*Sheriff Cully Grainger was sharp.
He had it even before she finished explaining all the ins and outs.
“So the first question is whether that robbery included bait money so the serial numbers would be known,” she finished. “I know some banks have stopped using bait money, but if you could find out if this one—”
“It did.”
She blinked. “You already know?”
“Yup. After your visit, I got with the Knight boys again, and we decided Jesse making contact with someone he knows in the FBI might be in order. We got some information that’s not general knowledge, including that the bait money was more than half of the robber’s haul. As you pointed out, though, some of that could have gone in the poker game if this poker-playing cowboy is the robber.”
She ignored that caveat. “And he’s been paying people back at the rodeo, not to mention paying his entry fee. Of course we can check the entry fees and I saw him pay back a loan a friend had made to him, but there’s no way to prove any specific bills came from him. Finding the serial numbers would just connect it to the rodeo in general.”
“Which you don’t want.”
“No. I want to prove one person’s responsible, not to spread suspicion over the whole WRC.”
And especially not anywhere near Chapin, because if anyone looked too closely at “Bill” Johnson, he’d be found out and that would be the end of his chance to do this his way.
As for what had happened between the two of them… Her head was still whirling, her heartbeat in overdrive, and her senses thrumming—
“You’re pretty sure this is the guy.”
Was she pretty sure Chapin was the guy? What came after pretty sure?
Oh, wait. The sheriff meant Tate as the robber.
She looked up and met his eyes. “I am totally sure. What I need now is to get him to spend those bills in a controlled environment. But if the bait money’s bigger denominations—”
“Not all of it is. In fact, real interesting thing is they had a high percentage of five dollar bills in that bait money. Not so likely to toss those in a poker game where the stakes are decent. Especially not if you’re winning.”
“Good point. If he still has a lot of those bills…” She sank back in the chair. “But how to get him to spend them under controlled circumstances…”
“I have an idea about that. You doing anything later this afternoon? I’d like you to meet my wife. Right after you tell me the name of your suspect.”
*
Reggie wasn’t answering her phone.
When Chapin checked with Vicky and she had no idea where Reggie was, he tried the phone again.
He left a message for her to call back. But he was not inclined to leave it at that. He had a feeling about this.
“I’m going in to town.”
“You’ll miss the cookout with the kids to thank you guys for the clinic,” Vicky said.
“I know.”
“You’re that worried about Reggie?”
“I’m sure she’s fine. But I’m going anyway.”
*
The sheriff’s wife was a trim, dark-haired woman who owned a shop called Nearly Everything in town.
At the sheriff’s suggestion, they left the store in the hands of an older woman, and went to the office in back.
Jessa listened carefully as her husband began his explanation. But about halfway through, she turned to her computer and started working on it, while also nodding to him to indicate she was listening.
Sitting on the opposite side of the desk, Reggie couldn’t see her screen and she doubted the sheriff could from his angle. It didn’t seem to bother him.
“… so what we need is something to get him to spend as many five dollar bills as possible, here in the store all at once.”
She’d clicked a button as he finished. Now she reached for a paper coming out of the printer. “Something like this?”
They were flyers for a special event promising to donate a dollar to a WRC charity fund for every five dollar bill spent in the store.
“Perfect. Some of those around the store and with you putting the bills in a special place in the register and we should be fine.”
“I’ll give Rita some time off so she doesn’t get too curious about this special event she hasn’t heard anything about.”
“Good thinking. Now, all we have to do is get Tate Lavenge to decide he wants to buy a lot of stuff here. The chances of just one or two bills doing the trick are slim. We need as many as we can get.”
“Oh, I think Reggie can handle that,” Jessa said with a smile, “as long as they cross paths somewhere around here.”
“I’m having dinner with him tonight. If I can get him to come in here…”
“That works. There’s a restaurant a couple blocks down,” the sheriff said.
As they returned to the front part of the store, Jessa addressed the older woman.
