Lost Souls by J. Bishop (the giving tree read aloud txt) 📗

bronze skin, hoping to talk to her, but her table was empty. She was gone.

Chapter Ten

Trick emerged from the shower, wiped down with a towel and wrapped it around his waist. He left the bathroom and headed into the small bedroom off the hall. The house was quiet, and Trick assumed Red hadn’t returned. Knowing his friend, Trick guessed Red was nursing a drink somewhere, and wanted to be alone. Not much had changed since their Ranger days; Red had done the same when a difficult or gruesome case got to him, and Trick knew to leave him be and let him have his reset time.

Trick’s ways of escaping were a bit more raucous. He’d get drunk, party, find a woman, and deal with the aftereffects for the next twenty-four hours. Forty-eight, now that he was older. Stopping at a mirror, he stared at himself. His jaw was shaded with stubble, his eyes drooped from the lack of sleep, but his lanky, muscular frame was still holding it together, although he may have lost some weight since Chad’s death.

He dropped the towel, threw on some sweats, and headed into Mason’s kitchen, hoping to find some food. Thinking there had to be a game on somewhere, he returned to the living room, but didn’t see a TV. “What in the…” he muttered to himself. He checked Mason’s room, too, finding it neat and tidy, but no television. “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Trick to himself. “Who the hell doesn’t have a TV?”

After finding his phone, he returned to the kitchen and found a music station. A George Strait song filled the silence, and he opened the fridge, immediately seeing a couple of beers on a shelf. “He’s not totally insane,” he said, grabbing a beer. He also saw what looked like leftover chicken and grabbed that, plus some cheese, mayo, and a tomato, and closed the fridge.

Listening to the music, he made himself a sandwich with some bread from the counter and drank his beer. The events of the day flickered through his mind, and he thought about the next day. They would talk to Chad’s boss and co-workers, and Mikey would do some digging into Lydia Stanford. He hoped to speak to the detectives investigating Chad’s murder, but unless someone had a smoking gun and was prepared to reveal it, Bevins and Winkler would likely offer little insight into proving Cissy’s innocence.

He held out some hope that if Lydia Stanford had a history of mental instability, and possibly violence, then maybe there was someone in her past that they could target as another potential suspect, and allow a jury an inch of reasonable doubt. He’d like to think Bevins and Winkler would be checking that angle as well, but if their sights were set on Cissy, then they could also find a way to use those issues against her.

His sandwich made, he returned the items to the refrigerator, grabbed his beer and sat to eat. His mind wandering, he thought of his own future. Once this case was done, and Cissy was either incarcerated or free, he’d have a decision to make, and it wouldn’t be an easy one. Remembering where he’d been a few weeks earlier, his belly tightened, and his appetite waned, but he hadn’t eaten much that day, and considering the weight he’d lost, he forced himself to finish the sandwich.

At least the phone and credit card records didn’t incriminate anyone, he thought to himself. That was one small bit of good news in a sea of bad. But then he thought of Chad having another phone, and his hope dwindled. Recalling his last conversation with Chad, he suspected his stepbrother had a second cell because when Chad had called him, the number had come up as unknown. Trick had asked him about it, but Chad had said it was a work phone. Work phone, or not, if Chad used that phone to talk to Lydia, and the cops had it, then that wouldn’t help Cissy. Although a good defense attorney would say those conversations made sense because they worked together, the prosecutor could seed doubt, especially with corroborating evidence of Chad’s affair. His only hope was that Lydia, or someone else, could have left something incriminating on the phone, either a message or a photo that could link them to Chad’s death, but there was no way to know. Had Lydia threatened Chad before she’d died? Could she have hired someone to hurt Chad?

Trick pushed his plate back and took a long pull on his beer, as Johnny Cash began to sing the next tune. Trick picked up his cell and stared at it, and checked the time. Red would be home soon, and his heart thumping, he debated making the call he was tempted to make. Cursing, he stood, picked up his plate and put it in the sink, then turned and leaned back against the counter. He thought of Chad and how much he missed him and recalled some of their exploits together. Although they’d seen less of each other since Chad had moved, and Trick had made some stupid mistakes, he’d still considered Chad family and believed Chad had felt the same. Trick couldn’t help but think of Red, too, and how losing his partner had cracked something inside him, and he’d been trying ever since to glue it back together, but the glue hadn’t held, and he’d lost the only job that had ever mattered to him.

Sadness and depression loomed, and he considered grabbing another beer from the fridge, but he’d told Red he’d keep it together on this case, and he was determined to do it. The last thing he needed was to scare Red off.

More ugly thoughts joined the others, and Trick wondered if it was worth all the effort. Maybe if he’d had the guts, he could just end it all, then he wouldn’t trouble anyone anymore.

A door slammed, and Trick jumped. The ugly thoughts vanished when