Chapter Nineteen
Gayle Little didn’t say a word to Tanner as he walked into the department office. Gayle had been a staple in the department before Tanner’s dad had been sheriff. She’d been welcoming Tanner into the building since he was about ten years old.
But not today.
Today the coffeepot was cold. It was midafternoon, so not prime coffee-drinking hours, and Tanner had never demanded or expected Gayle to make it, she just always had.
There was no fresh coffee today.
And her glare was even colder than the coffeepot.
Evidently word about him running Bree out of town had spread, which was exactly what he wanted, but it was still a little painful.
He spent the next couple of hours going through the forty-nine voice mail messages, an untold number of emails and a dozen handwritten notes telling him—some more politely than others—what they thought of his actions with Bree.
He didn’t dare set foot inside the Sunrise for a while.
Mr. and Mrs. A were likely to poison him.
Nobody was happy.
Bree wouldn’t believe it if she could see it. Wouldn’t believe so many people would care about her.
That was a misconception he planned to rectify once the danger had passed, no matter how long it took. And she could just keep sleeping in his bed while they worked on it. He would take the couch as long as he needed to.
Or maybe, if he was the luckiest bastard on the planet, she might invite him to join her.
He shut down the emails and deleted the voice mails. There was nothing he could do about them right now. His office phone rang, and he cringed when he saw who it was. This call he couldn’t ignore.
“What can I do for you, Sheriff Duggan?”
Blaine Duggan had been his boss since day one. She’d worked with Tanner’s dad and had promoted Tanner steadily over the years. She was his mom’s good friend, and he had nothing but respect for the older woman.
“You’re quite the talk of the town today, Dempsey. My office is getting calls.”
“Sorry, Sheriff. Guess I made an unpopular decision.”
He didn’t want to lie to his boss, but he wasn’t sure if this call was being monitored.
“Anything I should know about?”
“Not at this time. I believe it was the right decision for my department and Risk Peak in general, and the people contacting you don’t necessarily have all the facts.”
“Which is exactly what I told them.”
“I appreciate your trust, ma’am.”
He was about to say his goodbyes when she spoke again. “But I buried your father because he got in over his head and didn’t ask for help. I don’t want you making the same mistakes. Take care of yourself, Tanner.”
The call clicked off before he could say anything else. He stared at the phone receiver in his hand.
Was Tanner being just as blind as his father had been? He didn’t think Bree would put a gun to his head, but he couldn’t deny that he was courting danger by bringing her into his house.
But he still meant what he’d told her. He wasn’t leaving her to deal with this alone.
He spent the next hour fielding calls he wished he could send straight to voice mail and looking over the report from the break-in to make sure there was nothing he’d missed.
Nobody in the office was talking to him. Gayle still wouldn’t even look at him, so that at least allowed him to get a little more work done. He sent Ronnie to pick up Bill Steele from the construction site.
Tanner wanted to talk to him again. Maybe the man would refuse to come in. He certainly had that right. But Tanner wanted to see the man’s face when he mentioned the Organization. The term was vague and obviously an inside reference, but Tanner was willing to bet Steele was familiar with it.
Tanner wanted a name. A real name. He didn’t think Steele was working for said Organization, but maybe he had some details that would help Tanner better protect Bree and the kids.
And like it or not, she was going to have to tell him everything she knew.
Because there were puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. Like if the Organization was the current threat, the people who were going to kill them all, according to her, then why had she and her mother been running from them when Bree was a child?
And if she hadn’t seen her cousin in a decade, why were the same people who’d been after Bree’s mom now after her cousin?
First he would find out what Steele knew, then he would use it to frame all the questions he had for Bree.
A tap on his door a few minutes later had Tanner looking up from his desk with a cringe. Was someone else here to tell him what a terrible person he was?
Scott stuck his head in. “Hey, boss. I brought you a sandwich from the Sunrise.”
“Did you tell them it was for me?”
“No. Should I have? Do they do something special for your sandwiches?”
Tanner let out a sigh. “No. They just probably would’ve spit in it—or worse—if they’d known it was for me.”
“Because of the whole Bree situation?”
He scrubbed a hand across his jaw. He needed a shave. “I guess you heard?”
Scott’s baby face scrunched up. “The way the people around here are telling it, you lit her on fire before escorting her out of town.”
Tanner rolled his eyes and took the sandwich Scott offered.
“Got to love small-town drama. Bree told me she was leaving, and I didn’t try to stop her.
Like you said, I think she might be caught up with the mob or a gang or something.
While I feel bad for her, really, my overall priority has to be to the town. ”
“So you’re just going to leave the whole break-in alone? That doesn’t seem right.”
Good for you, kid. Hold the line. “No, you’re right. I don’t care who it is, someone breaking into a house isn’t okay here. We’ve got forensics seeing if they can pick up any prints, but it doesn’t look hopeful.”
“Didn’t Ronnie say you had a suspect? Anything come of that?”
“It was Bill Steele, that guy who was making Bree nervous. But we didn’t have enough to charge him.” Tanner gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “Want to come in?”
“Do you think Steele is one of the men who broke into her apartment?” Scott sat down as Tanner began unwrapping the sandwich.
“Maybe. I’ve got some more questions I’d like to ask him. Ronnie has gone to bring him back. Hopefully he’ll come voluntarily, because we definitely don’t have enough to charge him.”
But maybe he would want to go. Maybe, like Bree, Steele was concerned about phones tracking his location.
Fine. If he wouldn’t—or felt like he couldn’t—come to the department, Tanner would go out and find him. Steele didn’t have to give him answers in an official setting, but he had to give Tanner some answers. It could be in the middle of a field as far as Tanner was concerned.
“Would you mind if I sat in on the questioning? See if I can learn something?”
“Yeah, we’ll see.” On one hand, the kid was pretty observant and might see or hear things Tanner missed. On the other hand, Steele was already pretty closed off. Having other people around wasn’t going to help the man feel free to speak.
Tanner was one bite into his sandwich when his office phone rang.
“Tanner Dempsey.”
“It’s Ronnie. We’ve got a problem. Steele didn’t show up for work today.”
“Did he call in sick? We know for a fact he was up all night.”
“Nope,” Ronnie said. “Just didn’t show up at all. I got his address from Denny Hyde and went over to the place he’s renting. He’s gone, Tanner.”
“What?” Tanner stood, sandwich forgotten.
“Yep. He was renting Sue Ragan’s place that she made out of her barn. And by the looks of it, he lit out of here in a hurry. You need to get here right away.”
“Why?”
“We definitely should’ve arrested Steele while we had the chance.”