Bonaparte's Belle: A SEALs of Honor World Novel (Heroes for Hire Book 24)

by Dale Mayer

  “Well, we’ve got a few things,” she said. “But nothing that’ll hold them.”

  “Can’t we hold them long enough so he at least has to see the judge?”

  “Yep, I can do that,” she said, “and that’ll be Monday.”

  “Will we have the ballistics results back by then?”

  Chapter 8

  Angela looked up at Bonaparte in shock. “Yeah, no,” she said, with a headshake. “And that’s a hard no.”

  “Right,” he said, then shook his head. “I keep forgetting we have to play by the standard law enforcement rules, regulations, and departments.”

  “We sure do,” she said cheerfully. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Johnny’ll get to walk.”

  “It sure sounds like it to me.”

  “What I need,” she said, “is to talk to Isabel.”

  He thought about that and nodded. “Right. Any chance of getting her to testify?”

  “I’m not sure,” Angela said. “It depends how afraid she is about what she’s done.”

  “You think they’ll still hold that over her?”

  “Well, if you had good leverage like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yep,” he said, “definitely.”

  “Then you know what her answer is.” Angela smiled and said, “But I definitely need to talk to her. Who knows what all these guys have said and done, but they’ve clearly put the fear of God in her.”

  “If not, somebody else will be there soon.” He looked at her and said, “Shall we go pick her up?”

  “I just called her to come in, and she refused.”

  “Then we need to have another in-person talk.”

  “Yep. I was thinking we could just lock up these two and drive right back over again.”

  “Sounds good.” He marched the two men into the jail cells and watched with quiet satisfaction as the sheriff locked them up.

  When she tucked away the key, she said, “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “What about my lawyer?” Johnny called out.

  “Office hours are closed,” Angela said. “You’ll talk to him Monday.” And, with that, she closed the basement door with a definitive click.

  Bonaparte stared at her, with a look of absolute delight. “Oh, I do like that.”

  She winked at him. “I will have to come back and feed them later,” she said, “and they do have a urinal in there. But, other than that, they’re good to go until Monday morning.” In the distance she could hear them hollering. “It’s a trick we’ve often pulled,” she said, with a chuckle. “It all depends on what problems we have with people on whether we let them out fast or not.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I understand fully.” They quickly got into his vehicle, Angela was driving once more, and she went back to Isabel’s place.

  As they got out, he looked up and frowned. “Doesn’t look like anybody’s home.”

  Angela started to swear. “I sure hope she hasn’t run.”

  “And, if she did, where would Isabel go?”

  “I don’t know, but it would be the worst thing she could do.” Angela raced to the door and found it open. She called out, “Isabel?” But heard nothing except a weird empty hollowness.

  He swore and raced to the backyard, just as he heard a vehicle firing up. He bolted through the alleyway path to find Isabel pulling out from there. He opened the passenger door, scaring her. She shrieked, and he hopped inside and sat there.

  She looked at him, wild-eyed. “No, no, no, no!” she said. “I have to leave. You don’t understand. I have to leave now!”

  “I know that you’re involved a whole lot more than you’re willing to tell your friend—your friend who’s gone to bat for you,” he said in a hard voice. “And you were just gonna bail on her, and that’ll never sit well with me.”

  Isabel glared at him. “You don’t understand.”

  “I know you’re in trouble,” he said. “I understand that part really well.”

  “But you don’t know how much trouble,” she said, “and these guys are not fun to deal with.”

  “And, since you’ve already committed a crime, they’re leveraging it against you, right?”

  She nodded, sick, her expression revealing the level of stress she’d been under. “I didn’t do anything other than what my grandfather wanted,” she said. “It’s not fair.”

  “And who else was involved?”

  “My mom,” she said, “but we were both the recipients in the will anyway.”

  “So, you just slightly jumped it forward and went ahead with the property sale.”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “No, maybe not,” he said, “but it’s a fine line, isn’t it? Because, if Granddad had died, you would have just dealt with the courts.”

  “And who needed that?” she cried out.

  “Regardless of your bravado, you obviously feel like what you did was wrong because you keep falling into their blackmail schemes.”

  She stared at him in shock, and then her shoulders sagged, and she nodded. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “It absolutely is,” he said quietly. “And, once you fall into that trap, and they’ve got something on you, then you’re hooked. And so are they. Because now you’re somebody that they can wield as they need to. The question really is, how far are you willing to go, and how many other people in this town have they got in the same position?”

  She slowly shook her head. “I didn’t even think of it that way,” she said, bewildered. “I’ve never done anything like that.”

  “No, but you were trying to rush through something that your grandfather wanted anyway and that he had worked hard to get and that he needed for his care and your mother’s treatments, correct? So it makes sense that you were also confused and dealing with a lot of stress.”

  “Yes, and you make it sound so reasonable,” she said, “but five minutes ago you made it sound like I was the worst criminal ever.”

