Chapter 11
Brooke
The bell over the door chimed as the deputies led Tyler out, and for a moment, the entire coffee shop remained frozen. Then everyone started talking at once.
“Did you see that?”
“He was arrested for murder.”
“Who was he?”
“Tyler Gillis. He used to live here but moved away.”
“I always knew something was off about him.”
“Wasn’t his wife and kid— ”
Brooke stood rooted to the spot, her hand still covering her mouth as her mind struggled to understand what just happened. One minute, she’d been agreeing to go on a date with Tyler. The next, he was being led out in handcuffs, accused of murder.
Sheila Jones. The name echoed in her head. She knew Sheila. Everyone in Irma knew Sheila. Sweet, chatty Sheila, who worked at Basin Federal and always had a smile for anyone who came through the door.
Dead. Found in a bear cache in the mountains.
And Tyler was accused of killing her. Her stomach turned, and her knees became wobbly.
“Brooke?” Becky appeared at her elbow, concern evident on her face. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” Brooke’s voice sounded strange to her own ears, distant and disconnected.
Becky took her arm and led her to the chair she’d been sitting in only minutes earlier—when she’d been smiling and happy and excited about going on a date with Tyler.
Around them, the coffee shop had erupted into conversation and speculation.
Some customers were gathering their things, clearly uncomfortable with the drama.
Others had pulled out their phones, probably texting the news or even posting on social media.
A few remained seated, leaning toward their companions with excited whispers, treating the whole thing like entertainment.
Outside, people were gathered on the sidewalk. Customers from other businesses had come out to watch the patrol cars pull away. Not just customers, but shop owners and their employees too. Brooke dropped her gaze.
This would be all over Irma within the hour. Maybe less.
Her coffee shop—her pride, her life’s work—had just become the scene of a very public arrest.
The bell chimed again, and Deputy Boverman walked back in. He surveyed the shop with a professional eye, taking in the gawkers and gossipers.
“All right, folks,” he said, his voice carrying authority. “Show’s over. Either order something or head on your way.”
A few people looked affronted, but Adam’s firm expression got them moving.
“You need anything?” Becky whispered.
Brooke waved her away.
Within minutes, half the customers had left, mumbling among themselves as they exited. The remaining patrons at least pretended to return to their coffee and laptops, though Brooke could see them sneaking glances in her direction.
Adam approached her table. “Mind if I sit?”
Brooke gestured to the chair Tyler had just vacated.
“I know that was difficult to witness,” Adam said, his tone gentle. “But I wanted to make sure you understood what was happening. What we found.”
“You said Sheila Jones. She was the one on the mountain?”
“You knew her, right?”
“I do my banking at Basin Federal.” Tears stung Brooke’s eyes. She hadn’t seen the face of the body. She was glad of that now. If she’d seen Sheila dead . . . her stomach tightened again. For a moment, she thought she might be sick. “You’re sure?”
“We’re sure. She was reported missing on Monday morning. We thought it might be her, but we needed to make a positive identification. That took time.”
What did that mean? Everyone knew Sheila. They could’ve asked just about anyone to identify her. Unless . . .
Brooke wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold despite the heat of the shop. “And you think Tyler killed her?”
“We have strong evidence pointing in that direction.” Adam leaned forward, his expression serious. “Did you know Sheila and Tyler dated?”
“Since he’s been back?”
He shook his head. “In high school.”
Brooke snorted out a laugh. “You can’t be serious. Everyone dated everyone in high school. That’s what happens when your graduating class is barely a hundred people. We all knew each other.”
“But she broke up with him. That kind of rejection can stick with a person.”
“It was high school.”
“Feelings can simmer for a long time, especially when someone’s already demonstrated they have trouble with loss.
” Adam’s implication was clear. “Based on the condition of the body and the bear cache, the coroner believes she’d been there for over a day when you found her.
She was last seen leaving work Friday night around six o’clock. ”
“Poor Sheila.”
“Tyler was seen at the bank where Sheila worked around that same time,” Adam continued. “We can make a solid case.”
He sounded confident. Convinced, even. But Tyler . . . no, she couldn’t believe it.
“I’m glad we got him before he could hurt you.” Adam reached across the table like he might take her hand, but Brooke pulled back before he could. He set his hand on the table. “When I saw him in here, talking to you, sitting so close . . . I won’t lie, Brooke. It scared me.”
“He wasn’t going to hurt me.”
“How can you be sure? A man with his history, his pattern of loss and violence— ”
“There was no violence with his family,” Brooke interrupted. “The fire was ruled accidental.”
“Officially,” Adam said. “But I was part of that investigation, and I had questions. Questions that were never fully answered. And now we have another woman dead, another person connected to Tyler’s past.”
Brooke’s head spun. Evidence pointed one way. Her instincts pointed another. Phil’s certainty that Tyler was innocent warred with the case Adam was presenting.
After being so catastrophically wrong about Kelsey, could she trust her judgment about people at all? She was starting to wonder.
“You’re safe now,” Adam said. “That’s what matters. Tyler Gillis can’t hurt anyone else.”
But what if Tyler was innocent? What if the real killer was still out there while an innocent man sat in jail?
“I knew something was off about him the first time he was under investigation,” Adam continued. “The way he acted, the things he said . . . my gut told me he was guilty, even if we couldn’t prove it. Now we have a chance to get justice for Sheila. Maybe even for his wife and child.”
Brooke thought about Tyler’s face when Adam had said Sheila’s name—the genuine shock and grief, the way he’d looked at Brooke as they led him away, pleading for her to believe him.
That hadn’t looked like guilt. It had looked like devastation.
