by Janie Crouch
“We’ve already got Ronnie standing guard over at New Journeys,” he said. “The kids are safe.”
“Jared’s tracker just went offline,” Bree told him.
“What does that mean, exactly?” Noah asked.
Bree looked at him and then at Marilyn. “Technically, it means we no longer know exactly where Jared is.”
When Tanner walked in a few moments later, some of Bree’s tension eased. He looked calm, not panicked the way she felt. He was on the phone with someone. Cassandra, always in wedding-planner mode, threw a blanket over Bree’s wedding dress on the couch.
“I’ll call Sowers myself if that’s okay with you, Marshal, just to double check. I’ve got his number.” Tanner nodded as he listened to whatever the marshal was saying. “Will do. Thanks for calling us first.”
Tanner ended the call. “Adam Sowers, one of the marshals I met personally two days ago, is already on scene. Everything is okay. Sowers was nearby when Jared’s alarm went off and he got the call. He immediately went to Jared’s town house, arriving within two or three minutes of the alarm. Jared was still there.”
“The monitor is offline now,” Bree said.
“Yes, Sowers confirmed this. Evidently Jared developed some sort of rash under the monitor. He was trying to loosen it to keep it from chafing and knocked it offline.”
“You met this guy Sowers, and he’s on the up-and-up?” Noah said.
Bree was already sitting down at her computer. She wanted to know everything there was to know about this Adam Sowers. There wasn’t time to go through legal channels, so she just wasn’t going to mention what she was doing to her husband-to-be.
“Yeah,” Tanner said. “He’s young. Enthusiastic about the job and about making a difference. I’m going to call him myself right now.”
Bree didn’t pay attention to Tanner’s call. Tanner was much better at telling if someone was lying than she would be. She was good at digging up facts.
By the time Tanner was off the phone with Sowers a few minutes later, Bree was feeling much better about him too. Sowers seemed to be exactly what Tanner had said. He’d been out of the police academy and part of the marshals’ office for two and a half years. He was married with a six-month-old daughter. No indication of any sort of questionable finances, infidelity or bad habits.
“Sowers is a good cop. I believe him,” Tanner said from across the room.
“I concur,” Bree said, closing her laptop.
Tanner narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t even tell me what you were doing. Do not make me arrest you the night before we’re getting married.”
“Moi?” She gave him her most innocent shrug, and he just rolled his eyes. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t arrest her, but not 100 percent.
But at least it broke the tension in the room.
“It’s really safe?” Marilyn asked.
“Jared will either go into holding until the ankle monitor can be fixed or someone will keep him under surveillance.” Tanner gave Marilyn a kind smile. “We’ll be notified if anything changes.”
She still looked pretty worried, and after what she’d been through, Bree couldn’t blame her.
Bree came over and rubbed Marilyn’s shoulder. “This actually reassures me that the monitor is working the way it’s intended. I don’t doubt that Jared was probably trying to test it out and see if the cops came running to his door if he tried to remove it. Now he knows it works and they will.”
Tanner slipped an arm around Bree’s waist. “And we might be able to use this with Judge Osborne to get Jared moved back into jail until the trial. The judge isn’t going to put up with this nonsense.”
“I know I was supposed to hang over here with you tonight,” Marilyn said. “But I just need to go check on the kids.”
Bree pulled Marilyn in for a hug. “I’m fine. Go be with your kids. I totally understand. I’ll just see you bright and early in the morning.”
A midmorning wedding had seemed like such a romantic idea at the time Bree had let Cassandra and Cheryl talk her into it. And Bree had to admit that watching the sun make its way past her beloved Rockies was definitely her favorite time of day.
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. Get some sleep.” Marilyn pointed at Tanner. “And you get out of here. You’re not allowed to stay with her, because we all know what’s going to happen if you do.”
Tanner smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”
Cassandra grabbed her jacket. “I’m going to head home to my family too. Wrap that dress back up as soon as we leave and hang it on your bedroom door. No point in inviting disaster. I cannot even think of red wine coming anywhere near it.”
“Fine. I’ll keep it safe, I promise.” Marilyn hugged her again and Noah escorted her out the door, Cassandra right behind them.
Tanner walked to the door himself, then turned back.
“I don’t suppose I could talk you into letting me see that dress,” he said with a smile.
“Nope. Cassandra and Marilyn would both kill me. They think it’s the most beautiful thing since sliced bread.”
Tanner laughed but then the smile fell from his face. “But you don’t?”
This was going to be the problem with being married to such a good cop. She wasn’t going to be able to hide stuff from him. “You know me, not big on dressing up in girlie stuff.”
“How about you wear that dress for me tomorrow morning at our wedding and I’ll make it worth your while tomorrow night.”
He held open his arms, ignoring his stiff shoulder, and she walked into them. “It’s a deal.” One she definitely didn’t mind making. “And the dress is beautiful. It’s gorgeous, even.”
“You are what will make it gorgeous. It wouldn’t matter what you wear.”