  “No,” he said, “that wasn’t me, that was you already thinking you were. That’s how people get you caught up in guilt like that.”

  “And what am I supposed to do now?” she asked.

  “You come and face the music, and, with any luck, your friend can get you off, particularly if you help her with this case.”

  She stared at him in shock and then slowly said, “No, no, no, no. You really don’t understand. These guys play for real.”

  “So do the courts of law,” he said.

  Her face twisted up. “Now you’re doing exactly what they were doing.”

  “Except that I actually understand the law,” he said. “They were just trying to manipulate you for totally selfish reasons.”

  “So are you,” she said mutinously.

  He laughed. “Good,” he said, “that’s what you should be saying. But the fact of the matter is, you already know you’ve done wrong and that there will be repercussions. Whether they’re light or heavy will depend on your actions right now.”

  She opened her mouth and closed it several times. “I should never have done it,” she whispered.

  And, with that, Angela arrived. She looked at her friend, disappointment on her face. “Were you really trying to run?”

  Isabel looked at her and burst into tears. “You don’t know what these people are like,” she blubbered.

  “No,” she said, “but I’ve known many like them.” She opened the door and motioned her friend back out of the vehicle.

  “They’ll kill me,” Isabel said in a flat voice.

  “Well, I hope not,” she said. “So tell me. How did these guys find out what you did in the first place?”

  “I don’t know. They must have somebody at the nursing home or something,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “Somebody must have overheard the two of us.”

  “Or they guessed,” Bonaparte said quietly. “People like that prey on people like you, and they can see when you’ve done something wrong because you act guilty.”

 
“Well, I probably did then, yeah,” she said. “It’s been a tough load to haul.”

  “I’m sure it has been,” Angela said. She led her friend back into the house.

  Bonaparte watched the area as they headed back inside. He had that feeling of being watched. He asked Angela, “Are you taking her back to the station?”

  “I should,” she said. “We need to have a talk with her, and obviously she’s too spooked to be left on her own.”

  “No,” Isabel said, “I’ll stay.”

  “I can’t trust you on that,” Angela said firmly. “So back to the station we go.” She looked over at Bonaparte. “Why?

  He stepped forward, and, in a low voice that Isabel couldn’t hear, he said, “We’re being watched.”

  “Of course we are,” she said. “What do you want to do about it?”

  “I’ll go for a walk,” he said, with a grin. “Take her back. I’ll meet you there.”

  “You don’t want a ride?”

  “Nope, I know the town enough by now.” He added, “I’ll get there without any problem.”

  She nodded, escorted Isabel into the front seat of his truck. Looking at Bonaparte, she asked, “Hey, would you mind moving her car back?”

  He looked back at the vehicle and said, “Sure, I can do that.”

  She watched for a moment, then hopped in.

  “Who is that guy?” Isabel asked quietly.

  “You met him before. He’s my new deputy,” she said.

  “Well, he’s not like any of the others, and he doesn’t act the same.”

  “Nope,” she said. “He’s an entirely different animal. But I needed backup. Too much crap going on here right now, and, like you said, these guys are something else.”

  “You don’t even know all of it,” she said. “They threatened to kill Mom.”

  “And they probably went to her and threatened to kill you too,” she said. “Did you even talk to your mom about it?”

  “I didn’t want her to know that we could be in deep trouble.”

  “The deep trouble you’re talking about is probably one that these guys created,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They bought the property, didn’t they?”

  “Well sure, and they put us into that position of having to hurry, or we’d lose the deal. They kept dropping the offer. We waited for the lawyer to get the power of attorney, but—”

  “But your grandfather wasn’t cognizant enough to do that either, was he?”

  She slowly shook her head. “No, and it was their idea,” she whispered.

  “And now they’ve got you, don’t they? You didn’t tell me that. You just said maybe they had someone there who overheard.”

  “Well, they weren’t there at the time,” she said, “but, yeah, they put the idea in our heads, and then they just stuck around and mentioned a couple things that just kept our minds going in that direction,” she said in frustration. “How could we be so gullible?”

  “Because it’s what you wanted, so you were looking for a way to make it happen,” she said.

  Isabel fell silent, as they drove toward the station. “What’ll happen to me?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll talk to the prosecutor and see what we have for a case.”

  “A case?” she said bitterly. “You could just let me go.”

  “I could, but then I wouldn’t be upholding the law. And you’d be the first one to slam me for it, if you weren’t sitting there on the opposite side of the law.”

  “But it is me. I am sitting right here. I can’t go to jail.”

  “I hear you, and I understand that, and I get that you wish you’d thought about that early on. But, in the meantime, we have to discuss it and see what’s going on and see if you’ll help with this problem or not. Although you’ve lied to me so many times, I’m not sure if you would help or hurt the case at this point.”

  “If I help, I’ll get an easier sentence?”

