Chapter 40
forty
. . .
LANE
As Johns drove away with Sutton, I turned on my family. Wordlessly, we all shuffled inside and set up camp at the table, which was still laden with food I wouldn’t eat.
Naturally, my brothers had no such qualms, and the twins and Crew filled plates and dug in.
Trey, however, eyed me warily. Better than anyone else at this table, he knew what I was capable of when Sutton’s safety and livelihood were concerned.
And he knew how bad things were behind the scenes.
Only he understood the full breadth of the bullshit we were dealing with.
Things I hadn’t bothered to share with the rest of the family.
“Anyone know a lawyer?” I asked. Getting Sutton representation was priority number one.
“Google it,” West said, unhelpfully, around a mouthful of potatoes.
I shook my head. “I’m not bringing in some rando. I want someone we can trust.”
For a beat, everyone was silent, as though spinning their mental Rolodexes to come up with someone we could call.
Finally, Mama said, “Isn’t Logan Daniels an attorney?”
My brow creased in confusion. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“Who is that?” Finn asked.
“Owen’s brother-in-law. He’s married to Delia’s sister, Chloe.”
Before Mama finished explaining, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, dialing my eldest brother.
“Hey, can I call you back?” Owen said when he answered. “Delia and I are in the middle of inventory and—”
“I just need Logan’s number,” I said, cutting right to the chase.
“Logan,” he said slowly. “Like…my brother-in-law?”
“He’s an attorney, right?”
“Yes…”
“Then yeah, I need to get in touch with him.”
“Lane, what the fuck is going on?”
As quickly as I could, I filled him in on the Sutton situation. “So are you going to give me Logan’s contact info or not?”
“Yeah,” Owen said finally. “I’ll text it to you.”
I hung up without another word. A few seconds later, Logan’s contact card appeared in my text thread with Owen, and a few more after that, my phone was ringing with an outgoing call.
“Hello?” a man I assumed to be Logan answered.
“Logan?”
“Yeah…”
“Hey, Logan. This is Lane Lawless.”
“Uh, hi.” He sounded skeptical to hear from me, and I couldn’t blame him. “What can I do for you?”
I laid out the issue with Sutton and asked, “Is there any way you can help us?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and my heart dropped. “I don’t do criminal work. I never even had any interest in it in law school.”
“Fuck.”
“But,” he continued, “maybe my sister could help. She mainly does litigation. Well, actually, she’s in the process of opening her own sports agency, but that’s beside the point.”
“Then what is?” I ground out. I knew I was being rude, but now was not the time for me to deal with this shit. Logan sounded like a golden retriever, like the kind of guy who if I gave an inch to conversationally, he’d take a mile.
“The point is, Berkley has done some criminal work. Not on this scale, but more than me anyway.”
“Give me her number,” I demanded gruffly, pulling my notebook out of my back pocket.
Logan probably sensed my urgency, because he rattled it off, and I hung up with a rushed “thank you.”
Then I made my third call in as many minutes.
“Hello?”
“Hey, is this Berkley?”
“Yes…”
“This is Lane Lawless. I’m Owen’s brother? I’m not sure if you’re familiar—”
Berkley chuckled. “Yes, I know who your brother is.”
“Great! So look, I’m calling because I have a bit of a delicate situation, and I need an attorney I can trust.”
In the background, someone—a man—asked who she was talking to, and I distantly registered the cry of a baby.
Fuck, I was interrupting her family time, making me an even bigger asshole than I already was.
Berkley pulled the phone from her ear, her words becoming a bit muffled as told the man she’d explain after, then came back on the line.
“Sorry about that. Now tell me what’s going on. ”
“My girlfriend was just arrested for assault,” I told her, realizing that was the first time I’d spoken those words out loud. “And there’s no way in hell she did it.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Who is she accused of assaulting?”
I opened my mouth to answer…only to realize I couldn’t because I didn’t fucking know.
“I’m embarrassed to admit I have no idea.” Well, no, that wasn’t true. “Okay, no. I have some idea, but when my undersheriff came and arrested her, he wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information.”
“Your undersheriff?”
“Oh, did I not mention I’m the county sheriff out here?”
Berkley chuckled. “You did not. So you’re the county sheriff and your girlfriend just got arrested. Did you have any idea?”
“Nope.”
“Messy.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, scrubbing my palm over my face. “I don’t know what I was thinking, bothering you. I don’t even know where you live!”
“Michigan,” she supplied.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered. “I’m so sorry. I’ll find someone local.”
“Not necessary,” Berkley said. “You’re basically family, right? In a weird, extended sort of way. Plus, I happen to like messy cases. I spend all day dealing with elite athletes. This will be a nice change of pace.”
“So you’ll take it on?”
“Of course. I’ll need to work out logistics with my husband and our kids. He’s gearing up for the playoffs, so he’s not going to be happy I’m leaving. The soonest I think I can get out there is Monday. Will that work?”
“I think that’ll be fine,” I said, but my mind was snagged on the word playoffs. “Wait, playoffs for what?”
“Brent plays hockey for the Detroit Warriors.”