He kissed her. Soft, sweet, light. The same sort of kiss he’d started with her all those months ago.
“That’s our last kiss when we’re not husband and wife,” she whispered when they finally broke apart.
He leaned his forehead against hers. “I promise, the kisses just get better from here. But now I better get going or not only will that not be our last kiss—I might really decide I want one more last something else before we get married.”
She gave him a scandalized grin. “What would Marilyn say?”
He smiled too and cupped her cheeks. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll be the one in white.”
“I can’t wait. Lock the door behind me.” He kissed her on the forehead and walked out the door.
Bree locked it, then turned and walked over to the couch and pulled the blanket off her dress. It really was beautiful. Not her maybe, but beautiful. It would make Tanner proud of how she looked when he saw her in it. And that was close enough to perfect for her.
She walked into the small bedroom to get the plastic garment bag.
A knock on the door had her turning away. Maybe it was Marilyn having decided to come back. Good. She could help Bree get the dress into the garment bag. Or maybe it was Tanner wanting more kisses—that was even better.
But when she opened the door it was neither. Jared Ellis stood on her doorstep.
After a moment of shock, she tried to slam the door in his face, but he was too quick. His backhand caught her across the cheek, and she stumbled backward. He quickly took the opportunity to enter her apartment, closing the door behind him.
“You’re going to help me get my wife back.”
Bree spun around, running for her phone. Tanner couldn’t be but half a block away. One message and he’d be back here in under a minute.
But then Jared pulled out a gun.
“If you grab that phone, I’m going to have to shoot you. That’s going to be inconvenient for me and painful for you.”
She was tempted to go for the phone anyway. Given what she knew about Jared, being shot may be more of a mercy
than some of the other things he was capable of.
He grabbed her and threw her onto the couch—onto her beautiful wedding dress—before she could make a decision.
“How did you fool the monitoring system?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the gun still trained at her.
Bree wasn’t conceited, but she found it nearly impossible to think that this guy had found a way around the system that she had missed.
“It’s all about weaknesses,” Jared said. “Pressure points in the system. I’m very good at finding pressure points.”
“The system didn’t have any pressure points. I searched it myself.”
He gave a shrug and cocky half grin. “The computer system wasn’t the weakness. It only needed to be circumvented.”
He pulled up the leg of his khaki pants to show the monitor was gone.
“So that alarm I got was correct. You had taken it off. You must have bribed Sowers. He lied about you still being in Denver.”
Jared shrugged. “Bribe is not really the correct word. Like I said, I’m very good at finding pressure points. Sowers’s is his wife and newborn daughter. Once I applied a little pressure to that point, he was willing to do whatever I wanted, including say he was still with me if anybody called.”
His eyes were so cold. So dead. This man was a sociopath.
He pointed the gun a little closer at her. “I’m going to need you to call my Marilyn.”
There was no way in hell.
“She won’t answer. Thanks to your little stunt, when we got the alarm that there was something wrong with your ankle monitor, she went into hiding with the kids.”
His eyes narrowed. “But surely she’ll come if her dear friend needs her the night before the wedding. Maybe tell her you got cold feet, you need her to help you figure out what you should do.”
“You don’t think she’s going to be a little suspicious of that? An hour ago I couldn’t wait to get married, then all of a sudden I’m calling saying I’m about to skip town? Oh, and it just happens to be when there was indication that you were messing with your ankle monitor. Hmm, I wonder if she’ll be suspicious about that at all. I wonder if maybe she’ll go to the police. I wonder if maybe you’ve underestimated Marilyn for way too many years and she’s never going to put herself in a position where you have control over her again.”
Bree spit the words out and finally got some real emotion in his eyes. Anger.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she lied with a steady voice.
But she was. He had a gun. And she might know some self-defense moves, but most of them weren’t going to do much good against someone determined to shoot her.
Jared shook his head. “Marilyn used to be a lot more like you when I first met her. Feisty. Wanted to fight back. But eventually I taught her to heel. She’s very well trained now. Which is why I am, in fact, going to need you to call her and get her to come over.”
Bree stood. No matter what he threatened, Bree wasn’t going to allow Marilyn to put herself back in this man’s clutches. “Even if she would come, which I don’t think she’s stupid enough to do, I won’t do it. I won’t call her. You’ll have to shoot me.”
For a second she thought he was actually going to do it, but a knock on the door stopped him.
“Bree, it’s me. I couldn’t leave you on the night before your wedding.”
Bree’s eyes met Jared’s cold ones.
It was Marilyn.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tanner walked into Micky’s, one of the two bars in Risk Peak. He’d had his first legal drink here when he turned twenty-one. It was only right that he’d have his last drink as a single man here also.
Noah would be buying him both.
“Marilyn and the kids okay?” he asked Noah as his brother joined him at the booth. “Can’t blame Marilyn for being nervous after everything that’s happened in the last week.”
“Yep. Kids were sound asleep.”
Tanner took a sip of his beer. “The way Marilyn looked when that alarm went off about Jared’s monitor… I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d taken the kids and fled the country.”
