Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
I wanted to ignore the sound, but it was the middle of the night, a time when no one should be awake unless there was a definite reason.
Reluctantly, Charlie crawled from beside me and glanced at the door as if he hoped the intruder would simply go away.
The pounding came again, this time somehow even louder.
His jaw clenched, Charlie stood and pulled himself together as I readjusted the length of my dress. He went to the door, looking through the peephole again before sighing heavily and turning to me. “It’s Michael,” he said.
At my puzzled expression, Charlie reminded me, “Anton’s father.”
I didn’t have long to process this fact as Charlie opened the door. Standing in the doorway was a giant of a man, with a long, gray beard.
Charlie stood to his full height with his jaw raised almost imperceptibly and looked the man squarely in the eye.
I’d always thought of Charlie as tall and strong; in fact, the first time I met him, I remember joking in my mind about how well his last name—Strong—fitted.
But this man, with his barrel build, made my broad-chested boyfriend appear fun-size.
Still, in a contest of these two pitted against one another, Charlie stood a fighting chance, mostly because he was at least three decades younger than the burly man in front of us.
Charlie checked over his shoulder at me, as if to assess that he was standing as much as possible between me and the towering figure.
Because of this, I had to peer around my boyfriend to see a visible holster with a gun hanging from the older man’s left hip.
It must have been the one he’d pulled on Todd and Charlie earlier that night.
“Hey, Sheriff,” the man said in a gruff voice.
His words weren’t slurred, which meant he was sober.
“I asked the front desk for your room number. I’m glad you’re still awake, although I’m sorry for interrupting your”—Michael cleared his throat and gestured toward me with a courteous nod of his head before finishing his sentence—“to interrupt your company.”
If Charlie hadn’t already given me the visual of this man waving a gun around while threatening a priest, I would’ve thought that Michael Swanson was a Texas gentleman—and his gun might’ve scared me far less than it actually did.
But suspecting this man of heading up some kind of criminal ring rightly put me on edge.
Charlie was all business as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What do you need, Mr. Swanson?”
“I can’t find my boy,” the man said, getting straight to the point.
“You can’t find Anton?” I repeated, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
The man nodded again.
What did he mean that he couldn’t find Anton? Sure, The Rose was a sweeping estate, but by this time of night, Anton should have been sound asleep in his room. I said as much.
“I checked there, ma’am. He didn’t answer his door or the phone in his room.”
Flashbacks from this past summer of a missing man later found dead ran through my mind, but I pushed them away.
The past did not repeat itself, not like that.
Maybe Anton had gone to find Lacy. Maybe he’d gone for a walk in the cold air, needing to clear his mind.
Maybe he was actually still in his room and just didn’t want to talk to his dad.
“I shouldn’t be bothering you with something this small, you being the sheriff and all,” Michael said. “But this isn’t like my son. “
“What isn’t like your son?” Charlie asked, seeming as unsure as I was about this man’s reliability when it came to knowing his son.
The man gestured inside the room. “You mind if I come inside and explain?”
Charlie hesitated a moment. I gave him a slight nod to let him know that, except for the holster on his hip, I wasn’t afraid of this guy. Still, Charlie kept his body edged between us as he allowed Anton’s father to step across the threshold and toward the only chair in the room.
The man sat down hard but perched forward, his elbows on his knees as he explained the last time he’d seen his son.
“After I left Todd Anderson’s room…” Mr. Swanson cleared his throat as if he had difficulty saying the young man’s name, “well, I did find Anton in his room. We decided to have one more glass of brandy, man to man.” Michael’s gruff demeanor slipped and a confused scowl settled across his brow.
“We were talking about some business issues—you know, back at the ranch.”
“What kind of business issues?” Charlie asked, which was good thinking. Perhaps we could kill two birds with one stone: find out what Mr. Swanson really wanted from us, and what he’d gotten his family mixed up in.
The older man swallowed and stroked his beard for a few seconds.
This was a calculating man, one who chose each word deliberately.
That along with the fact that he’d come to the sheriff for help spoke volumes.
Mr. Swanson was obviously used to being able to solve his own problems, but he also knew where to go when he was at a loss.
“I’ll just say that we’ve had a bit of a hiccup moving some stuff.”
“What kind of product?” I stepped forward, inserting myself into the conversation even as Charlie shot me a look.
Michael Swanson’s gaze went to me, running down the length of my dress, though his gaze seemed more critical than admiring. He didn’t want to tell us anything else, I could see.
“I only ask because Lacy said that your town is basically a massive cattle ranch,” I clarified.
Charlie put a hand out as if to silence me. He didn’t want me engaging in conversation with this man, but I was fairly certain that the elder Mr. Swanson wasn’t the kind to pull a gun on a lady. On another man, sure, but not on me. Not tonight.
“We’ve been expanding,” Michael said simply. “I was hoping Anton might be able to step in and help us move things along this weekend.”
“Doesn’t seem like the most opportune timing,” I said innocently, tilting my head as if I was simply a confused little woman.
“You know, with it being his wedding,” I added, in case the man had forgotten why he was actually here this weekend.
“In fact”—I lowered my voice, but my tone was steady—“your wife, Patty, also seems to have an ulterior motive for coming here this weekend. One that has nothing to do with Anton marrying Lacy.”
Michael stared into my eyes. “I can’t answer for my wife’s behavior, and I don’t care who Anton marries, as long as he comes back home to work when the ceremony ends.”
The image of Anton dragging an angry Lacy across state lines came to mind, and I shot Mr. Swanson an angry look. “Anton and Lacy are starting a new life together, one that has nothing to do with the activity your family is involved in.”
Charlie huffed out a quick breath as if someone had punched him in the gut.
Michael’s eyes flickered to Charlie as if to ask why he wasn’t keeping his woman quiet.
Charlie ignored the unasked question, saying instead, “I’m still not sure exactly what you need from me at this late hour, Mr. Swanson.”
The man inhaled and studied the floor for a long moment. There were obviously many things he wasn’t saying and he was measuring what to reveal.
“Listen, my son and I went back to the Billiards Room to talk business,” Michael continued, glancing at me as if waiting for me to interrupt.
I crossed my arms and let him keep talking.
“A few minutes later he excused himself to go to the restroom. I waited for a couple minutes, then five, then ten, then a half-hour before realizing Anton wasn’t coming back.
” Michael’s eyebrows dipped slightly. “I didn’t mean to run him off, so I called him, went to his room.
Hell, I even went to find his mother again.
I got an earful about how she hadn’t seen him or that damn priest that she brought with her this weekend. ”
The vitriol in his tone as he said the last few words was enough to concern both me and Charlie if we hadn’t been on guard already.
I mentally scanned The Rose, thinking of the place where Anton was most likely to go. Then I realized that when we’d arrived back at our guest suite, I hadn’t gone inside. Instead, I’d followed Charlie back to his room. Of course, Anton had been in there, waiting for Lacy.
Not that I would say this out loud, but I was 99 per cent sure where Anton was right now; and I was equally certain that I wasn’t about to tell his father where to find him.