“Oh my goodness!” Tanya rushed in from the hallway and dashed to Violet’s side. “Who did this?”
Violet spun on her. “Who was in here last?” She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed Sawyer. He needed to check on Maggie immediately.
“No one,” Tanya said. “I looked in on her when you left, then turned out the light and went on my rounds.” She dragged worried eyes back to the roses. She lifted a shaky hand toward the note.
“Don’t,” Violet warned, shoving her hand away. “Don’t touch it. There could be fingerprints there that will help us know who wrote it.”
Tanya shoved her hands into her pockets and rocked back on her heels. “Why aren’t you freaked out? What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”
Violet lifted a finger to indicate that she needed a minute, then she reported the incident to Sawyer and demanded he check on Maggie. Once she knew her baby was safe, she called the police. Dispatch took a report and promised to send a deputy, but Violet couldn’t promise to wait. Her heart was being torn in two. She needed to be with Maggie, but Maggie had Sawyer, an armed, trained security agent and former army ranger. Grandma had Tanya, but someone had already gotten past her once. Though, to be fair, Violet hadn’t been completely honest with her cousin about how much danger their grandma might be in. Maybe what she really needed to do now was confess. Coming clean with all the details might give Tanya an advantage, not put her at risk the way she feared. Maybe not knowing was the bigger risk.
She turned to Tanya. “We need to get Grandma out of here. She needs to be moved to a facility outside this county as soon as possible. I was coming to make the request first thing in the morning.”
Tanya narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “Why?”
Violet weighed the notion. On the one hand, sharing details with Tanya could put her in danger. On the other hand, at least Tanya wasn’t a baby or in a coma. She could help, and she deserved to know what was happening to their grandma. “I think someone connected to the sheriff’s department, maybe even the sheriff or his dad, has been harassing me since I got here, and I think whoever is doing this is the same person who hurt Grandma.”
Tanya’s eyes widened. “She fell.”
“Sure. After she was knocked down.”
“Off a ladder,” Tanya corrected.
Violet shook her head slowly in the negative. “And the man I was here with earlier isn’t my boyfriend. He was hired by Grandma to protect her, but she didn’t have a chance to tell him why. She was already here by the time he got to her place.”
Tanya dragged her gaze from Violet to their grandma and back again.
Violet thought she saw an argument forming on her cousin’s lips. Yes, everything she’d just said sounded crazy. It was crazy. And it was all true.
Tanya wobbled to the guest armchair and collapsed onto it. She slid her attention to the letter on Grandma’s tray. A threat and a countdown. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll talk to the doctor first thing in the morning and tell him she needs to be closer to you because you’re her preferred caregiver. Then I’ll call every good facility in the neighboring counties to see which ones have a bed available.”
Violet wrapped her in a quick hug. “Thank you.” She stepped back with an apologetic frown. “I can’t stay here and wait for the deputy. I need to get home to Maggie, and I think I might stop by the sheriff’s department on my way. He might be corrupt or he might not, but the whole force can’t be. Maybe making a scene down there will get an honest deputy’s interest piqued.”
She posed her phone over the bed and snapped a half dozen pictures of the gruesome floral scene, then moved the rolling tray as far as possible from her grandma.
“What should I do?” Tanya asked. “I don’t want to leave her, but I’m the only one on the floor for another twenty-five minutes. I need to be at the desk.”
“Call security,” Violet said. “Get someone up here to sit with her until a deputy arrives, but don’t let a deputy in here by himself. There’s something off about this case and the sheriff’s department. I’ve got no real proof. Just a lot of coincidence and intuition.”
“Intuition.” Tanya bobbed her head, clearly shocked by the night’s turn of events and the metric ton of mess Violet had just dumped on her. “Honey, that’s the best tool in any woman’s arsenal, and it’s good enough for me.”
Violet passed the receiver to Tanya from the phone beside Grandma’s bed, stretching the spiral cord across the distance. “Here. Call security, but don’t leave until someone gets here to take your place and remember what I said about the sheriff’s department.”
Tanya accepted the receiver, then pressed a few buttons on the handset. “Be careful.”
Violet hesitated. “Don’t tell anyone what I just told you. Do your best to act as if I didn’t.”
Tanya nodded.
Violet took the stairs to the parking lot, unable to stand idly waiting for the elevator and unwilling to let her anger fizzle before unleashing it on whoever would listen at the sheriff’s department. How many times did she and her family have to be threatened before the sheriff did something about it? How could she believe he wasn’t involved when he didn’t seem to care what was happening to her? Wasn’t that his job?
She climbed into Sawyer’s Jeep and mashed the gas pedal to the floor. She nearly leaped from the vehicle when she arrived at the sheriff’s department, fully primed with adrenaline and a thirst for justice.
