He walked around and stood beside the bench. “I know how this looks. But trust me—I didn’t intend to get you in trouble.”
“Then what exactly did you intend?”
She could smell the sandalwood and cloves of his cologne, but still she didn’t look at him.
“I just wanted to dig up a little more information while I had the chance. I found something that I think will change everything.”
“You mean the fact that Todd couldn’t have been Robert’s killer? Captain Prather already told me.”
“I know, but I got something better.”
Her head jerked up. “What?”
“I went back up to Todd’s place after I knew you were okay. We found his tax records and a safe with land deeds. It looks like the guy at the bar was right. Todd was buying out the properties around him. He’s the registered owner of almost all the land around the Foreman Mine. Plus, I got the license plate of the car we saw under the tarp—the one you thought looked familiar. Turns out it’s registered to Tiffany Lawrence.”
“What? Why would Todd have Tiffany’s car? Did you get a look inside?” she asked, moving over so he could sit down next to her.
He smiled as he took the spot next to her on the bench. “It looked pretty clean, but I had it towed to the evidence yard.” He motioned toward the fenced compound that sat behind the sheriff’s department.
“Did you have the techs go through it?”
“They’re working on it now. You wanna—” He stopped and looked down at her sling, and his face tightened with concern. “You need to go home, West.”
Her anger flared as he said her name like she was just another deputy. “I don’t need to do anything except finish my work on this case.”
“I get it. You’re trying to prove to the world that you can handle anything, but you don’t have to be Superwoman, West.”
“Stop calling me West like I’m some kind of stranger. We came this close,” she said, pinching her fingers together, “to taking things too far. I’ve seen your skivvies.”
He laughed, but the sound only made her more infuriated.
“What’s so funny?”
“You said skivvies. Only my mother calls my underwear my skivvies.”
“So now you’re comparing me to your mother?” Her blood pressure rose. “I’m nothing like your mother. No matter how badly you want to live out some Freudian thing.”
He stopped smiling. “That’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean to make you mad. I just thought it was cute, that’s all.”
Leave it to a man to find her anger attractive, provocative even.
“If you think I’m so cute, why do you keep screwing with me? First, you want to run everything, and now you get me put on administrative leave and make me look like an idiot in front of my captain.”
“It’s no secret that I care about you, Blake.” He said her name carefully.
“If you care about me, you have one screwed-up way of showing it.” She gripped the cast-iron armrest of the antique-style bench.
“I’m trying to protect you.”
She balked. “What? How are you protecting me by letting me get taken away from the job I love?”
“Do you really love your job?”
How dare he ask her a question like that? She loved her job. She went to it nearly every day and helped save the innocent. It wasn’t the glorious, romantic job the television shows made it out to be, but it kept her and her family fed.
“Do you love your job?” She turned the question on him. “You say you’re trying to help your family, but what is the truth, Jeremy? I heard about the case with the battalion chief. Was it weighing on your conscience? Was it why you needed to gain control of this investigation? Why you were happy to see me put on administrative leave?”
“I had nothing to do with your administrative leave. You know that. It’s just your department’s policy. I didn’t write it. I don’t enforce it. If I wanted to take over this case, then why in the hell would I be telling you about Tiffany’s car?”
He made a point, but she wasn’t mollified. “Why didn’t you tell me about Robert’s credit card statements and how they cleared him?”
“I didn’t tell you because I only just found out. I haven’t even had time to look into the video surveillance yet. Just because someone used his credit card doesn’t mean that he was the one doing it.”
“The captain seemed to think it was him.”
“Your captain doesn’t work the beat. I think it’s just one hell of a convenient alibi that this guy who, according to his bank records, only shops at three places—the closest little family-run grocery store, the hardware store and the gun shop—all of a sudden branches out and goes to Costco in another town on the day of the murder. It’s out of character for the guy.”
“Do you think he went there just so he could be on tape?”
“It’s one hell of a solid alibi if it works out that way.” Jeremy nodded. “But that’s not why I think he did it. I think he believes your department is lazy and stupid.”
She gave a light snort. It was like Todd to think he was smarter than her and the rest of the sheriff’s department. He’d never tried to hide his disdain for law enforcement. And with that level of egocentric behavior came the belief that he could get away with anything.
“I bet he thought we’d never look into the video surveillance. That we’d just take the statements at face value and go no deeper,” Jeremy said. “Maybe that’s why he was so jumpy when we executed the warrant. Maybe he thought he’d been caught.”
She sat there in silence digesting everything that Jeremy was saying. Was he right? Was that the reason that Todd had pulled the gun? That he had been desperate enough to try to take his own life? For the first time, it started to make sense.
“If he wasn’t the one to go to Costco, then who do you think it was?”
Jeremy glanced over toward the evidence lot. “I don’t know for sure, but I think we need to start looking for Tiffany.”
