Chapter 10
The first thing Reno did Monday morning was lie still for a long minute and listen to Grace’s cottage. He learned the sound of wind rattling the branches in the big maple trees in the yard, the first morning birds beginning to sing, and the sound of Grace moving around in the kitchen.
The clock on the nightstand said six-fourteen.
Reno sat up.
His knee registered the change of position with a brief, unpleasant conversation in the joint between his fibula and his femur.
The sharp pain subsided into a dull ache that would be his companion for the rest of the day.
He swung his leg over the side of the bed.
Flexed his foot. The past few days, he’d overdone way too much, so he put on the brace this morning before he even tried to stand.
He pushed himself upright.
The window looked west, but he could see a sliver of lake from it. The water looked like it was on fire as the sun peeked over the horizon and bled brilliant orange across the lake.
His phone vibrated with an incoming call, and startled, he checked it. Dillon.
"Morning, Dill Pickle."
How are things at Grace’s place?”
“Quiet night. Grace is up and around. Making breakfast.”
“Then we can talk about a thing."
"What thing?"
"Far be it from me to tell you how to live your life, Little Brother. And I’m not starting now. But I am telling you I’ve stood in front of a door before, too."
Reno frowned. "It’s too early for beating around the bush, Bro. What are you getting at"
"Last fall I stood in front of a door for three months," Dillon said.
"I knew there was a woman on the other side of it, along with a great kid and the kind of life I had told myself I wasn't built for. I didn’t walk through it.
I told myself I was being respectful and careful and smart.
But in reality I was just scared. I got lucky, though, because Tessa took my hand and told me I was allowed to walk through it. "
Reno frowned and Dillon continued, "You need somebody to tell you you're allowed to walk through that door. You’re allowed to go after happiness. You can be in Grace’s life.
You don't have to stay back a safe distance because you’re punishing yourself.
I’m telling you that when you decide to walk through the door, the rest of us won’t tell you not to. "
"Mm,” Reno replied. Then, because he didn’t want Dillon to accuse him of being a typical taciturn Steele man, he added, "I haven’t decided to walk through any doorways."
"I know,” Dillon replied. “I'm telling you now so when you find your door, you’ve already heard that Hank and I approve."
“Umm . . . thanks, I guess.”
Dillon chuckled. “You’ll thank me for real one day.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Reno retorted.
He insisted on cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast while Grace got Lily ready for school. He finished before they were ready and went outside to transfer Lily’s car seat into the back of his crew cab truck.
Grace frowned when she saw the arrangement but said nothing. As for Lily, she was excited to get to ride in the back of his truck
Grace buckled Lily in and climbed into the front seat with him.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he preempted whatever she was going to say with, “I swear I’m not trying to take over your life or steal your independence.
But I am trying to take a bit of the load off your shoulders while you deal with a stressful situation.
My mother always said it’s impossible for good people to be kind to others if the others won’t let good people be kind to them. Please. Let me be kind to you.”
She sighed. “It’s hard to argue with your mother’s logic.”
He smiled and pulled away from the curb. “She’s a strong lady. And always right.”
“She had to be strong to raise you three hooligans. Do you have other siblings besides Dillon and Hank?”
“Not technically. But we do have seven cousins my folks took in when my dad’s brother and his wife died in an airplane crash. Hank and Dillon had already left for college and I was a senior in high school when they came to live with us. So I only experienced one year of the chaos.”
“Seven?” she exclaimed. “One child wears me out!”
“It was actually kind of fun having a houseful of kids. Not that I would’ve admitted it at the time. I was still deep in my surly teen rebellion.”
“I have a hard time picturing you being surly or . . .” She broke off. “I guess I can see the rebellious part. You did become a rodeo clown, after all. How did you get into that career, anyway?”
“Dillon went through an ugly divorce a few years back and needed a change of scene. He took a job with a major rodeo company to provide veterinary care for the cattle and horses on the circuit. He found out they needed a doctor for the cowboys and Hank had just gone through an even uglier divorce, so Dillon hooked him up with a job. When I decided I needed a change of scene in my own life, I thought it would be cool to travel with them and I took a job as a bullfighter.”
“What kind of training did you get?”
