Chapter 10 The Unraveling #3
“Callie Haywood.” Defeat hollowed out her voice. “And her daughter-in-law, Verity, is her willing puppet. They’re as thick as thieves.”
“How’d you know when we’d be at the hotel?” April asked as Luke arrived and hung back once he realized what was happening.
Tiffany remained slumped on the pavement. “I didn’t, actually. I was running blind tonight.” She admitted to installing the spyware on Kaya’s cell phone that Bear had destroyed. “It’s how I kept track of Kaya and her uncle’s whereabouts and reported it back to Callie and Verity.”
April sent Bear a bleak look, knowing that spyware could do a lot more than that. It had likely also been transmitting GPS coordinates, monitoring texts, and recording phone calls. The possibilities were endless. They were fortunate to still be alive.
Tiffany drew a shuddering breath. “When Kaya’s phone went dark, I didn’t dare tell Callie, not sure what she or Verity would do to my mom in retaliation.
You never know with Verity. She’s a loose screw, and they’re working on something big together right now, and I mean BIG.
That’s why I had to clean up my own mess. ”
“How big?” April asked quickly. The way the sniveling ex-law student said the word big had an ominous ring to it.
“No idea.” Tiffany sniffled pitifully and wiped her nose again.
Gross! April had always been a bit of a germaphobe. She fished in her pocket for a tissue. She nearly always had a pack on her. When she pulled it out, she saw she was down to her last tissue. Offering it to Tiffany felt like a good way to use it.
“Thanks.” Tiffany held it to her nose and gave an energetic honk. “All I know is Callie is steaming more than usual. I overheard her give Verity an ultimatum the other day. Something about burning the whole thing down.”
April didn’t like the sound of that. From the stony set to Bear’s features, neither did he.
Without any more prompting, Tiffany launched into a pity party that quickly disintegrated into a full-blown meltdown.
“Things were going just fine until Kaya’s bright idea about making our thesis project about her aunt’s cold case.
” Her venom suggested she blamed her roommate for her spiral into crime.
“The next thing I knew, Callie had Verity robbing graves and planting bones for me to make sure Kaya found. Verity was supposed to dig up a Dakota, but she botched that up. She botches everything. The only reason Callie keeps her around is because she’s so good at sending the police on wild goose chases, like she did with the bear trap.
I just wish they’d left me out of all of it! ”
She was still confessing when Luke and his deputies closed in on her to read her rights and snap handcuffs on her wrists.
Over the next few hours, Luke and Wheeler played Tiffany and Martha Masterson against each other in adjacent interrogation rooms. By pretending that the daughter had ratted out her mother and vice versa, they got a full confession out of both women.
It was worse than they’d imagined. They learned that Callie Haywood had been preying on the nursing home patients in Alpine for years. Since it was one of the closest nursing home facilities to Heart Lake, many aging local landowners spent their last days there.
Along came Tiana Dakota, an ambitious college student with her heart set on law school. While working at the County Clerk’s Office, she’d stumbled across one of Callie’s forged deeds and started asking questions.
“That was when Callie decided to burn down the County Clerk’s Office.
” Tiffany spoke in a dull voice as she faced the camera in the interrogation room.
“Something spooked Tiana, though, and she took off on her bike during a rainstorm. Callie followed her in her pickup truck, but by the time she caught up to Tiana, Verity had already done her dirty work for her.”
Luke sharply inquired, “Where is Tiana Dakota’s body buried?”
Tiffany shook her head. “I don’t know. I asked, but Callie refused to tell me. The only reason I know about the forged deeds is because I’m the one—” She paused and swallowed hard.
“You’re the one doing the forging these days, eh?” Luke finished the sentence for her.
She wrapped her arms defensively around her middle. “It paid a lot more than all the hourly jobs I’d been slaving away at. Law school isn’t cheap, you know!”
So, it wasn’t your roommate’s fault after all?
Make up your mind, kid. Tiffany’s logic was all over the place.
“I don’t get it.” April let out a gusty sigh from the observation room.