“Rita, you and Tom were wanting to go to the kids’ rodeo out at the fairgrounds tonight, weren’t you? Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”
“You sure? He’d be delighted. But I don’t want to leave you short-handed.”
“I’ll be fine. You go on now.”
With a few more thanks, the woman left through the back.
Reggie was about to exit from the front when she stopped abruptly.
“What would you think about getting this show on the road right now, Sheriff?”
“Why?”
“Because there he is — Tate Lavenge. Coming out of that place across the street.”
The sheriff swore under his breath. “We’re not ready. My deputies aren’t available and I’m in uniform. We’ll have to wait. “When you’re at dinner, you can—”
“If you were bent on a romantic dinner with a young lady like Reggie would you want to make a side trip to shop?” Jessa asked him. “How could she get him to come here? But as a bonus opportunity to be with her, it can work.”
“We might not have a better chance,” Reggie agreed. “And every day he could be spreading more and more of those bills that can’t ever be tied back to him. If he moves on to another rodeo, we’ll never get him.”
“Cully, I have that old shirt of yours in back and you left that pair of sneakers here that got all wet when we were cleaning the storeroom. You can look mostly out of uniform,” Jessa said.
“I’m not going to try this watching him at the same time I’m trying to keep both of you out of harm’s way.”
“We can take care—” Reggie and Jessa started together.
Before they could finish, Cully interrupted, “But I’d be willing if we can press Dax Randall into being a temporary deputy.”
Jessa turned around to look out the front window. Reggie saw her attention focus on a cowboy-hatted man crossing the street.
“Perfect,” Jessa said. “Reggie, you go talk to your suspect—”
“No,” she said. “Sorry, but I can’t walk out of here, go over to him, then suggest we come back in. It has to look more natural. What about the back way out?”
“It lets out on the alley, so you can appear from the side street,” Jessa said. “Cully, you show her the way and get changed while I go get Dax, since you don’t want to be seen in uniform.”
“Still go to dinner with Lavenge,” the sheriff told Reggie as he led her to the back again. “With luck, that’ll give us the time we need to check if we’ve got enough matches to make an arrest. I’ll text you if we wrap it up early. It’ll say Thank You. Just in case he sees it.”
She nodded.
Then he had one more order as he opened the alley door. “Go into another store or two before you come in here. More natural and it’ll give us a chance to go over a couple things.”
*
It was easy. Scary easy.
Reggie channeled the flirtiest, boy-crazy, climb-over-anybody-to-get-what-she-wanted female she’d ever known, then throttled way back.
Even so she found herself talking in the southern drawl Lee-Bee had affected as she and Tate Lavenge walked in to Jessa’s shop, the bell’s sweet sound announcing their arrival.
Her peripheral vision picked up Cully Grainger by the magazines on one side, but wearing a threadbare flannel shirt that left no sign of the sheriff of Shakespeare County. The man from the street they’d called Dax was studying a display of computer accessories at the back of the center aisle.
Reggie turned her attention to Jessa, who greeted them both with a smile from behind the register. “Good afternoon. We have a special event running today. Anytime you use a five dollar bill to pay for anything, the store will put a dollar into the WRC’s Rodeo Relief Fund.”
“Oh, are you participating in that? That’s wonderful.” Reggie’s inner Lee-Bee was running rampant.
Jessa blinked, probably at Reggie’s transformation from a normal person to a walking, talking sugar rush, but picked up smoothly, “We are. We’re delighted to be helping.”
“You’ve heard about this, right, Tate?” Not giving him a chance to answer, she added, “Vicky told me all about it. It’s a pilot program running in selected stores in WRC towns. They’re hoping to expand it through the whole circuit before long. Oh, we must get some things here, don’t you think?”
She batted her eyelashes at him. When Lee-Bee did that it could start a hurricane. Hers weren’t nearly as impressive. Or destructive. But they got the work done.
“You pick out what you want and it would be my pleasure to put down a five-dollar bill for such a good cause … and such a pretty companion.”