The front door was flung open beneath her heavy hands and she marched to the front desk. “I’m here to see Sheriff Masterson,” she told the gray-haired woman staring back at her. “My name is Violet Ames, and I’m not leaving until I do.”
“What’s this about?” the lady asked.
A door opened nearby and both women turned to look.
The smug-looking sheriff walked out, trailed closely by a brooding Wyatt. The men slowed at the sight of Violet. Wyatt regained himself first, then closed the distance to her side. He slid his hands over hers and pulled her to him. “Thank you for coming so fast,” he said loudly, then much more softly, “Let’s go.”
She stiffened. “No. Someone threatened Maggie and Grandma. Again. My baby and comatose grandma,” she seethed. “I came to talk to the sheriff.” Her voice grew louder with each word, and several faces turned in her direction.
Sheriff Masterson went to stand with the gray-haired lady on the other side of the desk. “Is there a problem, Miss Ames?”
“Yes,” she barked, drawing more attention as planned. “Someone in your town has repeatedly threatened and endangered my baby, my grandma and myself.” She faced the screen of her phone to him and flipped through the photos taken at the hospital.
His jaw locked.
“What are you going to do about it?” Violet demanded. “She can’t exactly leave town like you keep suggesting I do, now can she?” Barring that hospital transfer I just requested. Violet’s nose and eyes stung with barely tamped-down emotion. The week’s buildup was quickly reaching a tipping point, but she couldn’t afford to look weak. She needed the sheriff to see her as strong. Unwavering. She steadied her breathing and plowed ahead. “And what kind of policy is that anyway? Anyone having trouble ought to just leave town? Then you can boast about how safe your county is? No crime here.”
Wyatt pulled her against him and buried his face in her hair. “We need to go.” He lifted his mouth to her ear. “Now.”
Violet’s will wavered. Wyatt’s warm breath on the delicate skin of her neck and cheek had distracted her, defused her. She grimaced at the sheriff. “You need to help me. Help my grandma.” She cast her gaze to all the other men and women in uniform watching her mental breakdown. “We have forty-eight hours.”
She turned and let Wyatt lead her away.
* * *
WYATT STARTED SAWYER’S Jeep as Violet buckled in. “It was smart of you to take this vehicle. No one knows to look for you in it, and Sawyer keeps his glass tinted to the legal limits. This time of night, it’d be impossible to know who was driving.”
Violet wrapped her arms around herself tightly and stared at the sheriff’s department as they passed through the lot. “What happened in there?”
“Nothing. They left me in a room alone the whole time. By the time I got a young deputy to allow me my phone call, they let me go. I called Sawyer, but pretended I was speaking with a lawyer.”
She frowned. “You called Sawyer? Not me?”
“You were supposed to be with Sawyer. When he told me you were at the hospital, I thought I was going to have to walk there.”
Violet rolled her eyes. “That’s five miles away.”
Wyatt eased onto the road and hooked a right toward Mrs. Ames’s house. “So? You were there, and it’s not like Sawyer could come and pick me up. He said he was instructed not to touch the baby, and he didn’t have the keys to my truck anyway.”
She looked his way. “So the sheriff hauled you all the way to the department just to leave you in a room and do nothing? No threats or grand inquisition? Nothing? What was the point?”
“Because he can?” Wyatt guessed. He’d assumed it was a typical bully’s lesson. He’s in power, so Wyatt must concede. He’d also considered it might be another warning.
“Did you see the photos I showed Sheriff Masterson?” Violet asked.
“Yeah.” Wyatt caught her eye then. “It wasn’t the sheriff. He never left the station. I could hear his big mouth in every room for almost two hours. Giving orders. Making stupid jokes. Watching a game on television in the break room. He didn’t have time to get to the hospital after taking me in.”
Violet let her eyes drift shut, then turned her face away. “Maybe he pulled us over on his way from the hospital.”
“Maybe, but we were also on our way from the hospital, so he would’ve had to be fast with the note and roses.”
She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
“We will find out who did this,” Wyatt vowed. “I know I’ve said it before, but it’s true, and I need you to trust me.”
Violet’s lips twitched, but the smile never formed. “The monster ruined her rosebushes.”
“I’m sorry.” The photos had been tough to see, especially the note. The devastation in Violet’s eyes had sliced straight through him. “Those were her roses left at the hospital?”
She nodded, eyes glossy with unshed tears.
Wyatt reached out and pulled her as close as the seat belts would allow, then gripped her small hands in one of his and squeezed with promise. He released her when he pulled into her grandma’s drive. The Jeep’s headlights washed over the destroyed rosebushes and Violet’s tiny car. The little yellow hatchback sat at an awkward angle. The two tires farthest from the house had been slashed, probably with whatever had been used to destroy the roses. “You didn’t tell me about your car. I think it’s having as rough a week as you are.”
