Dust Up with the Detective (16 page)

“What do you mean, depending on their buyer? Aren’t they trying to get a mine in there?”

Tiffany shook her head. “Their company is going through hard times. Tartarus Environmental Investments has been putting out money hand over fist to get the mineral rights to the area along the vein. Right now they couldn’t afford to get a bulldozer, let alone the money it would take to put in a full-scale mine.”

“So they’re putting the land together to sell?”

Tiffany nodded. “And it hinges on Robert’s claim. The Japanese buyers won’t make a move until the parcel is complete and they have open mineral rights. Judith was desperate. She was afraid that if they didn’t act quick, the buyers would walk. She couldn’t wait for the tax lien to go to auction. Normally that would have worked, but Robert had started to look for a lawyer. He wanted to take them down. He was threatening them. Hell, he even threatened Todd.”

“So Robert knew that your friends were all working together to take his land?”

Tiffany looked down at her hands, like all of a sudden she felt bad for her role in stripping his brother of his land, but it didn’t lessen the fact that, in a way, she’d had a hand in Robert’s death. Everyone who had been involved with the mayor and his wife had had a hand in his brother’s murder, but the only one he could arrest was the one who had pulled the trigger.

“I didn’t want things to go down like this. I hated Robert, but I never wanted him dead. It was all Judith’s idea. They had to save their business. They couldn’t risk a lawsuit or the political ramifications that would happen if their dealings came to light. If Robert had acted, the buyers would have certainly backed out of the deal.”

He thought about the phone call they had overheard at Ms. Davy’s house. No wonder she had been in a rush for them to leave. She’d been trying to save a deal years in the making...a deal that, if it had fallen through, would have ruined her and her husband’s company.

It all made sense, but there was only one sure way to know if Tiffany was telling the truth about the mayor and his wife. “Can I see your hands?”

Tiffany frowned. “Why?”

He thought back to the fingerprint the techs had pulled from the murder weapon. The techs had determined the person who’d fired the gun that killed Robert had a scar on his or her index finger. Now he needed to see Tiffany’s.

“Just let me see them.”

Tiffany stuck out her hands. Her fingernails were short and had dirt stuck underneath. He turned her hands over. Her index fingers were unmarred. She wasn’t their killer.

“Can you sign your name for me?” he asked, pulling a pen from his pocket and handing it to her.

She took the pen.

“Right there on the magazine is fine,” he said, pointing toward
Good Housekeeping
.

She signed with her right hand. This meant she hadn’t left the note at Blake’s house, because whoever had written it was left-handed, according to Casper.

He didn’t have the killer...but he had the one who would help him break the case.

“Thanks,” he said, taking his pen back and slipping it in his pocket. “How well do you know Ms. Davy?”

Tiffany shrugged. “We used to be friends. Real good friends, up until lately. We never should have mixed business and friendship.”

“Do you know if Judith has a scar?”

“A scar?”

“On her hand or fingers possibly?”

Tiffany sat back against the couch as she thought for a moment. “She’s a smart woman, likes to get involved and to know how their money is being spent. A few years ago she was up at the mines. There was an accident with some of the explosives, nothing major, but she had to have stitches.”

Jeremy’s skin tingled as it always did when he was close to catching his suspect. Judith Davy knew explosives...and probably just the right amount to collapse the mouth of a mine.

“If what you’re saying is true, then you are going to need protective custody. Your life may be in danger.”

“Why do you think I had to leave?” Tiffany scoffed. “You can’t mess with people like the mayor and his wife and not expect to get hurt.”

Jeremy had everything he needed. He had his probable cause. All they needed now was to take Judith Davy into custody and get her prints. Once they matched, they had their killer.

Chapter Twenty-One

The evening air had taken on a cold edge, the kind that promised snow was just over the horizon. Blake had always loved this time of year, the end of an era, the start of a world masked with white and waiting for the rebirth that would come in the spring. More than anything it promised a refreshing change.

The lights were on in the shop that sat just at the end of Judith Davy’s driveway. As they neared she could make out a brand-new Mercedes and Mayor Engelman’s Land Rover, complete with vanity plates that read
NMBR1
. She snickered. His reign as number one was about to be over. In a matter of minutes, he would be married to a woman cuffed and stuffed in the back of a squad car.

Hopefully if the district attorney dug deep into this case, they would be able to finish pulling the legal threads that would also put John Engelman in the hot seat, but knowing him, he probably had his lawyer on speed dial. Then again, even people like Engelman screwed up. If they didn’t, she and Jeremy wouldn’t have been rolling up their driveway with an arrest warrant.

