Holden had taken his time driving to the sheriff’s office because he wanted to be in full control when he spoke to Rodney. Not unhinged to the point he unlocked the cell and gave Rodney a reason to press charges against him.
Even if the man might deserve the beatdown he wanted to give him.
He arrived. He waited. He calmed down. Ate breakfast. Sifted through the piles of paperwork on his desk. Started his report on Jared Simpson.
Holden was still waiting on Emma’s medical records. It was the only official way to see if Gary might have ever abused his daughter. But there was another angle to see if the Burks had a history of violence that extended beyond Emma that Holden hadn’t yet explored.
Grabbing his landline, he phoned the hospital. “Chief Deputy Holden from the sheriff’s office. I’d like to speak with Nurse Terri Tipton.”
“Terri is off today. She’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. Is there anything I can help you with?”
A nurse who didn’t know him, much less trust him, wouldn’t be willing to talk off the record and disclose information that was protected by HIPAA. Anything he learned without a subpoena was inadmissible, but he just needed to know if he was barking up the wrong tree.
“My office submitted a request for medical records on a deceased victim, Emma Burk. Do you have any idea when they’ll be ready?” Holden asked.
“One minute while I look that up for you.” After a pause, she spoke again. “I see it here in the system. Since you wanted us to go as far back as possible, it’s taking some time, but they should be available for pickup tomorrow.”
“Great. Can you ask Terri to call me when they’re ready? I needed to speak to her in person and I’d like to kill two birds with one stone.”
“Sure. No problem. I’ll make a note in the system.”
As he hung up and looked back at his report, something Jared had said gave him an idea. He left his office and went into the open space where all the other deputies worked. Ashley wasn’t in yet, so he headed for the next best choice.
“Hey, Mitch,” he said, “something has been bugging me.”
“What’s that?” Deputy Cody asked, spinning in his seat to face him. Not only was he one of their newest recruits, but he was also their only helicopter pilot.
“How Emma Burk got a lift back to the B and B. Somebody drove her there because she didn’t have time to walk. It’s possible Todd went looking for her after Jared called him and he found her on the road. Gave her a lift, thinking he’d talk to her, and they ended up fighting. But what if she called him for a ride? Or someone else? She knew a lot of people. Some of them shady. There might be someone else with a motive to kill her if they knew she was about to divulge their business to McCoy next month.”
“But Starlights don’t have money for cell phones. How would she call someone for a lift?”
“Exactly, and she didn’t use Jared’s phone to call anyone.”
“So, what are you thinking?”
“I want you to see what pay phones are in service between Jared’s place and say the halfway point to the B and B on any routes she might’ve walked.” There were fewer than a hundred working pay phones in the state, but at least a quarter of those were scattered about town. “When you pinpoint the ones that she could’ve possibly used, I want you to see if any nearby place has any surveillance footage available to look at.”
“Sure, no problem.”
“And when Ashley gets in,” Holden said, “update her on everything and have her help out.”
Mitch gave a nod and got to work.
With his blood pressure back to normal, Holden strode down the hall to the holding cell where Rodney Owens was locked up.
Holden clanged a metal baton against the bars of the cell, rousing Rodney from his drunken stupor. “Get up!”
Rodney jolted upright on the bench, looking around, wild-eyed and drowsy. “What’s going on?” He wiped drool from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Heard you had a little fun last night at Grace Clark’s place?”
“Yeah.” Dragging a hand over his red face, Rodney chuckled. “I showed that city gal. Bet I scared the bejesus out of her. Only wish I could’ve been there to see it. Or better yet, had a video camera set up so I could play it back. In slow motion. Over and over. Maybe put a soundtrack to it.” He laughed harder, so pleased with himself. “Put it on the internet.”
Holden clenched his jaw. “You could’ve scared her to death.”
“Oh, come on.” Rodney waved a hand at him. “It was a harmless prank.”
“Slashing her tires and trying to run her off the road wasn’t harmless. She could’ve gone into a spin and hit a tree.”
“Huh?” Rodney climbed to his feet and staggered closer. “What are you talking about? I didn’t try to run her off the road. Or slash her tires.”
Holden considered him for a moment, trying to decide if he believed him. “But you waited for her inside the cottage, in the dark, on Thursday night, and you also put the snakes in her toilet and her bed last night?”
Chuckling again, Rodney nodded. “Yeah. That last one was really good, right?”