The door opened behind them, and the desk sergeant came rushing out. “West?” He hurried toward her.
“What is it?” she asked, jumping to her feet.
“There’s been a report.” He looked nervous, wringing his hands, and there was a line of sweat in the furrow on his brow.
“About?” she pressed, trying to help the struggling man find his words.
“There’s been a fire...a fire at your house.”
* * *
JEREMY’S TIRES SQUEALED as Blake took the corner entirely too fast. Safety and speed limits were for people whose families weren’t in danger. She screeched to a stop behind the fire trucks that blocked the road. She slammed the door as she got out and started sprinting up the hill to her house.
“Blake, wait!” Jeremy called as he got out after her.
From the moment the desk sergeant had told her about the fire, she’d seemed to completely forget he was with her. She’d grabbed his car keys off the bench, gotten behind the wheel and screeched out, giving him no choice but to scoot into the passenger’s seat or be left behind. Nothing else had mattered. Nothing but Megan and her mother. They needed her.
Jeremy ran, catching up to her. “You can’t just charge in there. There will need to be an investigation.”
“I don’t care about any investigation. I need to know Megan’s okay,” she said between breaths as she ran.
As Blake crested the hill, she saw her. Megan’s blond hair, her cheeks covered in a light smattering of ash and her eyes red from tears. Gemma was beside her, holding her, but she let go as Blake approached.
“It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” her mother said, as if she could see the terror that Blake was feeling.
Blake threw her arms around Megan and, pushing back her hair, inspected
her face. There was no burns, no marks other than the smudges of ash. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” Megan said, wiping a tear from her cheek.
“What happened?” Jeremy asked. “Are you okay, Mrs. W?”
The older woman nodded. “Oh, it wasn’t anything serious. Just a little fire in the yard. Everything’s fine.” She motioned toward the front yard where the fire crews were dousing the stunted pine with water. The pitch-filled, stubborn tree was still smoldering, spitting and hissing as they tried to force it into submission.
Blake laughed, the sound high, maniacal. The movement made her side hurt and the stitches burn in her flesh, but the pain did nothing to subdue her hysteria.
“What’s so funny?” her mother asked, sounding confused.
She tried to stop laughing so she could answer her, but fate’s cruel joke was more than she could bear.
Jeremy moved closer to her, took her in his arms and, careful of her wound, hugged her. His kindness made tears well in her eyes. She tried to blink them away. It was just stress that was making her lose it like this. Just stress. She needed to pull herself together, to be strong for Megan.
She stopped laughing, swallowing the sound like it was a bitter pill. She moved to step out of Jeremy’s arms, to show the world that she could keep her emotions in check, but she stopped. His warmth felt so good. His scent had changed slightly and now carried a rich scent of fear and panic. He must have felt as she did. Yet here he was, the person trying to hold her together. Why did he have to be so strong all the time?
She wanted to resent him for his strength, to hate him for the confusing mess of emotions that he made her feel, but she couldn’t...not now, not when it felt so right to be in his arms. He may not love her, but he cared for her. It was foreign, to be really cared for by a man. Not even her own father had really loved her, or at least it hadn’t seemed that way when he’d run away from their family when she was young.
Jeremy looked at her. Their eyes met. There was a light in his that she had seen once before—the night in Robert’s cabin. She had to be wrong. He didn’t want to be with her. He was only a friend—a friend she was giving entirely too much of her heart to.
She stepped out of his arms and readjusted her sling more out of nervousness than need.
“Ma’am?” one of the firefighters asked as he came up to her. “Are you the home owner?”
She looked to her mother. “We are.”
He nodded. “We think we have the fire under control. However, we located a couple of things that we think you should take a look at.”
“Will you guys be okay here?” she asked her mother and Megan. Her mother drew Megan back into her arms, the girl coming up almost to her shoulders.
It was shocking to see how much older her daughter seemed than only just a few days ago. It was like she had gone through a transformation in front of Blake’s eyes. Or perhaps, it wasn’t her daughter who had transformed but rather Blake herself. Maybe for the first time she was really seeing the world around her for the way that it was—ever changing and evolving.
She stepped over to her daughter and kissed her forehead.
“Mom, are you okay?” Megan asked, looking up at her.
“I’m fine. I’m sorry for laughing.”
“Why were you laughing?” her mother asked. “Stress?”
“Yes, but it...” She looked to Jeremy. “I always thought that tree was just like me.”
Her mother frowned with confusion as she glanced over in the direction of the tree. “I don’t get it.”
Blake smiled as she patted her mother’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Just know that I love you, Mom.”
She turned and walked away, Jeremy following behind.
Her feet sloshed in the wet grass and mud of the front yard. The fire had moved down the tree and set the grass at its base ablaze, but the crew had done a good job in controlling its progression. The tree was blackened, but its bark was still twisting with serpentine orange embers that slithered into the light and then disappeared.
