Chapter Fifteen – Landslide #2
Those damn tears kept finding their way back to my eyes.
Everyone on my staff cared about this place.
It made me despise all over again the way we’d let them go when the ranch had been failing before Spence had died.
Kurt and Teddy and some of the other ranch hands had spent as much of their lives on the ranch as I had.
It might not be a legacy they felt responsible for, but it was much more than a job to many of them.
Dad had done his best to make up for our abandoning them when he’d hired our long-term employees back, giving each of them a nice resigning bonus.
But a few of them had refused to return, and I couldn’t blame them.
Maybe I needed to add those names to the file Andie was compiling. But all of that had happened ten years ago. Why would any of those people come after us now?
It didn’t make any sense.
Parker seemed to weigh Teddy’s offer hesitantly, even though he’d known the man for more than a decade. Even though being responsible for Theo was new to him, it would be hard for Parker to leave the boy in someone else’s care.
I bumped his shoulder. “Go with them. I can catch you up on everything later.”
His jaw worked overtime as he slid his teeth back and forth. I could see the pained indecision. Should he stick with me as my bodyguard or go with Theo? This was just one of the many reasons why I wished Jim hadn’t called him. It wasn’t fair to force Parker to decide between us.
“We’ll just be right there.” Teddy pointed to the horse barn. “Got a stall at the back all laid out with fresh hay for June and her babies.”
“You show him a bunch of puppies, and I’ll end up taking one home,” Parker said with a tired resignation I’d never heard in his voice before.
Renewed worry spiraled through me. His life had imploded—in some ways worse than mine.
Whoever was coming for me would be caught and put away, but Parker would now always be Theo’s guardian.
A father. The one thing he’d sworn he never wanted to be.
I’d witnessed firsthand that kind of obligation as a child.
I’d been Theo to Spencer. I didn’t want that for either of them. The doubts. The responsibility.
Teddy chuckled at Parker’s resigned tone. “Well, these puppies still have a week or so before they’re ready to leave their mama.” He looked down at Theo and offered him his hand. “Come on, kid, I’ll show you the babies, but you’ll have to be very gentle with them.”
Theo literally squealed, his face bursting into a smile so large it was hard to look away from, but when I did, the affection on Parker’s face stole my breath.
The love there reminded me, in many ways, of the look Spencer had directed my way before he’d died.
It made me instantly ashamed for thinking I’d only been a duty to my stepdad.
Parker watched as Teddy and Theo strode away, Johnny trotting along beside them.
I touched Parker’s arm. “You know he’ll be just fine with Teddy. He and Kurt raised me almost as much as Mom and Spence did.”
His jaw worked overtime again before he turned on a heel and made his way back to where Kurt and Sheriff Wylee were waiting for us. I followed with my heart full of conflicting emotions.
Sheriff Wylee shifted to take us in as we approached. He was nearing seventy, if he wasn’t already there, and he was large and round, with white hair almost the same color as his skin. It made him the perfect person to play the clichéd Santa at Christmas.
He’d been the sheriff when my dad had been a kid, holding the position for nearly four decades now.
He knew everyone and everything about Rivers and its people.
He didn’t fit into most small-town, law-enforcement stereotypes in that he wasn’t an asshole who had too big of an ego and territorial issues.
His only objective was keeping our community safe, and he used whatever help and resources came along to make it happen.
His face was concerned as he greeted me with a tip of his hat. “Fallon.” He extended his hand toward Parker. “I didn’t realize you had a son, Parker.”
If you hadn’t spent a lifetime scrutinizing Parker the way I had, you wouldn’t have caught the flinch that crossed his face. It was a barely imperceptible flash before it was gone.
“I just recently became Theo’s guardian. He was my teammate’s son. We lost Will last month,” he responded.
Understanding crossed the sheriff’s face. “I’m damn sorry to hear that.”
For a beat, an awkward silence hung in the air that no one knew how to bridge before I purposefully stepped into the void, turning the topic back to this morning’s horrible event. “Beckett said he found a timing device of some kind? ”
“We sent it off to the lab for testing,” Wylee answered, looking almost as grateful as Parker that I’d turned the conversation away from the loss of his friend.
“Fire marshal found a couple more pieces of shrapnel he thinks were part of the bomb’s casing.
We’ll see if we can get any prints or DNA, but I wouldn’t count on it with the heat of the blast. Still, we might get lucky and find a matching bomb signature in the fed’s database. ”
“I requested the security team scour our video footage,” Kurt added, throwing a thumb in the direction of the security hut. “I figured the sheriff and Parker would want to see whatever the cameras caught.”
We all turned and headed down the worn path that led to the hut.
Computer monitors and servers took up most of the room, but there was a locked gun case in the corner and a tiny kitchenette at the back.
Our security team ensured we had twenty-four-hour coverage on the estate, but the hut itself was sometimes left empty while the team made their rounds in the wee hours.
We hadn’t had any significant issues at the ranch since Uncle Adam and Theresa Puzo had rained their terror on us.
Sometimes, when we had a very high-profile wedding, we needed extra security to keep the fans and paparazzi at bay, and we’d had a few minor guest issues here and there, but nothing that was atypical for a resort of our size.
