Chapter Ten
Keane frowned as the deputies pulled up to the
charming building that housed the business offices of Barnes and Fleetwood. He
knew Jack Barnes had an office back at the big ranch house, but this was where
Olivia worked and met clients and suppliers. This was where she spent a lot of
her time.
And it had been lit on fire.
She stared up at the ruined building with a look he’d seen
before in foster kids who couldn’t quite believe what was happening to them.
Garrett stepped up, taking his place on the other side of
Olivia before turning to the police deputies. “What do we know about what
happened last night? I assume there’s a security system in place.”
Olivia’s eyes closed as if she was in pain. “It went out the
day before the wedding. We’re getting a new one installed on Wednesday. Well,
we were. Have you called my father?”
“You’re the contact when it comes to this building,” the
deputy said. “From what I hear your parents are on some kind of vacation, and
the sheriff doesn’t want to bother Jack. He was real certain of that. He said
you’re technically the name on the insurance, so we should go through you.”
She nodded. “Good. I don’t want to have to bother my
parents. How bad is the damage?”
It looked pretty bad. The building was standing, but the
second-floor windows had been blown out.
“You can go in if you’re careful, but I wouldn’t go
upstairs,” the deputy replied.
“All the important things are upstairs.” Her hand slipped
into his.
He squeezed it to let her know he was there. “Your records
are on the second floor?”
She nodded. “I have most of them on my laptop, but there are
older records that are…were only on paper. And there’s a desktop with a lot of
information. My dad doesn’t trust the cloud. I think he actually believes it’s
a cloud. I’ve never been able to fully explain it to him.”
“Do you have a preliminary report?” Garrett asked. He was in
sweats and a T-shirt and sneakers, but he was fully in attorney mode. He
handled the police back at the ranch, convincing them she needed to see the
damage for herself.
The deputy nodded. “Yeah. We think this happened in the
early morning hours. The fire department got the call at four a.m. We attempted
to call you.”
She winced. “I left my phone at my place and stayed in the
main house. I’m sorry. I should have had it.”
The deputy looked at Keane and then Garrett and slowly said,
“Well, it’s obvious you were busy.”
Keane felt a flash of anger go through him. “What is that
supposed to mean?”
Garrett stepped between the two of them. “Deputy, could we
keep this professional? If you can’t handle treating a woman with some modicum
of respect, then we’ll need to call in Mr. Barnes.”
The deputy’s face screwed up. “What does that word mean?”
His fellow deputy was a woman who looked to be in her late
twenties/early thirties, and she rolled her dark eyes. “Sorry. He’s not into
things like vocabulary or words, really, unless they’re insulting. Gil, why
don’t you go get us some coffee and I’ll handle this.”
“Ain’t gotta use big words. Makes a man feel small,” he
muttered as he walked off.
The deputy turned to Olivia. “Liv, I’m sorry. I got here as
fast as I could. My shift didn’t start until eight. Are you okay? No one was in
there.”
Olivia gave her a wan smile. “I’m okay, though I will have
to call my dad. Hopefully he won’t feel like he has to come back. He and Mom
and Papa are having some quiet time. Kelly, this is Garrett Pace. He’s an
attorney with our company, and Keane Rollins. He’s the foreman out at Aidan,
Lexi, and Lucas’s ranch.”
The deputy smiled, and the whole world seemed to have
decompressed. She held out a hand. “I’m Deputy Kelly Morgan. Livie and I went
to high school together.”
“Her mom managed the resort’s restaurants,” Olivia
explained.
Kelly grinned. “Oh, the good old days. I grew up on a
lifestyle resort, though my mother was firmly asexual by that time. She always
wished she didn’t need a dick to make her happy since she typically picked the
meanest dick she could find. How was the wedding? I was so sorry to miss it.”
Olivia reached out a hand. “It was lovely, but how is your
mom?”
“Better since yours sent out some of her favorite soup. They
got the tumor and now she’s got radiation therapy, but she’s going to be okay.”
The deputy looked Keane’s way. “My mother has breast cancer that might have
taken her out if Abby hadn’t gone with her to the doctor. She said she didn’t
need a mammogram, but turns out she did. It’s going to be okay, but I wish she
hadn’t had surgery when there was a spectacular wedding to go to. I heard you
had trouble last night. Lola was down at the station this morning complaining
about unfair treatment.”
“Lola was sexually harassing my friend,” Garrett said.
All eyes went to Keane, and he shrugged. “She was determined
to give me attention I neither sought nor wanted. She was handsy, and
apparently it was all because she was jealous of my girlfriend.”
