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

by Dale Mayer

  She looked up at him and took a long breath. “I know,” she said. “At least my mind knows it, but my heart—” She shook her head.

  He opened his arms, and, when she looked at him, he motioned for her again and said, “Come on.”

  She sighed, stepped into his embrace, and let herself be held for just a minute. “You do know that I’m the sheriff, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And I know you’re struggling to deal with calamity right now.”

  She squeezed him hard, and he let her. “You’re like a bloody tree,” she murmured.

  “Hey,” he said, “at least I put down roots and keep them there.”

  “Yeah,” she said, with a smile.

  He studied her for a moment. “So, when this is over,” he said, “how would you feel about me sticking around for a few days?”

  “I’d like that,” she said. “Are you talking about officially or unofficially?”

  “Well, you probably can’t take much time off, not until you fill up your crew, so probably officially,” he said.

  “Meaning that, if I can’t take days off, you’ll stay and work?” she asked, with a laugh.

  “It’s probably the only way I can see you. Plus I’d like to make sure you have someone to back you up in the interim,” he said.

  “Well, it’ll be up to me to hire a deputy.” She gave him a sidelong look. “You want a job?”

  He looked at her and then laughed. “Wow,” he said. “I don’t know about that. I don’t think Levi would particularly like it.”

  “Well, Levi is a big boy,” she said, with a smile. “Besides, he’s been telling me how he had plenty of good men all the time.”

  “Which he does,” he said. “And I’m one of them.”

  “Right,” she said, with a sly grin. “God knows I could use a good man right now.”

  “Here I am,” he said, with a big grin, raising his eyebrows.

  She rolled her eyes. “Hardly.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “What’s wrong with me? You know that I’m here for you,” he said. “You know that I’m honest and trustworthy. I’ve got your back,” he added. “What else do you need to know?”

  “Well, I don’t know much about your family or your kids.” Then he launched into this long monologue of everything that he thought she needed to know, as she listened in astonishment. “So, are you serious?”

  “Well, I won’t say no,” he said, cautiously eyeing her. “But you know something? There’s an awful lot of spark or pizzazz or whatever you want to call it between us, and there’s a hell of a lot to like about you.”

  “Really?” She smiled. “Oh, please.”

  “Really,” he said, “and I agree. It’s hardly the time or place but—”

  “Right,” she said, just as another ambulance arrived. “And this will be our deceased’s wagon.”

  “Can they take him already?”

  “Yes. Well …” Then she stopped, rolled her eyes, and said, “Maybe not.” She called Stone. “Hey, how are your forensic guys doing?”

  “They’re still busy, why?”

  “Well, I’ve got a body here,” she said, “and it’ll be connected to the case.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Well, I might be able to send one or two your way.”

  “Only if they can,” she said. “I know it’ll take a full team to keep track of this.”

  “And what about the coroner?”

  “Coming from Denver and should be here any minute, I hope,” she said. “You’ve got a full house there that’ll take a while. Unfortunately I’ll be at it here for a while as well.”

  “Why don’t you sit down in a chair and relax while you wait?” he said. “Nothing will happen quickly.”

  “Well, I want to get down to the hospital too,” she said. “I not confident we won’t have trouble there.” Just then the coroner’s vehicle arrived. “Well, I’m off,” she said. “The coroner’s here. I’ll be heading to the hospital to check that out too.”

  “And what about Bonaparte?” he asked.

  “He seems to think he needs to stick close.”

  Stone laughed. “Well, if he thinks that,” he said, “you better let him.”

  “You mean, his instincts are good?”

  “His instincts are some of the best,” he admitted. “You’ve got a lot going on and two missing jailbirds now,” he said. “So, if Bonaparte thinks he needs to stick close, you better let him.”

  “Not only that, we have a mechanics shop to get to,” she said. “I really could use a full contingent of experienced deputies right now.”

  “Well,” he said, “I don’t know who all to call in because I don’t have anybody else local. Want me to come?”

  “No,” she said, “you handle that corner.”

  “Do you really think somebody will come here?” he asked thoughtfully.

  “We can’t take a chance. If the brothers can get that evidence away from you, we won’t have a case.”

  “Good point,” he said. “Okay, I’ll stay here.”

  “Perfect,” she said, “we’re heading to the hospital in a minute.” She disconnected the call with Stone to greet the coroner, then showed him what happened and said, “I’ve got it on video over here—or at least a little bit of it,” she said. “I’ve got a handful of missing people too.”

  He shook his head. “This is bad business.”

  “It is, indeed.”

  “Aren’t you up for reelection next year?”

  “I am,” she said, leveling him with a steady look. “A hell of a lot has been going on over the last few months, to the point that I have trouble keeping deputies.”

  “I heard about that,” he said. “Bad business.” He shook his head. “Go do your own thing,” he said. “I’ve got this. I’ve got a team with me too.”

  “Where’d you get that from?”

  “The two guys from Denver ordered it up.”

  “Interesting.” She looked over at Bonaparte, who shrugged. “Any idea where those men are?” she asked the doc.

