“No one came with me. My purpose was to warn you about the meeting and to tell you that you’re—”
“In danger. Got that. Why am I in danger? And if you truly want me at a meeting you think is happening, what’s the reason?”
“Because…because I believe someone may have murdered my brother. I’ve been trying for months on my own to find out what really happened but haven’t gotten anywhere. I need you to help me with my investigation.”
He shook his head. “You honestly expect me to believe that the daughter of a mob boss—”
“Allegedmob boss.”
“The daughter of a mob boss wants the help of a small town police chief to look into her brother’s death? A death I already investigated and ruled as an accidental drowning?”
Her face heated. “Now who’s lying? You’ve been reviewing cold cases in Mystic Lake ever since Tanya Jericho was rescued, as if to assure yourself that you didn’t make more mistakes. And right before the mayor put you on administrative leave, the one you were looking into was my brother’s case. If you truly believed it was an accidental drowning, then why were you reviewing it?”
His face tightened with anger. “Where the hell are you getting your information?”
“Madre di Dios.That’s what you’re worried about? Did you not hear anything I’ve said? My brother was murdered. You’re looking into his case. What kind of person would risk his life to kill the son of Michael Covington and what do you think that person, or persons, would do once they found out the police chief was digging into the case again? If he really was murdered, then you’re in danger. Heck, I’m in danger if the killer or killers know I’m looking into the case too, especially if they know I came here to warn you. At this point, I don’t even care whether or not you believe me. Just go to town, see what’s going on at the police station so you can prove me wrong. But make sure you’re prepared for the truth when it hits you in the face.”
She rushed around him and hurried out the door before he could stop her. The anger seething inside her had her wanting to kick his police SUV on her way past it. But she resisted the childish urge, mainly to avoid being arrested. Instead, she jogged down his gravel driveway toward the road.
Once in her car, she drew several deep breaths, trying to calm down. Regret was already beginning to weigh heavily on her. Nothing had gone as she’d hoped. But she wasn’t giving up. She couldn’t. She owed it to her brother to find out what had really happened to him, and who was responsible. And her conscience wasn’t going to let her ignore that Beau Dawson reopening her brother’s case could lead to lethal consequences for him. Shefervently hoped that she’d at least made him curious enough to actually go to the police station. Seeing what was going on would go a long way toward getting him to trust her and to take the danger to himself seriously.
Sometimes she wished she didn’t care what happened to other people. It could be incredibly inconvenient and frustrating.
She took her phone and opened the app she’d loaded a week earlier. When she clicked on one of the icons, a picture filled the screen. She let out a relieved breath. At least one thing had gone right. Her clumsy placement of the tiny camera under the edge of the hallway table as she was leaving showed an excellent, though slightly tilted, view of the entryway in the chief’s home. If she’d had more time, she’d have managed something more sophisticated, with sound.
Like the cameras she’d put in the mayor’s office and the police station.
Chapter Three
After a quick shower to slough off the dust and sweat from chopping wood, Beau headed down the mountain. Not because he believed there was a secret meeting about to happen but because he needed to warn his officers that the town was under the scrutiny of the Covingtons. If Sierra’s claims about her brother’s death were true, it was possible she was right that he and others were in danger. Reopening an old case wouldn’t exactly make the killer or killers happy. And, as she’d said, if they would dare to kill her brother, they’d think nothing of killing some small town cops.
The pain in Sierra’s eyes and the grief in her voice as she’d told him about her brother had certainly seemed genuine. But once he’d received that text, and knew she’d lied about the meeting, he couldn’t risk trusting her. About anything. Instead, he’d look into her claims and find out the truth for himself. No matter what, he had to remember she was a crime boss’s daughter. Nothing she said could be taken at face value, no matter how much her apparent grief had tugged at him, making him long to pull her into his arms and comfort her.
He shook his head at that ridiculous thought and left his police SUV parked in the lot at the end of Main Street, then headed up the seldom-used alley behind the police station. It felt odd not using the front door. But there was a tiny sliver of doubt remaining about the supposed meeting. While he couldn’t imagine his team lying to him, he also couldn’t think of a reason for Sierra to lie about there being one, not when he could easilyprove or disprove what she’d said. And to do that, he preferred to scout out the situation in the police station before announcing his presence.
He unlocked the back door, then eased it open, peering down the short hallway to make sure he didn’t see anyone before stepping inside. He quietly shut and locked the door, then stood with his back to the wall to assess the situation. It only took a few minutes of eavesdropping to realize that Sierra wasn’t the one who’d lied about the meeting. His team was.
He could clearly hear the meeting taking place in the open area of the station just beyond the hallway, what they referred to as thesquad roomin their tiny police station.And he recognized every voice that spoke. They were discussing the fate of his job as the chief of police.
Just like Sierra had told him.
He tamped down his guilt over how he’d treated her and focused on the debate going on just outside of his field of vision.
“This Phil Gunther guy who abducted Tanya Jericho, he was known as the Phantom,” the mayor said. “He was living up in the mountains for years. Decades. There were reports of burglaries in people’s vacation cabins during that time, off and on. From what we’ve found out since all of this came to light, some of those burglaries were him breaking in and living in those cabins and taking the supplies while the owners were out of state. Officer Fletcher, you were in charge of a lot of those types of investigations. Were any of them actually solved at the time?”
“Yes, sir. Most of them were. Quite a few were from local teens, breaking in out of boredom or on a dare.”
“But some went unsolved, correct?”
“Well, yes, but not that many.”
“How many? I told you to check the records prior to this meeting. What did you find?”
“I, uh, a couple here and there. We have an excellent solve rate for crimes in Mystic Lake. It’s the, ah, disappearances that often go cold. And of course that’s mainly because of the lake, the hazards under the water that—”
“Officer Fletcher, what is the exact number of similar unsolved cabin break-ins and burglaries?”
She cleared her throat. “Two to three per year.”
