Chapter 3
The cottage was trashed—completely ransacked—like a hurricane had passed through. Tommy took a peep inside and immediately sprang into protective mode.
“Get behind me.” He sternly instructed her to stay back while he drew his gun and tiptoed inside.
But Willow couldn’t stay back. She had to see what happened, how much damage was done. Most of all, she wanted to know if the person who had broken in and torn everything to shreds was still inside.
“Hello!” Tommy hollered out. “This is Sheriff Thomas Chapman. Is anybody here? Come out with your hands up if you are!”
No one came forward. But he didn’t stop looking until the entire place was cleared. Willow stood near the front door when he entered the bedroom, hoping he would return with someone in handcuffs, but there was no one else there.
“Are you all right?” he asked, while she stood there crying. “Do you know who could have done this?”
She shook her head. She was so confused that she couldn”t even think straight. Who would have done something like this?
“Willow,” Tommy placed a gentle hand on her arm. “I need you to think. Where have you been the past few days? Who have you talked to? Have you had any run-ins with anyone?”
Then it hit her. Charlene. She was adamant about Willow meeting up with her. She even threatened Willow about giving her money she didn”t have.
His neck snapped back at the same time as Willow’s did. She thought he might have been thinking of Charlene as well, but she was surprised when he spoke again.
“Dale?” he said, almost in a whisper. “No. He couldn’t have. Could he?”
Dale was the last person who came to her mind. She was with Richy that evening, but she didn”t think he would have found that out so soon. He was probably too drunk and passed out on his sofa to even notice Richy wasn’t even home.
“There is one person I can think of…” She finally spilled the beans. “I met up with Charlene. She made me meet her at some old bar an hour away from here. She said there’s a lot more money Charlie’s hiding and she thinks I know where it is.”
“You met with Charlene?” Tommy”s eyes widened in disbelief. “How come you’re just now mentioning this? I’ve been looking for her for a long time, Willow.”
“I know,” Willow sighed. “I should have said something the night she called me. I just, I don’t know… She said no cops or she wouldn’t talk. And I wanted to get more information out of her before you hauled her off to jail or something.”
Tommy looked so disappointed in her. He didn”t say anything for a while. He just paced back and forth with his hands on his head, trying to wrap his mind around Charlene being in Sanibel. Willow thought he would haul her off to jail instead.
“Do you know how much trouble you can get yourself into playing a game like this?” he asked. “You’re obstructing justice by keeping information about the whereabouts of a known suspect. That’s a jailable offense.”
She knew it, alright. Brandi told her the same thing. She wasn’t trying to hide it from him or anything; she just wanted to get information about Charlie. Information, it seemed, no one else truly cared about. Except her.
“Where is she now?” he asked, “…and don’t you lie to me.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t heard from her since that night. She called me from a private number, but I have the address to the bar she had me meet her at.”
“Send me that address. Lock this place up and don’t go anywhere until you hear back from me.”
When Tommy left the cottage, Willow did exactly what he said. She locked up and didn’t go anywhere. Brandi was out of town on a business trip, so Willow was completely alone. The only other person she could have called was Monica, but Willow didn”t think she wanted to see her. So, she stayed put and hoped the detectives would keep watch over her until she heard back from Tommy.
Willow set out to clean the place up the best she could. Brandi was frantic and wanted to come back early from her trip immediately, but Willow told her she would take care of things until she got back. Only then it dawned on her to check for the stash of cash she had left until she got ready to try to catch some shut eye, and when she did, it was gone.
“Damnit!” she cursed. “That was the last bit of cash I had left!”
She was angry, but she wasn”t surprised. Whoever tore apart the cottage was on the hunt for money, so it was no surprise they took the first set of bills they saw. Even if it wasn’t what they were after. That little bit of cash probably made whoever broke in think she really did know where the money was. And if so, Willow knew they would be back.
The only thing left to do was wait.
*
The following day, Tommy came to see her. He visited the bar where Willow met Charlene and canvassed the area for her, but she was nowhere to be found. It made her think she was still somewhere in the area.
“There’s no way she would leave,” Willow said. “She was so adamant about getting her hands on whatever money there is. I highly doubt she would take off before finding out where it is. Maybe she’s somewhere on this part of the island. Did you check her grandfather”s house?”
“Old man Brady isn’t someone we like to bother,” he said. “We caused so much trouble for him when this investigation first kicked off. He made it near impossible for us to question him again. He’s got some friends in pretty high places, so I can”t bring anything to his door unless I have something solid.”
Willow thought someone breaking into her cottage and tearing her things to shreds was solid enough, but what did she know? She wasn’t a detective or a cop, just an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire.
“If she’s after that money like you say she is, it’s only a matter of time before she comes back. How much money did she say there was?”
“A lot,” she said. “Millions. Why does everyone keep asking me that? It shouldn’t matter how much money there is, what matters is that they’re caught.”
She was so frustrated that she had to lie down on the couch to keep her head from exploding. He had no answers, no suspects in custody, nothing.
“So, what am I supposed to do now, Sheriff?” She was being sarcastic, but she really wanted to hear what he had to say to that. “Just sit around twiddling my thumbs while Charlie and Charlene figure out a way to get their money and ride off into the sunset to start this all over again?”
Tommy walked over to the couch, lifted her feet and sat down. Instead of tossing her feet onto the floor, he set them gently across his lap and patted them. Willow was a little bashful about how gentle he was with her at that moment.
“Look,” he said. “We’re going to figure this out. It’s gone on long enough. Who knows, maybe you’ve been the missing piece to this puzzle all along. Maybe it took for you to come here and cross my path for me to really be able to sift through the sand and find the missing key.”
She wanted to take what he said with a grain of salt because she didn’t want to be sweet talked.
“Trust me, I”m going to figure this out. I’ll bring this case to a close once and for all. And believe me…” He looked her square in the eyes and with the most gentle tone, he added, “I’ll make sure every single one of the women who were hurt by this situation gets compensated. If it’s the last thing I do.”
Willow believed him. She didn’t know why she believed him as much as she did, but she did. There was a softness in her heart for him, too. His voice and aura felt so genuine, she had no choice but to believe him.
Tommy was nothing like Charlie. Sure, he was rough around the edges and had a hard time opening up to people, but he was a good man. A great man, in fact. When he left that afternoon, Willow looked into his background and all the things he’d accomplished in Sanibel.
The people of the island had a lot of great things to say about him. The women were surely fond of him. She saw a bunch of comments and heart eyes from women on his Facebook page. Honestly it made her a little jealous.
When Willow went through his photos, she started to see him differently. Though she thought he looked amazingly handsome in his uniform, he looked even better without it. It was a different side to his personality. He liked to fish and go bowling. He liked to hike the trails that were hidden in the woods of Sanibel. He loved playing football on the beach. The kids loved him too. She saw it in their large smiles and hugs with him.
He saved an elderly woman from a burning building at one point. Helped stop robbery attempts. Got runaway children to get back on the right track and do right by their parents. Sheriff Tommy was a well-respected man. He did it all.
It wasn’t hard to see why he was so burnt out by his job. He was a real life superhero. And he was truthful about his time spent trying to find the Sanibel scammer.
Willow saw posts from years prior where he was asking for all kinds of help from the community, posting flyers and even offering cash rewards for anyone who had information. Greg was good at what he did, and even better at hiding himself from the world.
But what stood out to her the most, was the fact that, at one point, Greg and Tommy were best friends.