Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“OF ALL THE foster kids I met in my years in the system, you are the last guy I would have pegged to go into the party-planning business.” Clayton Travers’s voice boomed through Sam’s truck later that morning, delivered in stereo thanks to Bluetooth.
His former foster brother’s call wasn’t exactly unexpected since Sam had sent out the first round of electronic invitations for the Hastings’ foster family reunion. But he had a world of other things on his mind after being with Amy.
He’d thought they’d really connected last night. Turned a corner in their relationship. He’d awoken twice during the night with her arms around him and her hands roaming...
Hell. It had been damned amazing. But apparently sleeping together had been more about exorcising demons for her than about any deeper bond with Sam.
Yet he’d let himself read into it. Made assumptions about it.
But no matter what he’d thought, she had no intention of letting him use her story to build his case.
“Catch you at a bad time?” The disembodied voice filled Sam’s truck again, forcing him back to the present.
“Definitely not.” Sam appreciated the call, in fact. “I’m on my way to work but I’ve got an eight-week-old son and I’ve clocked about ten minutes of sleep in the last two weeks. My reaction time has suffered, to say the least.”
On the other end, Clayton chuckled. “Well, congratulations are in order, then. Is that why you decided to have a family reunion now? Introduce the little guy to all your sketchy relatives?”
Sam had forgotten how easygoing his old roommate could be. He steered the truck out of Heartache to a motel past the town line. Tiffany McCord had given the place as her address when she got out on bail, so he hoped to find her there.
“Hardly. I would have given my kid a free pass on that for a few more years, but aside from celebrating Mom’s birthday, I’m also trying to talk to some of the residents who lived here when Gabriella Chance was in high school.
” Covington’s trial was in three weeks. If there was more evidence out there, he needed to find it fast.
Sticking to the road that ran along the Harpeth River, Sam drove under a canopy of oaks with bright yellow foliage—a sign of the season. Fallen leaves swirled in the breeze as he passed the turn for a popular fishing spot.
“Right.” In the background of Clayton’s call, Sam heard the sounds of a diner or coffee shop—the clink of plates and glasses, a waitress calling out an order number.
“Gabriella’s brother called me about a job protecting his wife.
I’m coming into town today to start.” There was a pause, and Clayton seemed to move to someplace quieter.
“The mayor thinks there is someone on the outside helping the guy in jail?”
“Definitely. Someone is sending threatening texts around town, and there’s no way Covington could have sent those from jail.
He must have an accomplice who is still on the loose.
And whoever it is threatened my kid.” The need to find out who was helping Jeremy Covington had become every bit as high priority as ensuring Covington got as much jail time as possible.
Clayton blew out a low whistle. “That’s some kind of desperation to threaten an infant. And a cop’s kid to boot.”
Sam hadn’t thought about it quite that way before, but it was true. Their perp had to be stupid or desperate to do something that would attract so much attention from the sheriff’s office.
“You can see why Zach called you. Heartache is a small town, and we don’t have a lot of resources.
” He had about five irons in the fire with this case and not enough time to follow up on everything he wanted to.
Especially not with Aiden to care for and the major—welcome—distraction of Amy Finley in his life again.
“I’ll do whatever I can,” Clayton offered right away. “I’m taking this job because the mayor said it would only be for a few weeks, and I wanted to be there for the reunion anyhow. But it sounds like you’ve got a lot more at stake than just a party.”
“I’d appreciate anything you can contribute.” Sam would put a PI to work in a hurry. Especially one he could trust. “I know it’s been a long time but—”
“Family first.” Clayton obviously remembered the former mayor’s motto. It had been on all the reelection signs around Heartache for years back when Amy’s father had run the town.
Hearing the words—applied to him, of all people—meant a whole hell of a lot.
“Thanks, man.” He hadn’t expected the strong statement of support. And it resonated all the more for him now that he was a father.
Now that he had a boy of his own to protect.
“I’ll call you when I get into town, and you can tell me what you need.” In the background, an engine fired to life before Clayton disconnected the call.
Sam was just pulling into the motel when he spotted Tiffany McCord almost immediately, walking from the main building toward one of the small cottages that surrounded it.