“Oh, Tate, how wonderful.”
She wasted no time in starting a circuit of the little shop. Each item she picked was safely under five dollars. And Tate made the most of his generosity by insisting on buying each item as she selected it.
Five of the five-dollar bills were safely in the cash register, and they still had a third of the store to cover. Their ploy could not have been going better.
Until the bell over the front door, which was designed to tinkle, clanged under the force of being jammed open.
William Chapin Johnson walked in, looking like thunder.
Tate was leaning over to examine an extension cord on the bottom shelf, so Reggie had a second to send Chapin a fiercely warning glare.
He didn’t heed it, coming straight toward her.
She turned a desperate look toward the sheriff, now by the candy.
Tate said, “Look at this, Reggie, you can get two for five dollars.”
“Oh, that’s great. We need them all the time in the office when we move from rodeo to rodeo.”
Sheriff Grainger had gotten the message.
He angled to cut off Chapin’s advance before he could reach her and Tate. The sheriff gave the other man a nod, and he started to move in, too.
“Excuse me, aren’t you Bill Johnson—” the sheriff asked.
“What colors do you want, Reggie?”
“—the rodeo cowboy. Out at the fairgrounds this week aren’t you?”
Chapin was curt. “Yes. Excuse me, I’ve got—”
“White’s good,” she said without looking. Instead, she took another look toward where the three men were now wedged into a corner between a run of shelves and a display area at that end.
Chapin tried to go around the man they’d called Dax, but found his way blocked again. Then he looked down as if the sheriff might be holding on to his arm.
This could get bad very quickly.
“Just wanted to ask you a couple questions,” Sheriff Grainger said in the drawl that was a lot more appealing than Lee-Bee’s. At the same time, he jerked his head to indicate Chapin should look at something below where Reggie could see because of the shelves and Dax blocking that part of the scene. But she could see Chapin look down, then quickly up to the sheriff, who nodded. “—since I’ve been a fan since seeing you years ago, up in Montana.”
Chapin shot a look toward her, but Tate was starting to stand, so she couldn’t send any messages by way of facial expression. Instead, she willed him to understand and accept what was going on, while she smiled Lee-Bee wide at Tate.
“Those will be great. Thank you so much.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.” He touched the brim of his cowboy hat. “After dinner tonight, we should— Oh. Bill. Hey, there.”
There’d been a quick low-voiced conversation among the three men in the huddle at the front of the store, most of it with the sheriff talking.
This was the moment they’d find out if Chapin would go along or—
“Hey, Tate,” he said evenly. Then he added, cold, short, “Reggie.”
The voice of a man several steps past miffed.
With mental fingers crossed, she took that as a good sign.
“Bill,” she said in the same tone.
Tate looked from her to Chapin and back. She smiled warmly at him, took his hand, and said, “Let’s look at the candy.”
From the corner of her eye she caught Tate give the shrug and smile of a winning jouster.
Reggie thought Sheriff Grainger’s elbow might have connected with Chapin’s ribs. Whether that was the impetus or not, Chapin said, in the same cold tone, “I’ll come back and do my shopping later.”
He tipped his hat to Jessa and was gone.
Had there been the hint of a threat in that later?
*
Reggie was working with the sheriff.
More important from Chapin’s point of view, the sheriff was looking out for her.
Maybe he couldn’t have known from her obscure Because I have something better than deputies. But he strongly suspected she would have said he should have trusted her.
He did.
Really, he did.
It was all the other people in the world he didn’t trust.
That’s why he’d been driving around Bardville. Mostly up and down the main streets, then down and up. It was pure luck he’d spotted her going into that shop with Tate.
Looking for all the world like she was out for a picnic.
With a bank robber.
It had taken frustratingly long to find a place to stow his truck — who knew every soul in Shakespeare County would choose that very moment to occupy all the parking spots in Bardville — then get back to the shop they’d gone in.
Then, there they were. Reggie still in picnic mode and Lavenge in lecher mode.
