Chapter 14 Kipp #2
Wade was right, and I’d known it all along. I could make all sorts of excuses, but if I had questions about what she did, I should have given her the courtesy of just asking her.
Digging in my heels a little, I asked stubbornly, “Don’t you think it’s a problem that she’s staying at my cabins and ‘investigating’ a case Briar Falls PD already ‘closed’?
” Using air quotes made me feel like a tool, but I was already being an idiot.
“I’m an officer, and I’ve got a true-crime podcaster in a cabin I own. ”
He leaned back again, considering. “Depends. Is she filming dead bodies in your driveway?”
“No.”
“Digging up cold cases in your backyard?” Wade picked up a Jolly Rancher from his candy dish and unwrapped it.
“Not literally, but basically. Briar Falls is about half an hour from my place, so it’s almost like my backyard, isn’t it?” Galloway’s town wasn’t that far from my cabins or Wildwood Meadows, and there was no way that our small circles didn’t interconnect.
“I’m failing to see the emergency. It’s far enough that it shouldn’t affect anything.” His jaw tightened a little, and I could even see that Mr. Holier-Than-Thou knew that wasn’t true.
My teeth clenched in irritation. “If Hattie is bad news, you know that it’ll affect you and me.
It’ll affect all of us by extension since she’s staying with a Holt.
” I saw his eyes flicker. Small towns were gossip mills; there was no escaping that.
“And you know what that sort of shit media does to people. The way they turn real victims into entertainment.”
“You’re not wrong about any of that, but dude, you’re making all kinds of assumptions.
You don’t know that she’s bad news. That’s first off.
And you don’t know that she’s out to turn victims into entertainment.
I’m not going to say that some people aren’t like that, but you can’t lump all people together. ”
I shook my head. “You didn’t see it when I was with OSP—the scenes after the media got hold of them.”
Wade gave me another disappointed look. “I’m not living in a box, Kipp.
I’ve been there. Maybe we haven’t been on the same sorts of callouts because you worked those big cases.
” He shrugged. “But I’ve seen what the media can do.
Sucks pretty hard, but that still doesn’t mean they’re all the same or they’re not doing a job. ”
Hell, I knew that. There were nights when we met up and shared a drink after a case that didn’t go right, and I recognized those silences where words just didn’t fit.
Wade wasn’t spared from any of it because he worked in town.
Then there was his time in the military.
He didn’t talk about it, but I knew he’d seen and done things that still haunted him.
“There’s also the matter that she may really be right about the Briar Falls case. They dropped the whole thing like a hot potato,” he said gently. “Allison Finch didn’t get any justice. Hattie investigating it with her podcast might be the only sort of visibility Allison’s case gets.”
“It sounds like trouble to me.” The stubborn grit in my voice was unmistakable, and I could see Wade holding back a laugh. “She’s not law enforcement. Who even knows what kind of rules she has for herself? She could go completely off the rails.”
“Some would argue that’s exactly why Hattie’s perfect for this sort of case. Maybe sometimes we have too many rules in our jobs.”
Wade loved his rules. In a lot of ways, I thought that was one of the things he liked about the military, and now what he liked about law enforcement. There were lines that we didn’t cross in our jobs for good reason. “You’re taking her side now?”
“I’m pointing out that the way you’re reacting tells me that something else is part of this. You don’t get this riled up over something that doesn’t matter, and you’re being all weird.”
I opened my mouth to argue and stopped. Because that, too, was uncomfortably close to the truth. “It’s dangerous to be out there investigating shit without knowing what you’re doing.”
“So, she’s in danger or something?” Wade watched me, something thoughtful in his eyes. “I’m calling bullshit. Do you even know anything about how she investigates or the precautions she takes?”
I bristled, but he got me there. “I’m worried about what happens when civilians insert themselves into investigations.”
Wade gave me a pointed look. “That’s not what I asked, was it?”
Fish shifted in the corner, nails clicking softly as he came over and dropped at my feet. “She stayed up late last night,” I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them. “Working. Researching. I saw her light on when I took Fish out.”
Wade’s gaze sharpened. “You watching her now like some stalker? Is she going to file a report on you for being a peeping tom? Goddamnit, Kipp. Please tell me you’re not looking in her windows.
” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Hell, those cabins of yours are like a voyeur’s wet dream.
” He squinted at me, and it was all I could do to keep from squirming in my seat.
“Of course I’m not.” Clearing my throat awkwardly, I straightened in my chair. “There are curtains. I’m just saying that she was working late. You can see the lights on.”
“That better be all there was to it. Last thing I need to hear is that my brother is some creepy perv.” He held up his hands at the look on my face. “Hey. Just saying. Boundaries.”
“It isn’t the point anyway.” I sighed, leaning back. “I don’t like what she does. And I have boundaries,” I added defensively.
“You don’t have to like what someone does for a living to be interested in them,” Wade said. “It isn’t mandatory. There are lots of people who don’t like cops, for instance.”
“You’re not wrong, but I don’t like the idea of people dissecting tragedy for clicks.”
“Neither do I,” he said. “But not all true crime is the same. Some of it actually pushes cases forward to get the attention they need.”
“Could be true, I guess.” Fish pushed a little against my legs, whining. Giving him a pet, I stroked his ears, flopping them between my fingers. “I’m thinking about running a background on her,” I said. “Full sweep. Just to be safe.”
Wade squinted at me. “You can’t run it through OSP. What cause would you have?”
Giving a careless shrug as I sat back, I thought about it. He wasn’t wrong. There was no way I could run her through OSP, but that wasn’t what I intended. “She’s on my land,” I justified.
“It doesn’t mean that you should be running a background on her,” he said gently. “That’s your anxiety talking.”
“It isn’t my anxiety talking. I’m not an anxious person. You wouldn’t want to know?”
“If there was a reason to be suspicious, then I’d want to know,” he said. “Not just because her job makes me uncomfortable. You’re being an insecure dickhead.”
“Well, I’m still calling Redhawk and your buddy Rhodes,” I said mutinously.
Wade’s brows lifted in surprise. “You want to bring Rhodes into this?”
Rhodes was Wade’s friend from the military, but he ran a top-tier security company up in Washington, outside Seattle. Last year, he had helped East when Lila was in trouble. I doubted he would say no. “He’s our guy for private backgrounds and off the books.”
“Our guy?” His eyebrow winged up. “If you’re contacting Rhodes, that should tell you something. If you need to go off the books, maybe you’re crossing a line.”
“I don’t think it’s crossing a line to make sure she’s not a psycho.” I scowled. “I’m not talking about surveillance. Just information.”
“Information is power,” he said. “You sure you want that kind of leverage over someone? Maybe you should talk to her like a normal person. Take her on a date.”
I leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t trust her situation. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” Wade asked quietly, obviously skeptical. He stood then, stretching, and poured himself a cup of coffee from the machine in the corner. “You know,” he said, back turned, “when I first started, I hated journalists.”
I snorted. “Still do. You complain about them all the damn time.”
“True. If you don’t want to ask her out, that’s fine. You don’t have to like her,” Wade went on. “You don’t have to agree with what she does, but you might want to ask yourself why this bothers you so much. Just think on it.”
Silence settled again, softer this time. Fish lifted his head, ears perking, sensing the shift.
“I’m not saying don’t be cautious,” Wade said. “I’m saying don’t let your badge turn into blinders. We should never be those types of men.”
He didn’t have to elaborate. Levi had given plenty of lectures on “those kinds of men”. We’d all come from different sorts of home situations, but a lot of them were heavy on abuse. Levi had wanted us to grow up treating women right.
I nodded slowly. “Alright. Good talk.”
“See you Sunday?” He smiled, not unkindly, as I stood and clipped Fish’s collar to the leash in my hand, the weight in my chest not gone but redistributed. Wade clapped a hand on my shoulder as I headed for the door.
“Invite her to dinner,” he called after me.
Flipping him off without looking back, I had to admit that Wade was right. Maybe this wasn’t really about her job after all.
Getting into the truck and driving home, the road stretched out ahead of me, and it didn’t feel as ominous as it had an hour ago. There was the matter of the family checking in today, so I should focus on that, but I’d still make a call to Rhodes. I wanted that background check—just to be safe.