Chapter Twelve
Honor’s Edge Investigations Office
Days passed. Nate, Sam, Cal, Jill, and even Glenda kept collecting information, but nothing seemed to add up to anything concrete. Even finding out where and how Jules had been killed didn’t really give them answers. Just more pieces to a puzzle that seemed to get bigger and bigger.
Nate tried not to think about strangulation. About Jules being in some crappy motel outside of town—definitely not in Bozeman or Livingston—and living out a threat she’d known, and no one had taken her seriously about.
He tried not to think about how little traction the police seemed to be finding. That, as far as he knew, no other suspects had been identified or questioned. They’d searched Nate and Sam’s house, Honor’s Edge. They hadn’t taken much, because what was there to take when he hadn’t done anything?
Nate wanted to believe Michael Hyatt was the murderer, because that would be simple enough.
But he’d found absolutely no evidence and didn’t get the impression the police had either.
Sam hadn’t found anything that spoke to bitterness or hate from the girlfriend, a motive or even an opportunity.
Cal hadn’t found anyone Jules might have hired, and the friend Jules had been staying with hadn’t been receptive to being questioned, though Sam was going to give it a shot since Jill hadn’t gotten anywhere on that front.
Everything was just in a terrible holding pattern. Sometimes a new detail emerged, but it didn’t lead them anywhere.
Still, Sam was handling everything a little better.
With so much information to collect, it gave her somewhere to pour all her nervous, anxious energy.
But she still wasn’t sleeping or eating enough.
More than nothing, but not enough. Nate didn’t know that he could make that happen until someone was arrested for the murder.
Someone that wasn’t him.
Something about the fact that Hayes had been scarce bothered him. Maybe it should set his mind at ease. Hayes was out there actually investigating a crime instead of screwing with him, trying to pin it on him.
But the longer this went on, the tighter Nate’s nerves pulled. Sam got revved by all the different places to investigate. Nate felt a bit like a noose was tightening around his neck.
Case in point, he was currently going through the records Jules had given him about Michael—financials, phone records, realty holdings and the like—looking for something, anything that might be a clue.
Sam let out a little whoop of triumph. Nate glanced over at her. She’d put her cell phone down and was throwing things into a tote bag in a rush. It was the most animated he’d seen her in days. “Olivia Underwood agreed to meet with me if I can get to Bozeman by noon.”
Nate glanced at the time. She’d be cutting it close.
He rose. “I’ll drive.”
Sam stopped what she was doing and inhaled.
Then she shook her head. “I think it’s best if it’s just me. Woman to woman, for starters. We don’t know what Jules told her about you.”
“Okay, what about—”
“Cal can be charming, sure, but it isn’t the right time,” she said, all but reading his mind.
“Her friend’s been murdered, and I don’t know if she knows you’re a suspect, but she no doubt knows the suspects are all men.
If she knows your name, she’ll know Cal connects.
Besides, I’m a female private investigator who just wants to bring a man, the right man, to justice. It’s a better angle to start with.”
Nate had no doubt she was right, but her going alone didn’t sit right with him. Which probably wasn’t a sane thought considering she’d investigated and questioned plenty of people on her own. She carried a weapon. She was trained. She didn’t need some kind of protector and he knew that.
Usually.
She was already moving though, shouldering the bag, pulling her keys out. “I’ll bring back lunch. What sounds good?”
He eyed her. “Whatever you’ll eat the most of.”
She sighed, irritated with his mother-hen routine, as she called it. “I’m not going to waste away.”
He made a noncommittal kind of noise because he was worried she was going to do just that.
“I shouldn’t be more than an hour. I’ll text if it’s going to be more.”
“I’ll be here.”
She gave him a quick kiss then was out the doorway into the back. No doubt she’d speed demon her way to Bozeman in record time. Nate could only hope she got some actual information. A step forward.
They needed progress. Something to go on.
For all of their sanity.
She wasn’t gone more than five or ten minutes when Nate heard the bell on the front door clang. He glanced up from his computer expecting Cal or a neighbor wanting to gossip, or maybe a stranger wanting to hire them.
Nate stayed very still, absorbing the tableau in front of him. It was none of those things.
Hayes was bad enough. Especially with that damn detective badge hanging from his neck and the gun strapped to his hip. The two officers who flanked Hayes with guns drawn were … really not good. He didn’t know the one on the left, but he knew Brian Mathews on the right.
