Chapter Twenty-Three
She and Tanner really were going to need to have a long talk about exactly what it meant to be a team. Team did not mean one person stayed in jeopardy while the other ran for her life.
But when the clock was ticking and some sort of bomb was about to blow up the whole building, it wasn’t time for an argument. So she kissed him and wiggled out that tiny window and fell what felt like a thousand feet to the ground.
But she damn well didn’t run to safety. Instead she immediately grabbed the biggest stick she could find and headed around to the front of the shed.
If Tanner was coming out of there guns blazing, then she was going to help him by coming from the back, club swinging.
As she sprinted around the building, Glen’s attention was caught by the front window of the shed shattering. She ran as fast as she could toward the skinny man, even as Tanner came bursting out of the shed door, firing his gun in Glen’s direction.
Glen was hit by one of Tanner’s bullets, but only in the arm, not enough to take him down. And then he was firing, too. Tanner, out of bullets, dived to the side to get away from the shots firing his way.
She knew it wasn’t going to be enough.
“No!” She screamed to get Glen’s attention before he could fire at Tanner again and continued to run at full speed, branch raised.
Glen spun around to face her, and she knew he was going to get the shot off before she could hit him. She prepared herself for the feel of a bullet, but when the shot rang out, no pain came.
Instead, it was Glen who fell from a shot to the head. Bree spun to see what had happened. Did Tanner have another bullet she didn’t know about? He was running toward her, leaping over Glen’s body and pulling her against his chest and behind one of the larger trees.
Not two seconds later, the shed exploded, sending pieces of wood and metal flying out as shrapnel. The tree saved them from it ripping into their bodies.
Tanner held her away from him and looked down at her, fear clouding his brown eyes. “Are you okay?” He began patting her down, looking for wounds.
“I’m fine. How...? Did you shoot him?”
“Excuse me. Can I get a little help over here?” The voice was coming from the other side of where the shed had stood. They both rushed over through the smoke and debris to find Ryan Fletcher leaning up against a tree, gun next to him.
“Fletcher? What the hell are you doing here?” Tanner rushed to his friend’s side and helped ease him to the ground.
“I was on my cell phone with Sheriff Duggan when Whitaker called in what was going on. I was closer, so I rushed over here. Made it just in time to shoot someone I’ve never met then get blown to kingdom come.” He smiled. “Everybody always says an attorney’s job is bloody.”
Tanner smiled. “Well, you don’t have any projectiles sticking out of your body, so I think you’re going to be okay. Maybe a concussion.”
“Pretty sure you’ve punched me harder than this, sparring.”
Bree reached down and squeezed his shoulder. “You saved my life. Thank you.”
“Anytime. I’m glad you guys don’t have to run anymore.” He smiled and leaned back against the tree.
About ten minutes later, Whitaker finally showed up, just in time to be of no real use whatsoever. An ambulance came for Ryan, but he refused to leave, even though he probably needed to get a CT scan.
Tanner stayed glued to Bree’s side, and to be honest, she didn’t want him far anyway. They’d come too close to losing each other.
They waited with Ryan on Glen’s rickety front porch steps as some of the other sheriff’s deputies arrived—including Ronnie Kitchens, who hugged them both—and began searching the house.
Whitaker came out a few minutes later. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, you’re cleared, Dempsey.
We found access to a huge stack of Dr. Michalski’s files on Carrico’s computer, cross-referenced with a list of all the people who’d gotten reduced sentences because of giving up info on others.
Looks like Carrico planned to take them all out. ”
“Unbelievable,” Ryan muttered.
“Would’ve liked to have known why he chose me to set up for the fall,” Tanner said.
Bree pulled him closer. “And how he could possibly think this would help his brother’s case. If anything, this will just make it harder for Darin to stay at the minimum-security facility.”
“Guy had cancer, right?” Ryan asked. “He’s pretty young. That couldn’t have been easy. Maybe he just snapped.”
“I guess so.” Tanner rubbed his eyes then looked up at Whitaker. “You already knew about this place when I called. How’d you figure it out?”
“Michalski. I found him after you broke into the sheriff’s office last night and locked him in that closet.” He shot a sideways look at Bree. “After I figured out that the window alarm was false, of course. Michalski was just spitting mad that you had snuck into the building.”
Tanner raised a dark eyebrow. “Didn’t make you mad that I had snuck into the building?”
Whitaker leaned against the porch rail. “Don’t get me wrong—I would’ve arrested your ass if I had caught you there. But I also couldn’t think of many reasons you would be there at all if you were guilty and on the run.”
Tanner shrugged. “I wasn’t guilty.”
“What I couldn’t easily figure out was why Michalski was there at three in the morning.
Started checking building logs, and it seemed he’d been there all night for multiple nights.
Started looking further and figured out there was a lot going on with the doctor that he wasn’t telling.
I went to the sheriff, and she and I confronted him this morning with our concerns.
He admitted his wife was divorcing him and had hacked his files.
She’d been selling them to whoever she thought could do the most damage to Michalski’s reputation. ”
“He should’ve been up front about that from the beginning,” Bree said. “There were ways to do damage control. Hell, I could’ve tracked down anyone she’d sold the info to and destroyed it.”
Whitaker nodded. “I think Michalski understands that. He’s the one on administrative leave now. I’m sure you’ll be reinstated as soon as the sheriff sees you, between what we found here, Carrico admitting to the killings and Fletcher finding him in the middle of attempted murder.”
Tanner stood. “Good. Then the sheriff can expect to see me first thing tomorrow. Right now, we’re going home.”
Home. That was definitely where she wanted to go. She wanted to check on Star and Corfu and make sure they were doing okay. She wanted to sleep for a hundred hours in Tanner’s big bed.
Beside him.
Bree and Ryan stood with him. Bree’s grin was huge, Ryan’s a little more painful as he rubbed his head. But he slapped Tanner on his back. “Congrats, buddy. I’m glad you’re no longer the hunted. I’m going to help make sure the people who really deserve the blame for this get what’s coming to them.”
Tanner shook his head. “No, nobody in the department is to blame. It was just some unfortunate circumstances. I’m just ready to get back to the job.”
Bree squeezed his hand. “And I know Risk Peak wants you back, too.”
Ryan nodded. “If you say so. I think I’m going to take a few dozen aspirin and call it a day. I’ll catch you guys later.”
Tanner and Bree headed toward their car, too. Tanner still hadn’t let go of her.
She smiled at him. “Looks like you get to go back to being Captain Sexy Li—”
She never finished the sentence as his mouth slammed against hers and he backed her against the car. She moaned, gripping at his hair and clutching him to her, totally not caring that his colleagues might be able to see them.
When they finally broke apart, he leaned his forehead against hers.
“You scared me to death. You’re not great at following directions, you know that? You were supposed to run to safety. Not charge a fully-armed man with just a tree branch.”
“Well, you’re not great at understanding the whole concept of team. In a team, one person doesn’t run for safety while the other gets riddled with bullet holes or blown to smithereens. So how about we call it even?”
He smiled. “How about we go home?”
“Sounds perfect to me.”