Loretta MacCready had not reached the age of fifteen without realizing a thing or two.
The essential truth about Deputy United States Marshal Raylan Givens was that he was a creature of habit, and a man who kept his word. He saved her life after that creep tried to kidnap her. Raylan gave her a cell phone and told her to call him any time day or night and he would drop what he was doing and come for her. He was a man of his word, he came for her that night she found what happened to her daddy, and he saved her life again. And later he got himself shot saving her from screwing her entire life up forever.
He helped her into the foster system. Despite the unpleasant attitude of the state social workers who viewed any man with suspicion, Raylan had left her the phone, he topped it up from time to time, and he would take her out once a month to the local Dairy Queen where she could eat her own weight in ice cream if she wanted. While he indulged in a vanilla cone and gently probed her about her life as a foster child.
Sure, from time to time he blew her off their monthly frozen treat because he was working. But he always called her, either to apologise or move the time.
He never forgot her or failed her.
Then he didn't show on their appointed Sunday. By Monday afternoon he hadn't called. By Monday evening she had called him three times, it was going straight to voicemail.
She felt annoyed, but couldn't leave him a pissed off message, because this was Raylan. So she kept trying.
By midnight she knew. Something was wrong.
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He had, if he was being honest, walked into this one with his eyes open. Sharon had called, and he had jumped. Fear of not being able to provide for his daughter was eating away at him.
Now it looked like he wasn't going to live to see her born.
His head hung forward, chin resting on his chest. His wrists were bound together, fastened up high above his head, they still throbbed, he could feel his fingers, stiff and sore. His legs were cramping, his calves bound to his thighs forcing him to kneel. He hurt so much, all over his body, but even that pain was beginning to fade. He knew it wouldn't be long now.
Tears rolled slowly down his cheeks for all that he was about to lose. They were the last vestige of warmth he felt as the black enveloped him and he lost consciousness.
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First thing Tuesday morning, Loretta dug in her tattered little purse for Raylan's precious card. Even though his numbers were programmed into her phone, she wanted the general office number. She wanted to speak to his boss.
She dialed and waited in a fever of impatience for an answer. Secretary, hold the line, she fidgeted from foot to foot.
Mullen.
A gruff voice answered, she recalled older man, Kentucky but not Harlan, "Raylan's missing. You gotta go look for him." She launched into her speech before she could forget and make a mess of it.
Miss… He paused, she could almost hear his thought processes. Who is this?
"Loretta MacCready." She snapped. She could hear it in his voice, he wasn't going to do anything. "Raylan was meeting me Sunday afternoon. He missed. He always calls me if he's gonna miss. I tried his cell it just goes to voicemail."
Miss MacCready, she could hear the frown in his voice and under any normal circumstances she would worry about how much trouble she was getting her protector into, but these were not normal circumstances. Raylan was missing. He could be hurt, stuck somewhere and he couldn't get help. Marshal Givens is suspended from this office…
"I know that." She cried impatiently. "He was going to meet me, buy me ice cream, he missed, and he never called, he never misses without calling." He's just not listening to her, and she can feel her frustration build. If she was an adult he would listen to her.
She wanted to say more, but her foster mother was at the foot of the stairs shouting about the school bus, and getting the younger children ready, and he wasn't listening to her, with a frustrated huff she rang off.
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Art Mullen replaced the receiver. He hadn't known that Raylan was still seeing the MacCready girl. He could hear the hitch in her breathing as she begged him to look for Raylan. Clearly Miss MacCready had something of a hero worship going on.
Well Art was not about to dash in, Raylan was still on suspension, and the chances were he had planned to be away and had just forgotten his ice cream date with Loretta.
They had a lot on their plate, being down a man in such a small office was mighty inconvenient. He simply didn't have the resources to chase such flimsy evidence.
He picked up the phone and dialed. Raylan's phone went to voicemail, as Loretta said it would. Art left a message, telling Raylan to call him back. When Raylan's suspension was finally over, he would have to have a long talk with Raylan about inappropriate friendships and becoming involved with cases outside of the office.
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Loretta was through messing around. Raylan's boss and co-workers wanted proof. Well she would get it. She had a library period at eleven. Which was her opportunity to set her plan in motion.
Constable Bob Sweeney loved Raylan and his badass ways. Loretta knew Constable Bob, and she knew what would appeal to his sense of justice.
Tracking Constable Bob down was child's play to a determined young woman with imagination and newly acquired computer skills.
He didn't want to be involved, he didn't want to help her, but then she told him it was all for Raylan. That may be it would save Raylan's life and he agreed to meet her and help her.
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Bob Sweeney was surprised to learn that Loretta knew where Raylan lived, and even more surprised when she told him exactly where Raylan's hidden spare key was.
He said as much.
She huffed at that. "Raylan tol' me anytime I didn't feel comfortable with the foster family that I was to go to his place and call my social worker from there." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Raylan saved my life. THREE TIMES." She was working to keep the tremble out of her voice. "He's the only one who cares a damn about me." It broke a little then, and she could feel the tears start to fall. They took her daddy from her, and Raylan had filled the gap, he cared. She wasn't going to lose him too.
Bob patted her hand, debated whether or not to give her a hug, but she pushed him hard. "Go look." She hung her head, being rude would not find her friend, "please."
Bob muttered something about jurisdiction and this not being his place, but he got out of the battered old Gremlin and headed into the bar.
It was midday, and the place was roughly half full, easy enough to slip up to Raylan's tiny little apartment unseen. The spare key was exactly where Loretta said it would be. The place was cold, it had an unused feel to it, which said to Bob that no one had been in there for at least a couple of days. That made sense, if Raylan went out on Saturday night… and never came back.
There was a small notepad and a pencil by the phone. Bob twisted it and turned it trying to see if there was anything written on it. Silently thanking the Hardy Boys books he had read as a child, Bob picked up the pencil.
Very carefully he shaded over the indentations, it was an address, not one that Bob recognized, but then he wasn't in Lexington very often. Bob's position didn't pay much, but he made extra on every notice he served and his private security deals and watching brief kept him going. Enough to buy a GPS unit.
He pulled his notepad out of his pocket and wrote the address down. Leaving Raylan's notepad on the table. If anyone came looking they would be pissed that he had interfered with evidence.
Dammit, Raylan. He sighed irritably.
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The address was an out of the way house on the north east side of Lexington, large houses set back from the road, horse farms, not the sort of place that Bob would have expected Raylan to find trouble in, but Loretta wasn't about to give up.
"I'll just go on up and take a look around, if anyone sees me I'll say I'm lookin' for my dog."
"now… I don't know about that…" Bob was about to give his unexpected passenger the benefit of a piece of his mind, when she slipped out of the car and was off up the drive before he could say a word.
Bob thumped the steering wheel "well shit!".
This was way out of his comfort zone. If it was Raylan, he would be fine because he could just follow Raylan's lead, but this was Loretta and a whole different kettle of fish. So he was going to call her, and she wouldn't be happy when she answered, but he couldn't do this on his own.
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Raejeanne Givens listened patiently to Bob's garbled explanation. She was perfectly calm when he finished, and Bob rather thought that was the most terrifying part. She didn't yell at him. She just announced that she would be with him by nine pm and then if he had not found Raylan by then, they would be lighting a fire under law enforcement in the state of Kentucky. In the meantime he was to keep Loretta safe.
Bob hung up the phone and pondered exactly how he was going to do that, before a whirlwind named Raejeanne Givens arrived.
He had the feeling that this Jeannie being out of the bottle might not be a good thing.