Deputy Morgan’s brows rose, and her lips ticked up slightly
as she looked to Olivia. “I didn’t know you were dating anyone.”
“I met them at Josh and Grim’s wedding,” Olivia replied with
a shrug. “What can I say? The party favors were amazing.”
Garrett snorted and looked Keane’s way almost as though
trying to figure out how he would take that joke.
Everyone thought because he liked to slap some ass and get
called Master, he didn’t have a sense of humor. “Abby picked us up on sale at a
party store.”
Garrett smiled. “I would have gone with we were the elite
option.”
Olivia wrapped an arm around his, leaning into him. She kept
her eyes on her friend, but he felt her close. “They work with my uncle. I met
them at the wedding, and imagine my shock when they were on the plane with me
the next morning. However, if you see my other douchebag ex, we’ve been
together forever. You can’t remember a time I wasn’t with them.”
Deputy Morgan’s eyes went wide. “Scott’s back? Why?”
“He’s the new rep for Organic Foods.”
The deputy whistled. “That feels like a downgrade from the
VP position he left you for. I’ll keep my eye out. But we should talk about
that fire.”
Olivia stood up a little taller, and her hand fell away.
She was going into boss mode. “Yes. Do we have any idea what
started it? We had our electrical upgraded a year ago.”
“We have an inspector coming out this afternoon, but I took
a look. I think I can tell exactly where it started,” the deputy explained. “I
think someone poured gasoline all over your desk and it started there. Josh’s
office had minor damage, but yours is gutted. I don’t like it. Not after
someone slashed your tires yesterday.”
Keane straighten up. “The deputy yesterday told us he
thought it was kids.”
Deputy Morgan frowned. “Yeah, there are some of my
colleagues who don’t love paperwork. We don’t have a feral pack of teens
running around causing trouble. At least not until football season. I might
agree with him, but someone took out the security camera at exactly the right
time. I think someone knew that was Olivia’s car.”
“So you think they might be connected.” Keane’s brain was
working overtime. “I find it interesting that her ex-boyfriend shows up and
suddenly she needs a lot of help. He thought she would be alone for the week.”
“How would he know my parents were planning to stay behind?”
Olivia asked.
Deputy Morgan waved that off. “Sam was telling everyone that
his sons might be having their honeymoon, but he was planning one, too. He was
bragging about getting to spend time with the most gorgeous woman on earth in
Christa’s on Thursday. It was sweet, but everyone knows they’re not home right
now.”
“But I doubt Scott was sitting in the café,” Olivia argued.
“He knows a lot of people in this town,” the deputy replied.
Keane had accepted the excuse given yesterday, but he hadn’t
known the security cams went out at the exact time her tires were slashed.
“I’d like to tour the downstairs,” Olivia announced. “I’ll
see if there’s anything we can salvage.”
Her friend led her inside carefully.
Keane held back with Garrett.
“I don’t like the sound of any of this,” Keane said.
Garrett already had his phone out, texting quickly. “I’ll
get Ruby on it.”
Ruby Lockwood. The private investigator on retainer with the
company. “Tell her we’re paying. We can’t involve Ruby if she’s going to
contact Olivia’s dad unless Olivia wants it.”
Garrett frowned. “Apparently she’s already contacted Ruby.
Ruby says she’s investigating Scott. Olivia put her on it last night.”
Keane felt his jaw tighten, and then he forced it to relax.
She was learning to trust them. He had to give her that space. “Explain the
situation to her. And I’d like some information on Jason and his girlfriend.
Find out what happened to the woman Scott left with. I want to know
everything.”
Garrett nodded and then stepped away, dialing Ruby’s number.
Keane stood outside, staring at the building. She could have
been in there. He knew she was the type of person who worked late nights when
she had to. She wouldn’t hesitate. The idea of Olivia trapped in that building…
Maybe he should call her father.
Or he could trust that he and Garrett could support her and
figure all of this out.
“What the hell?” a deep voice said.
Keane turned, and there was the man from the day before.
Scott stood in his perfectly fitted suit that likely cost more than a month’s
worth of Keane’s pay. More. His hair was perfect, and he carried an elegant
leather case.
This was what Olivia was attracted to. At least she had
been. Garrett could look like that. Garrett had managed to make himself
comfortable in Olivia’s world.
Keane would always be a cowboy.
“Where is Olivia?” Scott asked like he had a right to know.
He might not wear thousand-dollar suits, but he knew how to
protect a woman. He stepped between Scott and the front door to the building.
There were people walking around the small town square, and there was no doubt
they were all trying to figure out what was going on.
“She’s inside with Deputy Morgan,” Keane said quietly.