Still dressed in striped pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, she had her hair piled on her head and a foam cup of coffee in one hand.
She held a phone in her other, and that was where her attention was focused as she hurried between the buildings, slippers scuffing the pavement.
A stroke of luck to spot her so soon. And he needed the break after the way Amy had walked out of his house this morning.
Did she even have plans to see him again?
Or had last night been a one-off for her?
Memories of the night before flashed through his head like a steamy movie trailer, replaying on a loop he could repeat endlessly.
Right up until the part where she walked out with no other explanation than “I’m not ready yet.” Had that only been about giving her testimony? Or had it applied to their relationship, too?
Cursing himself for getting distracted all over again, he shoved open the driver’s-side door of the pickup. He slammed the thing shut and headed in Tiffany’s direction.
She stopped outside one of the cabins. But she made no move to enter. She stared down at her phone, her mouth open in surprise or maybe dismay.
Her eyes went wide. She backed up a step. Dropped her coffee on the pavement.
“Oh my God.” She didn’t seem to notice that the liquid had splashed down her pant legs and was pooling at her feet.
“Tiffany?” He forgot to be formal. He’d known the woman from her town council job well enough.
She turned toward him, her narrow face ash white.
“Sheriff.” She shook her head, her brows knitted. If she was surprised to see him, the shock was small compared with whatever news she’d just received. “I got a message on my cell. A threat to Bailey.”
Her grip on the phone’s protective case turned her knuckles white. Wavering on her feet, she backed up another step.
Gently, he took her elbow, knowing it felt like a gut punch to have your child threatened. Would she make the connection that this was how Dan Bryer had felt a few weeks ago when Tiffany herself sent those ugly texts to his daughter, Megan? Tamping down the thought, he reached for her phone.
“May I see?” He also didn’t want the thing to fall and crack on the pavement, a real risk now as her hands were shaking.
“The message disappeared.” She jabbed at the screen. “I was reading it, and it vanished.”
Sounded familiar.
“All the more reason not to tamper with evidence.” He was tempted to wrestle the damn thing out of her hand so he could get it to Zach, but Sam couldn’t afford a confrontation with her. Let alone overstep his rights as a law-enforcement officer.
But damn. Any hope he had of finding out who’d sent the threat diminished with each urgent press of her shaking finger.
“The message said I’d better not talk to the cops or Bailey would be sorry I did.” Her voice hit a high, frantic pitch. Her head swiveled as she glanced around the parking lot. “What the hell does that even mean? Is someone watching me?”
Turning desperate eyes toward Sam, she finally thrust the cell into his hand.
“Probably not.” He pocketed the evidence and steered her toward the bench outside her cottage. Or what he assumed was hers. “But it’s easier to trace the message if you can get your phone straight into the hands of an IT expert. The mayor’s company specializes in that kind of thing.”
“Right.” She dropped onto the bench awkwardly, banging her hip on the way down but not even seeming to notice. “I just saw Bailey last night. I should tell her father—”
“Let me call this in, and I’ll make sure an officer notifies Cole, the school and Bailey, too.” Jogging back to his truck, he used the police radio to contact the station and make arrangements, texting Zach about another disappearing threat at the same time.
It was a damn good thing Clayton had offered to help. Even so, he would have to call the county for more uniformed reinforcements.
When he returned to Tiffany’s side, her color had improved a little. Her movements remained stiff and uneasy, however, as he neared.
“Sheriff, I haven’t mentioned how grateful I am to you for hiring my daughter to watch your son.
It means a lot to me that Bailey hasn’t been alienated.
..because of me.” She folded her arms around herself tightly, bearing little resemblance to the aggressive businesswoman he remembered from town council meetings.
Sam couldn’t remember her ever thanking anyone in town for a damn thing, unless it was at an event documented by the media. She’d been a press hound for her small business—a sporting-goods store she’d opened with her husband the year before.
She reminded him of alcoholics he’d seen who’d turned their lives around—people who operated at a whole different pitch once they rid themselves of a bad influence. For Bailey McCord’s sake, he hoped that her mother had learned a lesson in the hell of the last few weeks.