Chapter Seven
Jared was bigger than Bree would’ve thought. She imagined Marilyn, who was probably a good three inches shorter than Bree’s own five foot five, struggling against him. It was hard to visualize a situation in which Marilyn would come out the victor.
A man stepped from behind Jared, much shorter, but still stocky.
“This is pretty much harassment,” the shorter man said in a booming voice.
“My client has been out on bail for four days and we’re already being called in here like he’s done something wrong?
Do not doubt I’m going to make sure the judge hears about this. ”
“I thought you came in earlier?” Bree said without thinking. Wasn’t that what Parnam had said?
“Believe it or not, my client does not jump at the whims of this office. If the judge tells us to come in at a certain time, we will certainly comply, but this office having technical difficulties is not Mr. Ellis’s problem. You’re lucky he’s here at all.”
They didn’t know who she was, of course. They thought she was a computer tech assigned to this office.
This was a gift horse. She was going to ride that sucker, not look it in the mouth.
“Of course, Mr. Stobbart.” Bree forced her most subdued tone. Wait—would the tech have known his name? Too late now. “We appreciate you and Mr. Ellis coming in so we can take a look at the hardware.”
Stobbart looked slightly appeased, at least enough to stop yelling. “Well, I certainly wasn’t going to allow my client here without representation,” he huffed. “It’s not my first day being a lawyer.”
He and Jared both chuckled.
“If you don’t mind stepping over here, I’ll evaluate the hardware.” She studied Jared’s face. Stobbart may be a loud bully, but it was the look in Jared’s eye that had her recoiling.
Jared Ellis was evil.
He hadn’t said a word yet, and he didn’t say a word now; he just walked over and placed his leg on the chair next to Bree’s, exposing his ankle under his khaki pants. She wasn’t surprised to find him wearing loafers.
If wearing loafers in Colorado didn’t tell you everything you needed to know about a man, she didn’t know what would.
“Have you attempted to remove the device or modify it in any way?” she asked. “Maybe it got uncomfortable so you did something to it?”
“Like what?” His voice was deep and low and had almost a hiss-like quality to it.
She yanked her gaze from his face and studied the ankle monitor. There were no scratches, no markings whatsoever to indicate it had been tampered with.
“Just any attempt to open the device. Believe it or not, some people could start to feel claustrophobic because they can’t remove the hardware.”
She had no idea if that was true, but it sounded reasonable enough.
“No. I’m not prone to claustrophobia.” Icy voice once again.
There were no markings to indicate it had been overloaded with electricity, another way of attempting to dismantle it, but that would also have telltale signs.
“I’m just going to run a system diagnostics test while you’re here,” Bree said. “You shouldn’t feel anything.”
Although if she could’ve managed to rewrite the system so that the ankle monitor gave off a shock to Jared, she wouldn’t have hesitated to do so. Unfortunately, the device didn’t work that way.
She backdoored into the system, praying neither Jared nor his lawyer would understand what she was doing, and ran a full diagnostics test on everything: the monitor, the link between it and the system, the system itself.
She also made sure the GPS tracking was accurately calibrated, since she knew exactly where Jared was and could tell if it had been tampered with.
The system was perfect. The anklet was broadcasting exactly as it was meant to. Damn it.
She tried to think of any other tests she could run, but there wasn’t anything. She was grasping at straws. She stared at the hardware, willing an idea to come to her.
“Are we done here? My client hasn’t done anything wrong. Obviously the judge believes that to be true enough to release him on bail. I’m confident that Mr. Ellis will also be exonerated at his trial. We feel very certain of that. He’ll be free of your technology soon enough.”
Bree breathed past the bile pooling in her gut at the thought that this man could walk totally free. That Stobbart seemed so damn certain he would be. Jared just calmly rolled his pants leg back down, without a concern in the world.
“I hope you rot in hell.” As soon as the impulsive whisper was out of her mouth, she wished she could take the words back. Then prayed she’d said it low enough that neither of them heard her.
She wasn’t so lucky.
Jared’s eyes narrowed into slits. “You know Marilyn, don’t you?”
Bree scrambled out of her chair and backed up as Jared yanked his foot down and closed in on her. “Is she here? Where is she? I just want to talk to her.”
“Jared, not here—” Stobbart grabbed his shoulder, but Jared shook him off.
“Stay the hell out of this, Oscar,” Jared bit out, grabbing Bree by the upper arms and squeezing with bruising force. “You will tell me where my wife and family are. She’s my wife. I have a right to see her. To explain my side of things.”
