Trusting Tristan (River's End Ranch Book 24)

by Caroline Lee

  She didn’t actually tack “you idiot” to the end, but it was clear in her tone. Tristan smiled at Bradley’s look of anger. Anger at being humiliated? They could hope.

  Saunders pointed at the last set of numbers with a pen of his own. “Please tell me that this is a time. But it’s in code, right? So 1347 isn’t 1:47pm, we’re assuming. It must be…” He muttered under his breath while he jotted out numbers on the paper. “No, that doesn’t make sense. There’s no such time as 9763, is there?”

  “No, this aren’t a base-ten dealie.” He’d forgotten what Charley had called the original code. “These are based on a 24-hour clock. So the first set of numbers are the hour, yeah, but subtracted from twenty-four.” He underlined the “13” and wrote “11” underneath it. “And the second two numbers are the minutes, subtracted from sixty.”

  “So 11:13am?” Saunders didn’t wait for confirmation before pulling the paper towards him and jotting more notes. Around the table the men broke into excited conversation. Tristan only caught parts of it, because there was so much going on at once.

  “Of course, that makes total sense!”

  “Kinda embarrassing we couldn’t crack that in time, huh?”

  “Look, that matches up with our guesses from the drop on August 14th.”

  “Lucky for us this guy showed up today.”

  Bradley, on the other hand, just crossed his arms and frowned at Tristan. More specifically, he frowned at where Charley was standing too close to Tristan.

  Tristan resisted the urge to cross his arms and frown right back at her brother. Instead he turned to Saunders when the FBI agent jabbed his pen at the second set of numbers.

  “So this is southbound on 95, mile marker 452, at 1650, or ten minutes ‘til 3pm?”

  Tristan did the calculations in his head, then nodded. “Yep. Pop started using military time right round the same time he started buying military surplus and making us eat MREs.”

  He remembered his father’s large palm coming hard for the side of his head when Tristan had miscalculated the time wrong yet again. Pop used to yell that if he was too dumb to tell time, Pop could always shake his brain up a little.

  Remembering the slaps that made his head ring made this whole “betraying his family” thing easier to bear.

  “Show him last week’s numbers.” Saunders wasn’t speaking to him, but his words made Tristan snap out of his memories.

  Sheriff Clapper jotted something else down on the pad of paper. “Does this code look like the same one?”

  Tristan shrugged. “Sure looks like it. I’m telling you, if Uncle Jim knew that no one had broken this code, he would’ve kept using it.” He jotted down the new numbers. “So this would be Highway 1, northbound mile seven, at 10:14am.” Was this just from last week? “Did you catch anyone there?”

  It was Bradley who answered. “How could we? We didn’t know any of this then.”

  “But now we stand a chance, thanks to you.” To Tristan’s surprise, Saunders clapped him on his shoulder. He managed to keep from staggering forward, but the feeling wasn’t anything like Charley’s hand on his back. Still, it was impossible not to feel a little surge of pride at the agent’s words.

  “It’s 11:47, sir.” One of the other men around the table had glanced at his watch. “Today’s hand-off…”

  Saunders and Clapper exchanged another look, and the sheriff nodded firmly. “I trust him.”

  The FBI agent nodded in return. “Alright then. Men,” he said, raising his voice and addressing everyone at the table, “According to the note our man intercepted this morning, something is going to happen today. We’re hoping it’s another hand-off, and thanks to Mr. Quarles here” —he nodded towards Tristan and Bradley’s scowl deepened— “We know where it’ll happen.”

  Tristan’s heart had started pounding at the casual mention that there’d been a note found today. Uncle Jim was planning a drop today? With whoever he’d talked into helping him with this scheme?

  Saunders continued. “According to this code, the hand-off will take place at 1:32pm, on Highway 2 at mile marker 45, which is the part that overlaps with Route 95. Does that look right, Mr. Quarles?”

  Tristan peered over the sheriff’s shoulder, and double-checked the set of numbers there. Highway 2, yeah…mile marker 45, yeah…1:32pm. Tristan grunted an affirmative, and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost noon, which meant that the cops would have to haul butt to get to the drop point in time, and set up a perimeter or whatever they were hoping to do to catch Uncle Jim.

