Mrs. W looked at him with a shimmer in her eyes as his heart moved with joy and an edge of sadness. He missed Penny. He missed these moments with his daughter. He looked at Megan. She looked so much like her...they could almost be sisters. Penny was close to the same age; they had the same blond hair and the same smatter of freckles over their noses.
Against his better judgment his thoughts moved to the future. Megan and Blake could be his life—if only he followed his heart. Penny would approve. She’d always wanted a sibling.
It was a beautiful picture he envisioned, but now was not the time for painting such thoughts.
He led Blake’s mother and daughter upstairs to the Med-Surg floor and found her room. She was wrapped in a white blanket, and IVs dripped down lines that flowed into her arm. Her eyes were closed and her hair billowed out around her head on the pillow. If it hadn’t been for the monotonous beep of the machines hooked to her body, it would have looked as though she was just in a restful slumber.
“You okay, Meg?” he asked.
She nodded, but she was biting her lip and there was a slight sheen of tears at the corners of her eyes. He wished he could shelter her from seeing her mother like this, but there was nothing he could do. Todd had hurt so many people he loved.
Megan walked to the end of the bed. She reached out and touched her mother’s toes, so softly that it looked as though she were reaching for a porcelain doll that at any moment could crack under the weight of her fingertips.
Blake opened her eyes and smiled. “You’re here.” She looked to Megan and then toward him. “I’m sorry.”
Her words struck him. How, in a moment like this—where she could have lived or died—could she have anything to be sorry for?
“No, Blake,” he started. “I should never have put you in danger. I—” I love you. He stopped before he finished his thought. She needed to focus on her family and not his feelings. “I’m glad you’re awake.”
Blake’s smile disappeared, and she grimaced. Reaching up with her uninjured arm, she touched her side where they had removed the bullet.
All his daydreams and hopes slipped from him as he watched her writhe in pain. She was hurting because of his screwup. He should have taken the bullets. He should have made her stand back. He could have saved her from getting hurt—yet he had failed. He couldn’t fail her again.
“If you need me, give me a call.” He stepped toward the door.
He had to take himself out of the equation. The only way he could keep her safe was by distancing himself from her life.
Chapter Sixteen
All night the monitors at the nurse’s station had beeped and rung, footsteps had echoed up and down the halls and occasionally there had been the sounds of crying from other patients’ rooms. Blake had barely slept; the only reprieve came when the pain meds she’d been given forced her to succumb to a fitful slumber. As morning rose, and the sounds of the day filled the ward, she was already dressed and waiting to go, her arm immobilized in a sling.
The nurses had been kind as they wheeled her to the front entrance, where her mother and daughter waited. Her mother’s old Cadillac sat low, its shocks worn out from years of driving up and down the hilly landscape of Butte.
“Mom!” Megan ran up to her and gave her a gentle hug.
She tried to keep her emotions in check as she looked up at her daughter’s smiling face, the freckles that adorned her cheeks and the excitement in her eyes. In a second, she could have lost everything—her daughter, her family, her life.
And for what?
Todd O’Brien had nearly succeeded in taking his own life. He had failed, but it didn’t make it fair or just. There was no justice. No rectifying the situation. One person had died and she nearly could have...and she still didn’t understand exactly why.
Who, or what, was driving this madness? Was it the mayor? Was it Todd? Or was it someone else, someone who loved to manipulate and pull the strings of those around them who were stupid enough to do their bidding?
Was it all some game driven by greed and land grubbing as she and Jeremy had assumed, or was it something more?
Her mother stood beside the car door as the nurses loaded her inside like she was an invalid. Her body would heal. It would be fine. Her soul was a different story. It suddenly felt like everything she did in her work was useless. She was just stomping out fires; she wasn’t changing anything for the better. She wasn’t making a difference like she had assumed she would when she had joined the force. She was just another cog in the wheel of an imperfect society.
For so long she’d been trying to fight the inequity she felt at being a woman in a male-dominated profession in small-town Butte. Looking back, she couldn’t say that her fight had all been worth it. Everything felt so...asinine. All that really mattered was family and those that she loved.
Loved.
Her thoughts moved to Jeremy.
More than fulfilling her duties as a deputy, she was doing this for him. He needed his questions answered. She owed him the peace of mind that came with a murder solved.
If he cared so much, though, why wasn’t he here?
“Where’s Jeremy?” she asked her mother as they drove out of the parking lot and down the road that led to their house.
Her mother glanced over at her. There was a look of trepidation on her face, as if she didn’t want to tell her what she knew.
“What? Where is he?” Blake repeated.
“I don’t know. He took this hard, you know,” her mother said. “He was talking about going to Missoula, getting back to work.”
“Why?”
Was he coming back? Had he given up on her? Why now, when she needed him the most, had he left her? Anger flooded her senses.
Her mother had said he’d taken the shooting hard, but if he could just leave her, that proved how little he cared.