Our head of security, Lance, was bent over the shoulder of another team member, eyes glued to the multiple screens as we came in. He straightened and turned to greet us with the same grim look that had been on all the staff’s faces this morning. I hated it.
Dark-haired and olive-skinned, Lance had years of experience at much larger venues. Five years ago, he’d left Dad’s Vegas resort and come here so he could raise his kids in a small town like the one he’d grown up in outside Denver.
Looking at Parker, Lance crossed his arms over his chest and bit out, “Before you even ask, Parker, I’ll tell you the same thing I told your dad. We didn’t miss anything.”
“And yet we have a burned-down cabin, a slashed tractor tire, and two mutilated cows,” Parker snapped back.
Lance didn’t respond, but his eyes flashed with anger— whether it was at the situation or Parker, I couldn’t tell.
“We’ll need all the video sent to us,” Wylee told Lance. “Everything from the time the first cow showed up mutilated.”
“That’s hundreds of hours,” I said to Wylee. “You’re not staffed to crawl through that much footage.”
“We’re all-hands-on-deck, Fallon. No one in my department is sitting on their asses while you’ve got trouble here. When we’re not on shift, each of us will take turns looking through it.”
“Let me see if I can wrangle some off-the-book support to analyze the video as well,” Parker said. Then, he put his hand on the shoulder of the guy running the camera and said, “Stop! Go back.”
I eased up next to him and saw, with a shiver up my spine, the same thing he did—me going into Levi’s cabin.
I frowned. When had I last been in the cabin? Maybe when Dad had stayed there after we’d returned from San Diego? Definitely before Sadie and my siblings had shown up for my birthday and then all flown off to Australia.
“When was this?” I asked.
“Last night. 9:05,” the guy at the camera said.
Everything seemed to slow down as something pulled low in my belly. Fear mixed with confusion. “I wasn’t in the cabin last night.” I turned to Parker, repeating, “I wasn’t anywhere near it.”
“I hardly think you’d plant a device to burn down your own property,” Sheriff Wylee said, joining us.
“Don’t need the money, right?” The way his voice crept up, making the statement into a question, sent another shiver over my skin and reminded me of Detective Lake in San Diego throwing the bored-little-rich-girl routine at me.
It spiked my annoyance into full fury mode. “No. I don’t need the damn money. And I wouldn’t burn down part of my legacy.”
The sheriff patted me on the shoulder. “Calm down. No one is accusing you of anything.”
But the doubt was already there. I could see it.
“I wasn’t in the damn cabin last night,” I said.
“I was…” My voice trailed off. Where was I?
I’d fallen asleep on the couch, hadn’t I?
I’d helped bale the alfalfa yesterday, and I’d barely made it home and showered before collapsing on the couch with th e television remote in hand.
I’d woken up in the middle of the night with static on the screen and crawled into bed before passing out again.
“Fallon?” Parker prompted.
“Home. I was home. I fell asleep on the couch.”
No one said anything, but there was a rustle of clothes as the men shifted awkwardly.
“We have the security system on the house. It’ll show when I entered my code and that I didn’t leave until this morning,” I explained, irritated at even the idea of having to prove myself.
But as I looked around the cabin, my suspicions grew. Someone had put me on that screen, which meant it had to be someone with access to our systems. Someone with the skill to do it. But why would they? What could anyone possibly gain from trying to pin this on me?
I couldn’t see JJ and Ace doing anything this crafty. They’d just come straight for me.
I swallowed hard, that bitter taste growing and coating my tongue until I didn’t think I’d ever be able to eat or drink again without tasting it.
“The video has obviously been messed with, right? I wasn’t here.” I turned to Parker, sending him a look that pleaded with him to believe me.
He nodded. “I’ll send it to Cranky. He’ll tell us when and how the video was modified.
” He turned to Wylee. “You should send the footage to an official video forensic team. Going through the proper channels will take longer, but you’ll have legal evidence to back up whatever Cranky finds out for me. ”
“Who the hell is Cranky?” Wylee asked.
“Member of my SEAL team. He’s in charge of all our tech and surveillance. He knows how to do things with code you wouldn’t even think was possible.”
“Sadie’s sister-in-law knows people at the NSA,” I said quietly. “If I had her ask, they’d take a look too.”
Wylee nodded. “I’d reach out to whoever you can. Getting as many eyes as we can on the evidence will help build our court case when we nail the son of a bitch.”
My stomach flopped. Getting the NSA involved meant talking to Dad and coming clean about what had been happening since he’d left while also, somehow, convincing him not to come running back from Australia.
If he did, Sadie would come too because there was no way she’d let him or me face any of this without her at our sides.
And that meant my siblings would be here.
In danger. No way would I allow that. Would the idea of keeping Sadie, Spencey, and Caro out of danger be enough to keep Dad away?
I had to put off telling them about any of it for as long as possible, and I had to convince Jim, Parker, and Kurt to do the same.
Suddenly, I felt trapped, buried under a heavy weight, just as I had over breakfast with Parker. I couldn’t breathe. I needed air…respite…something.
I hurried out of the security hut, anxious to get away. To smell the pine trees and the wildflowers instead of burnt wood. To feel the wind on my face instead of confused looks. To feel anything but desperation, fear, and a horrible sense of failure.