Chapter 20
LENNON
Sheriff Sherwood had suspicious eyes. He kept them pinned on me while Jeremiah explained the situation, visibly growing more suspicious with every word.
Like it was somehow my fault a creepy stalker was sending me perfumed postcards.
He had a tough, wiry look to him. Shaggy, salt-and-pepper hair, bushy black eyebrows, and a thick white mustache that covered his upper lip.
This was Grace and Emma’s father? It was hard to believe.
They were made of sunshine. Sheriff Sherwood was all granite.
“My prints are on it. So are Lennon’s.” Jeremiah handed over the bagged postcard. “It might be a long shot to pull anything from it, but it’s worth a try.”
The sheriff accepted it without taking his eyes off me. Apparently, we were all in grave danger that if he so much as blinked, I would immediately commit crimes. “I’ll send it to the lab.”
We kept the staring contest going as Jeremiah got into the part about the website and how I came to Mercy River Ranch.
“The booking link on the fake website takes you to the booking link on our real website. It’s pretty seamless, and unless you’re paying close attention to the website address, you wouldn’t notice that the fake one is different.”
“Smart.” His gaze finally released mine. I was offended by the implication that if brains were required, I was off the hook. “You talk to Mateo Alvarez about any of this?”
“Mateo is out on a trail ride with the other guests. He’ll be back this evening. The website is gone now. I tried to pull it up to show you when we got here. That means whoever set it up knows we checked it. They’re covering their tracks.”
Sherwood drummed his broad, blunt fingertips on his oak desk. “This is well within his capabilities.”
Jeremiah cocked a brow. “It’s a website that links to another website. A high school student could do it.”
“You have any high school students working at the ranch? Because whoever built that website wanted Lennon here for a reason. They didn’t try to send her to Hawaii or Vermont.
They brought her here, to Mercy River Ranch.
Mateo is a computer genius who happens to be a part-owner of the ranch.
Maybe it’s a coincidence, but I’m not going to stake Lennon’s safety on it. ”
“Wait, what? You can’t possibly think Mateo had anything to do with those postcards,” I said.
The hitch in Sherwood’s bushy eyebrows told me he could possibly think that.
“But he’s so nice!” I protested.
“Miss Graves, I’ve been in this world a long time.
You’d be surprised how often people say that exact thing when they find out what heinous crime their neighbor committed.
But he’s so nice. He mowed my lawn. I never suspected.
” Sherwood set his elbows on the armrests and steepled his fingers.
“It’s my job to suspect, so that’s what I do. I suspect everyone.”
Now I felt slightly less miffed about his suspicious eyes, but I still didn’t think Mateo was behind any of this. “Psycho stalkers don’t have dimples like that. They just don’t.”
Jeremiah turned his head slowly to look at me. “No,” he reprimanded curtly, like I was a misbehaving puppy.
Sherwood’s mustache trembled as if he were holding back a laugh. “Dimples notwithstanding, I’ll be talking to Mateo and everyone else at the ranch. But let’s start with you, Miss Graves.”
Oh, hell.
“Me?” The word was barely a squeak. The sheriff’s steely blue eyes narrowed on me again, and I cleared my throat. “What about me?”
“Tell me about your life in New York. What did you do for work? Who did you associate with? Is there anyone you can think of who would want to harm you? An ex-boyfriend, maybe?”
I chewed my lip, thinking. Enemies? No. I had dangerous information, thanks to Benny—information I had no business having.
That was why he wanted me out of New York.
But the postcards had started a year before I’d even met Benny.
This had nothing to do with him. He’d protected me, sent me far away from his mess.
I wasn’t going to betray him and drag him into mine now.
“I can’t think of anyone who would want to harm me. I don’t have enemies, really. I’m too busy working to get into shit I shouldn’t be in. I’m kind of a jack of all trades, you know? I have a lot of different jobs. I model a little, mostly catalogues and some fit modeling—”
“Fit modeling?” Sherwood interrupted.
“I stand there for eight hours a day while designers fit the clothing to different body shapes. It’s exhausting and not very prestigious, but it pays pretty well.”
He nodded. “What else?”
