by SJ McCoy
Carter laughed. “I was pretty sure that it must be a cover story for something. Even if it was only to get together and hang out so the girls could do the same.”
Shane grinned. “Great minds, bro. That’s what I thought, too.”
Mason met his gaze. He didn’t seem in the mood for joking. He got straight down to business. “What have you come up with?”
Beau looked at Chance. “I think you should tell them your part first.”
Chance nodded. “I talked to April again. Apparently, Guy’s threats that he wants to kill her weren’t just empty words. The Summer Lake Police told her they have a man in custody.”
“What man?” asked Carter. “And what for?”
“The man who rammed me,” said Beau. He still found it hard to believe that Guy had blackmailed someone to do that.
“Yeah,” said Chance. “And Guy had also blackmailed him into going down to California after April.”
“To kill her?” Shane’s eyes were wide.
“Not initially, no,” said Chance. “He sent this guy, Greyson, down there when he found out where she was, to break into her house and leave her the divorce papers. Remember I told you about that? Papers with a threat attached that she needed to sign them or else.”
“What can the police do?” asked Mason. “Surely that must be enough for them to take Guy in for questioning?”
“They could, but once they do, they can only hold him for twenty-four hours unless they have enough evidence to charge him with something.”
“Something?” asked Carter. “How about blackmail for starters, and wouldn’t it be like conspiracy to all the other stuff? Breaking and entering, making threats…” he looked at Beau. “I mean what was your accident? Attempted murder?”
Beau shuddered. He’d been trying not to think about that. “I don’t think they’d ever be able to prove that even if it were true. It would be more like assault.”
“With a deadly weapon,” said Carter.
“What?” asked Shane.
Carter shrugged, “If you use a half-ton truck to ram someone with, it seems like a pretty deadly weapon to me. What else would you call it?”
“I don’t know,” said Beau. “But the point is, they’re starting to get a whole bundle of charges they might be able to bring against him.”
“When?” asked Carter. “We’ve been hearing that much for weeks. When will they have enough to lock him up?”
Beau shook his head. “We don’t know.”
“And what did April have to say about it all?”
“That she wants to come back up here and help sort it all out.”
“No.” They all turned to look at Mason. “No fucking way. It’s too dangerous. He’s threatened to kill her. If any of you doubt he means it…” He shook his head adamantly. “It’s one thing for all of us. We’re here anyway, we’re sticking together on the ranch. There’s no point in April coming and putting herself at risk like that. What’d be the point? What could she do that we can’t?”
“Press charges.” Beau didn’t like it any more than Mason did, but if April were to come back up here it really could speed things along.
Mason shook his head again. “They just need to hurry the fuck up and charge him with something. There’s enough that he’s suspected of. Why can’t they just pick one and bring him in?”
Beau sighed. Mason getting impatient was not going to help things. Beau was relying on him to be rational. Carter and Chance were too ready to take the law into their own hands. Shane was out of his element and would wait to be told what to do. Beau needed Mason to be another calm voice of reason. But when it came to April, he never was. Beau understood why. Mason still felt responsible that April had ever married Guy.
“They’re working on it.”
Mason nodded. “Well they need to hurry the fuck up. In the meantime, we wait it out. It’s all we can do.”
“Until he does something else,” Carter had that look about him again. Beau knew he wouldn’t be able to hold him back much longer.
“April thinks she can help Luke hurry things along. She believes that if she comes back and confronts Guy, he’ll do something that will make it easy for Luke to arrest him.”
“No way.”
Beau sighed. He knew it was risky; Guy might do anything if April showed up. He might hurt her. Her idea was that if Luke stayed close by whenever she went to see Guy then he’d be able to intervene.
Carter twisted his hat in his hands. “No. We can’t let her do it.” He looked at Chance. “You agreed to this?”
Chance shrugged. “I said we’d consider it.”
“If we’re going to use someone as bait to try to get him to attack, then I’ll be the bait. I won’t let April do it.”
Beau raised an eyebrow. “That’s how you see it? That I’d use her as bait?” He’d been looking at it from a problem solving perspective. He’d looked at all the puzzle pieces logically, and this had seemed like a solution. Now Carter put it like that, he felt less sure of himself.
Carter nodded grimly. “That’s exactly what it is. It’s not just how I see it.”
Beau sat down heavily.
Shane’s phone rang loudly in the silence. He looked around apologetically as he checked the screen. “Sorry, it’s Cassidy. I need to get it; I told her to call me when she made it back.”
Beau watched him walk outside.
He was back in just a few moments. “I’ve got to go. You are not going to believe this shit. The gallery’s on fire.”
“What?”
Beau jumped to his feet along with his brothers. Under any other circumstances, it would have been comical the way they all tried to crush through the doorway at once in a hurry to get out to the trucks. There was nothing funny about this, though.
“What do you know?” asked Mason as he headed for his truck.
Shane ran a hand through his hair. “Not much. Frank called Cassidy when she was halfway back down the valley on her way home. There’s a fire; that’s all she knows.”
They all piled into Mason’s truck and he swung it around and flew up the driveway toward East River Road.