Almost from a distance she heard the office door open and Tanner’s angry roar over Jared’s words. A second later Jared’s painful fingers released her as he was thrown up against the wall by Tanner.
“What’s going on here?” Parnam asked from the far side of the room, obviously not wanting to step in between Tanner and Jared.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on here...police brutality,” Stobbart said.
But Tanner had already released Jared and was standing by Bree, keeping himself between her and the other man.
“Your client was manhandling and intimidating my colleague,” Tanner said. “If you’re looking for brutality, it was coming at the hands of your client.”
“She knows where my wife is,” Jared spit out. “I just want to talk to Marilyn.”
“Jared, enough,” Oscar said. “Think about long term.”
“But she—”
“Enough!” Oscar yelled.
The room fell into silence except for Jared’s breathing as he attempted to get himself under control.
“The only thing you need to know about your wife and kids is that the restraining order against you still stands. If you come anywhere near them, you’re going right back to jail.” Tanner looked over his shoulder at Bree. “Are you okay? Did you get what you needed?”
“Yes.” She would have to give him the bad news later.
Stobbart was pulling Jared toward the door. “You can believe that this is all going to come back up in court. I’m not going to allow this to go unreported. My client has rights.”
Tanner shook his head. “Your client is the worst kind of scum, and I’ll look forward to making that fact known to anyone you want to bring this up with, judge included. There’s nothing I’d like better.”
Bree grabbed the back of his shirt, a little turned on by what a badass Tanner was. But mostly she just wanted them to get out of here.
Jared had regained his composure. “I’m okay, Oscar.”
Oscar turned to Parnam. “I assume you’ve got all you needed for the device to be calibrated and my client won’t be harassed again? We will only come in from now on if we’re instructed to by the judge.”
Parnam was still looking around trying to figure out exactly what was going on. “I guess so.”
“Then let’s go,” Stobbart said to Jared, taking him by the arm.
Both men walked toward the office door, but Jared turned around just before they left. He looked straight at Bree with those icy eyes.
“I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again.”
Tanner kept her body pinned all the way behind his. She wouldn’t even be able to see Jared if she didn’t peek her head out from around Tanner’s broad shoulders. She tried to step around him, to confront Jared herself, but Tanner wouldn’t let her.
That was fine. She didn’t really want to be face-to-face with Jared anyway.
Not because she was afraid of him, but because she wasn’t sure she could stop herself from punching him in the jaw—and that would just make Stobbart giddy with all the harassment suits he could file. So she stayed behind Tanner.
Jared and Stobbart left without another word.
Tanner immediately turned around and yanked her to his chest. “Are you sure you’re all right? Did he hurt you?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Do you really think he doesn’t know where Marilyn is?”
“I don’t know. She’s not announcing where she is, but she’s not hiding it either. Jared is smart. It’s a good way of professing his innocence without overtly drawing attention to it. But it’s possible he doesn’t know, I guess.”
“What exactly is going on here?” Parnam asked, studying them.
Bree pulled away and they both turned back to Parnam. “Nothing has changed,” Tanner said. “We’re still trying to make sure Jared Ellis is not able to get anywhere near his wife, whom he assaulted bad enough to put into the hospital a few months ago.”
Parnam nodded, then looked at Bree. “But you know his wife? I thought you worked for Grand County?”
“She’s an independent contractor,” Tanner said. Bree just nodded.
Parnam raised an eyebrow. “Fine. I don’t want to get caught in the middle of anything. Somebody my age can’t be trying to look for a new job in this economy.”
Tanner nodded. “You’re not going to get caught in the middle of anything. Bree is definitely a computer expert. If there’s any chance Jared Ellis is manipulating his tracking monitor, she’s going to find it.”
“He’s not,” she said.
Tanner looked at her, lips in a thin line. “You’re sure? You were able to check everything you needed to? They didn’t stop you by showing up?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “They actually helped by showing up. I’m not an electronics expert, but I was able to figure out the workings of the anklet pretty easily.
It’s transmitting exactly the way it’s supposed to.
All backup systems and GPS tracking are online and calibrated correctly. It wasn’t Jared who started the fire.”
Tanner let out a low curse. “I don’t know if that’s better or worse.”
“Trust me, I wanted it to be him. I tried damn near everything I could think of. If he’s manipulating that monitoring system, he’s smarter than me.”
Tanner turned to her and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Then he’s not manipulating the system. Because he’s definitely not smarter than you.”
“If Jared isn’t behind the fire, then who is?”
“That’s what we’ve got to find out.”