She needed to solve this case so she never had to see his green eyes or his mischievous grin again. The doubts that she had been carrying with her about her ability to uncover the truth burned away.
The car pulled to a stop at a light. To her left was a historic building she’d passed thousands of times. This time she stared at it. Its red bricks were starting to crumble at the corners, and the white paint that marked its entrance was bubbled and peeling with age. Most days she thought the building charming, a throwback to eras and worlds past...worlds built on the needs of society and people’s unbreakable spirit. She thought of the person who’d built it. It must have been incredibly hard in those days. Butte had been nothing more than a rough-and-tumble mining town, yet the person behind the creation of the building had likely risked everything to see his dreams come true.
What had it once been? On the side of the building was a faded and weathered painting that read, “Sweet Candies.” It shocked her. Someone had come to this town, where miners’ lives were dominated by the dark, dirty world of inner earth, and he had decided what these men and their families needed more than anything was a brightly colored treat. It was beautiful in a poetic way.
No doubt the shop owner had likely faced adversity and ridicule for his dreams. Just like her. Yet he had found the strength to follow his dreams. Could she do the same?
The car lurched forward as the light changed. She had to get through this. She had to stop worrying about Jeremy and what others thought of her. She needed to focus on the investigation and nothing else; it was the only thing she could really control.
She thought back to Robert’s house and the mine. Although she had spent hours in both places, she must have missed something. But what?
“Mom,” she said, breaking the silence that filled the car. “I need you to take me to the evidence unit.”
“Blake,” she said with an exacerbated sigh. “You can’t go back to work. You just got out of the hospital. You need to go home, g
et some rest, and maybe you can come back in a few days.”
The first forty-eight hours of an investigation were the most critical, and they had already passed that marker. If she didn’t figure out everything she needed to know soon, it would become harder and harder to solve the crime.
“I need to find out who is behind all of this. It won’t hurt me to look through paperwork, Mom.”
“You already got Todd. What more do you need to do? You have your suspect.”
Megan shifted in the backseat.
She couldn’t stop now...not when she was so close, not when she could find out—without a doubt—exactly what had led up to Robert’s death and what role Todd had played.
“I’ll only be a couple of hours. I’ll call you to come get me when I’m done.”
Her mother just looked at her.
“Hey, if nothing else, you’ll know that I’m not going anywhere, right?” She tried to make light of the situation, but her mother didn’t seem to appreciate the humor. It struck her how, even though she was a grown woman, her mother still wanted to protect her. Though they had their issues and disagreements, Gemma West truly loved her. That love was just like what Blake felt for her daughter—it was unwavering. “Everything will be fine, Mom. I promise.”
A few minutes later, her mother parked in front of the station. “I expect you to call me if you need anything.”
Blake smiled. It was just like she was fifteen again and her mother was dropping her off at the school dance. But instead of resenting her as she had as a teenager, she loved her mother more for her concern. “I’ll call you when I need you to pick me up.”
She gave Megan a kiss on the forehead, and, as she leaned over, the stitches in her chest panged to life, reminding her of the damage her body had sustained. She pushed the pain away. “Be good. And take care of Grandma, okay?”
Megan nodded. When she looked up at Blake there was reservation in her eyes. She had seen that look before—when she had walked Megan into her first day of kindergarten, and when she had first left her baby to go back to work. Her daughter didn’t want her to go. That look broke her heart.
She stepped back toward the passenger’s door, but her mother put her hand up, stopping her. “You go do your job,” she said, looking back at Megan like she, too, had seen the look her daughter had given her. “I have Megan. We’re going to have fun today. Aren’t we, honey?”
“But, Grandma—” Megan started.
“Oh, come, now. I have an idea for a new quilt. Wouldn’t you like to help me pick out some fabric?”
Megan’s face took on that awkward look, the one that melded the excitement of youth with the reservations of a teenager.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Gemma smiled, and in her eyes there was a shimmer of pride as if she knew exactly how much this case mattered to Blake.
Blake turned and made her way into the sheriff’s department without looking back. Her mother was in control; she was the rock in their lives.
The mayor was walking away from her down the hall, and she hurried so he wouldn’t see her. She wasn’t sure she could face him right now. She rushed through the department and toward the evidence unit. She pressed the code into the keypad, and the door opened. She walked in—and found the unexpected. Sitting at the row of desks inside the area was Jeremy.
She stopped and stared at him, unsure of what to say.
He looked up, and his eyes widened with surprise. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the hospital?”
“They released me on good behavior,” she said with a dry, cutting edge to her voice. “My mother told me you were going to Missoula. Why are you here? And how did you get in?”
There was a breath of warm air against the back of her neck. “I let him in,” a man said.
She turned and standing there was Captain Prather.
“We needed someone to work on this case in your absence. Because of his experience as a detective and his gracious offer to act as a consultant, I brought him in. We need to solve this.”