Jeremy stepped out of the car carrying the warrant the judge had given him before she even had it in Park.

“Hey, wait up,” she called after him. “We don’t know how she’s going to respond here, so you need to be careful.”

He stopped and waited for her to catch up. “I doubt she’s going to do anything stupid. She has her posse here. The only thing we need to worry about is doing things right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look,” he said, pointing to the Mercedes. “Who drives a Mercedes AMG S65 in this state? That car right there costs more than two hundred thousand dollars brand-new.”

She stared at the car. It was pretty, but who needed a car that cost more than some houses?

“That has to be their lawyer,” Jeremy said. “No doubt the judge who signed off on the arrest warrant was the same man who gave the mayor and his wife a call to let them know we were on our way. The call to their lawyer was probably the first one they made as soon as they found out.”

The made their way up to the house and its hand-carved door. They didn’t have to knock.

The door swung open, and Mayor Engelman stood waiting, his arms crossed over his chest and an angry look on his face. “As soon as this is over, your asses won’t be able to get a job at Dairy Queen.”

Jeremy smiled at the threat. “It’s okay, Mr. Mayor. I never liked ice cream anyway.”

The mayor’s cheeks reddened, and his lips tightened with rage. “You stupid son of a—”

“Stop.” Judith Davy stepped to the mayor’s side and put her hand on his arm. “Everything will be fine. Won’t it, Mr. Deschamps?” She turned to the gray-haired man who walked beside her.

Mr. Deschamps made his way over to them and looked them up and down. “If the investigation is anything like these two Barney Fifes, I think we’ll have you out of jail and free and clear of all charges in a matter of days, Ms. Davy.”

“Being charged with murder isn’t quite like getting a speeding ticket,” Blake said, unable to keep quiet any longer. “The press and the DA are going to have a field day with this. There’s nothing the public likes better than the guilty—especially the indulgent overentitled snobs of the world—getting what they deserve.”

“And what exactly is it that you think I deserve, little pig?” Ms. Davy sneered.

“Not only did you murder my friend’s brother—you threatened my family.” Blake stepped closer so she could look straight into the woman’s eyes. “
No one
will ever get away with hurting the people I love. Not you. Not your husband.”

“Oh, honey, did you hear that?” Ms. Davy said with a patronizing smirk. “Isn’t her little threat cute?”

“May I please see your hands, Ms. Davy?” Jeremy asked.

She looked to her lawyer, who gave an acknowledging tip of the head. She stuck out her hands. On the index finger of her left hand was a long, jagged scar.

“Would you please step outside, Ms. Davy, and put your hands on the wall?” Jeremy asked, but the tone in his voice made it clear it was an order.

She followed his orders. “Frisk away. This will be the one and only time you’ll ever get to touch me.”

Jeremy ran his hands over the woman’s body, looking for hidden weapons, but she was clear. He slipped the cuffs on her.

As they made their way back to the car, Judith turned back to her husband and the lawyer. “I’ll see you in a few days. There’s bail money in the safe.”

Mr. Engelman nodded, but he turned away from his wife like he knew that this was something they would fight, but it was one thing his wife would never walk away from.

This time, their greed had gone too far.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Things with the mayor would only get worse, but at least they had the person responsible for Robert’s death behind bars. Even so, Blake’s heart was heavy. Everything was over...including her time with Jeremy. The back door leading to his parents’ patio opened and Jeremy walked out carrying two pints.

“Want a beer?” he asked, lifting one of the cups.

“Sure, thanks,” she said, forcing a small smile as he handed it to her.

Her mother and Megan were out in the backyard with Jeremy’s parents. They were all sitting around a fire pit, laughing and joking as they roasted marshmallows. She should have felt happy, surrounded by the people she cared about, but she couldn’t let go of her uneasy sadness.

“I bet you’re relieved. Sounds like Captain Prather’s going to reinstate you once the investigation clears.”

She nodded, thumbing the edge of the cold glass. “Yeah, but I’m still going to have to deal with the mayor.”

“Until the next election.”

“A lot can happen between now and then,” she said, then took a long pull from the hops-flavored beer.

“He can’t fire you. Not without the threat of a lawsuit anyway.”

Jeremy was right, but it didn’t make her feel any better. The weight of politics and the repercussions of this investigation would hang over her until the end of her career, at least if she continued working in Butte.

She turned to him as he sat down next to her. The late-evening sun caught the bits of red and amber in his hair and made him look even more handsome, but his eyes were filled with concern and a heaviness she hadn’t seen in them before.