“Listen,” Adam said, his tone shifting to something softer, more personal. “I know this is a lot to process. Finding a body, then discovering someone you were talking to might be the killer, that’s traumatic. Please be sure to take care of yourself, okay?”
She nodded, grateful he was being so good about this.
Adam had asked her out on Monday, showing up at the coffee shop not long after the lunch rush.
She’d told him she was too shaken up about finding the body and needed time before thinking about dating.
He’d said he understood and would ask again when she’d had time to settle.
Even then, Brooke already knew the truth. She didn’t want to date Adam. The attraction wasn’t there, and the interest wasn’t genuine. He was nice enough. Handsome too. But he wasn’t the man for her. She knew that without a doubt.
What she’d wanted, what she’d been planning since Monday but kept chickening out of, was to talk to Tyler, get to know him better, and give that connection a chance to grow.
And now Tyler was going to jail, accused of murder.
“Remember, I have a list of resources if you need them,” Adam said, standing. “You’ve been through a lot. You still have my card, right? Just let me know.”
“Thank you.”
He left with a final concerned look, and Brooke sagged in her chair as soon as the door closed behind him.
“Brooke.” Becky appeared again, her phone in hand. “You need to see this.”
“What?”
“Social media is blowing up.” Becky turned the phone so Brooke could see the screen.
Posts were flooding in from multiple platforms—photos of the patrol cars outside her coffee shop, speculation about what had happened, and the name Tyler Gillis appearing over and over with varying degrees of accuracy about his history.
And there, in multiple posts, people were calling Irma Brew “murder central.” Joking about coffee served with a side of crime, wondering if they should avoid the place until things settled down.
There was even someone who said they had inside information that the unnamed hiker who had found the body on Sunday was none other than Brooke Davies, the owner of Irma Brew.
Brooke’s stomach dropped. “This is going to hurt business.”
“Maybe,” Becky said carefully. “Or maybe people will be curious. They might want to see where the arrest happened. People are weird that way.”
“That’s not the kind of attention I want.”
“I know. But we’ll get through it. The shop’s been here for years. People know us, know we’re not involved in whatever happened.”
But Brooke was involved, wasn’t she? She’d found the body. She talked to Tyler on the mountain. She’d just agreed to go on a date with him minutes before his arrest.
The gossip mill wouldn’t care about nuance. They’d just see connections and make assumptions.
“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” Becky said. “Go home and decompress. I can handle the shop.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Take care of yourself. But, Brooke . . . ”
“Yes?”
“This one.” Becky pointed at the comment saying Brooke had been the one to find Sheila’s body. “Why would they say that?”
Brooke’s shoulders drooped. Becky was staring at her, waiting, and Brooke knew she couldn’t dodge it anymore.
“It’s true. I found her while I was out on my Sunday run.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.”
Brooke nodded.
“You didn’t say anything.”
“It was . . . there was an investigation.” The truth, but Brooke knew she could’ve still told Becky—had she wanted to, but she hadn’t.
It seemed so much easier to pretend it hadn’t happened.
She hadn’t even told her dad or brother, and even though there was an article in the online newspaper, her name had been kept out of it thanks to her friend Joe Monroe, another member of her running club and a fellow survivor of Bearwater.
“Still.” Becky shook her head. “You should’ve taken some time off.”
“I’m fine. Really. But I think I’ll go now if you’re okay here.”
“Absolutely. I’ll see if I can get someone to come in early. We’ll be fine.”
Brooke nodded, grabbing her jacket and bag. She needed to get out of there, away from the stares, whispers, and phones recording everything.
She glanced at the table where she’d sat with Tyler.
Where he’d asked her out. Where she’d said yes, feeling hopeful for the first time in months.
Feeling like maybe she could trust herself to have a chance at a relationship without messing things up.
Without her usual tendency to fixate and then second-guess every choice.
Instead everything had fallen apart, and this time it wasn’t even her fault.
She looked out the front window. People were gathered on the sidewalk, talking in clusters.
Brooke headed for the kitchen to go out the back and into the alley where she parked.
Her phone buzzed as she reached her car. It was a text from Phil: Heard Tyler got arrested in your coffee shop. You okay?
News really did travel fast in a small town.
She didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to say. How could she be okay when she was this confused, this conflicted about everything?
The case Adam laid out sounded possible: a history with the victim, being at the bank Friday night, his presence on the mountain, a pattern of suspicious circumstances.
But Phil believed in Tyler, and when Tyler looked at her as they led him away, Brooke hadn’t seen a killer. She’d seen a man who’d already lost everything once and was watching it happen again.
Her phone buzzed again, another message from Phil: Rumor is, you’re the one who found the body??????
“Sorry, bro,” she muttered. “I’m not up to talking right now.”
She drove home on autopilot, her mind churning through possibilities. What if Tyler was innocent? What if he was guilty? Could she even trust herself to know?
Brooke pulled into her driveway and sat in the car, staring at her house without really seeing it.
She was worried about her business—the social media posts, the gossip, the way “murder central” would stick in people’s minds whenever they thought about Irma Brew.
She was worried about Tyler and whether he was guilty or innocent. Worried about him sitting in a jail cell, facing murder charges, his life destroyed again.
And she was confused. About everything. About what to believe, who to trust, and how to move forward when every instinct she had seemed suspect.
The only thing she knew for certain was that nothing would be simple from here on out.
Not her business, not her peace of mind, and definitely not her feelings about Tyler.
Even if she wanted to walk away, she couldn’t. She was already too involved, too invested in what happened next.
For better or worse, her life had become entangled with Tyler’s the moment she stumbled across that bear cache.
And now she had to figure out what that meant, and whether she was brave enough—or foolish enough—to believe in him despite everything pointing the other way.