  Man, wouldn’t he be surprised? From what he could remember of his father’s older brother, Jim was even more arrogant than the rest of the family. He’d been so sure no none would be able to catch them or figure out their scheme, and they’d all be able to retire to their compound with their guns and their meth in peace.

  And now, to find out Jim had gotten off scot-free while Tristan—who’d been a kid, for crying out loud—had been sitting in a cell and glaring mulishly at psychologists who tried to convince him that his father was a jerk…? Yeah, that stung. Tristan would do whatever was necessary to make sure Jim paid.

  Just like he’d paid. Just like he’d been paying.

  Saunders had finished speaking, and all of the men burst into action, gathering weapons and documents and heading for the door. Bradley moved towards Tristan and stopped beside him.

  “You might’ve fooled all the rest of them, Quarles, but I think it’s too convenient that you show up and explain this right now.”

  To Tristan’s surprise, Charley moved around him and stepped between him and her brother. Not exactly protecting him, but her shoulder was between them. “No one asked what you think, detective.”

  When her brother’s brows rose over the title, and the way Charley had used it like an insult, Tristan didn’t bother hiding his grin. “Yeah, Bradley.” He deliberately used the man’s first name, and grinned wider when her brother scowled. “Why don’t you run along there and catch Jim, huh? Once you’ve done that, you’ll see that I don’t have anything to do with all this.”

  Bradley snorted, but after another long scowl, he followed Saunders out the door.

  The sheriff was the last one out the door, and he moved to stand next to them. Charley seemed to relax a little, and Tristan stepped out from behind her. Sure, he was a lot taller than her, but no one was going to accuse him of cowering behind the woman he was coming to love.

  “Quarles,” Clapper said, staring at him long and serious. “Charley’s vouching for you, and that says a lot in my book. But if you’re right, and this doesn’t have anything to do with you, then I need you to be far away when it goes down. You two sit tight, and let us bust your uncle. Then the others will believe you too.”

  Charley bristled. “So we’re just supposed to sit here twiddling our thumbs while you run off and—”

  Tristan put his hand on her shoulder and her lips snapped closed. “Charley, think about it. I’m an ex-con, and you’re an ex-cop. They don’t want us in the way.”

  Her jaw tightened. “I’m not useless.”

  He squeezed her shoulder once. “I know.” He lowered his voice. “Believe me, I know.” Then he nodded to the sheriff. “Go on. I’ll keep her here.”

  “Safe.” The other man glared at Tristan, the word not a request, but a command.

  Tristan nodded. “She’ll be safe with me.”

  That seemed to be all the assurance Clapper needed. He nodded once, spun on his booted heel, and rushed out the door after Bradley and Saunders and the rest. Beside Tristan, Charley exhaled and pulled out from under Tristan’s touch.

  What did that mean?

  CHAPTER NINE

  The sheriff walked out the door, and with him went the last of Charley’s hopes to be taken seriously as a law enforcement officer. It was just like being on the force again; no one trusted her to be able to handle herself or the bad guys. Heck, according to the look her detective brother just gave her, she couldn’t eve
n be trusted to know who the bad guys were.

  And even Shane—who once thought that she’d be a useful ally—just told her to stay put and put Tristan in charge of keeping her safe. She huffed under her breath, and twisted away from the door—and Tristan’s touch.

  She could keep herself safe, thank you very much. That’s what those closeminded men on the Coeur D’Alene force never saw. They just saw her as the chief’s daughter, someone who needed protecting.

  “You want some coffee?” It was a time-honored tradition among cops, to have a pot warm at all times while on a case, and it looked like Shane had followed it.

  “Huh?” Apparently, Tristan hadn’t expected the question, but he followed her gaze and shrugged. “Oh, sure. Yeah, thanks. I um…” He cleared his throat and looked away, running his hands through his hair. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”

  “Up thinking?” She busied herself readying two cups, and pretended like all her attention wasn’t focused on him.

