Chapter Thirteen
“Jake, did you hear—”
He cut her off. “I’m on my way.”
When they finished exchanging information with Agent Parker’s superior, Colonel Aronson had ordered him to take Max down to inspect the arcade games inside the kiddie section of the midway. But the situation was rapidly unfolding, so Jake made the decision to take a detour.
When he approached the carousel, he found Bud Thompson standing with both feet planted on the ground, his radio clutched in his hand. Gesturing to the blur of color and flash, he asked, “You don’t want to ride?”
“I don’t have enough spring in my step to be jumping up there at this velocity. I don’t even want to think about jumping down,” he added.
“I will admit they made it more of a challenge,” Jake conceded. “It’s easier if you grab a pole and haul up.”
“You want to see me getting dragged around like a rag doll,” Bud said with a huff.
Jake smiled. “Remind me to send you the GIF of the little girl clinging to the carousel.”
Bud cast him a sidelong glare. “I have no idea what you said, but I’m gonna go with ‘no, thank you.’”
“If you two are done shooting the breeze,” Cass shouted on her next pass.
Jake raised a hand in acknowledgment, then turned to face the older man. “Will you take the RV information to Colonel Aronson? I want to speak to Cassidy about what we’ve learned, but…” He pulled a face. “I’m supposed to be working the north end of the arcade games.”
Bud gave a huff of a laugh and nodded as he stepped back. “You need a decoy.”
“I need a few minutes to talk to Cass, then I’ll head straight for kiddie land.”
“Fine.” Thompson raised his radio and spoke into it. “Captain K-9 is coming up to see you, boss. I’m heading up the hill to fill the honcho in on the RV and Troy Baker,” he informed her.
Cass zipped past them again. “Ten-four.”
Bud Thompson gave him a jaunty salute before heading for his cart.
Jake turned back to the merry-go-round as a cloud blotted out the slanting afternoon sun.
The wind kicked up, ruffling Max’s fur. He tilted his head back to stare at the sky.
The afternoon heat hung on, but big, puffy thunderheads were forming to the west.
“Come on, big guy,” he said, giving Max’s lead a gentle tug.
He didn’t have to ask the dog twice. Max bounded onto the swiftly moving platform as if he did this sort of thing all the time. Jake’s landing wasn’t quite as graceful. He clung to the brass pole impaling a rearing white stallion until he got his feet under him.
Cass smirked. “I’m going to start scoring people on their mount and dismount.”
“Easy for you to say.” They threaded their way toward her. “You sit there and the whole world comes to you.”
She barked a laugh. “Yeah, it’s been super easy to be stuck here in this…horse vortex.”
“Horse vortex,” he repeated with a laugh.
“Livestock tornado?” she offered.
He gave her a wan smile as he dropped down on the bench across from her. “You’re right. I don’t know how you’ve been able to stand this.”
She shrugged. “What’s my option?”
Jake inclined his head to concede the point.
“I spoke with both Parker and her department head, Simon Taylor. They are following up at the scene, but Trevor Baker is claiming he and his brother fell out years ago. His wife was home at the time of Agent Parker’s visit, and confirmed Trevor had not left the house, but said Troy Baker had been harassing them since he was released from prison. ”
“How long ago?”
“I don’t have all the details yet.”
“How reliable does Emma think the wife is?”
“Seems good. She’s convinced it was the brother.”
Cass mulled the information over for a moment, then shook her head. “Something isn’t adding up. How would Troy Baker know Agent Parker would go question his brother. And when?”
Jake held his palms up. He was fresh out of theories. “Beats me.” He looked down at the two mobile phones on the bench beside her. They were identical, aside from the drop-resistant case on her personal device. “No chance you mixed up phones when calling Parker?”
Cass followed his speculative glance at the phones but shook her head. “No,” she insisted. Picking up her original phone, she opened the contacts. “I only have Agent Parker’s information saved in the new one. I called from the new phone.”
She opened the call log, then turned the screen toward him. Though there were dozens of inbound numbers listed and as many voicemail messages, there hadn’t been any outgoing calls placed for hours.
He gnawed the inside of his cheek as he craned his neck to look around. “I wish we knew how he was watching you.”
“You and me both, buddy,” she answered in a tone dry as dust.
As if her ears were burning, one of the mobiles on the bench lit up with an incoming call from Emma Parker. He watched as Cass snatched the handset and fumbled to accept the call.
“Hey. How are you?”