Holden smacked the bars with the baton, the strident sound making Rodney flinch. “What if she had a heart condition or epilepsy and had a seizure? Or fainted and hit her head? You could’ve killed her.”
“I didn’t think of that.” Scowling, he gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I searched her medicine cabinet, but I didn’t find any prescriptions. I wasn’t trying to kill her. I just want her to leave.” A wicked grin tugged at his mouth. “Guess I got to think of something even better next time,” he said, snickering.
“Listen to me, there won’t be a next time and she isn’t leaving. She’s going to stay right there in that cottage until her lease ends. And if your father renews it, then she’ll be there longer.”
Humor drained from Rodney’s face. His features twisted. His bloodshot eyes narrowed. He looked like something that had crawled out of the bowels of hell.
But what Rodney didn’t know was that Holden had enough fury in his belly to wrestle the devil himself and win.
“That is my place!” Rodney bellowed, grabbing hold of the bars. “My daddy was supposed to sell it after my mother died. And now he can’t because of Grace Clark. Outsider meddling in other folks’ business. Nobody else was stupid enough to get in the middle of a family squabble and rent the cottage.”
“She didn’t know what was going on between you two. She is not the one you should be upset with. Your father chose to rent it rather than sell it and give you a dime, you dim-witted bully.”
“Dim-witted? I was smart enough to get the better of her twice.” Rodney held up two fingers. “Ha, ha. She’s the dim-witted one. Probably screamed her head off thinking those snakes could kill her.”
Rodney was lucky that there were bars separating them and Holden was wearing a uniform, sworn to uphold the law, otherwise he would knock some sense into him.
“You’re such a genius,” Holden said, “that you confessed to illegal entry and harassment.”
“So what? I won’t do jail time for it. She can’t stop me. Nobody can.”
This time Holden smiled. “You’re not above the law. She’s going to file charges against you. After she does and you’re convicted, then she’s going to get an injunction from the court to stop this behavior.”
Grace didn’t know it yet, but Holden would see to it that she did so.
“What’s an injunction?” Rodney asked.
“Your lawyer will explain it to you. Bottom line, you violate it, and you will do jail time. To give you a little taste of what you have to look forward to, you’ll be spending the weekend in that cell.”
“You can’t do that to me!”
“Oh, but I can. In fact, I’m already doing it.”
“Why are you taking her side? Her brother stole the job you were supposed to get. You should be sheriff. Not him.”
How ironic that he was the one person in town who thought so. But Holden suspected Rodney was only saying what he thought Holden wanted to hear.
“You should know that Grace has me and the entire Powell clan on her side.” Holden put his fists on his hips. “Mess with her, you mess with us. Got it?”
Rodney shrank back, understanding what the Powell name meant. Holden’s family had been there for generations, had power and money to back it up, held sway over many, many things, and could make life difficult for a troublemaker like Rodney.
But throwing that kind of weight around was never done lightly and only when absolutely necessary.
“I—I—I didn’t know,” Rodney stammered, and Holden enjoyed seeing the fear in his eyes after what he’d put Grace through. “I’ll lay off. I can wait until June. Or whenever she decides to leave.”
“Now that you do know, you’re going to spend the weekend drafting an apology letter to her, which I will deliver personally. If you write a sincere one with good penmanship—I don’t want to see any words misspelled or crossed out—” he wagged a finger “—no matter how long it takes you to get it right, then you can spend Christmas at home. If you don’t, you’ll sit here through the holiday, and on Tuesday you’ll appear before a judge along with a public defender or attorney of your choosing to discuss your charges, including drunk and disorderly conduct and assaulting a law enforcement officer.”
Rodney sobered right up. “I’ll write the letter.”
“Happy to hear that we could see eye to eye on this. You are not to do repairs on her house or enter it anymore.”
“But my dad is too old to do it and we can’t afford to hire someone.”
“If she submits a request for maintenance, you will call me, and I’ll see that it’s taken care of.”
“Okay.” Rodney nodded vigorously with full understanding and willingness to comply.
“There’s one more thing. Are you sure you didn’t slash her tires or run her off the road?”
“No,” Rodney said, his eyes bulging from his head, “it wasn’t me. I swear it on my mother’s grave. I only did stupid, harmless stuff. I mean stuff that I thought was harmless. I didn’t think about the possibility of a heart condition or epilepsy.”
Holden believed him. “All right.”
“I can start working on that letter right now, if you’d like.”