  He took a while to answer. Finally he said, “Yeah. What I did today…”

  When he trailed off, Charley turned to him, a mug in each hand, and forced a small smile for his sake. “What you did today was amazing, Tristan. Thank you. It took a lot of guts, and—”

  But he interrupted her. “It was something I should’ve done a long time ago, I realize that now. If I’d just told everything I knew back then, back when I was a kid, I could’ve gotten out of there a lot sooner and saved myself a lot of headache.”

  He was right. Still, she didn’t want to add to his pain by agreeing with him, or pointing out that he’d been manipulated by his jerk of a father into doing something unhealthy. Instead, she just shrugged. “You did the right thing today. That’s what counts.”

  “I betrayed my family,” he said bleakly. His fingers were still locked around the back of his neck, and the poor guy looked like he needed a hug. Only problem with that was was, Charley was pretty sure if she started hugging him, she wouldn’t want to stop.

  So instead. she cleared her throat and tried to focus. “Way I see it, they needed betraying.” And then held her breath, wondering if she’d gone too far.

  But after a long moment, he exhaled and nodded. “You might be right. They’re not nice people.” He grinned crookedly and reached for one of the mugs.

  Their fingers brushed when she handed it to him, and the feel of him made her stomach flip-flop. It had felt so natural to put her hand on his back while he explained to Agent Saunders, and it had felt good enough that she’d kept it there. She’d been trying to share some strength and support with Tristan, and hoped he understood that. But it didn’t hurt that it made her all tingly inside, too.

  “So, now what?” he asked, ambling over to the table with the maps still spread out all over.

  “Now we sit here,” she said with more than a little bitterness. “Like good little minions, until the big boys tell us we’re allowed to leave.”

  He snorted, but she wasn’t sure if he was laughing or agreeing with her. They stood in silence for a little while, shifting through the maps and papers. When he asked her to pass him the pencil so he could work through some of the coded drop locations, she moved to stand over his shoulder. He muttered while he worked, and Charley sipped her coffee and tried not to think of that as an adorable habit.

  Finally, he tapped the eraser on the pad. “I remember some of these, I think.”

  “Oh yeah?” She peered at the map and tried to match the dates and locations to red marks on the map. “Like this one?” She pointed.

  “I’m pretty sure that was the day it was pouring down rain. I couldn’t see twenty yards, and Pop needed those meds ASAP. But with the rain, there were two dozen cars pulled over on the side of the road, and I almost didn’t find the right one.”

  Before she could respond—before she could figure out how to respond—he pointed to another date, then to its corresponding location on the map. “And this was two days after Christmas. He’d gotten a new motorcycle for himself and let me have his old one as a gift that year. I didn’t care that there was two feet of snow on the ground, I still used it that day.”

  These didn’t sound like happy memories, as far as she was concerned, and Charley didn’t know if she should be acknowledging them.

  But then he frowned and tapped the pad with the eraser again. “Some of these don’t make sense though.”

  “Hmm?” She peered over his shoulder once more. “Which ones?”

  He pointed. “This one. And all of these. They’re the most recent ones. Some of them are obviously the old code, but some…”

  His frown deepened, and she tightened her grip on her mug to keep from smoothing her fingertips over the lines of his forehead.

  “Some of them are wrong somehow. I don’t know.”

  Concerned now, Charley put her mug down beside his and pulled the paper closer to her. The codes looked the same to her, just like the ones from years ago. She frowned too, comparing and trying to figure out what he was seeing that she wasn’t.

  Suddenly, he sucked in a sharp breath and muttered a curse word under his breath.

  “Profanity rules, remember,” she teased, wondering if he would point out they weren’t on the ranch.

  But the stricken look he turned on her said he hadn’t even heard her joking reminder. His expression twisted into a worried grimace.

  “Oh, man. Oh, Charley, I just had the worst thought.”

  The way he said her name told her that the time for joking was long past. “What? What is it?”

  His grimace deepened. “It’s dumb, but…”

  “But?”

  “Jim has eight fingers.”

