Fletcher laughed.
O’Brien smiled, barely.
“It’s calledrespect,” Beau said. He waved his hand in the air. “Enough of this nonsense. Let’s address the issues at hand, specifically the shooting at my home and the subsequent shootings on the main exit road and at the safe house. But before that, I know Collier was acting chief initially. But has the mayor appointed you officially as acting chief or are you all sharing those duties going forward? At least until Sumner comes on board.”
Collier grimaced. “I hope that never happens. As for officially in charge, that would be me. No one else wanted the job.”
Fletcher rolled her eyes. “He’s being modest. I hate to even say this out loud around him, but we all know he’s our best option right now.”
Collier blinked. “A compliment? From you?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Collier grinned.
“Congratulations,” Beau said. “I’m sure you’ll do a fine job. I assume you updated the mayor about the recent events. What did he have to say about it?”
Collier’s neck flushed a dull red. “Um, not much. He said to keep him informed if I needed anything.”
Beau stared at his former officers, noting that all of them seemed uncomfortable. His stomach sank. “Please tell me I’m wrong in thinking that none of you reported the shootings to yourboss, the mayor?”
Collier straightened. “As acting chief, it was my opinion that keeping this as quiet as possible until we knew the mayor’s role in it was the best course of action.”
“Until you knew the mayor’s role? What the heck, Collier? What are you basing that suspicion on?”
He motioned to the others. “We discussed the secret meeting he arranged at the station, the one where he tried to fire you. And everything else going on. We’re all in agreement, including Danny—Officer Ortiz. Something doesn’t smell right. We’ve added the mayor to our list of people who need to be investigated to see if he’s received some kind of outside pressure to railroad you out of a job.”
“Well, of course he has. It’s called anexpensive lawsuit, andbeing fiscally responsible. Tanya Jericho’s parents have launched a multimillion dollar lawsuit against our town. If you were the mayor and you discovered you could get the lawsuit settled for a fraction of that amount if you got rid of the police chief, what would you do?”
Collier’s jaw set. “Not what you think I’d do, apparently. I wouldn’t throw an innocent man to the wolves, let alone one who has done so much for our community, just to avoid going to court over a frivolous lawsuit that should have been dismissedthe moment it was filed. Whether you agree with me or not,Chief—and I mean that, you’re still the chief in my eyes—that’s our decision. All four of us. We’re going to get justice for you, Ms. Covington and our town. And it won’t be at the expense of people who’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.”
“Way to go, Chris.” Sierra did a fist pump.
Beau slowly turned his head to look at her. “Just when did you get a personality transplant and start being so warm and cozy withcops?”
She rolled her eyes. “I guess since one of them got me nice clean clothes, a soft bed and a warm shower. Being with you is teaching me that not all cops are bad. But, hey, if it really bothers you, I’ll be more formal. Way to goOfficer Collier.” She winked.
“Ms. Covington, maybe you should retire to your room for the duration of this meeting.”
She crossed her arms, all signs of amusement gone. “Not a chance in hell,Chief Dawson. And don’t talk down to me like I’m a child or one of your officers. This is my future we’re going to discuss, my safety. And yours. I’m not going anywhere.”
The suddenly tension-filled silence was interrupted by Collier. “I’ll go ahead and provide an update on the progress of our investigations since the first shooting that occurred. Is that okay with you, Chief?”
Beau didn’t even bother to correct Collier for calling himChiefagain. Instead, he sat back and crossed his arms. “By all means. Go right ahead, Chief Collier.”
Collier’s brows rose, but he picked up a printed report and began reading it, explaining what each of them had been doing and what leads had been followed. In short, although they’d collected a lot of evidence at the first two sites, they hadn’t caught any of the men after them and had no real leads as to their identities, other than that the leader appeared to be the brother who Sierra had believed to have been killed a year ago.They also, so far, hadn’t been able to identify any of the dead men from the roadway shootout.
“I’m prepared to call Sheriff Galloway in Chattanooga and ask him to send deputies tomorrow morning to assist with a search of the safe house area,” Collier said. “But doing so would require that I notify the mayor first. I can handle that, no problem. But being upfront about this situation means also revealing that the Covington family, at the very least Sierra and Esteban, are involved. If that news gets out, I predict that Mystic Lake will be overrun with Feds from every agency you can imagine in a matter of hours. I don’t have to tell you what that would do to our own investigations.”
Beau tightened his fists. “It would shut them down, cold. The Feds would turn this into an all-out effort to catch Michael Covington and put him out of business rather than focusing on Esteban’s role and why he’s here in Mystic Lake.” He eyed Fletcher, O’Brien and Collier. “You three have already made up your mind, haven’t you? You’re not calling the sheriff. And you’re not telling the mayor.”
This time it was O’Brien who spoke up. “As a former FBI agent myself, I can verify that what Chris just said is the absolute truth. Bring in anyone from the outside at this point and you’ll never find the truth behind what’s going on in Mystic Lake. Why? Because no one outside of our town cares. They’re all about bringing down organized crime. I get that. It’s a noble goal. But they’ve been after Mr. Covington for decades. I haven’t seen anything recently that makes me think they’d have any better chance at bringing him down now, if they come here investigating, than they’ve done in the past. It’s my opinion that we’d come out of this with absolutely no useful answers, no arrests, nothing. And both you and Ms. Covington would be in as much danger, limbo really, not knowing who to trust, as you are right now.”
Beau blinked in surprise at the feel of Sierra’s hand closing around his. He looked at her, fully planning on pulling his hand away and telling her to focus on the meeting and stop playing around. But when he saw the fear in her eyes and that she was staring at the TV screen, he realized she wasn’t playing.
She was terrified.
While he didn’t return the gesture by squeezing her hand, especially with his team watching, he didn’t pull away either. He looked back at the TV and pretended he didn’t want to pull Sierra into his arms and try his best to chase her fears away.
