by Kym Roberts
Chapter 22
The next morning, I was at Cade’s campaign office bright and early. I hadn’t dressed as casually as I normally did at the Book Barn. Today I wore a skirt and blouse with a pair of dressy flats. Cade met me at the office and we spent the day arranging the it. A couple of desks were set up for volunteers even though we didn’t have any yet, but there were a few people I had in mind.
I was just going over my schedule when I looked up from my desk and saw Dallas entering the hotel across the street by the side door. He wore his usual plaid shirt, jeans, and cowboy hat and looked like he was on a mission. I wondered if he was going to address the recycling problem we were having in town. None of the bins had been picked up that morning either.
The hotel seemed to have the most, which was a dual-edge sword. The recycling was there because the hotel was open and had guests filling the bins, but the full bins didn’t bode well for a green hotel. Some people may have changed or canceled their reservations because of Maddie’s death, but others recognized it wasn’t the hotel’s fault and appreciated the changes they’d made to the water filtration system. A system that had been further improved upon with electronic monitors gaging the purity of the water.
It was the second man coming out of the alley and following Dallas into the Inn that captured my attention even more. Dressed in jeans and his Sunday-best shirt and boots, Tiny edged out from behind a recycle bin and then ran to grab the side door before it closed. If I had to guess, I would say Tiny was following Dallas. What he did right before the door closed was a game changer. Tiny looked around, and then reached for the leather case on his waist that held his bone-handled knife. It was a knife big enough to scare the bejeezus out of me the first time I saw it.
This time, it turned my blood cold. “Did you see what I saw?” I asked Cade.
He turned from his desk with a stack of books in his hands. “What?”
“Tiny just entered the side door of the Inn across the street. He was following Dallas.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“He was looking around right before he entered the hotel. It was as if he was looking to see if anyone was watching him. Then, right before he went inside, he grabbed his knife. He’s up to something, and I think Dallas is his target.”
Cade rubbed his brow, and I was sure he was wishing he hadn’t put my desk in front of the window. “I would have to agree with that.”
I grabbed my purse and slung it over my shoulder. “Come on let’s go.”
“Where do you think we’re going?”
“We’re going to follow Tiny. Because he’s following Dallas. And he looks like he’s up to no good.” I walked out the door before Cade could argue.
He caught up to me a few steps out the door. “Princess…”
I didn’t wait to hear Cade’s argument; it was a moot point. Something was going on and Tiny was up to no good. As I crossed the street, Cade was right on my heels. “What do you plan on doing when we get inside?”
“That depends on what they’re doing.”
“If they’re fighting in the lobby?”
“Then we’ll break it up.”
Cade grumbled something that sounded an awful lot like it would be him breaking up the fight, not me, but we walked in the front door together, side by side. The old Victorian lobby was empty. Even the front desk appeared abandoned. The desk had once been a saloon bar made of mahogany with a solid brass footrest running the entire length. The piece had been restored to near mint condition with the dents and scratches of yesteryear adding to its character. In the middle was a silver domed bell. I approached it and rang for service.
“Where do you think they went?” Cade asked.
I’d only met the hotel manager once before at the grand opening. Now she came out from the back room with her hair in a neat coiffure and her maroon suit crisply pressed. She looked surprised to see Cade, and when her eyes traveled to me, her mouth rounded in a shocked O.
“Mayor,” she said. “How can I help you?” Her professional demeanor slipped as she glanced in my direction and sized me up. Naturally, Cade was oblivious.
“You’ve got the wrong idea, Ms. Winters. We’re not looking for a room,” I said.
Cade looked at me sideways, then it dawned on him what Ms. Winters was actually thinking, and he quickly denied it. “No! That’s the last thing on our minds.”
I glared at him. He didn’t have to go that far. Ms. Winters smiled and was the very definition of charming. I wanted to barf.
“Of course not.” she shook her head and gave a polite laugh as if no one would ever think of Cade and me getting a room. If she said bless your heart, I wouldn’t be responsible for what came out of my mouth.
“Did you just book a room to someone?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we value the privacy of our clientele. You understand.” Her tone was meant to cut me off at the knees. When someone did that, my legs grew back faster than a horned toad’s tail.
But Cade beat me to it. He raised his hand to silence me and addressed Ms. Winters. “As a major investor in this hotel—”
Ms. Winters nodded in acknowledgment.
“—I need to know if you have a Dallas Dover as a registered guest.”
He didn’t ask a question. He demanded the answer. It was a smooth move.
“Mr. Dover? As in Bin Dover Recycling?”
Cade gave a curt nod.
“We haven’t seen Mr. Dover or any of his drivers in two weeks. It’s becoming quite a problem for our recycling program.”
“Two weeks? I thought Dover Recycling was supposed to pick up twice a week?” Cade was clearly shocked by her announcement, but the hotel wasn’t the only business on Main Street that had missed their pickup this week.
“We don’t have time to worry about the recycling,” I told Cade and then addressed the clerk, “We need to know where Mr. Dover went. It’s important that we contact him.” I didn’t tell Ms. Winters that it was more than just important that we contact Dallas. We needed to get ahold of Dallas before Tiny tore him to shreds.