“You’re absolutely right, sir.” She turned around and moved toward the seat at the desk near Jeremy. “It’s great that we have Todd O’Brien in custody.”
“Blake,” Captain Prather said, shaking his head, “before you sit down, we need to talk.”
A cold chill tumbled down her spine. What was happening? Why was the captain looking at her with pity and disdain? Did it have something to do with the altercation with O’Brien? Sure, she had screwed up by getting in a shoot-out, but it was hardly her fault. She hadn’t wanted things to end up that way.
She moved toward the captain. She glanced toward Jeremy, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. He knew something, something he couldn’t tell her.
Was the ax about to fall?
“Sir...” she started, but she stopped herself. She couldn’t bring herself to beg. She couldn’t allow Jeremy to see her lose her cool.
Everything would be fine.
Captain Prather led her to his office and closed the door and the blinds. Whatever was about to happen was something he wanted no one else to know about.
He turned to her as he sat down in his chair. “Deputy West, take a seat.”
She did as instructed. A cold sweat started to bead on her skin. He had used her formal title. This wasn’t going to go well.
“I brought you in here today to talk about the altercation that occurred on Todd O’Brien’s property last night.”
That was no surprise.
“I’m highly disappointed in the events that transpired between you and Todd O’Brien.”
“Captain, I—”
He shut her down with a raised finger. “I was depending on you to get a handle on this case. You knew what was at stake, yet you let it slip through your fingers—and, worse, you ended up getting hurt. This is going to come back on all of us, West.”
“I know, sir, but we got Todd. We got our suspect.”
“Your suspect? You think he was the one responsible for Robert Lawrence’s murder? The murder that, according to you and the medical examiner, took place at approximately noon on Tuesday?”
She didn’t like the way he spoke. Was she being set up to take a fall?
“Yes, sir.” She looked down at her hands as she waited for his blow.
“If you would have checked into Todd O’Brien a little deeper, you would have realized that he was nowhere near Robert’s claim on Tuesday morning. We have record of his credit card being used at the Missoula Costco at 11:15 a.m. and then the Cenex at 11:45.”
“Sir, someone else could have used his credit card.” She was grasping at straws, and she knew it.
He nodded, but his body remained rigid, unwavering. “Jeremy’s looking into the video footage from Costco to make sure that isn’t the case. It is doubtful, however, that Todd is the person responsible for Robert’s death.”
The information came as a shock. What made it worse was the fact that Jeremy hadn’t bothered to tell her.
“I...I did everything to the best of my abilities. Todd wasn’t answering my questions. We were executing a search warrant. We would have found out the truth—”
“Mistakes in this game come at a high price, West.”
“I know, sir. O’Brien made the choice to shoot. I just wanted to ask him some questions and search his property for evidence that linked him to the crime. I never wanted anyone to get hurt.”
“I’m more than aware, from Jeremy Lawrence’s testimony, that you may not be at fault for the events that occurred. That being said, however, there still must be a professional inquiry and investigation. Therefore, I must put you on paid administrative leave until things get figured out.”
Her heart dropped. He was pulling her off the case.
She had lost what little repu
tation she had in the captain’s eyes. She’d lost her chance to prove herself, and now it was likely she would lose her job. Everything she had fought so hard for... It was all gone.
Chapter Seventeen
Blake sat on the wooden bench outside the front of the station, waiting for her mother to come pick her up. She had been right. It was just like a high school dance—high hopes torn apart by the whips of reality that left her alone and once again calling her mother for help. This cycle was never going to end. No matter how badly she wanted to change.
Then again, maybe she was lucky to have a family like hers...a family that was always there. It may have been only her mother and her daughter, but they all had one another’s backs. There was no question about loyalties or favorites. No turbulent marriage to worry about, like in Jeremy’s family. Maybe that was why he couldn’t trust, why he couldn’t compromise. His family had to be the reason he was the way he was—for good and bad.
No matter how hard she tried to understand his actions, she couldn’t come to terms with the fact that he had kept her in the dark. She had been in the hospital, but he could have come to see her and told her what he’d learned. It was her investigation. At least, it had been.
From the very beginning, he had strove to lead. The night in the mine, he had tried to tell her how to run the investigation. Was this just an extension of his need to control?
“That seat taken?” a man asked from behind her.
She turned to see Jeremy standing there. He held his hands in front of him like a repentant child. If she hadn’t been so angry, so hurt, he would have looked kind of cute the way his gaze fell to the ground and an apologetic smile lingered on his lips.
Lips she had kissed. Lips she had hoped to kiss again, but now she could barely look at.
She moved toward the middle of the small bench, taking both seats. It was juvenile, but she couldn’t stand the thought of him being so close. She wasn’t ready to have him near her, apologizing, trying to justify why he had done what he had done.
“Whatever you have to say, you can save it.” She turned back and tried to focus on the torn blue awning that adorned the restaurant across the street.
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