“Have you ever thought about leaving?” he asked, looking down at the beer in his hands.

She considered it for a moment. “If I left, everything would change, Jeremy. We’d have to move. Start over. Megan would have to change schools. My mother would never want to leave her home. She’s lived here forever.” She looked over at her mother and her daughter.

She was struck by how much her daughter looked like her. The same unruly blond hair, the same blue eyes, even the way she looked around at the world, like she was just waiting for the next thing to happen. Would she grow up and make the same mistakes?

Blake shook her head at the thought. Something had to change. Somehow she needed to save her daughter from this world of fires and death while at the same time teach her how strong they could be. Perhaps she could even show her that there were good men out there, men who had hearts of gold and could look past the imperfections in a person and just love them for who and what they were.

She could teach her how to live a healthy life, one centered on family, hope and trust.

“I talked to the captain in Missoula today.” Jeremy took a draw from his beer.

She tensed. “When do you have to go back to work?”

“In a couple of days. But that’s not why I called him.” Jeremy reached over and took her hand. “He said that there is a job there for you in the city if you want it. It would be a little different, definitely busier than the sheriff’s department, but the pay would be higher. I could help you get your mother set up, and there are fantastic schools for Megan. She’d have her choice. She could even go to the same school as Penny if she wanted to.”

Blake’s body tingled with excitement. Was this something she really wanted? She looked at Jeremy, searching his eyes. He had to love her if he was helping her to build a new future. Didn’t he?

“If you don’t want to move, I can come to Butte. My parents’ lawyer has read Robert’s will. According to the terms, Tiffany gets nothing. Everything goes to my parents.”

“Tiffany gets nothing?”

Jeremy shook his head. “I think that may have been part of the reason she had wanted him to lose everything...why she had been behind Todd’s buyout.”

“Can your parents afford to pay off the tax lien?”

Jeremy shrugged. “I think so, but if you wanted, we could pay it. We could become miners...if you wanted to stay in Butte. I would do whatever it takes to make you happy.”

It was noble that Jeremy was taking steps to stop Tartarus Environmental Investments from getting their hands on his brother’s land, but he had told her he never wanted to mine. He was willing to compromise who he was for her, but she didn’t want him to. Not like this.

“We can’t stay here, Jeremy.”

“Are you saying you want to move to Missoula with me?”

She couldn’t help the feeling of love that filled her, but was love enough of a reason to leave her home? To build a new life? Falling in love was a risk...

But there was nothing that she wanted more than to follow her heart.

“I...I think I’ll take the job.” Her body tensed. “And, if it’s okay, I want my mom to go with us. She drives me crazy sometimes, but she’s my best friend. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“I thought you might say that. If you want, we can look for a house—one with plenty of space.” Jeremy smiled as he set down his glass. “But first, I have something for you.”

He reached in his pocket. “I know this is fast, and I have no idea what you are going to say, but I’ve been thinking... I want to do this right. I’ve loved you since we were kids. I know things haven’t always gone as we’ve wanted them to, but I love you and I always will.” He got down on his knee in front of her. “The other night, after the fire, I went back and took a branch of the tree. It took me a few hours, but I carved this for you.” He opened his hand. In his palm was a ring made of wood.

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, making it almost impossible to hear him as he spoke.

“You told me that you always thought of that tree as a metaphor for you and your life. I don’t know if you meant it as a good thing or a bad thing, or both, but as I thought about it, all I could think about was how beautiful it was. A tree lives its entire life supporting the lives around it, the grass at its feet and the leaves on its branches. You are just like the tree, loving and supporting those around you. I love that about you. And when you look at this ring, I want you to see that even when we get burnt by life, you can always have a new beginning.”

He took her trembling hand and slipped it on her ring finger. It fit perfectly. “If you want, this ring can be a symbol of our promise to create a new future...a life with each other.”

“I...I...” she whispered, moving her hand right and left as she looked at the ring’s swirling pattern.

He reached up and cupped her face. “I love you.”

Tears filled her eyes, but she tried to blink them back. “I love you, too.” She got down on her knees and buried her face into his neck. She let her tears fall.

For once it felt good to be measured by time. Their love wouldn’t last seconds or minutes or hours. No. Their love would last a lifetime.

* * * * *

Every cowboy has a wild side—
all it takes is the right woman to unleash it...

Keep reading for a sneak peek of

BLAME IT ON THE COWBOY
,

part of
USA TODAY
bestselling author
Delores Fossen’s miniseries

THE McCORD BROTHERS.

Available in October 2016
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