“No. Ironically, I had to go into the main sheriff’s office earlier for a couple hours. I had an appointment I couldn’t get out of.” He paused. “With the police department psychiatrist.”
Now her fingers stilled on the keys. “Oh. Because of being on suspension?”
“No. Something else. Something that happened a few years ago. Something you and I should probably talk about.”
That didn’t sound promising. She looked over at him. “Right now?”
“No. It’s not something easily explained.”
She nodded. “A complicated past is something I understand. So whenever you’re ready.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Thank you.”
He walked off toward the shower, and Bree found herself staring at the screen without really seeing it. Mrs. Dempsey had been right. Tanner had demons—ones big enough to need required appointments with a psychiatrist years later.
Not that she thought less of him for seeing a psychiatrist. She was very aware she’d be much more emotionally well-adjusted if she’d been able to talk to someone about what she’d gone through.
It just...stung a little that she’d been living under the same roof as Tanner for almost a week—seeing him nearly daily for over a month—and he’d never mentioned an event traumatic enough to need psychiatric care.
What did it say that he hadn’t felt like he could even mention that to her? Especially after everything she’d told him about her past.
Bree forced the thought aside. It would have to wait. She needed to focus on the mission in front of her now: discovering whatever she could about Anders and Newkirk. She started with all the legal ways she knew of gaining information and searching public records. Then slid into slightly more morally gray area, but still not technically illegal.
Both Anders and Newkirk had lived colorful and violent lives. Both had had run-ins with the law before they’d gotten arrested for the specific crimes they’d actually gone to jail for. But they didn’t seem to have run in the same circles or have known the same people.
Both had spent time in prison, although they hadn’t served at the same place at the same time. Both had gotten out of prison earlier than they should have,although Bree couldn’t find out why without definitely crossing into the illegal-hacking area.
It was easy to see why Tanner was a suspect. As arresting officer, he definitely was the most obvious link between the two dead men.
It took Bree another two hours of searching—a pretty damn long time given her skills—before she finally found someone else in common. And even then it wasn’t easy to spot.
Both Anders and Newkirk had been a cell mate of a Darin Carrico. Newkirk for six months. Anders for less than a week.
It was a weak tie, at best. But it was all Bree could find unless Tanner wanted her to really jump into illegal territory. She doubted he would be comfortable with morally gray, much less morally pitch-black.
Besides shoving a sandwich in front of her at lunch, Tanner had stayed out of her way. He knew what she was like when she was working—he’d seen her in action a few months ago. How focused she stayed. He hadn’t bothered her.
She was filtering through sites and databases at a rapid clip and wanted to make sure not to miss anything. But as it became more and more evident she wasn’t going to find much of anything online, she admitted that some relationships and associations didn’t show up in a computer. Even ghosting through the men’s social media accounts hadn’t turned up anything to link the two of them. Sometimes there just wasn’t a visible electronic trail, even for two people who knew each other.
And if she couldn’t find anything except a weak tie to an old cell mate, she could damn well imaginenobody at the Grand County Sheriff’s Department was going to find much.
She sighed. This did not mean good news for Tanner.
CHAPTER TWELVE
An hour later Bree pushed back from the computer and turned to Tanner. “Okay, I’ve got bad news and worse news.”
“That doesn’t sound promising.” Tanner held a hand out to her from where he sat on the couch. She stood and walked over to him, smiling as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her down next to him.
“There aren’t very many overt ties between Newkirk and Anders. I’ve pretty much tapped out all legal channels. But if you’ll just give the okay, I can—”
His fingers threaded through hers. “No. I don’t want you breaking any laws. I didn’t kill those men. The circumstances with how it went down were damn unfortunate, but they’re not going to charge me. So, let’s not do anything illegal.”
She nodded. “Okay. Well, we do have one possibility. The only other connection I could find between Newkirk and Anders was that they were both cell mates, albeit very briefly, with a man named Darin Carrico.”
“I don’t recognize the name.”
She stood, pulling Tanner with her over to the laptop at the table. With a couple of keystrokes, she had Carrico’s arrest record pulled up.
