Last, his house was fucking fantastic. Big rooms. Lots of windows. Lots of places to be inside and out. Fabulous views. It’d been dated when he bought it so he updated all the baths, the kitchen and the flooring. His mother wanted to decorate it so he let her but went with her to guide her hand. Shopping was something he could give or take, usually give, but his mother loved to do it, she loved to be with her son, he enjoyed being with her so it was something they could do together. He couldn’t say he wanted to do it again. He could say it turned out well.

That said, the woman that he decided to put in his house would be encouraged to make it a house she wanted to live in. If she wanted a new state of the art kitchen, the trust would cover it. If she wanted to add on a room where she could sew or knit or whatever the fuck (in Faye’s case, a place where she could have quiet to read), he’d use the trust to give it to her. Whatever it was, she’d have it and he kept the money aside for that purpose as well as the two others.

A family, a wife who had what she wanted, a home.

All Chace ever wanted. Something his grandparents, both dead, would have been pleased as fuck he used the money they gave him to have.

When Misty lived there, she’d put her stamp on it. This was another attempt to win Chace, making what she said, “his house theirs”. Along with all her other attempts, this backfired.

She hadn’t worked when they were married but Chace didn’t give her money to keep herself. The money she had was from nefarious sources. It was soiled money.

They did not share her soiled money in a joint account. She bought herself what she wanted and Chace had no input.

When she’d died, Chace was left with everything. Her money, her belongings, all of it. He’d given it all away. Her parents took her personal belongings and the rest went to a couple different charities.

His thoughts made him sigh, he took a sip from his coffee and scanned the landscape he had long since memorized but it didn’t mean he didn’t still gain some peace or wasn’t quietly moved by the scenery.

This was a feeling he liked having back. He’d lost it when Misty was in the house, a place he escaped as often as he could. He didn’t sit on his porch and drink coffee when Misty was around. He didn’t take the time to gaze at the view when he was coming or going. He dreaded coming home and he was always in a hurry to leave.

Taking another sip of coffee, as usual whenever his mind was on Misty, it drifted from her to when Chace had approached IA. He informed them of what was happening at CPD, his willingness to make it stop and he’d taken his pay packets to them.

Every officer on Arnie Fuller’s personal team got a packet once a month, the size determined by what they could fleece from local businesses and blackmail out of powerbrokers. Chace had accepted his because it would have been suspect if he did not.

He was a willing foot soldier as far as they knew.

He drew the line at approaching local businesspeople and forcing their donations to the Carnal Police Widows and Orphans fund. He also drew the line at being a blackmail go-between. He explained this to Arnie by showing him the wisdom of folks in town thinking there might be one or two honest cops on the payroll. Arnie had fallen for it so of all of the muck Chace had to swim through and the other filth he had to turn a blind eye to, at least he was clean of that garbage.

But he’d placed every envelope in a safety deposit box in a bank in Chantelle and handed all of them over to IA when they’d launched the undercover investigation.

There was nearly fifty thousand dollars in those packets. Six years of being on the take. IA made sure it was leaked to the media that Chace had turned in his money. They set him up as the poster boy for all that was good and right in law enforcement. They wanted no one to have any doubts so they set about making that so, using Chace to do it. Although it was true, in fact, everything they shared with the media was true, just selectively chosen as to what they’d share, it wasn’t anyone’s business. The way they shared it made it seem like he was some sort of white knight with a sword endowed with mystical powers, which he was not.

Luckily all that had died down, as it usually does, the infested personnel had been fired or incarcerated and replaced and the town seemed to be settling, slowly but they were doing it.

Which brought Chace to his plans for the day. Grocery shopping for the weekend and his meet with Tate Jackson.

Tate was part owner of Bubba’s bar but he was mostly a bounty hunter. He had once been a cop. So when the citizens of Carnal had a problem they couldn’t trust the police to handle they went to Tate. Tate, a good cop who never got dirty under Arnie’s rule, a good man, always did what he could.

Since Chace’s unexpected meeting with Clinton Bonar, Tate had been out of town after a skip. Chace had phoned him and told him they needed a meet as soon as he was home. Frank Dolinski knew about Bonar. To cover his bases, Chace needed Tate to know as well as a select few other men in town.

Tate got home yesterday.

They were meeting that afternoon.

On this thought, and another sip of coffee, something caught the corner of Chace’s eye and he turned his head to gaze at the lone road that wound through the ranchland around his house. Seeing as the area between Carnal and the base of the mountain where Chace lived only had one road, Chace knew every car or truck that came down that road. Living there eight years, he even knew the vehicles of friends and family members.

This was not one of those vehicles.

It was a black Jeep Wrangler.

Chace reckoned he knew who was in that Wrangler.

The Goodknight family was a Jeep family. Faye, Sondra and Silas all drove Jeeps of varying ages.

Silas drove a black Wrangler.

Watching Faye’s father’s approach, sipping coffee, preparing for what was to come next, vaguely it occurred to Chace that Faye and Sondra, when it came to cars, were like mother like daughter. Their cars were not new. Faye had never upgraded hers that he knew of. Sondra took over Silas’s vehicles when he was done. By the look of her and the way she acted the times he saw her, no nonsense, busy and active, she probably didn’t care what she drove just as long as it got her where she wanted to go.

