Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Holly blinked and read the names again. “I can’t… I can’t believe it.”
Reid sat at her breakfast bar with the laptop open in front of them, one hand braced beside the trackpad and the other still under Holly’s fingers, where she’d grabbed him when Emma Shaw’s name appeared above the list of jurors.
His sleeve was wrinkled beneath her grip.
She made herself let go, though her hand didn’t seem to know what to do once it was empty.
On the screen, the scanned page sat crooked and grainy with the names that swirled in her head: Warren Ackles. Sharla Mapes. Nell Truett. Hoyt Sullivan. All four names were there, ordinary black type on a page that suddenly made nothing ordinary.
“They were jurors,” she said again, as if repeating it might make the idea arrange itself into something less terrible.
Reid copied the file link and attached it and Jasper’s full package to a message for Claire. “This is the case Granddad described. Emma Shaw was the victim. Hopper Shaw has been in Sanctuary, visible on camera more than once while victims were there.”
“You think it’s him?”
“It’s circumstantial, but it sure looks like it.” Reid sent the message, cc’ing Jasper.
His gaze came to her then, direct and steady enough to keep her from spinning too far away from herself. “With what we have right now, Hopper Shaw is the obvious suspect.”
The words should’ve made her feel better. Not because she wanted Hopper to be guilty, but because a suspect meant they were one step closer to stopping a killer.
Instead, the thought of Hopper sitting in her shop with his back to the wall and his big hands wrapped around a coffee mug made her chest tighten. He’d always looked wounded more than dangerous, but maybe that was because she had blinders on when it came to her customers.
Reid’s phone rang, and he answered on speaker after one glance at the screen. “Claire.”
“I got the file.” The agent’s voice sounded professional, but the tension beneath it came through clearly. “Emmet and I are going to pick up Hopper Shaw for questioning.”
Holly grabbed onto Reid again. “Pick him up as in arrest him?”
“Question him,” Claire clarified. “We have enough to talk to him formally.”
Holly heard muffled movement in the background, a car door, voices low and distant. “Stay with Holly, Reid. Don’t go looking for him.”
Reid’s mouth flattened. “Be careful. If he’s our killer, he’s dangerous.”
Claire made a sound that might’ve been agreement or mild exasperation. “I’ve handled serial killers before.”
Reid pinched the bridge of his nose. “And the other jurors on the list?”
“Working on contacting them and proceeding with possible protection, if they’re willing. I’ll update you when I can.”
The call ended, and the apartment returned to the hum of the refrigerator, Blue’s snoring, and the uneven pulse of Holly’s own thoughts. “What if he didn’t do it?”
Reid placed his hand over hers. “Then we need him cleared, because if someone is framing him, that person is still out there.”
Through the kitchen window, she could see the tops of buildings along Main Street, the edge of the mountains, the ordinary Sunday morning going on as if the ground under her life hadn’t cracked open.
A text came from Roni. Don’t forget our date tonight.
Holly groaned. With everything going on, she had forgotten. Quickly, she texted back, Caught a bug. Can’t go out tonight.
Roni was slow responding. A bug called Reid???
At least if Roni thought she and Reid were together, Roni might not show up on her doorstep with soup and crackers.
Yes, Holly typed back. Don’t get your hopes up. We’re only talking.
Six smiley faces came back.
Holly rolled her eyes.
“What?” Reid asked.
“Your sister.” She laid the phone down. “She and I were supposed to go for dinner tonight, but crisis averted.”
Reid picked up his phone and dialed.
“Who are you calling?” Holly asked. “Not Roni, right? She’ll ask a dozen questions.”
“Not her,” he said. “Garrett.”
The name tightened something in her stomach before the call even connected.
Garrett answered, and Reid didn’t bother with a preamble. “The victims and Nell were jurors on one of my grandfather’s old cases. The judge, prosecutor, victim’s family, and jury are all potential symbolic targets now. I need someone on Linc.”
Holly’s breath caught. Of course he could be a potential target, sitting alone in his house right now.
“He won’t like it,” Reid went on, “and I’d do it myself, but I have to stay with Holly.”
Garrett’s answer was calm and immediate. “I’ll send CB.”
“Plain clothes if possible. Granddad will throw a fit if he thinks I’ve assigned him a guard.”
“Grizzly can handle him.”
“Tell CB Linc knows enough to be suspicious,” Reid said. “He doesn’t know details but my grandfather was a judge for forty years. He’s good at getting to the facts.”
