Melanie couldn’t believe there was any what’s next.
“Do we have any idea of what we might expect?” Jo asked.
“I might have to show up in court in LA sooner than later. With Nathan’s connections and all the press, he’s pushing for Hope to return to California. Even claiming I left the state without his knowledge. Like he somehow cared where we were.” When William had called to tell her that Nathan was pulling every conceivable ploy to force a preliminary hearing in front of a judge, and refused to meet and settle anything in a boardroom, Melanie knew he was doing something underhanded. One of the things William had said was that she was not going to bring Hope back into the state of California without a court order. Right now Wyatt’s father was in Southern California playing endless rounds of golf with friends and colleagues of Nathan’s father. When he broke for the afternoon, he spent his time doing some “good old-fashioned elbow rubbing” with some of the Stone clients.
Melanie wasn’t sure how any of that was going to assist her in keeping a hundred percent custody of her daughter, but Wild Bill Gibson had the reputation of winning his cases, so she didn’t question him directly.
The radio on Jo’s shoulder squawked and captured everyone’s attention.
“Sheriff?”
Jo lifted the mic and squeezed. “I’m here.”
“Josie just called, requested you stop on by.”
Melanie did a quick head count. Nope, no one she was close to was in a bar fight tonight.
“Is there a disturbance?”
“No. She just asked if you could come by real quick like, maybe help keep one from starting.”
Jo lifted herself off the couch, her heavy belt following her up like a chain. “I’m on my way.”
Luke stood with her. “Need some backup?”
She patted his shoulder. “Your bruises just went away. I think I have it.”
“You know where we are,” Wyatt offered.
She pointed two fingers in Melanie’s direction. “Just keep an eye on Mel so I can find Mr. Lewis.”
“Got it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jo didn’t bother trying to find a space to park at R&B’s, and pulled up behind several motorcycles that took up a handful of spaces. High-end Harleys mixed with a couple of BMWs, and at least one Ducati rounded out the average bike. She was fairly certain this was the doctor and lawyer crowd Josie normally had pass through toward the end of summer. They didn’t often cause any concern, but it wasn’t unheard of for those who used bikes as their daily vehicle to cause a little trouble for those who only did on the weekends.
With her hat on her head, her arms loose at her sides, she stepped into the busy bar and swept the room with her eyes. Sure enough, a big crowd of fortysomethings surrounded one of the pool tables, swigging back beer. All of them men, short hair on top, a few rebels with a couple days’ growth on their chins. Most couldn’t stand the itch and didn’t bother with the act. They wore black leather, but it wasn’t well-worn with cracked elbows and dirt around the collar. Doctors and lawyers. No doubt about it.
A couple of locals sat at the bar, several groups of the early twenty-plus crowd did the jukebox thing. She’d make a point to swing by that group before leaving to make sure one of them was sober and driving.
The place was loud, but it didn’t feel edgy, which made Jo ask why Josie called.
“Hey, Sheriff?”
She turned to find Zane. His eyes were a tad glossy, but he had a soft smile on his face. The fact he called her Sheriff actually warmed her heart. His respect for her badge was nil ever since she put it on.
“Hi, Zane.”
“It’s been a little crazy around here lately, wouldn’t you say?”
“Understatement of the year. How is Zanya doing?”
He actually shuffled his feet. “Gonna be an uncle any day now. And don’t worry, I walked here.”
“Good to hear, Zane. Let me know how your sister is coming along.”
“I will.” He offered a timid smile and turned back to his group of friends.
Jo wasn’t sure when his switch happened, but she liked it. She reached the bar, caught the bartender’s eyes. “Josie?” Jo asked.
She waved her thumb toward the other end of the bar before noticing Josie’s frown.
When she stood in front of her, she asked, “What’s going on, hon?”
Josie nodded her chin to one of the tables in the corner of the room.
It took a second for Jo to realize who she was looking at. “What the hell is he doing back here?”
“Keeps looking out the window like he expects company.”
“What’s he drinking?”
“Jack.”
“How many?”
“One. Wouldn’t have allowed that but my waitress didn’t know who he was.”
Jo patted Josie’s shoulder before weaving through the crowd to the lone man sitting by the window. Last time she saw him he was cooperating enough to keep Luke and Wyatt from being booked. She pulled the chair opposite him across the wooden floor with a scrape loud enough to catch the attention of several tables around them.
His eyes shot to her from where he had them pinned against the window.
“Jesus. Little warning there, Officer.”
“It’s Sheriff.”
He didn’t bother correcting himself.
“I thought I told you to avoid River Bend and especially this establishment if you drove through again.”
He picked up his whiskey, which looked more like melted ice at this point, and looked beyond her for a second.
“She’s not serving you again,” Jo told him.
He went ahead and finished his melted ice and slapped the glass on the table. He paused for a second. “Saw that news program.”
Jo went still.
“Which one? The news vans have been all over town.”
He glanced back out the window. “Couple of them. Glad you found that little girl.”
