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“Doesn’t matter? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“For God’s sake, Murphy. Let me get a word in edgewise, will you?”
Brendan plunks down on one of the chairs facing my desk. “What? What the fuck is it, Steel?”
He’s livid, and I can’t blame him. Now I get to give him the party line. It doesn’t make me feel any better, and it won’t make him feel any better. At least my ethics are intact. Sort of.
“I want to tell you that I took care of the situation like you asked. Okay? I called the energy board, and they looked into the permit. Turns out an error was made in the location of the potential gas leak. They were a hundred miles off.”
Murphy stands. “A hundred miles off? What are they? Idiots?”
“It was a mistake. An honest mistake.” God, the words taste bitter. Worse than that wine I tried to pretend I liked last night. “The energy board is refiling the paperwork as we speak. You can go back onto your property now. No problem.”
“Except that I can’t,” he says. “Have you heard a word I’m saying? Someone broke in last night. Tore everything apart at my place.”
His words finally compute.
“What? The bar?”
“No, the bar’s fine. Just my apartment above the bar. Every floorboard has been ripped up. The drywall has been opened up. Now who would do a thing like that, Steel? Unless they were looking for something. And I only know one family in town who might be interested in looking for something at my apartment.” His blue eyes dart arrows at me.
Family loyalty spears out from me. “You’d better not be accusing me of anything.”
“If the shoe fits…”
“Fuck off, Murphy. I just took care of this for you. If I hadn’t made the call, it would have taken the energy board weeks to figure out their mistake.”
God, the lies. Stopping this was supposed to make me feel better.
On the other hand, I’m pretty pissed off that Murphy is accusing my family of coming in and trashing his place. Granted, Dale and I were planning to search it as well, but we would have put everything back in place.
“I’m just as interested in finding out who trashed your place,” I say. “I’m the city attorney, remember?”
“Acting city attorney,” Brendan says snidely.
“For fuck’s sake.” I walk out from behind my desk to the door and open it. “I’ll look into this. Have you called the sheriff?”
“Yeah, and he—”
Speak of the devil. Hardy Solomon appears then, walking swiftly up the hallway. I glance at Callie’s desk.
She’s gone.
I don’t have time to think of the implications. I turn to Hardy. “Good morning, Sheriff.”
“Hey, Don. I see you’ve already talked to Brendan.”
I clear my throat. “Got yelled at is more like it.”
“Yeah, I got the same,” Hardy says. “You need to take it down a notch, Murphy.”
“Tell me the same when someone’s trashed your home.”
“We’re going to investigate,” Hardy says. “You have my word.”
Brendan scoffs.
I shake my head. Hardy’s a good guy. He doesn’t deserve the treatment he’s getting from Brendan.
I, on the other hand, do. I put all this shit in motion. I forced Brendan to leave his home and made it ripe for the picking.
Who did this?
The only people who knew about the coup were Dale and me.
And Uncle Joe. And Brock. And Callie and Ashley.
I can cross Callie off the list right away. She was with me last night. Not that I’d suspect her anyway, but I’m damned glad she has an ironclad alibi.
Ashley was with Dale, I assume, and he wouldn’t do this. He can be a hothead, but in the end, he agreed to go my way. To put an end to what had been a bad idea from day one.
Uncle Joe and Brock.
Doubtful. Uncle Joe can be a hothead, but he’s far from stupid. Plus, we haven’t yet told him and Brock that we reneged on the fake gas leak deal.
No one else knows.
Except John Lambert.
Who’s still at his suite at the Carlton. He’s a mercenary, but he wouldn’t be that much of a moron.
Would he?
“Don?”
I jerk at my name. “Yeah, Sheriff?”
“How do you want to approach this?”
I clear my throat. “I was just telling Brendan. He asked me to look into this when he got the notice, and I got a call back this morning. There was a mistake on the location of the potential gas leak. The updated paperwork is being filed today. The Murphys can go back on their property. There’s no danger.”
Hardy’s eyebrows rise. “Oh?”
“Yeah. Trust me. I worked in Denver for years. This kind of bureaucratic mistake isn’t uncommon. I’d like to tell you I’m surprised, but I’m not.”
“It’s a good thing you looked into it,” Hardy says.
“Brendan asked me to. I told him it was probably a waste of time. I’m glad I was wrong in this case.”