  “I thought they were here,” the coroner said.

  “Did they call you here for this case?”

  “Nope. Well, I don’t know,” he said. Then he stopped, frowned, and asked, “How did they know about this then?”

  “That’s what I’m asking,” Angela said.

  The doc said, “I was told something about a good chance of bodies before this was over.”

  “You come on good chances now?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, frowning. “And I didn’t want it to be a wasted trip. I mean, I hate to say that I’m glad you have a body here, but, at the same time, they felt that they needed somebody like me here, just in case.”

  “Well, just in case certainly came true,” she said. “But—”

  He just waved at her. “I’ll take care of this.”

  She nodded, looked over at Bonaparte, and the two of them headed for his truck. “Isn’t that a little bizarre?”

  “Yeah, though I know that Levi vouched for those two men. Honestly, if they were with Stone, that’s just common sense to expect corpses.”

  She looked at him, startled.

  He shrugged. “We may have a bit of a track record for leaving bodies in our wake.”

  She groaned. “Seriously, have you guys got that kind of rep?”

  “Well, Stone certainly does,” he said, with a big grin.

  She phoned Stone, while Bonaparte drove. “Hey, the coroner was called by your two buddies.”

  “Yeah, we did that before you left,” he said. “Is that a problem?”

  “Well, the coroner doesn’t usually come when we don’t have a body.”

  “Yeah, but, sure enough, on a deal like this, there’s usually a body,” he said. “Everything’s been a bit of a shit show so far. We thought it was a good idea.”

  “It’s a good idea, and, of course, I do have one dead prisoner.”

  “See? Perfect.”

  “I doubt this
guy appreciates being called out on a possible.”

  “Maybe, but he’s just about to retire anyway, so he’s always looking to get out of the office.”

  “If you say so.” She shrugged. “It just seems pretty bizarre.”

  “Nothing more bizarre than a lot of the other stuff going on right now,” he said.

  “You got any action?”

  “Uh, you mean in the five minutes since the last time you asked?” he asked in mock exasperation.

  She groaned. “Sorry.” She hung up to find they weren’t that far from the hospital. She looked over at Bonaparte. “Did you mean it?”

  “Mean what?” He looked at her in confusion.

  “About sticking around for a few days.”

  “Absolutely. I’m here until you don’t need me anymore,” he said.

  She smiled. “That’s a pretty open-ended offer.”

  “It is,” he said, “and I mean it.”

  She stared at him, feeling a warmth in her heart. “And that’s really lovely to hear,” she said. “It feels like a long time since anybody had my back.”

  “And that’s not cool,” he murmured. “And it’s such a lovely back that I don’t understand it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Do you really expect a cheesy line like that to work?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, looking at her with interest. “Did it?”

  She groaned. “Enough flirting.”

  “Nope,” he said. “I’m French, so there’s never enough flirting.”

  She sighed. “Okay, so you’re gorgeous and have a smooth tongue—uh, er, wait. I meant you’re, uh, … artfully persuasive too.” She could feel her face turning red, as she stammered.

  “Ah, so you think I’m gorgeous,” he said, with a chuckle, apparently letting her off the hook for her embarrassing gaffe.

  She groaned. “Are you always this foolish?”

  “Nope,” he said, “just when we need to lighten the air a bit.”

  “It’s not my usual method of handling stress,” she said.

  “Yeah, for a minute there, it kind of backfired,” he said, with a chuckle. “Listen. In all seriousness, you care about everybody, and you’re worried about everybody.”

  “Of course I’m worried,” she said. “This is not how I planned the day out.”

  “No, but it’s always a good thing to head off as much bad stuff as we can,” he said. “If you think about it, we have enough problems going on right now.”

  “Maybe things will still be good at the hospital,” she said, as they pulled up. She hopped out and strode into the building, and, with quick hard steps, headed for the ward, where her security guard was stationed.

  He looked up and smiled. “It’s all good here.”

  “You sure?” Looking at the prisoner, she nodded. “That doesn’t look too bad,” she said. “But I want you to step inside and sit in the room.”

  He looked at her in surprise and nodded. “I can do that. Are you really expecting a stealth attack?”

  “I am,” she said. “And remember. They’ll want to prevent him from talking, and these guys are playing to the finish.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “So am I. And remember, Sheriff. I’m looking for a deputy position after this.”

  “We’ll talk about it,” she said, “but, for now, let’s focus on keeping him alive.” And, with that, she turned and headed back out again, Bonaparte keeping pace at her side.

  “So where do you want to go now?”

  “To an old mechanics shop,” she said. “Not far, just over that way a bit.”

  He nodded, as they headed for the truck. She looked in that direction and said, “You know what? I think I’d like to walk.”

  “For the exercise?”

  “No, that group is pretty wily.”

  “So who is it you’re expecting to be there?”

  “I really don’t know, but it could be the whole freaking lot of them.”

  “Okay, good enough,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  As they headed around the corner, she looked at him and said, “You’re just … so visible.”

  “Well, I can hardly shrink, but, if you want me to disappear, just say so.”