Jo did a little mental Rolodex search. The man’s name was Buddy . . . strange last name she didn’t remember. Friends called him Big. For obvious reasons. Unlike the lawyers and the doctors in the bar, this man owned a beard he’d been growing most of his life. Kept it fairly trimmed, but you could see the yellow cigarette stains that took plenty of packs to create. On the top, complete chrome dome. Priors were assault, armed robbery, a few catch and release on drugs. He was either working his way up the chain gang or deciding it might be better to live on the outside of barbed wire fencing.
“We all are.”
He twirled the rest of the ice in his glass. “People shouldn’t fuck with kids, man. That shit’s off-limits.”
Honor among thieves. “Too bad not everyone gets that memo, Buddy.”
He seemed surprised she’d called him by his first name.
She did what she always did, and waited for him to talk. It was obvious from the fact he hadn’t left that he had something to say.
And Jo wanted to hear it.
“I have a kid.”
“Oh?”
“Twelve. Her ol’ lady won’t let me see her. Can’t say as I blame her.”
Jo felt some of the tension in her body relax. “Hard to explain jail time to a child.”
Buddy nodded, looked into the melting ice.
“Saw the news . . . heard the name of this town. Crazy . . . I’ve never been through here before . . . what’s the chances of hearing it twice in a week?”
A little too coincidental for Jo’s world.
He glanced out the window of the bar. “I—I ah, saw that guy.”
The hair on Jo’s arms stood on end. “Which guy?”
“The brown-haired surfer-looking guy . . . the one we roughed up.”
Jo felt the air go out of her lungs. She wanted to he
ar Mr. Lewis’s name so desperately she could scream. “You mean Wyatt?”
Buddy shrugged. “Is he the little girl’s dad?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Saw the mom on the news. She was clinging to him.” He sucked down the rest of the melted ice, crunched on what was left.
It wasn’t like her to share with someone she didn’t know, but there was something driving this conversation that had yet to appear, so Jo went ahead and told the man what everyone in River Bend already knew. “Wyatt’s dating the mom.”
Buddy started to tap the edge of his glass. His somewhat easy expression hardened on the edges.
“I don’t like it when people fuck with kids,” he said again.
“No one does.”
“I mean . . . a grown man, he can have enemies. Done wrong by someone else. But a kid . . . shit’s just not right.”
Patience was such a hard line to stand on.
“Couple more hours and she would have been dead . . . that’s what that American Fugitive guy said. Is that true?”
Jo offered a slow nod.
“Still looking for the guy who pushed her?”
“We’ll find him.”
“Good. Bastard should fry.”
On that, they both agreed.
“Do you think he was working alone?”
Again, gooseflesh pimpled on her skin in the warm bar. “What makes you ask?”
He shrugged, looked out the window again.
“Buddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Who you expecting?”
“No one.” Which was a lie and they both knew it.
They sat for another solid minute in silence before Jo moved to stand. “Well, Buddy. I need to get back to that little girl.” Since children were his hot button, she pressed it hard. “Someone out there wants her dead, and until we find him, she needs all the protection she can get.”
She actually turned around and took a step before he spoke. “I was paid.”
“Paid?” she asked over her shoulder.
“The boyfriend. We were paid to rough him up.”
What the—? She kept her expression stoic as she turned. “Paid to fight Wyatt . . . by who?”
“Don’t know. Ty set it up, saw D-Man and knew he’d help. It was an easy grand.”
Ty was one of the other guys with him the night of the bar fight.
“Someone paid you and Ty to fight Wyatt Gibson here . . . and you don’t know who, or why?”
He shook his head. “Didn’t really care. Couple punches, make sure the cops were called. Don’t press charges. Just like Ty said, we all left.”
Her head scrambled. Who the hell would pay this thug to fight Wyatt?
“Then I saw him on the news . . . saw the kid. Thought . . . wait, is someone setting this guy up and using the kid? What kind of sick fuck does that?”
Yeah, her thoughts exactly.
“Feds are really good at tracing shit. Only a matter of time before they realize I was here fighting this dude on purpose.”
“So you came back to make sure you’re not accused of more than a bar fight.”
Buddy ran his hand over his beard. “Yeah. Probably kick myself when the Molly wears off . . . but yeah.”
Good to know what kind of drug he was on.
“Do you know who paid you?”
“No. Ty might, but I haven’t seen him since that night.” He glanced out the window again.
“Is that who you’re looking for?”
He shrugged.
She wasn’t sure how the dots connected, but she’d find the link. “You know I need you to come in and give a statement.”
He didn’t seem like that was on his list of things to do.
“I’m working with the Feds to find Hope’s assailant. I need him off the street before he comes back to finish the job or hurts another innocent little girl.”
He stood at that point and slowly followed her out. A small path cut through the crowd as they passed. Jo caught the whites of Zane’s eyes, which narrowed at the man following her.
Outside, she suggested, in the firm way cops do, that he take the ride with her . . . in the back.