He didn’t see anyone else until he was suddenly blocked in.
He would have swung at the tall, rangy man, who said low into his ear, “Calm down, cowboy. She’s fine.” Except the other man, not as tall, with the look of a rancher had closed in so tight he didn’t have room to swing.
Then the tall man directed Chapin’s attention to something he held down near his waist, protected from anyone else’s view by long fingers cupped around it — a badge.
Sheriff, it said, clear as day.
Okay, so she was working with the sheriff.
That didn’t mean Chapin was going to go take a nap somewhere.
He had his truck positioned down a side street when they came out of the shop. With Tate carrying a shopping bag, they went down two more doors and into another shop. This one selling flowers, and gifts.
Chapin unclenched his jaw when he realized he was grinding his teeth.
Didn’t matter where they went. He was going to be right there.
*
Reggie had a headache from too much sugar in the form of channeling Lee-Bee.
She had overdosed on it after the first half hour. But Tate was still lapping it up, more than three hours in to what felt like the world’s longest date.
After all the shops, she’d coyly suggested there was no reason to separate when they were going to go to dinner that evening anyway.
He suggested filling in the gap with drinks.
They entered a bar connected to the restaurant the sheriff had named, and encountered Goose, drinking alone at the bar.
When Tate went up to get their drinks, the two bull riders exchanged words. Not friendly.
“What was that about?” she’d asked.
“No need to worry yourself. It’s all taken care of.”
She’d squelched the urge to ask what was all taken care of. Keeping Tate Lavenge happy was the goal.
She’d nursed one drink while he consumed numerous beers. He had no trouble negotiating a couple dances in the tiny open space past the bar. Didn’t bother him that they were the only ones dancing.
With each beer he bragged a little more.
By the time Reggie figured it was safe to start on their dinner — while hoping food would counteract her headache and his ego buzz — he was telling her how he was going to be the top bull rider of all time. Would be already if bad luck didn’t always get in his way.
She forced her focus to stay on what he was saying, both to keep him happy and in case he let something slip.
He didn’t.
She ordered an appetizer at the start, a dessert at the end, and ate more slowly than she ever had in her life. She also nodded, and smiled, and ohhhed more than she ever had in her life. At least it seemed that way.
But now all their plates had been cleared in a not so subtle hint from their server.
Still no “Thank you” text from Sheriff Grainger. She’d checked as often as she could.
“We could get a nightcap back in the bar,” she suggested, looking up from the most recent peek.
Tate reached across the table and covered her free hand. “You don’t have to be shy with me, darlin’,” he said.
She stopped herself from looking at him with astonishment just in time. He’d taken her downcast eyes as shyness.
Reggie focused on their hands. “I know, Tate. It’s been a wonderful afternoon and evening.”
He smiled broadly. “No reason it has to be over yet. You ready to go now?”
More like she couldn’t think of another excuse to stay.
She bought another minute or two by forgetting the shopping bag under the table. He insisted on getting it for her, darn it. He walked entirely too fast. She could have dragged it out twice as long if she’d gone herself.
He handed it over as he reached for his wallet.
“Oh, let me treat you to dinner,” she said. “Please, after all you did this afternoon, it’s only right.” Better to keep his cash in his wallet, so there’d still be a potential supply of the bank’s bills if they had to do this all over again.
“No, ma’am. Tate Lavenge doesn’t let a lady pay.”
As he handed over cash, the young cashier smiled at him with open admiration. “Hope you had a good time here tonight.”
“We did, indeed. We had a great time. And it’s going to get even bet—”
He’d started to turn toward Reggie and wink, but froze, mid-turn, mid-wink.
“What’s wrong?” She looked over her shoulder, but saw only the connecting door to the bar swinging wide.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
He took her arm. Tighter than she liked.
“Your change—” The cashier started.
He turned, took it from her, and stuffed it in a front jeans pocket, never letting Reggie’s arm loose.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.