  “I can’t promise that,” she said carefully. “Jail may or may not be a part of it. I can’t tell you anything with certainty at this point. I know that it’s a dubious area. Everybody knew the property was for sale for a while and that your family was under some pressure. But that won’t necessarily let you off the hook completely.”

  “Community service sounds nice,” she said, with a heavy sigh.

  “And I will mention that,” she said, looking over at her friend of many, many years. “I just can’t let you walk.”

  “Of course not, you’re much too moral.”

  “And why did you elect me?” Angela asked.

  “Because I knew you couldn’t be bribed,” she said in frustration. “But I wasn’t expecting to be the one needing to bribe you.”

  At that, Angela burst out laughing. “That’s a good thing then,” she said. “Because you didn’t see yourself heading down this life of crime.”

  “God, no,” she murmured. “I was never heading in this direction. I was always the Goody Two-Shoes.”

  “Maybe. So what did those two say to you at your house?” she said, abruptly changing the subject.

  “They told me to smarten up and to not talk.”

  “Or?”

  “Or my mother would have an accident,” she said bitterly.

  “And do you think they went to your mother and told her the same thing?”

  “Probably,” she said.

  “Call her.”

  Isabel looked at her hesitantly. “I didn’t want to open that can of worms.”

  “Really? And who would you call when you went to jail?”

  “Well, that’s harsh,” she said.

  “Sure it is,” Angela said, with a heavy sigh, not knowing what her friend would have to face. She didn’t think it would be a hard sentence, but sometimes, you know, in this very conservative area, things got a little more difficult than anybody expected. She pulled into the station, hopped out, and said, “Come on inside.”

  “What if I don’t?” her friend Isabel said, with a moment of bravado.

  “Then you run, and I come after you, and then you really get thrown in jail for evading arrest,” she said. “If you do manage to get out of the town and out of the state,” she said, “then we go across country, looking for you. Then you spend your life looking over your shoulder, while you wait to see how long it takes me to catch you.”

  “Wow,” Isabel muttered, as she walked toward the station. “You didn’t put it very nicely.”

  “You were already caught leaving your garage in your car. What did you think would happen?”

  “I guess I’m not really built for a life of crime, am I?”

  “Nope, it takes a certain kind of person to make it happen. Somebody who’s willing to pay the price of their conscience and their soul in order to make it do what they want it to do,” she said. “That’s never been you.”

  “Well, remember that when the judge, … well, when you’re in a position to put in a good word for me.”

  “Oh, I’ll remember,” she said. “I won’t willfully throw you away and lose the key, without even trying to get you a better resolution. But first things first, and that means you have to fess up to what you did, why you did it, what the factors were that affected your decision. And that means the manipulation from these guys too. And then what happened afterward.”

  “Oh, is that all you want?” Isabel asked sarcastically.

  “Well, it’s a hell of a good place to start,” Angela said. “We can’t afford to let these guys go wild on the streets, creating all kinds of chaos.”

  “What about your other deputies?” she asked suddenly.

  “You know what happened to them. They were warned to stay away from me.”

  “And they listened.”

  “Well, wouldn’t you? You already kept all this stuff from me.”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” she said, “because I’d already done wrong myself.”

  “And, once you start down that path, you alien
ate so many people,” Angela said, “and that makes life a hell of a lot more difficult for you. And everybody else.”

  “Yeah, well, I had no way of knowing that ahead of time. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “And that is something that will go in your favor too,” she said quietly. Angela sagged, as they walked through the station. She motioned at a chair that sat by a small empty table and brought over a pad of paper and a pen. “Go ahead and write it out.”

  “You know that, if I had a laptop or a computer, I could do it a lot faster.”

  “Well, you don’t,” she said, “and I’m not giving you access to anything connected to the internet, and everything here is connected.”

  Isabel just stared at her. “That’s hardly fair.”

  “No way, you already tried to run once. I can’t have you contacting anybody,” she said. “So sit and make your statement. Then I’ll figure out what I’m doing next, but the statement has to get done first.”

  Angela stared at her friend, as Isabel bowed her head to the page in front of her, because Angela really didn’t know what she would do with this mess. This was the first time she’d ever been put in this spot. Even after all the years she’d been the sheriff here, and knowing all the problems associated with policing her friends and neighbors in a small area, but this one seemed like the worst.

  Angela understood exactly why Isabel did what she did, but she’d also put herself in a position where she could get in trouble and be leveraged to help these other assholes. And they were bad news for everybody. So Isabel didn’t just do something for herself, she did something against everyone else, and that would be hard to forgive.

  With a shake of her head, Angela walked to the jail area to check on her two prisoners and stood there in shock, when she realized the jail was empty.

  Both men were gone.

  *

  Bonaparte walked around the area, trying to flush out whoever was watching him. He hadn’t seen who it was, it was just that feeling, that nagging sensation in the back of his mind and at the back of his neck. When his phone rang, he looked down to see it was Angela. “You miss me already?”