Buddy had been around long enough to understand what that meant.
Thankfully he didn’t argue and suggested she remove the pocketknife he had tucked into his boot.
The pat down was quick, and she went ahead and opened the back door without placing him in cuffs. The cage separating them was enough for her.
Three hours later, after Agent Burton drove in from Eugene, they’d learned that Buddy and Ty had cased Josie’s for three nights waiting for Wyatt to walk in. They were instructed to involve Wyatt in a bar fight and each of them would walk away with a thousand dollars. According to Buddy, Ty wasn’t concerned about a little jail time with a thousand dollar return. Buddy had been a little more anxious with his record. In the end, the money weighed out. A moment, he said, he wasn’t proud of.
The question Buddy kept asking throughout his interview was the same one that Jo kept asking herself. Did Mr. Lewis hire Ty to fight with Wyatt? Or did someone hire Mr. Lewis to hurt that little girl and Ty and Buddy to fight Wyatt? Either way, a child was involved and that was the line Buddy didn’t cross. Buddy must have said the words don’t fuck with kids a dozen times.
The guy had been hard and edgy the last time she’d seen him. Probably the combination of drugs he’d taken, but something in the air was changing the criminal element in River Bend. Between Zane’s unusual acceptance and Buddy’s appearance and statements, Jo felt like she was Mayor Giuliani turning around the crime element in New York. More importantly, she felt as if they were at the breaking point of the case.
“You can taste it, can’t you?” Agent Burton asked.
Jo closed her eyes and lifted a hand in the air. “It’s right there.” She made a little invisible dot in the air with her index finger. “Right fucking there!”
“We need to find Ty.”
Jo couldn’t agree more. They’d put out an all points on the man for questioning. Buddy seemed convinced that Ty wouldn’t have a lot more information. He didn’t have the criminal connections Buddy had . . . but he’d recently been stung, though it hadn’t stuck, according to the drunken stories they’d shared.
It was easy to conclude that had Ty seen the stories of attempted murder, seen Wyatt on the news like Buddy had, he might be running scared at this point. “Or,” Agent Burton pointed out, “our Mr. Lewis, or the one who hired him, wants to clean up loose ends.”
That was not what Jo wanted to hear.
Jo pulled out her personal cell phone and sent a text to Melanie.
Is Luke or Wyatt there?
It took a moment before the dot dot dot of a pending message appeared.
Luke just left, Wyatt is here with a suitcase.
Jo sighed. She knew Miss Gina had a shotgun. There weren’t too many people in town who didn’t. But the chances of Mel using it were slim to none. Okay.
Thanks for all you’re doing, Jo. Love you.
Love you back.
Jo tucked her phone in her pocket.
“Where is Mr. Buddy staying?” Agent Burton asked after Deputy Emery drove Buddy back to R&B’s to retrieve his bike.
“The hotel outside town. I checked in with the owner. He’s been there for a couple of days now.”
They’d asked him to stay close for more questioning. Hopefully once the drugs wore off, he wouldn’t take another that would cause him to freak out on a massive level and flee. Only time would tell.
Agent Burton rubbed the space between her eyes. “Well, it’s a long drive back to Eugene. I should be going.”
“You know, I have two extra rooms in my house, Burton. You can crash there.”
The other woman he
sitated, then said, “Sure. I’ll take it. Save time.”
Jo grabbed her keys. “Follow me.”
Melanie and Miss Gina were washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen when Melanie received Jo’s text.
Wyatt was upstairs unpacking a small bag to hold him over. He took the room at the very top of the stairs so he could hear any comings and goings inside the inn.
Melanie thought about how much of her life had been turned upside down, and how just by knowing her, her friends were in a constant state of chaos as well.
She handed Miss Gina a wet pie pan and shoved her hands back into the water for another. “I’m sorry,” she said without preamble.
Miss Gina kept drying dishes as she spoke. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Everything. You hire me and look what happened. I’ve closed the doors of the inn, interrupted your income—”
“Stop. Just shut the hell up right now. You didn’t bring any of this on yourself.”
“Doesn’t stop me from feeling guilty about how this has affected everyone around me.”
Miss Gina slammed the cupboard after placing the dish inside. “And what is that guilt doing for you? Is it solving anything? Making you sleep better at night?”
“No.”
“Then let it go. I want you and Hope here. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Miss Gina shook off her anger and placed a hand on Melanie’s shoulder. “I never wanted kids because I’ve always felt I had several. You’re like a daughter to me. Don’t ever forget it.”
Her heart leapt in her throat, and she hugged Miss Gina, soapy wet hands and all. “Does this mean Hope can call you Grandma?”
“Hell no! I’m much too young to be a grandmother.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Melanie turned off lights and double-checked the doors to make sure they were locked as she passed through the downstairs of the inn. She reached the top of the stairs to find Wyatt’s door open and voices coming from inside.
When Hope started to giggle, Melanie paused.
“You can’t be Snow White,” Wyatt was telling her daughter.
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