Page 77 of Never Stay Gone
“Will do. And Wayne? Thanks.”
“I’m glad you called, Dakota. We’ll figure this out.”
Chapter Nineteen
Shane?
The text came through early in the afternoon, from Shelly’s phone. Shane stared at the screen, not moving, not blinking. Not knowing what to do.
I just heard. OMFG. I was with Shelly last night. Fuck, fuck.
Not Shelly. Shane’s breath left him in a rush.Who is this?he texted back.
Shit, sorry. This is Danielle. I don’t have your number, I just texted you from Shelly’s phone. I didn’t think. I can’t think right now. Jesus. I’m sorry.
Sheshouldbe sorry. Fuck, his heart was racing. Shane breathed in. Held it. Breathed out.You were with Shelly last night?
Yes. She called me after… Well, you know. We were drinking and talking.
Shane’s eyes closed until his phone vibrated again.
Shane… She said some things last night. About you guys, and about you.
The things Shelly could say.She wasn’t happy. You know that.He frowned.Why do you have Shelly’s phone?
We got a little tipsy and needed some more cigarettes. I drove her to the truck stop, then drove her home. I found her phone in my car this morning.
The truck stop. Jesus Christ.
Look, can we talk? Those things she said… Can you come out to the ranch? At the very least, I need to give you Shelly’s phone, but I can’t drive right now. Not with the news.
Damn it. He should call Heath, or Brian, or Dakota, and pass Danielle off to them. He wasn’t supposed to be involved in the investigation into Shelly’s murder. But… Danielle was Shelly’s friend, one of her best friends—and was this about the investigation, or about him? It made sense that Shelly had called Danielle to commiserate. Danielle had probably congratulated Shelly on dumping Shane, had probably asked why it took her so long. Shelly might not have held back with her suspicions about Shane either.Shane, are you—
Even with all of that… they had both loved her. Differently, but they’d both cared about Shelly, and both of them were mourning now.
All day, the walls of the sheriff’s department had been closing in on Shane, the room growing smaller and smaller as his chest got tighter and the oxygen seemed to flee. Talking to Detective Cruz had only made things worse.
Dakota’s voice had been like a pressure release valve. Shane had stopped wanting to claw his own skin off for thirty minutes after Dakota’s call.
Maybe getting out was what he needed. He’d go to Danielle’s, and they could share memories of Shelly. He’d also probably have to listen to Danielle’s questions, questions like the ones Shelly had asked.Shane, are you—
Yes, Shelly. I’m gay. I loved you, but not the way you needed a man to love you. I’m sorry.
Shane grabbed his hat and his keys and stood unsteadily. His knee was wobbling like his ligaments were rubber bands, his bones nothing but jelly. He’d barely been able to walk from Heath’s office to his desk earlier. He limped out, locking up behind him and putting the “Be Right Back” sign on the sheriff’s department door, along with the phone number for dispatch that went straight to the on-call deputy’s cell phone. He forwarded that responsibility to Brian.
On the way to his truck, he called Dakota. He’d scribbled down the number when Dakota’s call came through earlier. “Hey. It’s Shane. I got a text from Shelly’s best friend, Danielle. I’m going out to see her at her ranch, east of Rustler, off Highway 90.” He wanted to ask DakotaHow’s it goingorAre you okayorHave you caught the son of a bitch who did this yet, but he didn’t. Heath was right. He wanted to remember Shelly the way she was. Laughing at something Shane had said and laying her hand across his forearm as she leaned into his side. He wanted to remember her full of life, like she was frozen in sunlit amber.
Shane waited for five minutes, but Dakota didn’t respond. He was probably swamped. There’d been a murder, after all.
Shane squeezed his eyes closed and gripped the steering wheel. A frantic curl wound through him, the bleeding edge of an urge to scream, to beat his hands against the wheel, to drive into the desert as fast as he could, as far as he could. If it weren’t for Dakota, he’d already be at the edge of a mesa by now.
He shifted into drive and eased away from the curb.
Danielle and her husband lived on a modest spread outside Rustler, in between town and the truly huge ranches rolling across West Texas. They kept horses, mostly for fun, though Danielle’s husband had said he was going to try his hand at raising and selling some too. Shelly and Danielle used to go riding around the ranch, and every time, Shelly came home smelling like hay and sunshine, full of dreams of him and her owning their own piece of land. Like everything else, it had fallen into thelatercategory.
He turned onto the loose gravel drive, winding his way slowly up the half-mile track to their home. Fields rolled in gentle hills to his left and right, filled with bunches of knee-high scrub grass and pockets of black-eyed Susans. The ground was just rumpled enough to hide the home from the highway and catch the breezes that rolled down off the Fort Cleary Mountains. It was a beautiful spread.
The house was a prewar build that had been patched and updated and renovated in fits and starts. It had all the mismatched parts and pieces of a dream farmhouse: a wraparound porch, a breezy kitchen overlooking the fields, a tumbling vegetable garden wreathed in chicken wire near a rippling duck pond. The porch steps came down to a teardrop of flat earth worn bare by trucks and horse trailers. Both Danielle’s SUV and her husband’s truck were parked there.