She sounded breathless and anxious. The urge to take her hand in his again was strong, but he resisted. Instead, he leaned down to pat his dog as Cass switched the call to speaker.
“I have Jake Donovan here with me. And Max.”
Emma chortled. “Trooper Max, the wonder dog?”
Jake moved closer to speak into the phone. “The one and only. Hey, did anyone ask you about Airman Baker’s brother?”
Emma Parker paused for a moment before answering with caution. “I was going to ask Cassidy about him.”
“Did Trevor Baker mention him?”
“Yeah, he mentioned him. He went off on a rant about the guy. Not long out of jail, struggling, coming around Trevor’s house saying Trevor owes him and he betrayed him by pleading guilty.
” She paused for a moment. “Baker’s wife doesn’t like the brother.
Said he’s bad news. A narcissist. Always blaming the world for his messes—but particularly blames Trevor.
The wife said he’s been bothering them.”
Jake leaned in. “Did you ask when they’d last seen or heard from him?”
Emma grunted. “No. At first I thought they were trying to deflect, but the more they told me, I did start to wonder.”
Intrigued, Cassidy shot Jake a speaking glance. “How was he harassing them?”
“Phone. Texts. Emails. You name it.” Emma sighed then continued. “Mrs. Baker said they even bought new phones, but Troy—the brother—got their new numbers.” She was quiet for a moment. “We’re seriously looking at the brother for this.”
“More like staring at him,” Jake informed her. “Can you get someone to pull any information we can get on him?”
“I gave one of the guys on my team my notes. I’ll pull it all together and get back to you ASAP.”
“But aren’t you at the hosp—” Cass started to protest, but Parker cut her off.
“I’ll be back at my desk within the hour,” she announced. And then she ended the call.
“She shouldn’t be going to the office. She should be resting,” Cassidy insisted.
Jake raised an eyebrow. “Would you?”
She opened her mouth to argue further, quickly snapping it shut. Jake couldn’t help but smile when a blush deepened the pink of her wind-chafed cheeks.
“I didn’t think so,” he said. “Okay, so we have a suspect. We have people digging into his past and we have suspicions concerning his current whereabouts. Do you have any idea why he’d be coming after you so hard?”
Cass pondered the question for a moment, then shook her head slowly.
“Not a clue. I mean, I was the one standing beside his car, and I placed the call to the local police, but it certainly wasn’t anything personal.
” She stopped speaking abruptly, the corners of her mouth pulling down.
“I mean…this feels personal,” she continued, waving an all-encompassing hand.
“Ironic. His was one of what was probably a half dozen arrests I either made or assisted with that week. It wasn’t personal for me. ”
“Did you testify in court?”
She nodded. “Here.” He watched her tap the phone screen until a soft swooshing sound announced a message had been sent. A second later, his own phone chimed.
“I dictated everything I could think of about the stop, the arrest of AFC Baker and the charges brought against his brother.” She waited, brows lifted expectantly until he checked his phone.
Jake blinked down at the text filling his phone screen and his stomach somersaulted.
“I, uh…” He winced, then pressed the button to exit the screen.
“I may have to wait until I have both feet planted on the ground.” She chuckled, but there was little mirth in it.
In fact, it sounded mildly derisive. His defenses up, he narrowed his eyes. “What?”
She shrugged him off. “Nothing.”
“Sounded like something,” he quipped.
“Nothing new, I guess.” Cassidy brushed his curiosity away with a wave of her hand.
He rocked back until he sat ramrod-straight on the bench. “Now I have to know. What do you want to say to me, Cass?”
“Cassidy.” She issued the correction in a tone tinged with acid.
“You clearly have an issue with me,” he argued. “Why don’t we get it out there now so we can get one with figuring this mess out?”
“One has nothing to do with the other,” she countered.
“Indulge me.” He practically growled the words at her.
She rolled her eyes, looking like the sassy teenager he’d loved so much back when he was young and had mistaken her sometimes brash behavior as confidence. Now he knew it masked the exact opposite. She was scared. Of course she was. But he was not volunteering to play punching bag for her fear.
“Say it,” he challenged.
She threw her hands into the air. “Okay, fine. Somehow you got it in your head you were the wronged party back in the day, but let me remind you, you broke up with me. You were gone, but I stayed right where you left me.” She tipped her chin up.
“And I see it all so clearly now. We were never moving at the same speed, or in the same space, or wanting things to happen at the same time. Nothing has changed.”
“What? How do you figure?” he demanded, as incensed by her annoyance as her assessment. “We were kids, Cassidy.”