“Did she say anything else?” asked Beau.
Shane nodded. “She’s convinced it’s Guy. She said she heard a noise in the back before she left, but she convinced herself she was just getting spooked because she was there by herself.”
“That’s why her and Gina are supposed to come and go together.” Carter didn’t look happy.
Shane shrugged. “You try telling her she can’t stay late when she’s got work to do.”
“Do we know how bad the fire is?” asked Mason.
“Frank wouldn’t tell her much by the sounds of it and I think he might regret that when she gets there. She’s spitting fire.”
Beau was glad he wasn’t the fire chief.
When they got closer to town they could see a dark plume of smoke rising.
“Shit!” Shane shook his head. “Shit.”
Beau gripped his shoulder. “At least she wasn’t in there.”
“Yeah.”
They pulled as close to the gallery as they could get. It wasn’t good. They’d closed the road. The worst of the fire seemed to be out, but the gallery was as good as gone. Firefighters were still hosing it down, and grey smoke billowed out of the blown out windows.
Beau watched as Shane spotted Cassidy and ran toward her. She looked like a wild animal ready to strike when he put his hand on her shoulder and she whirled around to face him. Her whole demeanor softened when she realized who he was. He put his arms around her and she sagged against him. A moment later she straightened up and started talking rapidly, pointing at the building and the firefighters. Shane seemed to be trying to calm her down.
Beau turned to look at the others. Carter was by his side, watching Shane and Cassidy. Mason was striding down the street, ducking past the barriers and no doubt going looking for Frank. Chance was…gone. Shit! Beau scanned the crowd that had gathe
red to watch. There was no sign of him anywhere.
“Did you see where Chance went?”
Carter shook his head. “I thought he went with Mason.”
“Nope.”
“Then I guess, he’s had enough.”
“But where’s he going to go? What’s he going to do? He’ll land himself in the shit. There’s nothing to say that Guy did this. We can’t prove anything.”
Carter gave him a dark look. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it? We can’t prove it, so we can’t do anything, and we just have to wait, and it keeps getting worse. And in the meantime, Guy can do whatever the hell he likes. Luke says his hands are tied. Well, my guess is that this just pushed Chance past his limit. He’s not going to let his hands be tied anymore.”
“But, Carter! We can’t let him.”
“You reckon we could stop him? Even if we could find him?”
Beau blew out a sigh. He didn’t know what to do. He looked around, hoping to spot Mason. There was no sign of him.
Shane waved them over. “Can we stay at your place tonight, Beau? It’s going to be a long time before they get finished up here. You may as well get back to the ranch; there’s no point hanging around.”
Beau pulled his keys out of his pocket and slid a key off the chain. “Course you can, here you go.”
“Thanks. Have you seen Mase?”
“He’s coming.” Carter pointed to Mason and Frank who were making their way over.
“What about Chance?”
Beau blew out a sigh. “He’s disappeared.”
Shane’s eyes widened.
“Where do you think he went?”
“I think we can guess, don’t you?”
“Shit!”
“That’s what I thought.”
“What’s going on?” Mason stopped when he reached them and looked around at their faces. “Where’s Chance?”
Beau met his gaze. He didn’t want to say or even imply what he suspected with the fire chief standing right beside Mason.
“Shit!”
Beau was pretty sure their mom would be disappointed that was the only word any of them could come up with. Though she’d probably say the same.
Frank looked from one brother to the next and nodded slowly. “I didn’t hear a thing; I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I will say, it’s about time someone did it.”
Luke Wallis came pushing through the crowd to join them.
“Luke…” Mason began.
Cassidy scowled. “What are you going to do? I want to press charges. You have to bring him in.”
“It doesn’t work like that, Cassidy. I explained to you…”
“And I explained to you that is just not acceptable. There’s a crazy fucker running around this town, burning down people’s property. We all know who it is, and you’re telling me you can’t do anything about it? That’s bullshit! You have to do something. You’re supposed to protect the people. Protect and serve, doesn’t it say that on your uniform somewhere or something?”
Luke looked terrified, and Beau couldn’t blame him. Cassidy was always so put together, she didn’t lose it, she didn’t need to. The way she spoke, in such controlled tones, was much more intimidating than any amount of shouting could ever be.
“I want to talk to your chief.”
Beau had to bite back a smile. She sounded as though she were demanding Luke take her to his leader. Well, she was. Luke was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Though given the choice, Beau himself would sooner piss off the Chief of Police than piss off Cassidy.
Luke shrugged, seemingly reaching the same conclusion as Beau. “You may as well, Miss Lane. There’s nothing I can do.”
“Fine.” Cassidy pushed her hair back over her shoulders. “Where can I find him?”
“Give him two minutes, and he’ll find you,” said Frank. “I already called him down here,” he explained as Luke gave him a, what the fuck? Look.
“I’m with Cassidy here. There are enough similarities in all these fires, and I’ve seen enough progression, that I can’t let this ride any longer.”
Beau met his gaze. “Progression? You think he’s stepping it up?”