That prick had been an ass to Sam and Cal at different points over the past year, and Nate had never been able to hide he couldn’t stand the guy.
“If you’d stand up, take two steps away from the desk, Bennet. Cooperate with our officers and this can go as smooth and easy as you make it,” Jake said in a quiet but commanding voice.
Nate didn’t comply right away. Oh, he knew he should, but he also knew controlling the righteous fury coursing through him was just as important a step.
When Hayes put a hand on the butt of his weapon, Nate stood, though his hands curled into fists.
“If you’d be so good as to put your hands in the air,” Hayes said with such fake congeniality Nate had to remind himself to breathe.
Getting under his skin was clearly Hayes’s aim, and Nate would be damned if he gave Jake Hayes what he wanted.
The two cops moved forward. The one he didn’t know began to search Nate while Officer Mathews held a gun pointed directly at him. Like he was some kind of threat.
The smirk on Mathews’s face told Nate everything he needed to know about this little farce.
“I’m not armed,” Nate said as bland as he could manage. “Is this some kind of search warrant thing or something?”
“No. Nate Bennet, I have a warrant for your arrest.”
The cop searching him pulled his wrists back. For a second, Nate fought the grip. But Jake looked so damn smug, and Mathews jumped in, gripping his arm. Nate forced himself to breathe and relax and let the guy put the handcuffs on.
He wasn’t going to make a scene. He wasn’t going to fight this. Clearly that was what Jake wanted.
“I hope you’re not serious about this, Hayes. It’s going to look pretty bad if you are.”
“I’ve tried to make this as small a situation as possible.
Not typical for the arrest of a murderer, but considering Sam is a close personal friend, I’ve taken a few risks here.
I’d hate for Sam to hear about it secondhand, so we don’t have a SWAT team, and I’m hoping you can be a man and just cooperate.
She’s been through enough, don’t you think? ”
Yeah, he did fucking think. It struck him as worse, somehow, that Hayes was trying to spare her feelings. Nate might be glad of it on the wholesale, but it meant…
“So, you were what? Sitting out there stalking us? Waiting for your moment when she wasn’t here?” It left him feeling just as baffled as he was furious.
He remembered when Hayes had come to the house and Nate had defended his behavior, even though he hadn’t wanted to. Even though he hated the guy. But surely the man was just doing his job.
Bringing up Sam? Now?
Apparently not.
Hayes said nothing while the cop tightened the cuffs, so Nate did the same. Kept his mouth clamped shut. He wouldn’t fight. He wouldn’t resist. He’d believe that somehow Cal would make Hayes pay for this.
And that would be retribution enough. Somehow.
Once the handcuffs were secured, Hayes moved through the office toward the back. The officers had a grip on either of Nate’s arms, and they pushed him toward Hayes and the back exit.
Likely, no random neighbor would see what they were doing if they went out the back, so no grapevine information would make it around Marietta.
People might speculate about two cops and a detective going into the office, but Honor’s Edge worked with the police on cases sometimes, so hopefully people wouldn’t think much of it.
But what would Sam think when she came back, the office was empty, and she couldn’t get a hold of him? This was going to upend what minimal progress she’d been making, and it just killed him that he couldn’t do anything about it.
Once at the back door, Hayes opened it and held it open, gesturing for the officers to take Nate outside.
Which meant that for a moment, Nate was eye-to-eye with Hayes as he passed. Nate didn’t know who else to blame for this except Hayes. So, even knowing he should keep his mouth shut, he couldn’t quite help himself.
“Was it to spare her feelings or were you afraid she’d kick your ass if you tried to pull this in front of her?”
Because he was glad Sam wasn’t here, that she didn’t have to see this. Hayes should be glad, too, because Nate had no doubt she would have ended up in handcuffs, and Hayes would have ended up with a bloody nose.
If he was lucky.
Hayes’s jaw clenched, but he merely shrugged. “You can thank me later.”
The officers pushed, but Nate held his ground. “You think she’s going to come crying to you? That’s what this is really about? That’s pretty fucking pathetic.”
Hayes’s expression didn’t change, and his voice was mild when he spoke. “Who knows what Sam might do when faced with yet another person in her life turning out to be a murderer. Now, are you resisting arrest, Bennet, or are you going to make those feet move?”
It was a good thing he was cuffed, Nate thought dimly through the haze of rage. “I want my attorney, Hayes.”
“Oh, we’ll follow procedure, Bennet. First things first, you’re coming on down to the station.”