“I’ll make sure Deputy Cody gets you a pad and pen.” Holden stalked off to call Grace.
If Rodney hadn’t run her off the road or slashed her tires, then who in the hell had?
“WHAT ON EARTH is going on?” Xavier asked Grace in a rough whisper behind the bar as two more Iron Warriors strode into Delgado’s.
Grace’s mouth went dry.
They had been showing up in dribs and drabs, two or three at a time, the roar of motorcycles heralding their arrival, since she got there. Like they had a lookout to call them and say when to start.
None of them had ordered anything. They said they were waiting on the rest to arrive. By now, there were fifteen or twenty stone-faced Iron Warriors in the bar and grill.
Most of their patrons had cleared out as if they were anticipating trouble.
She was starting to wonder if she should’ve left, too, but she had a sneaking suspicion that they only would have followed, because they were there for her.
“I may have attracted some unwanted attention,” she said to Xavier.
Another growling motorcycle pulled up out back. A minute later, the door swung open, and this time, Todd Burk walked through. As he did, the others rose to their feet, as though they’d been waiting on him to do something.
Her blood turned to ice.
She wasn’t the only one who had picked up on the ominous vibe. The few remaining customers threw money on the tables for their bills and skedaddled out the front door.
“This feels like something else.” Xavier kept his voice low. “Something bigger. What did you do?”
“Asked questions.”
“About them?” His eyebrows shot up. “At Custom Gears? You left out the part about your sudden interest in motorcycles being related to them.”
The devil was in the details, but she hadn’t realized when she’d gone there that she would bring trouble to Delgado’s. Or to herself, for that matter.
Maybe this was a good sign. Good being relative. They were approaching her in a public place, which was reason to give her hope that this scenario would not end in a horrific, painful and possibly deadly way.
Right?
Now, if they had been waiting for her in the dark, inside her cottage, then that would be a much different story. One where the odds would not look good that she would be walking away from the confrontation.
Her cell phone vibrated. Quickly, she answered without looking at who it was. “Yes.”
“Hey, it’s me,” Holden said over the other end. “Rodney admitted to the harassment and the snakes.” The sound of his voice soothed her and heightened her worries at the same time.
She didn’t want him walking into the middle of whatever was about to happen here. Something told her that these men didn’t abide by the law, didn’t respect authority and would use any opportunity to physically hurt Holden if they could.
“I’ll need you to file charges against him,” he said. “But Rodney didn’t try to run you off the road. And he didn’t slash your tires.”
Half-focused on what he was saying, Grace clenched and unclenched her other hand nervously at her side. She’d thought for certain that Rodney had been behind all of that and once Holden had him in jail, she wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. “Are you sure?”
“He has no reason to confess to the other things and deny the rest,” Holden said. “It wouldn’t make any sense. I think someone else is responsible for those things.”
Bad news she didn’t need, but she would have to contend with it later. Right now she had a more pressing matter.
Todd strode up to the bar, staring straight at her.
“I have to go,” she said, keeping her tone low and matter-of-fact.
“What’s wrong?” Holden asked. “I can hear it in your voice.”
Something was developing. Something ugly. She wanted to tell him, but she had created this mess and needed to deal with it on her own.
“There’s an urgent customer service problem,” she said. “I have to call you back.”
“Grace,” Holden said, his voice tightening.
She disconnected before he could finish that statement.
This situation—whatever it was—was more pressing.
Todd dropped down on one of the barstools in front of her while the rest of his guys remained standing. “You.” He pointed to Xavier but kept staring at her. “Get me a shot of bourbon.”
Xavier looked to her. Without taking her eyes off Todd, she nodded for him to do it.
That particular Iron Warrior had taken dramatic measures to command her full attention and she was going to give it to him.
Xavier hurried and put a glass down. With a shaking hand, he poured the liquor in, splashing some on the bar. “That’s on the house.”
Her throat tightened like she was choking. She was so baffled and scared. This was of a different magnitude than Rodney popping up, or the snakes.
Somehow this was much, much worse.
Todd threw the shot back in one gulp. Turning over the glass, he set it on the bar with a clink. His gaze never left her the entire time, burning a hole through her. “You. Will. Stop.”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Stop what?” she croaked.
“Sniffing around where your nose doesn’t belong,” Todd said, conversationally.
“I think there’s a misunderstanding,” Grace said, needing to the defuse the volatile situation before things escalated.
Todd shook his head. “No misunderstanding on my part.” He lifted a finger and wagged it up and down in her direction and said, “But there is on yours.”