Violet wrenched upright and clamped her hands onto the dashboard. “I didn’t even notice that earlier. I’ve barely looked at my car since it was carved up.” She pounded her foot against the floorboard. “As if the paint job wasn’t going to break the bank, now I need two new tires.”
Wyatt forced a tight smile. “Maybe if you leave it sitting out here long enough someone will just take it and your car insurance will replace it with a whole new one.” He met her outside the passenger door and walked her to the porch, maneuvering around his truck in the front yard. “Were you drunk when you parked my truck like that?”
“No.”
She laughed, and the hardened shell of Wyatt’s heart cracked a little further. “Well, you might consider retaking the parking test, ’cause you missed the driveway by about twenty-five feet.”
She laughed again, this time taking his elbow in her hand as they climbed the steps.
Wyatt stopped short of opening the door, knowing it was the last time they’d be alone before he faced Sawyer and a long night of research. “Come here.” He pulled Violet to his chest and wrapped her in his arms. To his great pleasure, she hugged him back.
More than that, she melded herself against him.
Wyatt’s heart thundered and his hands slid over her narrow back, and he enjoyed the feel of her more than was remotely acceptable for their situation. He pressed one palm to the curve of her spine, fingers splayed over the thin material of her shirt, and drifted the other into the plane between her shoulder blades. “I’m sorry I wasn’t with you at the hospital tonight.” His voice was low and thick. Guilt had nearly consumed him as he’d sat in the empty room wondering if she and Maggie had made it home safely. “I’d promised to stay with you, to protect you. Instead, I let that menace bait me into saying the wrong thing.”
“You were defending me,” she whispered, turning her beautiful face up to his. “I was honored.”
Wyatt pursed his lips. “I was stupid. Impetuous. I should’ve found another way to make him back off without causing us to be separated. If something had happened to you or Maggie…” The words stopped coming. He couldn’t bear to finish the sentence.
Wyatt moved one palm to cup Violet’s jaw. He let the pad of his thumb caress her cheek. Logically, he knew what he was doing was wrong and unprofessional and that she should tell him where to stick his grabby hands, but the look in her eyes was electric and the magnitude of that pull was enough to make him brave. Wyatt lowered his head. Closer. Breathing her in and waiting for the will to knock it off. This wasn’t the job. And he wasn’t that guy who’d take advantage of a stressed-out single mom who probably just wanted something safe and normal to hold onto amid all the danger surrounding her this week.
Violet rose onto her toes, arching her back and trailing her small hands over the curves of his chest to his shoulders. The unmistakable heat of desire darkened her eyes.
A low, needy moan rumbled through him as his nose lined up beside hers, seeking, testing. Tasting her sweet breath as it washed over him. Feeling the heat of her body pressed to his.
Her mouth was right there, waiting to be taken by him.
The home’s front door swung open beside them and Violet sprang from his hold.
Sawyer stared out. “I heard you pull up like ten minutes ago. What are y’all doing out here? Is this a private discussion or are you about ready to get in here so we can get to work?”
Violet hung her head and darted inside, hiding her pink cheeks behind long brown hair.
Wyatt took a minute to pull his thoughts together and remind himself that he loved Sawyer, and he didn’t really want to knock him out right now. “Thanks for coming.”
“Anytime.” Sawyer locked the door behind Wyatt, then followed him into the kitchen.
Violet was already at the table, hands folded and looking mighty guilty. Wyatt tried not to think too long or hard about why. “Did Maggie wake while I was away?” she asked.
“Nope.” Sawyer dropped onto the chair positioned at the end of the table. “But she shouted, ‘No!’ so loud I thought someone had gotten in through an upstairs window. I was halfway to her room when I heard her snoring.”
Wyatt grinned. That chubby-cheeked princess was a riot. He could imagine Sawyer ready for battle, tearing up the steps to defend the baby, only to see she was telling someone off in her dreams. Probably me, he thought wryly.
“That was about all I heard from her,” Sawyer said. “What about you, Stone?” he asked Wyatt. “How was jail?”
“Super.”
Violet tapped her phone’s screen as the men spoke. A moment later, she set the device aside. Both men’s cell phones buzzed. “I sent you copies of the photos I took at the hospital. Just in case the scene goes missing. I have proof. Tanya saw it, too. What should we do now?”
Sawyer flipped through the photos. “Are these the roses from right outside?”
“I think so,” Violet answered. “Some jerk was real busy tonight.”
Wyatt itched to go to her, to comfort her. Would she really have let him kiss her? Did she want him to? And had he seriously not jumped on that opportunity? He felt his brows pull together. It had been the right thing to do. Hadn’t it? It would have been wrong to let her confuse her appreciation for his protection with real feelings for him. Right?