  “Well, that’s impossible,” she joked.

  He looked at her, smiled, and said, “You might be surprised.”

  “Well, that’s true,” she said. “Maybe you should make yourself a little bit invisible.”

  “Done,” he said, and she kept walking, soon realizing that she’d lost him. She didn’t want to turn around and check where he was, blowing his cover, but she knew that he was out there, watching her back, and that was worth everything. Just the thought of him sticking around for a while and helping her out of this spot was worth so much too. He was a good man. She smiled, pulled her phone from her pocket as she walked, and sent him a message. You’re a good man.

  Does that mean we’re still on for dinner?

  We were never off.

  Good. But that means we need a date afterward too.

  A date? Why?

  Sure, because this dinner is no longer a date.

  Dinner was never a date! Her phone rang immediately, and she answered it, saying, “You’re hilarious.”

  “Good,” he said, “just keep your wits about you.”

  “My wits are about me,” she said, looking around.

  “So, it’s a date then?” he asked.

  “What’s a date?” she replied.

  “Us.”

  “The ribs?”

  “No, of course not,” he said. “That’s not a date. That’s just dinner. We’ve already been through this.”

  She groaned and said, “Fine, a date.”

  “In bed?”

  “Hell,” she said, “at this rate, maybe so.”

  He let out a soft whoop on the phone.

  She laughed and said, “No, I don’t go to bed on first dates.”

  “But the ribs will be a date.”

  “No,” she said, “the ribs aren’t a date. You just said so yourself.”

  “Fine,” he said, “after the ribs.”

  She groaned and said, “Enough.” She pocketed the phone and quietly walked up to the front of the shop, where three vehicles were parked outside, all in worse shape than any mechanics shop could possibly pull back together again. Good thing this wasn’t where her truck was being serviced.

  As she walked up to the office door, she opened it enough to look inside. Nobody was in the office, which was nothing more than a small greasy little hole with blue shop towels on the counter and dirt all over the floor. Various cans of oil and other automotive fluids were stuck on a shelf, sitting beside a few other parts that looked like they’d been covered in dust and hadn’t been touched in many years.

  With nobody here, she opened the back door and stepped forward into the garage, seeing if anybody was around. And again found nobody. She studied the area, not liking anything about this. But she was here, and that was what she needed to do. She called out, “Anybody here?”

  No answer. She walked through the garage area. Of the four bays, two hoists were in use, a car up on one, a truck on another, but it was down. The others were empty. Tools were scattered about, as if people had been working; then suddenly nobody was working. She knew a large parking area in the back was full of vehicles, used more as a pick-and-pull junkyard area for parts and scrap.

  That’s how the mechanics, another set of brothers, made their money as much as anything, and, so far, they’d kept it all reasonably clean and organized. And even though she’d been sheriff for a long time and knew they tended to waffle on the illegal side, they kept this operation on the right side of the law enough that she didn’t have too much trouble with them. Which is why she hadn’t considered them when this all went wrong—though now that she’d thought about it, they too were ripe for the picking.

  As she walked through to the back door, she stopped at the exit and called out, “Anybody here?” And again wa
s met with silence. With the back of her neck tingling, she stepped into the backyard toward the vehicles. As she gazed around, she slipped the back cover off her holster and walked forward ever-so-slowly.

  “What’s the matter, Sheriff?” asked a man off to the side of her. “What are you doing here?”

  She turned to see one of the brothers, Floyd, standing there, wiping his hands on a blue rag.

  “I came to see if you’d had any visitors,” she said calmly. She looked him over, her gaze searching around the area.

  “We always get visitors,” he said. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Your friend was in town, working for me today.”

  “Harry, yeah,” he said. “We would stop by but decided against it.”

  “Well, that’s a lie,” she said calmly. “My cameras caught sight of you there.” He stopped and glared at her, and she realized she was right. “You disconnected the electronics but not quite fast enough. We saw your vehicle pull up to the side.” He started to swear. “So now that you’re already ID’d as part of that mess,” she said, “do you want to change your story?”

  “No. Hell no,” he said. “I got nothing to say.”

  “Good,” she said. “Then you won’t mind coming down to the station and having a little talk with me there then, will you?”

  “I ain’t going no place,” he said. “I don’t care what kind of a sheriff you think you are. You’re just a pair of tits and a piece of ass,” he said, “and you ain’t got no jurisdiction over me.”

  “Says you,” she replied, with a smile. “In fact, I have as much law as anybody.”

  “Nah,” he said, “not for long anyway. There’s new law in town.”

  “Oh, you mean Ronnie and Johnny? The ones you broke out of jail? You realize you committed a felony by killing Henry at the same time?”

  He stopped, looked at her, and said, “Henry?”

  “Or did you not realize that you hit him hard enough that he’s dead?”

  He shook his head. “No, no, no, no, no. Henry was alive when we left.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, that’s what you say now. But he was dead when we got there, so he died during your little escapade, freeing Ronnie and Johnny.”

  “No way. No, no, no,” he said. “You won’t pin a murder charge on me.”