  He said it like it should mean something to Charley, but she was clueless. “And…?”

  “That’s it.” He blew out a frustrated breath and ran his hand through his hair again. “I mean, it might be nothing, but maybe…” He swallowed and met her eyes. “Pop made the code, because he said even I was smart enough to subtract from ten, because I had ten fingers. But Uncle Jim blew off the last two on his left hand in an accident before I was born.”

  Charley was busy bristling over his father’s casual insult to a little boy. But Tristan’s last sentence caught up with her ears and she forced herself to focus. When she did, she sucked in a gasp too. “You mean, you think that maybe it’s not a base-ten subtraction cypher?”

  “What if, when Jim started everything up again, he subtracted from eight?” Tristan scrambled for the pencil and the pad of paper again. “It’d be dumb, but he liked to be in control, so it would make sense…”

  He trailed off as he calculated. Then, with another muttered curse—he’d really learned a lot of potty words in jail, hadn’t he?—Tristan straightened and met her eyes. “They’re heading for the wrong place.”

  “The officers?”

  He nodded. “The road and the time are right, but if Jim is subtracting from eight instead of ten, then they’re going to set a trap where he isn’t.” He pulled the map towards them, and Charley leaned over it with him. “See? They’re heading up 95 towards Naples, but he’ll be over here on Highway 2 west of Sandpoint. Around Dover, looks like.”

  She did some quick mental calculation. Mile marker 23. Nowhere near mile 45, which was the part of Highway 2 that overlapped with Route 95. Saunders, Clapper, her brother, and all the rest were in the wrong spot.

  She tried to stay calm, to be reasonable. “We don’t know anything for sure. This is just speculation. We could be wrong.”

  When he met her eyes, she saw the muted panic in them. “But if we’re not, they’ll lose their chance to nail Uncle Jim. The sheriff and the rest of them will never get to him in time. Jim’ll get away, and the cops…” His voice faltered. “They won’t trust me.”

  They won’t trust me. Charley’s heart clenched in understanding. If Saunders didn’t catch Jim today, he’d likely listen to Bradley’s poisonous words, and wouldn’t believe Tristan in the future.

  �
�Well, to heck with that. We’ll do it ourselves.” She turned and strode for the door. “Come on.”

  “Where?” He hurried behind her as she pulled open the door and stalked towards the front office.

  “You’ve got your bike out front, right? Let’s go catch some bad guys.”

  Behind her, Tristan made a noise which might’ve been agreement or scorn, but she couldn’t reply, because Deputy Bigelow stood up from his desk when she came barreling through the front room.

  “Miss Easton, you’ve gotta stay here. Shane told me to keep you and him” —he nodded at Tristan— “here until he got back.”

  Refusing to be intimidated, Charley switched directions and stalked towards the desk. She straightened to all of her five-feet-one-and-a-half inches and lifted her chin. “Excuse me? You have to keep us here? Like criminals?”

  “Well, no—” Bart began, but she didn’t let him continue.

  “Are we being detained? What are the charges?”

  “There’s no charges, but Shane said—”

  “He wanted you to keep us here, or did he just say to keep an eye on us?”

  Bart was looking desperate. “Miss Easton, ma’am, he just said that you weren’t allowed to go gallivanting all over—”

  “Good,” she interrupted firmly, nodding as if it was her idea all along. She’d forgotten how much fun it could be to direct a conversation where she wanted it to go, while wearing her uniform and a too-big-for-her-britches attitude. “Then you’ll just have to keep up.”

  “Keep up with who?”

  But Charley had grabbed hold of Tristan’s hand—pleased to see he’d had the sense to snatch up his helmet from the table in the meeting room—and was pulling him towards the front door. “With us. We’ll be on Tristan’s bike, heading towards Dover.” She kept the door from slamming just long enough to poke her head back in and smile. “We’re going to catch the bad guys. I’d appreciate it if you’d call for backup too.”

  Bart snapped his mouth shut and nodded once, firmly. All business now, he called over his shoulder as he reached for his vest: “Sergeant Jennings! Come man the desk”