“I said what I had to say.”
There was silence and then, “Yeah, you’re good at that.”
He shouldn’t ask. He didn’t even want to freaking know.
He still asked, “What’s that remark mean?”
“It means you’re good at talking and you’re not real good at listening. I’ve never been interrupted so much in my whole damned life. But it’s not even that. It’s just all about you. You think you escaped narrowly, I’m clueing into the fact that maybe the one who escaped was me.”
“Then we’re both good with where this is at,” he clipped.
“Yeah, we are. Goodbye, Sheriff.”
He was going to share his farewell but he had dead air.
Hix tossed his phone down, got up and walked out of his office, calling to Donna, who was, strangely, standing and talking to Hal like she didn’t hate his guts.
She turned her head his way. “Yeah, Hix.”
“You get a second, wanna see you in my office.”
She nodded. “Give me a minute.”
He jerked up his chin and walked back to his office.
He went to his phone, snatched it up and called Larry.
“Yo, boss,” Larry answered.
“You on your way to pick up the artist?” Hix asked.
“Yup.”
“Use lights. John called. They found long, light-brown hairs that haven’t been chemically treated. Bets is goin’ up to Cherry to get samples. We’re carvin’ money outta the budget to run private DNA tests. I want that sketch and I want it soon. You with me?”
“Hell yeah. Lights on, Hix.”
He was in the middle of what he had to say to Larry when Donna walked in and he ended the call quickly after Larry affirmed he’d got him.
“Close the door, would you?” he said to Donna.
She closed it, turned to him and said, “I can’t read your face.”
“This is personal. Not business,” he announced.
“Uh-oh,” she mumbled.
They had shit to do so he wasn’t going to waste any more on this than he had to.
“Two times, people have mentioned my uncle’s inheritance to me . . .” he trailed off, seeing her go wired before she blanked it. “Tell me,” he bit out.
“Hixon, I’m thinkin’ maybe we should do this over beers.”
“You said you all kept your mouths shut, all that went down with Hope and me,” he reminded her. “Something else you didn’t share?”
“Hix, seriously, beers,” she replied.
He stood at the front of his desk and stared into her eyes.
She blew out a breath, walked to him, put a hand on the back of one of the chairs in front of the desk and said quietly, “Think you’ll get, when I tell you, why we thought this all would blow over.”
“Tell me,” he repeated.
“It was about the ring.”
Hix closed his eyes and shook his head.
He opened them and demanded, “Say again?”
“The twentieth anniversary ring.”
Hix felt his body turn to stone.
“She thought you’d . . . I think she thought you would . . .”
“Cave,” he whispered.
He saw it then, Hope staring at him the way she did over that damned table, the papers on it, their lawyers present.
He knew it then, how she’d seemed almost paralyzed in shock after he’d lifted his head once he’d signed his name.
Now he knew it, how she’d started calling an hour after they left that table, begging him to talk.
You know, Hixon, you know.
After he got that inheritance, she’d asked him to buy her that ring on their twentieth anniversary, smiling, excited, showing him the photo of it in a catalog.
All he’d seen was the price, and he had to admit he didn’t hold back his laughter that she’d even suggest he get her something that pricy when they were on the verge of putting kids through college.
He’d also admit that maybe that was not the right reaction to have.
That said, she’d given him a tremulous grin once he was done laughing so he thought she’d gotten where he was at, where he thought they both should be at.
And saw the light.
Obviously, she hadn’t.
But he never in his life would think she’d wage war over a ring. A war that would destroy their marriage.
And he never in the life he’d led with her thought she was a woman who’d do such a despicably selfish thing.
“Hixon, if I thought for a second she’d actually go through with it, I would have said something,” Donna assured him quickly. “And then when she did, I thought . . . I know it wasn’t my place, but I thought you were better off without her.”
“It wasn’t your place.”
He watched her watching him carefully.
“It wasn’t your place to be in the position to tell me,” he explained. “It was hers.”
“I saw Lou was in here, was it her that said something?” she asked, beginning to look ticked.
He shook his head. “This dies right now.”
Her eyes grew sharp. “Know you’re seein’ Greta, that going okay?”
“It’s over.”
She swung back a bit and murmured, “Right.”
“This dies here, Donna. Lou coming in here. What happened with Greta. Hope’s bullshit. It’s just done. Life is now just what it was before, except now I know well and truly I’m good bein’ shot of Hope. Greta’s the Greta you know. Lou is just a good friend and she’ll calm down. We put who killed Nat Calloway behind bars, it’ll all just go back to normal.”
“Okay, Hix,” she agreed dubiously.
“I’m not pissed you told me,” he assured her. “I’m not pissed you kept it from me. I’m not anything but maybe a little troubled how easy it is to get over the woman I spent nearly half my life with.”
“Yeah,” she said quietly.
“That’s it.”
“Okay, Hixon.”
“Beers would not be unwelcome tonight, though, you can get away from the ball and chain.”
She gave him a smile.
“I’ll call Herb and ask Larry to take call. Then I’ll call Toast and Tommy and one of us will pick you up so you can get slaughtered.”
That wasn’t going to happen.
But he’d be glad to have as much as he wanted and not have to worry about taking call or driving.
“Thanks, Donna.”
Her eyes got sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Hix.”
“That’s the troubling thing,” he returned. “I no longer am.”
“Healthy,” she murmured. “Healing.”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
He nodded.
She shot him an uncertain grin, gave him a long lookover.
Then she walked out.
He watched her go and wondered if, through salon gossip, Greta knew about the ring.
After that, he wondered why that would be the first thing he wondered.
You’ll see last night you made the biggest fuckin’ mistake in your goddamned life.
He forced his mind to Tawnee Dare and he wanted to doubt the truth of Lou’s words.
But, damn it, since he threw back the first half of his beer after he got back to his apartment, that being after laying into Greta, he’d felt that doubt start nagging.
It didn’t matter.
He had a killer to find and the woman he’d been seeing had direct ties to the only known criminal in the county.
So yeah.
It didn’t matter.
The hell of it was he could tell himself that.
But that drag in his gut wouldn’t stop nagging.