“You got this from scrapes?” Donna asked.
They were standing on the shoulder of County Road 56, seven miles up from Grant into McCook County, only distant farmhouses dotting the landscape, the rest just field, both the men of Cherry County’s forensics team squatted in the tall grass about six feet from the road, digging in the turf.
“Concrete’s graded,” Hix said, watching forensics, Donna standing close to him, Larry, Bets and Hal all out in the grass in different directions, heads bent, walking slow, swishing with their batons through the grass.
“And?” Donna prompted.
He looked to her.
“Heels of both his palms had bruising come up, not dark, didn’t catch it because of that, but it was there. Once I noticed that, it delineated scrapes that would indicate they cut in on the diagonal. Grading of the road goes side to side to allow water runoff. If he was runnin’ down the road and took a header into his hands, that bruising and those scrapes would be horizontal. But they were diagonal, which meant he was running off the road.”
“And that?” she tipped her head to where forensics was digging.
“We were lookin’ for a bloodstain and shell casings on the road yesterday, Donna. Drove down to Grady’s, drove back and did it slow. Took me nine miles and I saw that grass depressed, broken grass on the way to it that could seem beaten down by rain yesterday. That depression looks natural, unless you’re lookin’ for it. And that grass bouncin’ back in the sun today, the broken grass not doin’ that, you can see the path that leads to the depression. Yesterday, figure it didn’t look like that. Today, didn’t have to look hard to find it.”
He jerked his head to the bullet in an evidence bag weighed down by a rock on the hood of his truck, which was one bag amongst many that mostly contained cigarette butts and their bonus find: three shell casings. Two they’d found in the turf not far from the road, one had been knocked, probably by cars, to the opposite side of the road where yesterday they didn’t look.
“He went down on the road when he took one in the shoulder,” Hix told her. “Got up, kept running. Shooter followed him. Got off two more rounds while he was in the grass, going after him. The one that hit his shirt, the one that got him in the neck.”
“So guy did him, carried him out, and did it in a hurry, not bothering to clean up after himself,” Donna noted.
“Not a high traffic area, houses not even a little close, but he killed a man and folks around these parts stop, they think someone’s in trouble. He got that body, put it in Nat’s truck, and got the hell outta here.”
She looked from the grass to Hix. “No other vehicle? No partner?”
“Got nothing on this road or the shoulder, such as it is, to give us tire impressions, rain took that, and obviously no skid marks to say he’d been run off the road.” Hix shook his head. “Donna, gut tells me the man stopped to help someone out. I’m thinkin’, guy pulled a gun, my guess, he wanted Nat to drive, but Calloway thought his best bet was to get his ass outta his truck and run. The man tried to steal his truck, Calloway saw his face, man panicked.”
“You thinkin’ fugitive like Bets said?” Donna asked.
“I’m thinkin’ a fugitive that would do something fool enough to jump bail or run from the cops after he’d committed a crime would know that what he’d get for stealin’ that truck would be a whole lot better than what he’d get for shooting a man and definitely killing him.”
“Tweaker,” she murmured.
“Blatt saw to the fact no meth was sold in our county and I gotta admit a good byproduct of that deal is, since McCook’s meth man doesn’t sell close to home, he’s not a big fan of someone else’s product hitting his county, so he shuts that down before we gotta lift a finger.”
“Man could be from outta town, Hix.”
“Then how would he know about that game trail?”
She nodded. “Yeah. True.”
Hix looked back to the grass. “Least we got a crime scene.”
“Yeah.”
“And meth isn’t the only shit that could string someone out.”
“Yeah.”
His cell rang and Hix pulled it out of his breast pocket to see it was the chief at Dansboro Police.
“Gotta take this,” he muttered.
“Gotta help out,” she muttered back, then waded into the grass.
Hix took the call, hoping he’d get word on a Ford F150.
Instead, the fact they’d found the scene of the crime got out and he found himself giving an update.
He gave it, waded in the grass a different direction than any of the bodies out there, and helped out.
Hix pulled out, rolled off Greta, tagged her around the waist and hauled her up and around until she was on her knees in front of him, her back to his front.
He took her hand, planted it under his in the headboard, positioned behind her, guiding his cock with his other hand, then he drilled inside.
Damn.
So sweet.
Her head flew back and hit his shoulder and she lifted her other hand and braced it into the wall above her headboard, rearing back into his thrusts.
He slid his hand from her belly to her tit, rolled the nipple then pulled it.
“Hix,” she gasped, dropping her head forward and taking his cock.
He brushed the hair at her nape aside with his chin and then rested his lips there, grunting against her skin as he fucked her.
They’d never fucked.
She got off on it.
He did too, including the fact she did.
She tipped her ass up and slammed back into him harder.
Hell yeah.
She got off on it.
“Yeah, Greta,” he growled into her skin, pulling her nipple.
She whimpered and drove back into him faster.
“Fuck yourself, baby,” he encouraged.
Her head fell back again and she puffed out, “Yeah.”
He left her nipple, slid his hand down between her legs and pressed in at her clit.
Her body jerked against him.
“Hix.”
She was pounding into him now, no rhythm, no control, panting and reaching for it.
He pulled out again.
She cried out, “No!” but he turned her, walked into the headboard on his knees, lifted her up and slammed her down on him, this getting him a breathy, “Yes,” right before she shuddered in his arms, her limbs wound around him going tight, and her pussy convulsing around his dick as she came.
He rode her against the headboard, trying to focus on the beauty of her face as she gave it to him.
But he lost focus when the pressure built in his balls and he grunted, pounding fast and hard, his eyes closing tight, white exploding behind them as he shot into the condom inside her, coming spectacularly.
Her lips were working his throat when he came down, and he bumped his chin gently against her head to tell her where he wanted that.
She gave it to him, tipping her head back and offering him her mouth.
He took it, kissing her hard then softer until they were mostly brushing and nibbling lips.
Only then did he mutter, “Gonna clean up.”
“Okay, darlin’.”