“I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen Mr. Dover,” Ms. Winters insisted.
“You’re sure Mr. Dover didn’t come in?” I asked.
“I was in the back office. I didn’t hear anyone come in, but I was running the shredder, so I could have missed it.”
“Can you check to see if you have him as a registered guest?”
Ms. Winters hesitated, but Cade gave her that charming political smile of his, and she melted. She began typing on her computer and a moment later she said, “I’m sorry, Mayor, but he doesn’t appear to be registered.”
I was about to ask her to check for Tiny’s name when she said, “Well, that’s weird.”
“What’s weird?” Cade and I asked at the same time.
“The day after we closed, the sheriff asked us to program the system to alert us if Maddie’s access card was used again since the police couldn’t locate it. We did, and I just got an alert that the card was used to access the roof.”
I looked at Cade. “Did Mateo tell you the card was missing?”
“No, but obviously it was…until now.”
Cade addressed Ms. Winters. “I need an access card to the roof, now.”
“I’m sorry Mayor, but I was told to contact the police if anyone use that card—”
“I want you to call the police, but right now it’s extremely important that you give me an access card to the roof.”
“Mayor—”
“As a major investor in this hotel, I demand that you give me an access key to the roof. Now, Ms. Winters.” Cade wasn’t messing around. He was the man in charge in this town. It was in his expression, his manner, and his body language. He was playing offense and he was unstoppable.
Ms. Winters didn’t argue.
She reached into her blazer pocket and pulled out a card key. “You can have mine.”
Cade took the key with a curt, “Thank you,” and no smile. The politician in him had disappeared, and a new Cade stood in front of me that I didn’t recognize. His expression was serious, which wasn’t different from his normal demeanor, but instead of the strong, understanding personality he normally had, Cade displayed an unyielding determination that was all about taking names and kicking butt. It was a very good look for him.
Until it wasn’t.
“Stay here and tell Mateo I’m on the roof with the guy who stole Maddie’s card key.” He started to walk by me, but I stopped him.
“Ms. Winters can tell Mateo where we are.” I pointed to the manager who nodded in agreement as she dialed the phone.
“I’m not going to argue with you, Princess.”
“Good. Let’s go.” I was halfway across the lobby before Cade joined me.
That unyielding tone was back in his voice. “I go first. You stay behind me at all times.”
I didn’t argue. Anything I said would be a waste of breath. We entered the stairwell together, but Cade took the steps two at a time and made it to the roof access door before me. He didn’t sound like he’d expended much effort at all, and I tried not to show how winded I really was.
I wasn’t fooling anyone. My chest was heaving, and the adrenaline building in my system had my heart racing.
“Can I get you to stay here?” Cade whispered on the landing.
“Not a chance,” I said between breaths.
Cade nodded, swiped the card key across the sensor, and we exited the stairwell onto the roof at a running crouch. The roof was the typical light gray material that looked and felt like a padded tumbling mat, but it was made of something much stronger. There were rows upon rows of large solar panels angled toward the sun for maximum exposure at approximately thirty-degrees. The door we came out was like an old telephone booth without windows sitting in the middle of the roof. It provided concealment, and it blocked our line of sight to the other side of the roof. We made it to a set of raised solar panels and squatted down behind them. Cade had to bend his head forward. We scanned that side of the roof but saw nothing beyond solar panels.
“They must be on the other side of the door, near the water tank,” Cade said.
I didn’t want to think about the water tank. “Or they’re not here at all.”
I ran back toward the door and hugged the wall. I made my way to the first corner before Cade joined me and pulled me back behind him. He peeked around the corner and came back quickly with his finger to his mouth telling me to be quiet.
“Tiny has a knife pulled on Dallas, and they’re arguing. I’m going to go around the other side and disarm Tiny.”
He started to move past me, but I grabbed his arm. “Do you know how to disarm someone holding a knife?”
“No, but I know how to throw a tackle.”
Oh boy.
He disappeared out of sight, and I peeked around the corner of the building. Tiny’s eyes had lost all their humanity, and his already volatile temper was on the cusp of bursting into a million pieces.
Then he saw me, and his anger disintegrated as if it had imploded into nothingness. My appearance was the distraction Dallas needed. He reached for a gun in the back of his waistband, and everything seemed to happen simultaneously.
Tiny yelled, “Charli, no!” and Cade tackled him from behind.
The knife went flying. Dallas raised his gun and fired but, Tiny and Cade were no longer there. They were airborne. Then they were slamming into a set of solar panels that shattered underneath their weight as they tumbled to the rooftop.
Dallas fired again, and it was my turn to yell, “Dallas, no!”
Startled by my voice, Dallas whipped around and pointed the gun in my direction.
I raised my hands and said, “It’s…it’s just me.”
But Dallas didn’t seem to register that I wasn’t a threat. The gun waved back and forth between Tiny and Cade and me. His eyes darted all around as Cade and Tiny grappled for the knife. I slowly move closer to Dallas, inching my way as he became more and more distracted by the fight occurring on the other side of the roof. Frustrated with where to point the gun Dallas reached his breaking point. He fired into the air and yelled, “Enough!”
