A little too eager, I bolted to the door, not even bothering to check the camera on my phone, praying it would be Gia on the other side.
My smile immediately faded when I saw two uniformed officers standing on my porch.
Fucking hell.
Sherriff Williams and Deputy Miller. Yeah. The two of them and I went way back.
“Afternoon, Tanner,” Sherriff Williams spoke first. He then waved hello.
I jutted my chin to them, which they took as a hello, but really my expression said fuck off. Especially to Deputy Miller.
“We got a call about a possible missing female seen in this area,” Miller chimed in. God, I hated that fucker. He always overenunciated and spoke slowly, like I was a goddamn idiot. Add to it the fact he was trying to get into my wife’s pants and I wanted to kill the bastard.
Fucking Hal.
“Mind if we come in and ask you a few questions?” I wanted to slap that smug smirk off Miller’s face.
I glanced at Williams, who actually looked pained to even be here. He wasn’t so bad and was actually friendly if we crossed paths in town. Older guy, nice wife, a few teenagers including Ellen, the friendly clerk learning ASL. “Can we come in and talk?” Williams then signed. Well damn. Maybe that’s why his daughter was learning. Seemed like he was, too.
Why the fuck not. It wasn’t really a request that I could say no to anyway. If I did, it would just look suspicious. And Williams was trying, so I'd play nice.
I opened the door wider, motioning them inside. Williams pulled off his hat and glanced around the place. “Looks nice now that it’s all finished.” He only signed the looks nice part, but again, good for him. Really, they should have someone on their force that could sign. I mean, they had people who spoke other languages.
“Thanks,” I signed, then motioned to the living room, offering them a seat.
“We’ll stand.” Miller puffed out his chest and looked down to Archie, whose hair was standing on end as he fixated on Miller with his teeth bared. I wanted to pet him and say good boy, hoping the asshole wouldn’t try to shoot my dog, claiming aggression. Wouldn’t put it past this dick.
Fine by me, but I was gonna sit. I walked over to my bar, sat on a stool, and grabbed my glass of whiskey, taking a long sip, glaring at him over the rim. My phone vibrated in my pocket and I held up one finger telling them to give me a second.
G: Mini-mart guy stopped by today when I let the dog out to pee. Explained to him I was the housecleaner and you weren’t home. Thanks for giving me the cleaning job. I really appreciate all you did for me.
Yeah. Thanks for the heads up, G. That is why I told her to stay the fuck inside. I rolled my eyes and re-pocketed my phone. At least she was smart enough to keep it vague; plus, now we had our stories straight.
“Man, this dog has never liked me,” Miller said, shaking his head at Archie, who was still giving him the stink-eye.
I couldn’t blame him.
“But I’ve learned. Came prepared this time.” He dug into his coat pocket and pulled out a few dog treats, and bent down, offering them to my pup. Archie couldn’t have been more thrilled—to try and snap his hand off, gobbling the treats in the process. And now that fucker was standing there, cradling his wounded hand, yelling at my dog and I wanted to kick the man’s teeth in.
“So, there is this woman that went missing from New York a few weeks ago, Gianna Giordano.” Williams dug into his pocket and pulled out a photo, sliding it over to me. “We got a report that she may be in this area, staying with you.”
I gave it a cursory glance, shook my head no, and handed him the paper back.
Miller snatched it. “Wanna take a longer look?” He asked, shaking the image in front of me.
Not really. I shook my head again. I had every angle of her face memorized. I knew every curve of her body all the way down to that cute little freckle on the inside of her thigh. Of course, I did my best to keep my face stone silent about all that.
“I haven’t seen her,” I signed to them and shook my head a third time.
“Bullshit. She was seen here today, and for the love of God, can you just drop the sign language?” Miller rolled his eyes. “We know you can talk and lip read.”
Yeah, but I didn’t like to make it easy on them, especially when he had the gall to do what he’d done. Why should I? They never made it easy on me. Never got me an interpreter when I begged for one during my wife’s investigation. That didn’t happen until the feds finally showed up and took over the case.
Williams placed a hand on Miller’s shoulder, telling him to stop it, then dug into his other pocket and pulled out a pen and paper, scrawled on it, then handed it to me. There was a woman seen here today who resembles her, and also in town with you last week, can you explain that?
Fine. He was trying, I’d give him that. I wrote back. Yeah. She looked similar, but not the same. Dark hair. Canadian. Named Gwen. Rented my other cabin. Asked for work. I paid her cash to clean the cabins. She blew town today. I handed him the pad back.
I watched as the two of them made a silent exchange. From what I could tell, Williams bought it. Miller not so much, but that dude never believed a word I said.
“Mind if we take a look around?” Williams asked. He couldn’t sign it, but he tried to make the question clear by pointing to his eyes and making a circle gesture in the air.
Yeah, I really did, but I just shook my head and waved my hand saying have at it. If I said no, they’d probably come back with a search warrant. No use delaying the inevitable. May as well play their game. They weren’t gonna find anything.
I sat there and nursed my drink while the two officers roamed my home. Williams took the downstairs while Miller went up. Finally, they met back up in my living room.
“What’s this?” Miller asked, holding up a baggie with a gloved hand and a stick of deodorant inside it.
I snorted and smirked, trying not to laugh, because it was rather ridiculous. That was his smoking gun? Deodorant? I made a gimme motion to Williams for the pen.
My sister was here last week. You want the flight details and car rental info? Her phone number so you can call her to confirm? Shopping receipts to see the brand of deodorant she wears?
“No, that’s not necessary,” Williams said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes at Miller, looking totally disappointed in his dumb fuck of a partner.
“You still have a crib upstairs and all that baby stuff? Why?” Miller reached into his back pocket and produced a tiny, yellow onesie with the I love you sign on the front. The very one given to me by Alex along with the pregnancy test to tell me she was expecting.
Williams snapped his gaze to Miller with a look that basically said what the fuck?
Oh, the hell he didn’t. I jumped off my seat and balled my fist, breathing heavy through my nose. Dude had some fucking nerve. I wanted to rip him apart limb by limb. And not just because he’d been seeing Alex. If they’d been better at their job, they may have found my wife before she’d gotten desperate and got out of her car to walk. They refused to even pull together all their resources until the storm blew over. Meanwhile, I drove through horrendous conditions and risked my own life to try and find her for days before they started the official search.