The Negotiation. Tyler Snell Anne

and the soothing creek in the distance, she couldn’t deny that she was still on edge.

      Rachel finagled the vibrating phone from her pocket and shook some of the coffee off her other hand. The Caller ID showed Dane again.

      “To be fair, I called to try and not scare you.”

      Rachel looked from the phone to the patio stairs. On the path that led from around the house to the front porch stood Dane. Trying to look apologetic.

      Rachel put her hand to her chest and took a deep breath.

      “I guess I’m a little jumpy this morning,” she admitted. Dane nodded but kept to the bottom of the stairs. He was still wearing his button-down and jeans, but now there were bags beneath his eyes, too. He hadn’t slept. “Is everything okay?”

      “Detective Foster thinks he found a potential lead. He and Billy are looking into it.”

      “Good.” The faster the men were caught, the better.

      Dane ran a hand across his jaw and nodded. “No suspicious activity was reported at Lonnie’s by Deputy Ward and no one other than your friend came or went last night.”

      “Also good.”

      He nodded again. It was off. Like the motion was on reflex. Like he wasn’t actually listening to himself. Rachel tilted her head slightly to the side, trying to figure out his thoughts. But, while she’d been good friends with the man years ago, it felt like a lifetime had passed between them. She could no sooner tell what he was thinking than she could tell what he was feeling.

      “We’ll keep someone on both today, but I need to go relieve Henry from Lonnie’s until another deputy can step in,” he continued. “His kid has the flu and his wife woke up with it, so he needs to hustle home.”

      Rachel felt herself perk up. “So you’re going to Lonnie’s right now?”

      She already was turning with her coffee cup in hand.

      “Yeah, just long enough until someone comes and relieves me.”

      “Can I come with you?” Rachel was positive it was exactly what she needed to feel better. She could either sit around worrying about the boy, or check on him herself. Maybe even talk to his uncle and learn a little bit more about his home life, too. Maybe set some of the rumors straight when it came to the teachers at Darby Middle. “I mean, I can take my own car if you’d like,” she added. “I just—I’d like to see how Lonnie’s doing.”

      Dane surprised her with a small smile.

      “If you don’t mind me stopping by somewhere that has coffee, I’m fine with you riding along.”

      It was Rachel’s turn to smile. “I can do you one better.”

      * * *

      THEY SET OUT from the house a few minutes later with two cups of homemade coffee, a Tupperware container filled with cookies, and too many things left unsaid between them. Dane had already known that Rachel asking to come along was a possibility, but until she’d asked, he hadn’t known what he was going to say in response. He’d planned his day around sticking close to her while working the case from a stationary spot—which he’d gotten good at over his career as captain—so if she wanted to leave, coming along with him definitely made things easier.

      Or, at least, the work side of things.

      Their personal issues weren’t as easy to work around.

      So Dane decided not to address them at all. He was going to treat Rachel like just another civilian. There was a bigger picture. One he’d hopefully see when the men were caught.

      He didn’t need to, nor had the time to, get lost in the past.

      “I’m surprised that Marnie girl didn’t stay the night,” he said once they were on the county road. “She seemed ready to fight by your side. Never seen a lady brandish a lamp before.”

      He kept his eyes on the road but heard the smile in her voice when she answered.

      “You’ve seen a man brandish a lamp?”

      Dane felt his smile pull up the corner of his lips. “Actually, I have.”

      And so Dane ate up the time between the outskirts of Darby to the other side of town by relaying the story about Marty Wallace, drunk as a skunk, coming into a restaurant to confront his cheating girlfriend. Who’d just happened to be on a date one table over. Dane had barely saved the new beau from receiving a whack upside the head by a fancy lamp when he restrained the cursing-like-a-sailor Marty.

      “Want to know the kicker? After he got out of jail, he went back to the restaurant and picked a fight with the owner.”

      Rachel let out a small gasp. “Why did he do that?”

      “The lamp that he broke cost five hundred dollars. Marty didn’t want to pay it.”

      “Five hundred dollars?” She whistled. “I don’t blame him. I might have started a fight with the owner, too. Did he end up paying it or did he get arrested again?”

      “Billy ended up feeling so bad for him that he talked the owner out of pressing charges.” Dane couldn’t help chuckling. “Then Billy managed to convince the man that the lamp was too ugly to be worth that much, so the owner went out and got a new one anyways.”

      Rachel laughed a good laugh. Dane hadn’t realized how much he had missed the sound.

      “That’s our sheriff for you,” he added. “A fearless leader with a bleeding heart when it comes to overpaying for lamps. I don’t know what Riker County would do without him.”

      This time Rachel didn’t laugh. He glanced over. Denim blue. Staring straight ahead.

      “You know, I always thought you’d run for sheriff.” Her voice sounded different. Off. Distant. “Wasn’t that a part of your five-year plan?”

      There it was.

      One of those unsaid things. Dane fought the urge to tense up.

      “I decided I wanted something different,” he answered. “Now I can’t imagine anyone other than Billy running the county. He’s a good man and good at what he does. Plus, I like my job. I may not be hitting the streets as much, but I still get done what needs to get done.”

      It was all honest enough. His plans had changed and he was sure as sure could be that Billy had found his true calling. Dane, on the other hand, felt like he had found his in being captain. He might be a desk jockey most of the time, but he made it work. The only lie? It had taken a while for him to accept it.

      “So what you’re saying is that you stepping out of your office to do guard duty isn’t on your normal roster of daily activities?”

      Dane had to look over again. If only because of the humor he heard in her response. She was no longer distant. Dane was surprised. He thought talking about their pasts at any length would bring out the flash of anger he’d already seen several times in the past twenty-four hours.

      “No, it’s not something I typically do,” he admitted. “I guess I just needed to hit my abnormal quota before the year ran out.”

      Rachel snorted.

      Silence followed. It settled in the cab of the truck like pollen to the ground on a summer day. Dane kept his gaze forward as he navigated an older neighborhood. Darby wasn’t the smallest town in the county, but it wasn’t the largest, either. This was one of the three neighborhood clusters within the town limits. It was also the oldest. All the strings of houses they passed revealed their age. Almost all of them showed disrepair, while some showed signs of renovation. It was also typically a neighborhood that housed a mostly older generation of residents. Not a popular children’s or young family’s neighborhood, if Dane wasn’t mistaken.

      “Does Lonnie live with his grandparents?” Dane asked. “I wasn’t there when he was picked up and can’t remember