Chapter Twenty-Seven
Back in that large room at the police department, Amy Sue worried that she wouldn’t be believed again.
But this time it wasn’t Detective Hanson questioning her.
The interim chief of police, an older man with graying hair named John Harper, did the questioning.
He’d been brought in when Russ had filed a formal complaint against the chief and Detective Hanson for trying to keep evidence from coming out about Jack Marshall.
Amy Sue had already given her statement, but had been told that the new interim chief had a few questions. She wanted to hear that Jack had confessed to all of it, but knew that was too much to hope for.
“You’re the eyewitness,” Chief Harper said, nodding. “I’ve read your statement. I commend you on your bravery and dogged determination to bring Jack Marshall to justice.”
“Actually, my sister Josie was right. I had no business doing it,” she said. “He was just so sure he could get away with murder. I knew he’d do it again, and I didn’t want that to happen.”
Harper smiled. “While I appreciate your efforts, I hope your sleuthing days are over.”
“They are. Were you able to find Whitney Clark?”
He nodded. “Detective Russell Tate told us where he suspected she’d been buried.”
“At the construction site where she was killed,” Amy Sue said, and he nodded. He didn’t say that she should have been found a lot sooner if Detective Tate had been given the authority to investigate like he’d wanted to.
But they both must have been thinking about that because Harper said, “Detective Tate has been reinstated and given a commendation. I was sorry that he’s resigned from the department.
The door is always open for a man like him should he want to come back.
” Amy Sue didn’t see that happening, but she kept it to herself.
As Russ said, he was a cowboy through and through.
It’s one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him.
“I suppose you know he’s being released from the hospital today. ”
“I’m picking him up this afternoon,” she said. “He saved my life.”
“From what you told us, he saved all of your lives.”
She had to ask. “Did Jack confess?”
“He’s talking,” the chief said.
“What about his wife Christine?”
“She’s come out of surgery. The doctor said she’ll survive, but no charges are being brought against her.
” Amy Sue started to speak but he held up a hand.
“We can’t arrest someone for what they might have been planning to do.
She swears she put the two of you into the safe room to protect you from Jack. ”
Shaking her head, Amy Sue said, “She told him to kill us, then she was going to kill him to save herself, but no, I have no proof that was her intent. I only know what I saw in her face before Russ took the gun away from her. She’d put up with Jack’s philandering for years to protect the privileged life she was living.
She would have done anything not to lose it. ”
“I can’t promise that she won’t lose it.
More than likely society will feel sorry for her, the naive wife who had no idea what her husband was doing—or had done.
You might not have gotten all the justice you wanted, but you got a murderer off the street,” Harper said as he rose. “Let that be enough.”
Amy Sue might have argued that it wasn’t enough, but she was more than willing to put it all behind her.
A certain former cowboy detective had promised her a date.
She stood to leave, anxious to get to the hospital to pick up Russ.
They were going to his family ranch while he recuperated, then she was taking him home with her to Dry Gulch.
She didn’t have her sister Josie’s second sight, but the way she saw it, the future looked bright and sunny.
Sitting in Goldie’s diner in the heart of Dry Gulch, Montana, Russ couldn’t take his eyes off his date.
He’d promised Amy Sue a real date, once he recovered from his injuries.
They’d spent some time at his family ranch.
He hadn’t been surprised that his mother and father and brother had fallen for Amy Sue like he had.
She was right at home in the kitchen with his mother as well as out doing chores with him and his brother.
“If you could go to any restaurant anywhere in the world, where would you like our first date to be?” he’d asked after they’d gone to her family ranch.
He already knew her sister Josie and liked her.
Russ was a little surprised, though, how easily Josie had accepted the fact that he and Amy Sue were now a couple—and they hadn’t been on one official date yet.
“Anywhere in the world, no matter what I want to eat?” Amy Sue had asked, then grinned. “I pick Goldie’s in Dry Gulch.”
He’d laughed, not surprised. He’d come to know this woman and what she wanted from life. He’d felt a closeness to her from the beginning. She was smart, determined, beautiful and even more stubborn than he was, and he’d fallen madly in love with her.
Goldie, the diner owner and Josie’s best friend and sister-in-law, took their orders. The daily special, which today just happened to be meat loaf, mashed potatoes and green beans with iced tea and a piece of Goldie’s famous chocolate cake for dessert.
Russ felt as if he’d found a second family in the small quaint diner.
“Goldie and Josie just told me that they are both pregnant. Their babies are due around the same time,” Amy Sue said, and grinned. “I can’t wait to be an aunt.”
He’d been carrying his grandmother’s ring around in his pocket since he’d gotten it from his mother. “You’ll be the best mother, too.” He slid out of the booth and dropped to one knee. “Marry me, Amy Sue Brand.”
Tears flooded her eyes, then she laughed. “What will our children say when I tell them you asked me to marry you on our very first date, Russell Tate?”
“They’ll say it was clearly meant to be. Was that yes?”
She slid from the booth and into the cowboy’s arms as he put the engagement ring on her finger and kissed her.
“Best date ever,” she said as everyone in the diner clapped and cheered, including her sister, Josie, whom Goldie had called so she didn’t miss this.
“Welcome to Dry Gulch,” Amy Sue joked.
He met her gaze and held it. “Feels like home to me,” he said, and kissed her again.