“What did you mean about the tree?” Jeremy asked as they stopped in front of it.
“For years, this damn thing has been struggling to survive here in this poisoned city. It tried to grow but was always held back by the chemicals that had leeched into its roots. See the way it twists there?” she asked, pointing toward a burl in the trunk. “When my father left, he was so drunk he backed the car into it. My mother wanted to cut it down, but I wouldn’t let her. I loved and hated that tree, but I wanted it to survive.”
Jeremy took her hand in his. “You were wrong about the tree being just like you.”
She looked to him, confused.
The fireman motioned to them to follow him behind the tree. “We found this,” he said, pointing at the ground.
In the unburned grass was a blackened plastic doll. Its face had melted, but the arms and legs were still discernible. A little tuft of charred red hair stuck out from the back of the doll’s head. Even disfigured, Blake recognized it as one of Megan’s favorite old dolls—the one from the bookshelf in her room.
Someone had been in their house long enough to find something personal and use it against them. That someone had meant to instill fear. And it worked. But more than fear rose within Blake. In addition, there was an onslaught of rage at the thought that someone had had the gall to violate their home. Not just their home, but specifically her innocent daughter’s bedroom.
Who would have done such a thing? And why?
“There’s something else, as well,” the fireman said as he started walking toward the side of the house.
Sprayed on the siding in orange paint was a message.
DEATH AWAITS YOU
The hair on her arms rose.
“There was also a note,” he said, pointing toward a white sheet of paper that was pinned to the wall.
She moved close so that she could read the words.
If you don’t leave Butte, I will kill you and your family. Run, if you know what is good for you.
She slipped her hand from Jeremy’s as she moved to tear down the letter, but she stopped herself. This was evidence. Evidence they could use.
“We’re in luck,” Jeremy said.
“How is getting a death threat lucky?” she asked, tilting her head toward the hateful note.
“Whoever wrote this doesn’t know me.”
“How’s that?” she asked.
“You know Casper?” Jeremy smiled.
She was totally lost. “What about your brother?”
“Before he went to work for the US Border Patrol, he used to work for the FBI...as a handwriting analyst. If I call him, I bet he can have his findings back to us within a few hours. He can help us bring down this sucker. And when I get my hands on them, they’ll wish they never lived.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jeremy tapped his pencil on the kitchen table. He hated waiting. He hated being forced into inaction. But right now he was waiting for a lead. A lead only his brother Casper could give them, once his handwriting analysis was completed.
In the meantime, his mother kept coming in and out of the kitchen; by now she must have been on her eighth cup of tea.
“Is there anything I can help you guys with?” she asked.
Blake looked up and Jeremy saw the dark circles that had started to form under her eyes as the night descended on them. She wiggled in the wooden chair as if her injuries were bothersome.
“You need something, Blake?” he asked. “Ibuprofen or something? You look like you’re getting sore.”
Blake shook her head. “I’m fine—they’re nothing more than flesh wounds,” she said, trying to make it sound like a joke, but from the slow edge to her speech he could tell she was hurting.
“Where’re her painkillers, Mom?” he asked, standing up.
She went to the cupboard next to the sink and retrieved the bottle.
“Thanks.” He took out a couple of pills, then filled up a glass of water and handed them to Blake. “Take these.”
“I told you...it’s nothing,” she argued.
“You don’t have to be tough in front of me. I know how bad you have to be hurting right now.” As he said it, he suddenly realized that it was likely her body wasn’t hurting half as badly as her spirit was.
There was little worse than having one’s home violated. Thankfully, she and her family had agreed to take his and his brother’s old bedrooms. It was the least he could do to make sure that they stayed safe.
“Is Megan asleep?” he asked.
His mother nodded. “Yeah, she passed right out.”
Blake looked at him. “Thanks again for letting us crash here. I’m sure we would have been fine at our place, but it’s nice having—” She stopped before finishing her sentence.
Was she going to say that it was nice having him around? Or had she meant something else?
They had their ups and downs, but he couldn’t help the way he felt about her. They were more than friends but less than lovers. Yet the more time they spent together, the more he was willing to give up a few things in his life. Maybe. He could never leave Missoula. He loved his job. He doubted that she would be willing to leave Butte. Her family had been born and raised here; her past was here.
His thoughts moved to the night her father had stormed out of her house. He’d been drunk and slammed his car into the tree. After that night, he’d never seen the man again...and from what he’d heard from his mother, neither had Blake.
Maybe the past could be a reason she would want to leave.
He hated to get his hopes up that she would be willing to change her life for him. The only thing she had been willing to give him lately was a piece of her mind. Not that he blamed her.
If she wanted this like he did, there would have to be compromises on both sides. And compromising had never been one of his strong suits.
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