Chace watched Silas drive through the doublewide opening in the white picket fence at the end of Chace’s lane which led to a fenced off enormous backyard. The rest of his land was unfenced. He liked the land, the space, the quiet, the peace. He didn’t give a fuck if the livestock of his neighbors wandered onto his land. If they chewed the grass it meant Chace didn’t have to mow the shit.

But that white picket fence was what sold him on this property and he sanded it and painted it once every two years. Any time there was a repair needed, he saw to it as soon as he could and he walked the fence occasionally just to check. The house was big, you could build a family there, you could add to it if you needed more room. But that long, white, rectangular line of fence surrounding it, delineating it, creating a yard, circling and highlighting the house made it seem like a home.

Chace waited until Silas made it to the end of the lane and stopped close to the house before he took his feet off the railing. He rose as Silas threw open his door. He walked to the top of the steps and leaned a shoulder against the white painted porch post as Silas made his way up the cleared of snow flagstone walk Chace laid six years ago.

“Mr. Goodknight,” he called when Silas was halfway up the walk and Silas, eyes to his boots, lifted a hand and kept up the path.

Only when he stopped at the bottom of the steps did his crystal blue eyes rise to Chace.

“Call me Silas, Detective Keaton,” he invited.

Chace jerked up his chin and returned, “Chace.”

Silas jerked up his own chin then tipped his head to Chace’s coffee mug. “Got more ‘a that?”

As answer, Chace turned and walked to the house, opening the storm door, the front door and moving through, turning to hold the storm door open for Silas to follow.

He did and in they went, Chace leading the way over the oak floors that led to the back of the house that he’d laid four years ago when Misty was on a two week vacation to visit a friend in Maryland.

Left side, a big dining room with rectangular table. The room had hints of western, hints of country, all of it with an underlying class that was all his mother.

Right side was what his mother liked to call the formal living room. Chace wasn’t formal so the room had two comfortable burgundy couches facing each other with more hints of western, none at all of country which his mother referred to as “the formal part”.

Chace moved through a deep, wide archway as he led Silas into the vast space that made up a big kitchen and family room.

The kitchen had an island in the middle with a five burner stove and so much counter space it served as a kitchen table that could comfortably seat a family of eight. The island was a showstopper but so was the massive picture window over the sink at the back of the house.

The family room had an enormous sectional, three sides which were essentially three full couches. Big flat screen TV. Shelves filled with books, CDs, DVDs. And a stone hearth fireplace in the corner.

Off the kitchen leading toward the front of the house was the pantry, a hidden entry to the dining room and doors to a utility room and the garage.

Straight ahead from the wide hall that flowed from the front of the house to the back, there were doublewide French windows that led to the back deck.

Chace went directly to the coffeepot, asking, “How do you take it?”

“Seein’ as Sondra ain’t here, three sugars and a healthy dose of half and half.”

Chace put down his mug, opened the cupboard and reached for another one as Silas continued to speak to his back.

“On me all the time, Sondra is. Her Dad had a heart attack so she’s got it in her head I’ll have one. I run two miles a day. Do my sit ups, pull ups, pushups every day. Work outside most of the time. Got ten acres to take care of. And three kids that may be grown but that don’t mean I don’t lend a hand. I do all this so I can enjoy half and half and sweet in my coffee. She doesn’t see the balance.”

Chace poured coffee and gave him the bad news. “I don’t have half and half. Just milk.”

“You don’t have half and half?”

His tone was off in a way that Chace couldn’t read but it still set him on edge. Or more on edge.

He looked over his shoulder at the man even as he reached for the sugar.

“No.”

Silas Goodknight locked eyes with him and announced, “My Faye, she puts half and half in her coffee. Hazelnut flavored.”

There it was. A feeler.

Chace and Faye were not seeing each other on the sly. By now, the whole town knew they were dating. Regardless, Faye had told Chace that she’d told her folks they were seeing each other when she was at dinner at their place last weekend.

Now, Silas Goodknight knew that his daughter was not waking up and making her coffee at Chace’s house.

Chace mentally added hazelnut flavored half and half to his grocery list and replied to Silas, “Buy her coffees at La-La Land, Silas. Know she likes hazelnut. Haven’t had occasion to see her usin’ half and half.”

Silas held his eyes a moment before murmuring, “Right.”

Chace turned away, prepared Silas’s coffee and handed the mug to the man before returning the milk to the fridge, tagging his own mug, turning toward him and resting his hips against the counter. Silas had the side of his hip to the island.

Neither man spoke as they both sipped.

Finally, Chace cut to it, “What brings you out this way, Silas?”

Silas moved his gaze from contemplating the view out the picture window to Chace.

“Been meanin’ to do it for a while so decided to do it. Wanted to tell you I admire what you did. That kinda thing doesn’t take bravery, it takes balls. Big ones. Not a lotta men would make the decision you made and carry it through. The kinda thing that was happening beats a man down. Most men think they have two choices and all the others took one of those two choices. Either he joins in or he cuts his losses and moves on. You didn’t do either ‘a those. You saw wrong bein’ done, stomached it for as long as you could then set about rightin’ it. Took guts. Took balls. Not a lotta men have either. You do. I admire that.”