She kept her sights zeroed in on him and did it awhile until it hit her that his comment begged a question that he was waiting for her to ask. “About what?”
“Thursday night.” He tossed the words out and they hung in the air worse than a foul odor. “You didn’t see anything. You certainly didn’t hear anything, like a Milwaukee-Eight big twin engine. Did you?”
More ice slinked over her skin.
It was too late. She’d already spoken to Holden about everything she knew. The man fighting with Emma. The black motorcycle.
A Harley.
A model that Todd rode.
“What if I did?” she asked, the question flying out of her mouth in a knee-jerk reaction, before she had a chance to think and consider the consequences.
Xavier gasped and backed away, putting plenty of room between himself and her.
She cringed on the inside, wanting to haul the words back into her mouth. But since they were out there, she straightened and crossed her arms to hide the trembling of her hands.
Todd’s expression remained deadpan as he tipped his head to the side toward a big fellow.
That was when the burly guy, who was standing beside him, drew the biggest knife Grace had ever seen. He thrust the blade into the bar, driving it deep into the mahogany wood.
The action, the sound of it plunging in, sent her staggering backward with a flinch.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” the man growled, leaning forward, glaring at her.
Oh, God.
That was not a hollow promise. That was a threat.
A cold sweat broke out on her back and ran down her spine. She’d been scared, but now she was terrified. These men were ruthless and could easily follow through. They could get to her at any time out on Old Mill Road, with no one around to hear her scream.
Had they followed her last night? Run her off the road as a prelude to this?
“Did one of you...” She cleared her throat when the words came out choked. “Did one of you try to run me off the road last night?”
“If we come for someone, we make sure they know it’s us,” Todd said, easily. “Otherwise, it would defeat the purpose.”
She looked at all the Iron Warriors crowding the bar, making their presence unmistakably felt, bearing down heavier than sandbags on her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs.
“Did you see us last night?” Todd asked, motioning to the men gathered around him. “See any of our cuts?” He gestured to his motorcycle vest that was prominently on display. “Hear any of our bikes?”
It had been someone in a truck, blinding her with high beams. She had no idea who had been driving, but there hadn’t been any motorcycles on the road.
She shook her head. “No.” Even if she had seen them, she was ready to stick with that answer. See no evil. Hear no evil. Etcetera.
“I’ve only got one more thing to say to you,” he said, “in case it hasn’t sunken in.”
She prayed that meant he and the rest of the tough-looking guys in his club would leave soon. So she quickly asked, “What?”
Gaze still glued to her, Todd rose slowly from his seat, scraping the stool back against the hardwood floor.
She braced, not knowing what was going to happen, but in doing it, she feared her body would splinter to pieces. Still, she kept her attention keen on him. The terrible sensation of her insides twisting went on far too long as he just stood there, staring at her, sucking up all the oxygen from the room.
When she thought she’d beg for him to spit it out, he uttered a single word.
“Stop.”
She heard the menace.
Hell, she felt it, too, since it was clogging the room.
Then Todd gave her a strange, frightening smile that sent a chill down her spine. He looked to the men in the room, jerked his head toward the door and walked out.
The guy with the knife yanked it out of the wood, shoved it into a holster on his hip and followed him along with the others, each one of them scowling at her on their way out.
Once they had all gone outside, she let out the breath she had been holding. Her legs trembled as though they might give out. She bent over and clutched her thighs, and now her breaths came in rasps.
Xavier swore. “That was a message. They were sending you a message!”
People left voice mails, sent texts, used email, even telegrams to send a message.
No, this had been far worse. They had given her a warning. “Yeah, I got that.”
“Whatever you’ve been doing, you better stop.” Xavier sounded terrified like he had been the one threatened. He ran his fingers over the thick gash in the mahogany wood. “They stabbed the bar with a freaking bowie knife,” he said, and she thought it was good to know what it was called. “Hunters use those to butcher and skin prey.”
Fitting weapon for that pack of predators.
“Unless you have a death wish,” he said, “you need to stop.”
Motorcycles fired up outside, the engines creating a deafening roar that echoed their threat. They stayed out back, revving their Harleys for what seemed like forever, though it was only a few minutes. The sound washed over her, through her, reverberating in the marrow of her bones.
They finally pulled away from Delgado’s. But the ferocious growl and the intense, menacing vibration of their bikes stayed with her. Along with the terror they had stoked.