“She was so close to graduating from law school and stepping into a six-figure career. Possibly seven figures at some point.”
Gil shook his head gravely. “She wouldn’t be the first person who sold a bright future for immediate gratification. It wasn’t as if her momma raised her on a church pew. This is what no moral compass looks like.”
They watched and listened as Martha and Tiffany spilled their guts until they ran dry.
They learned that the unhinged Verity Haywood had two favorite hobbies — running people off the road with her Corvette and setting things on fire. Her list of crimes was long and sordid:
Tiana Dakota had gotten in her way of marrying Ben Haywood.
As Tiana’s best friend, Willow Chaska had been guilty of knowing too much.
Luke had made the mistake of poking into Tiana’s cold case files.
Kaya had done the same as Luke.
April watched through the glass as Luke reached up to finger the scars on his cheek. He’d waited a long time for answers about the house fire he’d almost died in.
The next step in the investigation would be a tough call.
April was glad she wasn’t the one who would have to make it.
No matter how much of a case the authorities built against Callie, it was unlikely she would be fit to stand trial, and Callie’s return to the nursing home certainly threw a monkey wrench into things.
In the meantime, the police needed to figure out what Callie had meant when she’d threatened to “burn it all down.”
It sounded to April like she understood the game was almost up. The police were closing in on her, and she knew it. They had both Mastersons in custody, and it was only a matter of time before they amassed enough evidence to obtain an arrest warrant with her name on it.
Luke made his decision quickly. He got on the phone with the authorities in Alpine to plan a raid on the nursing home in the morning. It was the nerve center of Callie Haywood’s criminal operation, and she seemed to think she was safe there. He intended to turn up the heat and prove her wrong.
Gil elbowed April companionably. “We’d best get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day. Bliss told me to offer you our spare room.”
“That’s very kind of her.” She doubted she would get any sleep tonight. “Please tell her I accept. I just need to touch bases with Bear before we take off.”
Gil grinned at her. “Last time I saw your boyfriend, he was pacing the waiting area, probably leaving ruts.”
April chuckled at the reminder that her longtime friend didn’t yet know her latest bit of personal news. “Fiancé,” she informed him loftily. “He got a promotion earlier today. Try to keep up.”
“What?” Gil whirled her way with a whoop of elation. “Congratulations, Doc!”
Before she knew what he was up to, he was swooping her up into a bear hug and twirling her around and around. It knocked off his Stetson and brought Luke running to see what the outburst was all about.
Word spread quickly through the police station, and someone brought out coffee and donuts to celebrate.
There was still so much work to be done, but April couldn’t resist being drawn into the noisy camaraderie of the Heart Lake Police Department and the Lonestar Security team.
As they’d warned her on a number of occasions, they believed in celebrating their victories — loudly and with ridiculous amounts of hoopla.
And a double arrest followed by an engagement was more than enough cause in their book to get a little rowdy.
They soon had a dartboard tournament going in the lobby, which Bear won by a lot. He completely smoked his opponents.
April threw her arms around him to congratulate him. He planted a kiss on her in full view of their audience, stirring a noisy round of cheers and clapping.
The highlight of April’s evening, by far, was when he slid a silver turquoise band onto her ring finger. His teasing voice filled her ears. “What’s a guy gotta do to get his woman alone at a gig like this?”
For once, she wasn’t in a hurry to dash back to the solitude she’d clung to for so long. It was far better sharing her and Bear’s happiness with friends.
Good friends.
The kind of friends who felt like family.
Friends who would stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the morning to face what came next.
She gazed around the room through happy tears, knowing she didn’t want to give this up. Ever. Small-town life had turned out to be a good fit after all. No not just a good fit — a perfect fit.
Her newfound friends in law enforcement and the security industry had their own, sometimes unorthodox ways of doing things, but their cowboy brand of justice worked for them.
For Heart Lake.
For her.
She was going to do some serious soul-searching about Gil’s job offer in the coming days, but she was pretty sure she knew what her answer was going to be.