Sawyer dropped his phone on the tabletop and shot a pointed look at Wyatt. “Small-town cover-up?”
“Yeah. Seems that way. Problem is going to be finding out who is covering for who. Binds run deep and tight in a town this small.”
Sawyer expelled a long puff of air. “Nothing truer than that, and the way I understand it, your main suspect is the former sheriff.” He rocked his chair back on two legs. “That’s no good.”
“Nope,” Wyatt agreed.
“And that guy is the current sheriff’s daddy, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Sawyer performed a long, slow whistle. “Doesn’t get tighter than that.”
No, it didn’t. Wyatt shifted in his seat. “The cover-up theory is only a theory. We have no idea what’s been covered up or why. Not even a guess.”
Sawyer set his chair down with a thud. “Violet’s grandma needed protection for some reason. Now her granddaughter and great-granddaughter do, too. Are you thinking this all started with something big?”
Wyatt nodded. “I doubt anyone would bother trying to run folks out of town over something small.”
Sawyer did another whistle. A short, slick burst this time.
Violet rolled her head over one shoulder and fixed her gaze on Sawyer. “Any chance you’ve got some new information on Henry Davis?”
He tapped his pointer fingers along the worn Formica tabletop like drumsticks. “I’m working on it.”
“What about the derby car?” Wyatt asked.
“Still working.”
Wyatt scraped his chair back and went to the refrigerator for a bottle of water. “I’d like to know what kind of thing would motivate a person to threaten an old woman and a baby.” Just the thought made his blood boil. He pressed the cold bottle to his forehead, then against the curve of his neck. “It’s got to be something huge. Theft? Embezzlement? Gambling debt?”
“Why does it have to be about money?” Violet asked. “Maybe it’s a case of identity theft or fraud. Maybe Sheriff Masterson helped Henry Davis disappear when he didn’t want to go back to war, and Mary Alice’s dementia makes it likely she’ll forget that was a secret.”
Sawyer stroked his ratty beard. “Maybe the sheriff isn’t really a Masterson. Maybe the missing soldier is really his daddy and that kind of truth come to light would besmirch the family name.”
“Besmirch?” Wyatt asked. “Really?”
“Hey, I know things,” Sawyer said.
Wyatt smiled.
Violet flipped through the photos on her phone. “That note said I have forty-eight hours. I don’t have any reason to think this will be sorted by then, so I told Tanya I want to move Grandma out of the county.”
The men turned to face her. Neither spoke.
“Tanya said she’d talk to the doctor first thing tomorrow morning, then reach out to some facilities in search of an open bed. The note-writer was right. I can’t protect them both. Unless Maggie and I move into Grandma’s room at the hospital, I can’t be in two places all the time. Maybe moving her into another county and putting her safety in the hands of another police or sheriff’s department will help remove some of the danger.”
Sawyer tented his brows. “Good idea.”
Wyatt agreed with the move. Mrs. Ames would be safer somewhere outside the potentially corrupt sheriff’s jurisdiction, but Wyatt wasn’t so sure about Violet and Maggie. “I think you should stick with us until we know who’s behind this. Going off on your own could be dangerous like we talked about.” As long as he didn’t do anything else to get himself hauled off to jail again, he’d never let Violet or Maggie out of his sight.
Violet yawned. “Let’s see what Tanya has to say after breakfast.” She rubbed her eyes. “I can try talking with Mary Alice again tomorrow.”
Wyatt moved to stand beside her chair. “I don’t know. I’ve heard the words restraining order more times than I’d like today. I think we’d be wise not to push the old man.” He gave his partner a long look. “Maybe you can give Mary Alice a shot. No one knows you yet. Maybe take a walk down her street, see if you see a nice old lady on the gray-and-black craftsman-style porch with the American flag.”
Sawyer smiled. “Ask her about the missing man from five decades back? Sounds good.”
Violet yawned again.
Wyatt offered her his hand. “How about we move this to the living room? It’s more comfortable in there, and I’ve already seen you fall asleep at this table today. Why not mix it up a little?”
Sawyer chuckled. “You’re still a thrill a minute, I see.”
Violet accepted his hand, then leaned against his side as they made their way back to the front room. She settled on the love seat and tucked her feet beneath her. Wyatt took the cushion on her right.
Sawyer sat on the floor, back resting against the couch, a clear view of the front window and door on one side, the hallway, kitchen and rear exit on the other. Wyatt knew because he’d spent his recent nights seated there, too, pushing the same few seemingly useless puzzle pieces around in his head.
Mary Alice, Mr. Masterson, a missing GI from 1968 and Violet’s grandma.
In other words, a dementia patient, a drunk, a missing person and an old lady in a coma.
Basically, they had nothing and less than forty-eight hours to find out who’d written that note.
The clock was ticking.