“I’m trying to give her whatever she needs to work through this at her own pace.” Noah spun his beer around between his fingers. “But believe me, it’s only out of respect for you that this situation hasn’t already been completely handled.”
“Let the justice system work its process.” But Tanner grimaced even as he said it.
“What was that look for?”
“In some ways I would totally approve of you handling it yourself. I got the case files. I know Marilyn told us some about what Ellis did to her, but it’s bad, Noah.”
Noah stared down into his beer. “She’s told me a little. Sick stuff. The physical abuse was what got him arrested, but the other stuff he did to her…” He trailed off. “And I don’t even think she’s told me all of it.”
“Then I’m sure most of it isn’t in the police report either. But hell, what is in the report is bad enough. Jared should be looking at eight to ten years.”
Noah shook his head. “Not long enough, if you ask me.”
“It’s too bad we can’t pin the stuff in the wilderness on him. Whitaker is still looking into that. He’s gotten warrants to go through Paul Wyn and George Pearson’s phone records and texts. If he can tie it to Jared, you know he will.”
“Good. Accessory to attempted murder is going to hold a much longer sentence, I’m assuming.”
“Yeah, and that would be much better because I really don’t like how Oscar Stobbart seems so confident about the case. That Jared won’t see jail time.”
“That’s his job, right? Hell, someone who’s as good at this sleazy lawyer stuff as he is knows that the appearance of confidence can get them a long way.”
“I thought that too. But it’s almost like they have a plan. They aren’t worried at all. And that worries me. I know confidence is his business, but I have no idea how Oscar can look at this evidence and be so sure Jared’s not going to jail.”
“Maybe they plan on paying off jurors or something. I know most of Jared’s accounts are frozen, but you know he has to have stuff stashed away somewhere.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’d be great at finding the weakest link in jurors.” Tanner took a sip of beer, another thought coming to his head. “Or maybe they don’t plan on going to trial at all.”
“You mean making a run for it?” Noah’s eyes lit up, and Tanner knew he relished the chance to go after Ellis if he ran.
Tanner shook his head. “He would have to go before the trial, but the ankle monitor is unhackable. Bree would’ve found it. You saw how quickly her program worked to let us know Jared had even messed with it tonight. There are no weak links in the computer system.”
Damn it. Of course not. Jared knew that.
Jared wouldn’t be looking in the computer system for weakness. He’d be looking for weakness in people.
At the end of the day, Jared Ellis was a bully. He wouldn’t try to buy people off when attempting to get them to do what he wanted them to do. He would use what he knew worked best. Force.
Tanner pulled out his phone and hit Send on the last call he’d made.
Noah had already noticed Tanner’s tension and was pushing his drink to the side. “Who are you calling?”
“A hunch. It may not lead anywhere.”
Noah just nodded.
The call went straight to voice mail. Tanner tried it again, but the same thing happened. Sowers wasn’t answering.
“Adam Sowers, the guy who was checking on Jared, isn’t answering.”
“You think that means a problem?”
“I just don’t like it,” Tanner said. He tried one more time for good measure, but still nothing.
His next call was to Marshal Brickman to see if So
wers had checked in.
“Dempsey. I don’t have any new information for you. I assure you, as soon as I have info, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Marshal, has Sowers checked in? I just tried to reach him on his phone and there was no answer multiple times. I was wondering if you’d heard from him.”
“I personally haven’t. Hold while I get in touch with the appropriate person.”
Tanner pushed his beer to the side as he waited for the marshal to come back. He’d definitely lost his taste for it.
“Nobody has heard from him. I’m sending someone over to Ellis’s house right now.”
But if Jared was doing what Tanner was afraid he might be doing, sending more officers to the town house wasn’t necessarily going to help.
“Instead of sending someone to Ellis’s place, will you send someone over to check on Sowers’s wife and baby?”
There was silence from Marshal Brickman for a long moment. “What exactly do you think is happening?”
“I’m just wondering if maybe Jared Ellis didn’t find a weakness none of us were considering.”
“Adam Sowers is a good man. A good cop.”
“Everybody has their weakness. We all know that’s true.”
Marshal Brickman muttered a curse. “Fine. I’ll keep you posted if we find anything of interest.”
Noah was already paying for the beers by the time Tanner disconnected the call.
“This all may be nothing,” he told his brother. “I could be grasping at things that aren’t there.”
“Until we know that for sure, I think we need to head back to New Journeys. No harm in checking on Marilyn and the kids and standing guard there until we have multiple eyewitness accounts that Ellis is, in fact, still in Denver.”
“I don’t want to get Marilyn nervous if there’s no reason to.”
Noah shook his head. “Believe me, I don’t want to either.”
They rode together in Tanner’s SUV to New Journeys. Both of them were checking the darkness for anything unfamiliar, person or otherwise, as they walked to the door. Tanner rang the bell, keeping his face clearly in range of the security camera so whoever was checking it would know it was him. Within just a few seconds the door was opening.