Tiny froze with Cade’s fist raised above him as he straddled the bigger man. He was ready to throw a knockout punch. I moved closer to Dallas, but his eyes were wild, and I wasn’t sure how to get them back to where he needed to be to drop the gun. To let Cade handle Tiny until Mateo could get there and take Tiny into custody.
But it was Tiny who changed the meaning of what I was seeing. “He killed Maddie!”
I looked to Dallas to see if any of that made sense. I expected to see his anger grow at being accused of a crime he didn’t commit. But his features smoothed, and he shook his head. That calmness I’d sought to give him engulfed him. The change was as eerie as it was quick.
“You just had to go and put them in the line of fire as well, didn’t you Tiny?”
“He’s telling the truth?” I asked Dallas.
“Unfortunately, he is.”
“Why?” It was the stupidest question in the world to ask a man who could do what Dallas had done. He’d shot Maddie, and then left her in excruciating pain to drown, knowing no one would find her.
“Because she cheated on me. I treated her like a queen, and she went back to him. She went back to the man who treated her like trash. It was like I recycled her. Made her new and shiny again, and she went back to him. How do you women do that?” It was a rhetorical question. He wasn’t even looking at me when he asked it. He was asking the space above my head like some more powerful or extraterrestrial being would answer the question for him.
He didn’t want my answer. So, I didn’t give him one. Yet that seemed to irritate him. The sneer he threw in my direction told me I was the trash that couldn’t be recycled.
I ignored his disdain and told him the truth. “Maddie didn’t cheat on you with Dean. Dean and Sugar are getting married. It was all a big misunderstanding.”
“She left me when I laid off Tiny. She said I was a failure who couldn’t even be a good trashman. I spent money on her I didn’t have. She was the reason I could no longer pay her brother and the other workers to sort the recycling. But I was making it right. I paid to have that trash hauled off to the dump, and I was starting to turn it around. Until you started digging around in my business.” He shook his head as if I was a spoiled child too self-absorbed to see the good he was doing for me. “I tried to be nice and straighten you out.
“Look at you. You’ve gone back to the mayor, and all he’s done is use you. He has no respect for you. He dumped you in high school, and he’s going to dump you as soon as he reaches the Senate. He’s got no time for a woman like you in his life.”
His words would have hurt if I’d gone back to Cade, but I hadn’t. I’d chosen a different path, and it was a route to love that I wanted to take. “I didn’t go back to Cade. He’s my boss. I’m just working on his campaign.”
“I saw you with him. You were even driving his car.”
“Do you mean his Tesla?” It suddenly hit me how blind I’d been. “That was you who tried to run me off the road.” Dallas had been there when I’d crashed, but he’d been kind, caring even. “Why did you run me off the road?”
Dallas got a little kick out of that. “You ran yourself off the road darlin’. I may have hit the car, but it was your bad driving that caused you to leave the road.”
“I was in a panic because you tried to run me off the road and shot at me! I’m a good driver when someone isn’t ramming the car I’m driving and using the windows for target shooting.” I wasn’t sure why Dallas insulting my driving offended me, but it did. Yet it was the last thing I need
ed to worry about right then while looking down the barrel of his gun.
Dallas shrugged. “I thought you were him. I was trying to get rid of the man who treated you so badly. Maybe if I’d gotten rid of Maddie’s ex, I wouldn’t have been put in the position where I had to kill her. I tried to be her hero, just like I tried to be yours.”
That was the angle I needed to use to buy Cade and Mateo time. Dallas wanted to be a hero. It was there in everything he’d done since I’d met him. I didn’t know where Tiny fit in to all of this, but he definitely wasn’t in the same role I’d had him in five minutes ago. I used the only angle I knew to use. “You were my hero. You were there for me—twice. I hope you’ll be there again.”
Dallas was unreadable. His face was as absent of emotion as a dead person’s. He waved his gun and indicated that I should move over to Tiny and Cade. I went where he directed me. Not because I wanted to make it easier for him to shoot all three of us, but because I wanted him to believe I would do anything he asked.
“I need you to tie them up.”
I didn’t hesitate. “Okay. Do you have any rope?”
“Use their belts.”
“How do I do that?”
“Tiny, get up.”
Tiny did as he was told, but he didn’t look happy. It was hard to believe this man was anything but a hardened criminal.
Once Tiny was on his feet, Dallas said, “Take Tiny’s belt off his waist and hold the two ends together. Create a loop in the middle. And gentleman, if you try anything, I will put a bullet in Charli’s back.”
I did as he said, step by step, waiting for his approval or correction. But most of all, waiting for the moment to arrive that I could make a move.
“Fold that loop to the belt buckle and shove that loop through the buckle. That will create a double-layered loop inside the buckle. Then you need to put those loops around his wrists.” When Tiny put his beef hands out side by side, Dallas chuckled. “Palms together, Tiny, with your fingers intertwined.” Tiny did as instructed with a sneer that made me wonder if maybe there were three different factions on that roof. Cade and I were one. Dallas was another. And Tiny was a wild card.