordered a plate of nachos and didn’t think of her at all.
The next morning, after going out first thing to the Mortimers to take their shit that he hadn’t yet figured out who’d graffitied their barn, Hix hit the department.
The instant he did . . .
No, the instant he saw the back of the rounded woman sitting in the chair beside Larry’s desk, he went wired.
Hal was not to be seen. Donna was probably out in a cruiser (the woman liked a desk about as much as Hix did, which was to say not much at all). Bets was at her desk.
Hix looked to Reva in the dispatch room and gave her a chin lift before he moved directly to Larry.
Larry looked up at him and straightened in his chair, murmuring, “Sheriff. This is Mrs. Calloway. Mrs. Calloway, this is Sheriff Drake.”
Hix was no longer paying attention to Larry.
One look at young, pretty Mrs. Calloway, he was also no longer wired.
He was tweaked.
“Mrs. Calloway,” he murmured.
“Sheriff,” she whispered.
“She’s in reporting her husband didn’t come home last night,” Larry put in. “She last saw him yesterday morning before he went to work. I’ve been explaining that protocol for a missing—”
His gaze cut to Larry as he cut him off. “Deputy, a quick word.”
Larry looked surprised, but Hix didn’t spend time taking that in.
His attention returned to Mrs. Calloway.
“We won’t be long.”
She nodded.
Larry got up and Hix walked him to the back. He stopped them at the mouth of the hall that led from the cells to the back rooms.
He turned in a way that Larry had his back to the room and he kept his face expressionless.
“Take her statement,” he ordered under his breath. “Get everything you can from her. When she last saw him. How he was when he left. His mood and manner the evening before. Where he works. Where he hangs. Who he hangs with. His normal schedule. If anything has seemed unusual about his behavior or routine the last few weeks or months. Get his cell phone number. The make and model of his car. License plate number. Get anything she can give you.”
“Boss, a missing person isn’t a—”
Hix allowed himself to lift his brows. “You got somethin’ better to do?”
“See your point,” Larry muttered.
“It’s not that.”
When he spoke those words, Larry focused more fully on him.
“That woman takes care of herself,” Hix explained. “Nails are polished. She does somethin’ to make her hair that way. She’s got weight on her but she’s also wearin’ stylish clothes. Those clothes she’s wearing, though, Larry, she wore yesterday. She might not have taken ’em off, she’s been so worried about her husband not showin’ last night. She mighta just been so freaked her man didn’t come home by the time morning arrived, she took off her pajamas and picked those clothes right up off the floor to put ’em back on to come see us. She has the remnants of yesterday’s makeup on. She hasn’t done anything to her hair, not even brushed it, just shoved it back in that ponytail before she came here. And her eyes are dilated, which is an indication of panic or anxiety.”