“I spent a few months shadowing an experienced guy who taught me how to read bull body language and then I became part of a crew. Bullfighters work in teams of two to four guys. The more rank the bulls, the more bullfighters are necessary for safety.”
“What’s a rank bull?” Lily piped up.
“It means they’re grumpy and unpredictable,” Reno answered.
“I’m rank sometimes,” Lily said wisely.
Reno grinned and Grace laughed out loud.
Lily talked excitedly the rest of the way to school about all the cool things she could see from this high up.
He waited at the curb as Grace walked Lily inside, and then they drove straight to the police station.
Sheriff Wheeler and Cooper Lawton were waiting for them in a conference room with an old rotary phone sitting conspicuously on the table.
Reno noted the row of lights mounted on the side of the phone, indicating it was an encrypted and secured phone.
Wheeler brought Cooper up to speed quickly on the note, finishing with, “We’re calling Sam Vela as soon as Grace is ready. She tells us the phone number she has for him goes to his work cell phone, which will be fully secure and encrypted.”
Cooper nodded. “Standard issue for Special Forces types.”
“May I see the note?” Cooper asked Grace.
She handed it to him and Cooper studied the paper.
Reno saw a very slight twitch of recognition in the muscles of Cooper’s cheeks.
But then, Reno had years of experience watching witnesses testify and was an expert at catching miniscule tells of truth, stress, and lies.
He leaned forward and said quietly, “You recognize the word Tigris. Can you tell us what it refers to?”
Cooper’s gaze snapped to his, surprised. “How . . .”
He shrugged. “I’m good at reading people.”
Cooper sighed. "Yes. I’ve heard the name. But I can't tell you anything about it. It’s highly classified. If Liam and this Vela fellow were anywhere near it, Vela will deny having ever heard of it."
"That actually helps," Wheeler said.
"It does," Reno agreed. "It tells us the security around whatever it is remains tight. Which means the dude harassing Grace isn’t likely associated with Liam’s note."
Cooper set the paper down and looked at Wheeler. "You want me to run the call?"
"Please."
Reno interjected, “If you don’t mind my asking, how do you plan to play the call?” He refrained from mentioning he was by far the most experienced interrogator in the room, including the sheriff.
Cooper replied, "I'll start by telling Vela I was a Ranger out of Benning, am now a sheriff’s deputy in Montana, and I don’t want him to share any operational information that civilians don't need to know about. That should drop the temperature about ten degrees off the top. Then I'll put Grace on the line, and the widow of his swim buddy will tell him she’s been having some trouble with an anonymous person harassing her, and then ask him about a note she found recently in her dead husband's writing. After that, I expect he’ll tell us what he can, which will probably be enough to rule out the note as the source of Grace’s problems."
Wheeler asked Cooper, "What’s your working theory on what the note actually is?"
"Liam O’donnell was tying up something from his military career in the months before he died, a thing his wife never knew about because he kept his work and his marriage separate, the way men in that line of work tend to.
The note has nothing to do with the bakery .
. . or the Shoemacher fire, or anything else in this valley. "
"And if Vela tells us the paper does have to do with events here?"
Cooper shrugged. "Then I’ll be very surprised, and we’ll adjust."
Silence.
Grace finally broke it, saying, “Let’s make the call.”
It went exactly as Cooper predicted it would. The only new piece of information Sam Vela added was that Tigris was the name of a highly classified military operation before adding that he couldn’t say anything more about it.
Grace teared up when Sam asked kindly if she needed him to come out to Montana and take care of whoever was harassing her, and she told him that a group of good people were looking out for her.
Sam made her promise to call him back if things got worse and if the good people around her needed a Special Operator’s particular skill set.
The call ended, and Reno held out a handkerchief to her that he pulled out of his shirt pocket.
She looked at it in surprise but did take it and dab at her eyes.
He noted that she clung to it tightly while he, Wheeler, and Cooper sorted out the logistics of bakery, preschool, and cottage surveillance for the next several days.
When the meeting broke up, Grace excused herself to go to the ladies’ room and splash some water on her face.
As soon as she left, Cooper turned to Reno, saying seriously, "I want to ask you something and I want you to think about it before you answer."
Reno nodded.