Frank shrugged and jerked his chin to where Mike Nelson was talking to a couple of the fire crew. “I’m going to talk to Mike first.”
“If you think I’m not going to follow you and listen to every word, and make him listen to what I have to say…”
“Cassidy.” Shane caught her arm. She started to shrug him off, but then stopped. “It’s okay, Cass. Frank and Mike need to talk to each other first, and then they’ll both talk to us; isn’t that right, Frank?”
“I’ll come back and talk to you. I can’t answer for Mike,” he said as he left them and went to join Mike and his crew.
“Mike will have me to answer to, if he tries to hide!” Cassidy called after him.
She was one determined woman. Beau wouldn’t want to be Mike right now.
Cassidy looked around at the brothers. “Why in the fuck won’t anyone do anything?” she demanded.
Shane put an arm around her shoulders. “They’re going to have to now, right?” He looked from Mason to Beau and back again.
Beau didn’t know what to say, and neither, it seemed, did Mason.
Carter kept his head down and toed the gravel with his boot.
“Carter?”
His head jerked up when Cassidy spoke, but he didn’t meet her gaze.
“What do you know?”
He shrugged.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she asked more gently. “Please?”
Even Cassidy knew you couldn’t bully Carter; he’d dig his heels in and pull his strong and silent routine. He could never resist a plea for help though.
He shrugged again. “They might not need to do much now.”
“And why’s that?”
Carter hung his head again then looked up and finally met her gaze. “Chance,” was all he needed to say.
Cassidy looked around. “Where is he? What’s he going to do? And don’t you dare shrug at me again.”
Beau pressed his lips together to hold back the smile that wanted out.
Carter lifted a shoulder then stopped. He looked just like he used to when they were kids whenever their mom caught him bottle feeding stray critters when he was supposed to be doing homework.
“I don’t know, Cassidy. All I can tell you is that he rode up here with us. When we got here, Shane came to you, Mason went to find Frank, and Chance disappeared. I don’t know anything, but even I can figure out where he’s most likely gone.”
Cassidy nodded. “I don’t want him getting himself in trouble.”
Carter hung his head again and muttered, “I think it’s a bit late for that.”
Beau sighed. He had to agree, but unless they wanted to go out to the Preston ranch to see if they could find Chance and stop him, he didn’t know what they could do. He was relieved to see Frank and Mike heading their way.
“Miss Lane.” The Police Chief looked around the group and then focused on Cassidy. “I understand you wanted to talk to me?”
“Of course I do. I want to know what you intend to do.”
Mike stroked his chin. “I intend to bring Guy Preston in for questioning.”
Beau felt a wave of relief rush through him.
Carter didn’t look too enthusiastic. For a moment Beau wondered why, then he understood; in order to bring Guy in, they’d have to find him—or what was left of him if Chance already had.
Mike eyed each of the brothers. “Luke is headed down to Preston’s place now.”
Frank nodded and gave Carter a meaningful look. “So you might want to head on home. All of you.”
Beau knew what he meant. They needed to find Chance and stop him before Luke got to Guy’s place. He met Mike’s gaze. It seemed he knew what was going on, too; but he wasn’t likely to say so.
“Yeah,” Mason nodded. “We should get back down the valley.�
�
“We need to stay here,” said Shane. He looked at the gallery and shook his head sadly. “See what the damage is and if we can salvage anything.”
Cassidy tightened her arm around his waist. “It’ll be fine. They were just paintings, I have insurance, and I can paint some more.”
Beau had to admire her. From what he understood, all her work and her livelihood had just gone up in smoke and she was still trying to look on the bright side.
Mike nodded. “I need you here, Miss Lane.”
“Unless you need us for anything, we should get going,” said Carter.
“I think you’d better.” Mike looked at his watch. “Luke left nearly five minutes ago.”
Beau didn’t have time to think; he just followed Mason and Carter as they scrambled for the truck.
Chapter Fourteen
The pulse was pounding in Mason’s temple as he drove down the valley. He was hoping with all his might that Chance hadn’t found Guy.
“What time did we arrive in town?” asked Beau.
“I don’t know,” said Carter. “I didn’t look. It was just before six when we left the cottage.”
“Check my phone.” Mason handed it to Beau. “I sent Gina a text as soon as we got there. I didn’t want the girls realizing we were gone and getting worried.”
Beau checked the sent messages. “That was at six-twenty-five.”
Mason raised an eyebrow.
“And you reckon Chance left about six-twenty-six?” asked Carter.
“Something like that. I’d say it takes between twenty and twenty-five minutes to get to the Preston place from town so…”
Mason looked at the clock on the dash. “So if Chance went straight there, and if he found Guy home, he’s had maybe half an hour to do whatever he was going to do.” His heart sank. He hoped to God that maybe Chance had just taken off to calm down. But he knew better.
“How could he have gone anywhere, though?” asked Carter. “That’s what I don’t get. I mean he rode up with the rest of us. He didn’t have his truck.”
Mason hadn’t thought about that. It gave him some hope, at least. Though if Chance had finally lost patience, then a small matter like not having a vehicle wouldn’t hold him up for long.