Brent, I mused, a disbelieving laugh leaving me.
Berkley was married to Brent Jean, one of the greatest American-born hockey players of all-time.
My brothers and I had all grown up Colorado fans, and thanks to the expansion, there were teams in Vegas and Seattle now, but because Owen had spent so much time there, we’d also come to be fans of the other pro Detroit teams outside of football.
“Explains how you know Owen then,” I said.
She hummed in agreement. “The professional athlete world is a small one. Anyway, do you know where your girlfriend was taken?”
“Sutton,” I provided. “And as far as I know, she’s been taken to the Dusk Valley Sheriff’s Department.”
“Okay, here’s what I need you to do. Get to the department.
It is yours, after all. Make sure Sutton is there, then pass along my number so she can make her phone call.
Keep her calm, assure her we’ll get this figured out, and encourage her not to speak to anyone about specifics of her case except me. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said, experiencing a strange sense of surreality. It was odd being on this side of things. Normally I was working against defense attorneys, not seeking their counsel. “Wait, she can’t even talk to me?”
“Unfortunately, no. From the sounds of it, your team kind of went rogue on this one, but you’re still the one in charge of that department. Because of that and the fact that Sutton is your girlfriend, it’s best if you stay completely out of it and remain as impartial as possible.”
She had a point, and I absolutely should remain out of the official investigation, but I’d be damned if I was going to sit on my hands and wait for whatever was coming.
Once I disconnected with Berkley, I faced my family, each of them staring at me expectantly.
“The earliest she can get here is Monday,” I explained. “But I need to go to the department, pass her info onto Sutton, and figure out what the fuck is going on.”
“I’m coming with you,” Trey said, getting up from the table at the same time as me.
I merely nodded, and after saying our goodbyes, we took off for town.
Bertie offered me a sympathetic grin as Trey and I stalked into the lobby fifteen minutes later. “I’m so sorry, boss,” she said. “I had no idea.”
“It’s not your fault, Bertie,” I assured her.
No, this was all on that fucker Johns.
When I appeared in the bullpen, all chatter and noise died so abruptly it made my ears ring.
“Sheriff,” several of my staff murmured, tipping their heads down in postures I could only describe as shame.
“Where’s Johns?” I asked.
“Interview one,” one of them supplied, and I headed down the hall. After directing Trey into the viewing room, I didn’t bother to announce myself before bursting into the interview room.
Three people were inside, two of them women, and while my attention should have gone to the one in fucking handcuffs, I couldn’t look away from the one across from her. Addie was barely recognizable beneath the swelling and deep bruising on her face.
The tension was thick enough to be cut with a knife. I’d been in strained interviews with suspects before, but there was something deeply, deeply wrong here.
And I didn’t only mean because Sutton was restrained for something I knew she was incapable of doing.
“You can’t be here,” Johns said, rising and stepping toward me, as though his puny ass was going to force me out of the room.
Okay, he wasn’t puny, but at six five, I towered over and outweighed him.
“This is my department, Johns. I can go wherever I damn well please.”
“You’re romantically involved with the accused,” he pointed out. “You know as well as I do that you’re not allowed anywhere near this.”
I stepped closer until we were toe to toe, until I was looking down my nose at him. Dropping my voice, I said, “And you know as well as I do that Sutton had nothing to do with this.”
“So I’m lying?” Addie asked from behind him. She gestured to her face, crying, “Sutton did this to me, Lane! Why are you protecting her?”
Ignoring her theatrics, I glanced at Sutton, but her attention remained on the table in front of her.
Why wouldn’t she look at me?
“Has she made her phone call yet?”
“No,” Johns ground out.
Withdrawing my notebook, I ripped out the page on which I’d written Berkley’s name and number and dropped it onto the table in front of Sutton.
“Call that number. She’s a friend of the family, and she’s going to help you.”
Though she still didn’t look at me, her head bobbed in a nearly perceptible nod.
“She’s not saying anything else until her attorney is present,” I told Johns. To Sutton, I added, “Say it, sunny.”
“I’m not saying anything else until my attorney is present,” she parroted, but her voice was flat, entirely devoid of emotion. My eyes swept over her, along the slumped curves of her shoulders, her rounded spine, how she seemed to be shrinking in on herself.
Something had happened in the short time she’d been here to put her in this state.
“What did you do to her?” I asked Johns.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just asked some questions.”
“And we showed her our texts,” Addie quipped, sounding positively gleeful.
“What—” I started to ask but cut myself off. I refused to entertain Addie’s particular brand of crazy. I’d figure out what she meant by myself.
“You need to leave, Lane,” Johns said.
Though I had every intention of doing just that, I leveled my finger in his face. “That’s Sheriff to you.”
“Right. You need to leave, Sheriff,” he corrected sarcastically.
Turning for the door, I put my hand on the knob to head out but looked at Sutton one last time.
“It’s going to be okay, Sutton. We’re going to figure this out and get you out of here.”
My girl didn’t move, and though every fiber of my being demanded I go to her, scoop her off her feet, and run far away from this place where no one would ever find us, I knew I had to abide by the rule of the law here.
There was too much at stake not to.