“Grizzly can handle one suspicious old man with cross-examination skills.” Garrett’s voice sobered. “You need anything else?”
“No.”
Garrett didn’t push. “Keep me posted.”
Reid ended the call and set the phone down with more care than necessary.
The muscles in his forearm were tight, his shoulders square, his attention already reaching in too many directions at once.
Holly could see it now in a way she might not have two days ago.
Reid worried by making plans. He loved by building perimeters.
He cared by thinking six steps ahead and preparing for the seventh.
“If you really think Linc could be in danger,” she said, “you should be with him, not me. I can take care of myself.”
“I’d be an idiot to assume he isn’t, but I’m not leaving you.”
“He won’t like having someone watching him.”
“He’ll try to make CB miserable, but the big guy has earned his Grizzly call sign. Granddad’s going to meet his match.”
She nodded, but the worry didn’t ease. Age had taken some of Linc’s strength, but if danger came to his door, he might try to handle it.
“I’m glad you called Garrett.”
Reid’s attention swung to her, and the guarded intensity in his face softened enough to make her remember the dog park, the fence beneath her hands, and the admission she’d made.
You’re under my skin.
She wished she could take it and put it somewhere safe until the world stopped burning. Instead, it hovered right there between jury lists and protection details, refusing to become less true because the timing was terrible.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“We wait,” Reid said. “Do you have anything in the shop you still need to do?”
There were always more things to do. She hadn’t even done the week’s baking or planned out the lunch menu.
The stack of bills to be paid was high enough it might topple over.
But she shook her head. She couldn’t do any of that with the thoughts of Linc being in danger and Hopper being questioned. “Nothing important.”
He went back to his laptop, frowning as he typed. She took a notepad from one of the kitchen drawers and started a list. That would at least organize her thoughts about what she still needed for the shop.
Reid’s phone rang again with Claire’s ID lighting up the screen. Holly straightened and hurried to stand beside him.
He answered on speaker. “Talk to me.”
“We have Hopper,” Claire said. “He’s coming voluntarily, though I wouldn’t call him happy about it.”
Holly let out a breath.
“Any trouble?” Reid asked.
“Not from him.” Claire’s tone cooled. “Allen Davies was there when we arrived.”
Holly straightened. “Allen?”
Claire must have heard her. “Yes. Davies said he was checking on Hopper because today is the anniversary of Emma Shaw’s death. Emma was Hopper’s younger sister.”
The floor under her feet tipped. Emma Shaw had been a line in an archive packet ten minutes ago, a victim in a case that had gone wrong years before.
Now she had a death anniversary. A date.
A brother who might have woken that morning already carrying the worst day of his life before federal agents came to his door.
Holly pressed a hand to her mouth.
Reid’s voice stayed level. “What did Davies do?”
“Went into advocate mode. Asked if Hopper was under arrest, whether he needed counsel, whether we understood the trauma attached to the date. He also made it clear he thought we were turning grief into probable cause.” Claire’s irritation rang in her tone, controlled but unmistakable.
“I informed him this is an active murder investigation, he isn’t Hopper’s attorney, and he needs to stay out of it. ”
“Bet he took that well,” Reid said.
“Not remotely.”
Holly could picture Allen’s calm dignity under pressure, the way he could sound gentle and unyielding at the same time.
She pictured him standing beside Hopper, defending him from what looked like another arm of the same system that had failed Emma.
She could also hear Linc’s warning in the back of her mind.
Some people heal around wounds. Some make a religion out of them.
“Hopper called him?” Reid asked.
“That’s what Davies said,” Claire replied. “Hopper wouldn’t confirm much, but he didn’t object to Davies being there. We separated them and brought Hopper in. Davies was not invited.”
“But he saw enough to know why you were there.”
“I’d say so.”
Holly’s phone rang. The name on the screen made her heart dip.
Allen Davies.
Reid didn’t tell her not to answer, but he ended the call with Claire. “Davies has your private phone number?”
“We’re friends,” Holly said. She answered the call. “Allen?”
“Holly.” His voice sounded tired, strained in a way she’d never heard from him. “I’m sorry to bother you on a Sunday.”
“It’s okay. Are you all right?”
Reid motioned for her to put him on speaker. She did.
“I’m not sure that’s the word I’d use.” A soft exhale came through the line. “I was visiting Hopper Shaw today, and two FBI agents came to take him in for questioning on a murder case.”
Holly looked at Reid. He shook his head and made a zipping motion over his lips.
Play dumb. “What? That’s terrible.”