“Okay, Hix.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“Right. Okay.”
“Letting you go now.”
“Okay, darlin’. Uh . . . see you.”
“You will.”
He hung up standing by his Ram with Donna and Bets standing with him, eyes to him.
“Greta’s mom is at the home where her brother stays. Greta is his guardian. Her mother is a lot of things, including the woman who gave him the injuries he has that put him in the home by driving drunk and getting in an accident when he was a teenager.”
That got him big eyes from Bets, narrowed ones from Donna, but he ignored both and kept going.
“Greta’s denied her mother access to him. She’s there, causing a scene. You heard what I said to Greta?”
“Yeah, boss,” Bets replied.
“Yeah, Hixon,” Donna said.
“Follow me,” he commanded, went to his Ram, angled in and rolled out, the light on his dash and the two that blinked through the grill going as he raced to Sunnydown with Donna driving the Ram, Bets in the passenger seat, following him.
He got the call from Reva that Sunnydown had reported the disturbance on the way.
He swung in at the diagonal yellow lines that were at the front doors of Sunnydown, but he’d caught sight of Greta getting out of her Cherokee as he swung in.
Donna swung in beside him as he folded out of his Ram.
He lifted a hand his woman’s way and ordered, “Stay by your car, Greta.”
She stopped walking toward him and started walking backwards.
Hix prowled into the building to see a man in a security uniform, big guy, big stomach hanging over his belt, no baton or gun on that belt, not even a Taser, barring the way into a wide hall, staring unhappily down at the woman who was standing in front of him, her voice scratchy from continuous shrieking.
“You can’t keep me from my boy!” She leaned beyond the guard, who bent that way to impede her should she make a break for it, and screeched, “Andy! Andy, baby! Your momma is out here.”
“Quiet!” Hix barked.
She jumped and whirled.
Then he watched her lip curl.
“Well if it isn’t—” she began.
“I said quiet,” he bit off.
“You can’t muzzle me!” she shouted then swung an arm behind her, finger pointed. “My baby’s back there!”
“You have two choices,” Hix announced. “You settle down, get in your car and leave, not to return unless you’ve received word you’ve been approved as a visitor for Andrew Dare, or these deputies will be arresting you for trespassing and disturbing the peace.”
“I can’t trespass where my boy is kept,” she spat.
“You aren’t legal guardian of your boy so that’d be wrong.”
“Just because you’re fuckin’ my—”
Hix turned and dipped his chin to Donna. “Arrest her.”
“You can’t arrest me!” she screamed and whirled again, making a break to run down the hall and colliding with the security guy who jumped in her way, screeching, “Andy! Andy! Your momma’s—”
Donna took her forearm in one hand, stating, “You have the right—”
She whirled again and twisted her arm from Donna’s hold. “Take your fuckin’ hands off me!”
Bets moved in. “Ma’am, calm down.”
Greta’s mother shuffled back. “Fuck you.”
“Ma’am, calm down, turn around and put your hands behind your back,” Donna instructed.
“Kiss my ass,” she bit out, turned again and shouted, “Andy!”
“Hon, no. No,” Hix heard coming from down the hall and he looked that way to see a tall young man with dark hair and a serious scar marring handsome features shuffle sideways into the hall. “Andy, honey—” A woman was trying gently to push him back in the room.
Fuck.
Hix started to make his way there as Tawnee saw her son and shrieked, “Andy! My boy!”
Hix halted at Greta’s mother, turned his back to her brother and whispered, “You make one more move to resist arrest, we’re charging you with that too. Now, I’ve had occasion to sit in front of the judge recently and we’ll just say, with current events, he’s not in a good mood.” He leaned closer. “But I think someone else will not be pleased you’re makin’ this play and I got a feelin’ you should be more concerned about his reaction. So shut your mouth, Ms. Dare. Calm down. Walk with these deputies out of this building where you’ll put your hands behind your back so they can cuff you and read you your rights without your boy seein’ them do it, then allow them to take you to the station.”
Suddenly, making his stomach turn, she smiled and exposed this was all a play to upset Greta when she threatened in a quiet voice, “Buckle up, baby. I’m just gettin’ started.”
“Whatever,” he muttered and saw her face go slack in confusion before he jerked his head to Donna and she moved in.
She put a hand on Tawnee’s biceps but Tawnee snatched her arm away, tossed her hair and didn’t even glance at her son as she strutted out of the building, Bets and Donna following.
Hix looked at the security guy. “Could you please follow them and make sure all’s well out there, then, when they got her in the back of their vehicle, tell Greta she can come in here?”
“Sure ’nuf, Sheriff,” the man replied, then broke into a lumbering jog, following Donna and Bets.
Hix drew in breath, turned and walked down to where Greta’s brother was standing outside his room, worrying his lip, staring down the hall where his mother disappeared.
“Andy,” he called, and the man’s eyes moved from the hall to Hix.
He didn’t look a thing like his sister.
But he was a good-looking kid.
He lifted a hand to him. “I’m Hixon.”
Andy looked from Hix’s eyes to his hand to his badge back to his eyes.
“You’re police.”
“Yes, Andy, I’m the sheriff.”
“Police,” he repeated.
Hix dropped his hand and looked to the woman at Andy’s side.
She gave him a shake of her head that Hix could not interpret before Andy stated, “Police took Mom.”
“I’m sorry, Andy, but yes. Greta’s outside and she—”
“Ta-Ta?”
Ta-Ta.
Sweet.
Hellaciously sad coming from a man his height, his age.
But sweet.
“Yeah, buddy. She’s outside and she’ll be in—”
“Police didn’t take my mom.”
“I’m sorry, bud, but we had to—”
“Ta-Ta’s my mom.”
Hix closed his mouth and looked again at the woman with Andy.
She gave him big eyes.
No freaking help at all.
“My sister, but my mom,” Andy gave it to him and Hix looked at Greta’s brother again.
“Yeah, bud. I get it.”
“That lady, I don’t care,” Andy told him.
“Yeah, Andy,” Hix said quietly. “I get it, man.”
“Man,” Andy said and then he grinned. “I coulda told her to go. I didn’t mind tellin’ her to go. She doesn’t visit much and I don’t miss her when she’s gone.”
“I can imagine.”
Andy grinned again, his eyes shifted and his whole face lit up.
That was when Hix watched him lope down the hall and take Greta in his arms, doing it twisting his head to rest the side of it to Greta’s shoulder like a little kid.