Making It Right (Most Likely To #3)

“My divorce will be final on the twenty-first.”


“Congratulations?” he asked, a little surprised at her enthusiasm.

“Hell, yeah. That bastard tried to go after half my retirement. Like he earned it by snoring in my bed for three years.”

Gill had seen the full cycle of Shauna’s turmoil. First there were tears, then anger . . . now this. “I’m happy for you.”

“Me, too. We need to celebrate.”

Gill glanced at the paper again, the date ringing in his head. “I’ll be in River Bend on the twenty-first. Promised Jo I’d be around for the class reunion.”

“I’ll be celebrating for a month. After?”

“Of course.”

Shauna swiped the paper from his desk. “Marriage is overrated.”

“Is it?”

She paused, curbed her excitement. “Except for Jo. I mean, Jo’s perfect for you. I knew that long before I sent her to Marly’s.”

“Sent her?”

Shauna batted her eyelashes in fake innocence. “You didn’t think that was on accident, do you? If I told Jo I knew a guy that would be perfect for her, she would have never given you a chance . . . meet her on accident . . . and boom!” She patted his head and bounced off like a woman half her age.

He’d been played . . . by his own partner. Gill smiled, happy with the outcome.

When he couldn’t get Jo out of his head, he left his desk and found a quiet bench outside the building and dialed her number.

The fuzzy connection told him she was driving.

“Hey, good-looking.”

“A friendly voice,” Jo said.

“I thought everyone in River Bend was friendly.”

“Not hardly. How are you?”

“Perplexed.”

“Oh?”

He told her of Shauna and her divorce. “It’s strange to see someone waving sparklers around after a marriage falls apart.”

“Shauna was really unhappy. Best they figured it out before they had kids. Mel’s parents split the day she graduated high school, and that was devastating.”

“My parents are still together,” he told her.

“Yeah, well . . . mine died, so who knows if they would have worked out.”

“Were they unhappy?”

“How would I know? I was finger painting and counting to ten when my mom died.”

Jo’s voice told him she’d gotten over this loss long before now. “Where are you?”

“On my way to Waterville. Squad—recall—waited long enough.”

“You’re going out on me, say that again.”

Jo yelled into the phone as if that would make the connection better. “My squad car has a recall. I need to get it in.”

“Got it.”

“How is your case?”

“We’re getting close. Found the girl at the pizza parlor. Definitely hooked. Second-level seller.”

“You’re looking for her connection.”

“Exactly.”

“Let me—I can—hello—shit—” The line went dead.

Gill tried calling her again. Her phone went to voice mail. On his third attempt, he left a message. “Lost you. Call me when you get to Waterville. Miss you.”



Gill was perched in a car, a high-powered lens of his camera aimed at the Eugene High School senior parking lot. Rachel, the girl from the pizza joint, was easy to spot. Her profile on Instagram had pictures of her at a party, red cup in hand. Like the other girls her age, her long hair went halfway down her back, her eyes heavy with makeup. Chances were the makeup was an attempt to add color to her washed-out skin.

He snapped a picture of her and the girl she was walking with.

The girls separated when Rachel’s attention diverted to a low-riding Subaru. The car had been modded to the point where it probably wasn’t street legal.

Gill zoomed in on the license plate, took a picture.

She leaned into the car like a hooker, ass in the air.

Not her dealer, Gill decided. Someone dealing wouldn’t drive around in a car easily pulled over by the local police. Not if they carried any stash.

Gill waited, was fairly sure a deal had just gone down in front of him. Busting her now would do no good. And it would alert her higher-up that she’d been tapped.

Rachel moved to another car as the parking lot started to empty out. This car was a modern variety import. Nothing fancy, nothing that stood out. He zoomed in on the license plate, then the driver’s side. Looked like a mom . . . maybe Rachel’s, Gill didn’t know.

His cell phone rang. Not recognizing the number, he let it go to voice mail.

A few more pictures of the car and Rachel and her driver were gone.

Gill skimmed his photographs and called them in.

He’d have the name of the legal owners of the cars within an hour . . . maybe less.

His message light blinked, and he listened to the recorded voice.

“Gill, it’s Zoe.”

The hair on his arms went on alert. He glanced at the time. He hadn’t spoken with Jo in a few hours. She was supposed to have called when she reached Waterville.

“It’s Jo. There was an accident.”

He hit “call back” without listening to the rest of the message, his breath short and his head spinning with worry.

“Hello?”

“Zoe, it’s Gill.”

“Oh, good. You got my message.”

“How is she, is she okay?”

“All things considered.”

“What things? Where is she?” He turned over the engine of his car and pulled out of the apartment complex parking lot he was hiding in.

“Waterville Community Hospital. She’s in radiology.”

“Jesus, is she okay?”

“Her car bounced, slammed into the side of the road, and spun. A tree kept her from taking a dive off the cliff. She’s really lucky.”

“I’m on my way. Tell her I’m on my way.” Gill tossed the phone aside, placed a light on the top of his car, and let the siren fill the air.



Son of a bitch . . . her head pounded, her body ached. One minute she was losing her connection to Gill on the phone, the next she was staring down the side of a cliff with a twentysomething search and rescue pulling her out of her mangled squad car.

Lights, ambulance . . . doctors asking questions. And everything hurt.

Her back teeth hurt.

She’d hit the brakes. Nothing happened. Panic and then nothing.

“Sheriff?”

“What?” She thought she was shouting, but only a sigh of a breath asked her question.

“How are you feeling?”

Jo didn’t open her eyes. The woman’s voice an unknown source.

“Like shit.”

A chuckle. “Do you know where you are?”

The smell of antiseptic, the dinging sounds of monitors. “Hospital.”

“Good. Rest.”

Okay . . . rest. Great plan.

“Jo?”

The voice was familiar.

“You’re a mess.”

The second voice was familiar. She tried to open her eyes. Light blinded her. “Screw you.”

A chorus of tiny laughter, the kind that people released when they were nervous, filled her ears. Then there was silence.

She woke slowly. The bed under her was soft, not hard like the one before. That Jo remembered. The noise of the room was quiet. A tiny beep every few seconds was like a reassuring heartbeat, letting the person listening know they were alive.

Someone was holding her hand.