I licked my lips. “I’m a cam girl. That’s where most of my money comes from.
” I crossed my hands over my lap, meeting the sheriff’s gaze squarely.
I wasn’t ashamed of who I was or how I paid my bills, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed talking about it with people who thought it gave them permission to treat me like garbage.
Hopefully the sheriff wasn’t one of those people.
“A cam girl.” He leaned forward, looking up at me from beneath his furrowed bushy brows. “Miss Graves, do you mean to tell me you’re the first person in the history of the world’s oldest profession to not have a single enemy? That doesn’t seem likely.”
My head tipped sideways. “Prostitution is illegal, Sheriff. I’m a cam girl.
Think of it like a stripper, but online.
Subscribers can look but they can’t touch.
And yes, I am telling you that my regular subscribers have never threatened me or made me fear for my safety.
But of course there are people who harass me.
I’m a woman on the internet. They’re just trolls using anonymous accounts. I have no idea who they are.”
Jeremiah tapped his fingertips on his knee like he was thinking through something. “Wearing a mask isn’t enough to protect your identity from someone determined enough to find you. Did you ever meet one of your subs in person?”
My head whipped toward him. “I didn’t tell you I wore a mask,” I said slowly.
Jeremiah stared back at me. “If one of your subs—”
“Shut up,” I hissed. My eyes burned. He knew. He fucking knew.
Jeremiah’s gaze faltered beneath the accusation in mine. He dragged a hand through his hair and nodded.
I gripped the armrests with shaking hands and turned back to Sheriff Sherwood.
“My top subscriber didn’t find out who I was.
I found out who he was.” Honestly, I couldn’t be surprised people were after Benny.
He never knew how to shut up. “So, yes, we met in person and started dating. But it’s not him.
There’s just no way.” Benny was as gentle as a butterfly.
He wouldn’t send those postcards, much less trick me into coming to Mercy River.
That didn’t make sense at all. His problems were the reason I was here.
The sheriff exchanged a glance with Jeremiah. It was clear that neither one believed me. “All right,” Sherwood said finally. “Can you think of anything else I should know?”
But I was done. Still shaking with fury, I shoved back my chair with a loud scrape and pushed to my feet. “Why don’t you ask Jeremiah? It seems like he knows everything anyway.”
I stormed out. If I stayed a second longer, I’d be forced to punch Jeremiah in his beautiful, lying mouth.
The good thing about running out of clean clothes and being forced to wear my going-out dress was that it was an excellent dress for flouncing. I stomped along the crumbling brick sidewalk, the short skirt bouncing against my thighs with every furious step.
“Get in the truck, Lennon.”
God, that voice. Deep and steady. The same voice that had pulled me out of a panic attack only hours ago. I had trusted that voice.
I glanced up. Jeremiah was driving on the wrong side of Main Street at two miles an hour, keeping pace with my angry stride. I stopped, and he hit the brakes.
“I’m not going anywhere with you, you lying sack of shit.”
“That’s not fair. I might be a sack of shit, but I didn’t lie, Lennon. Not once.”
Your kiss was a lie. My lower lip trembled, and his gaze dipped there. “Fuck,” he said quietly. He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Please get in the truck, honey. I’ll explain everything.”
“I don’t want your explanation, Jeremiah. Leave me alone. I want to go home.”
Except I didn’t have a home. Had I ever? A place that was safe and mine. Not my mom’s trailer. Not any of the apartments I bounced around every twelve months to avoid a rent increase. Not Benny’s place. My shoulders sagged. I was so fucking tired of it all.
“It’s a long walk. We won’t get there until after dark.”
The implication that the ranch and my snug little pine cabin were home only made me more upset.
A month from now I’d be gone. Benny’s problems didn’t look like they were going to wrap up anytime soon, which meant returning to New York was out of the question.
I’d been toying with the idea of extending my stay at Mercy River, but now?
My stalker had found me and Jeremiah…Well, I had to admit that he was part of my reason for staying.
Not anymore.
I took another step and then stopped again. I didn’t really want to spend what was left of the day walking along the side of the road. My thighs would chafe. Biting off my nose to spite my face wasn’t really my style, and neither was suffering.