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Stalking across the bakery, he stepped outside, his jaw clenched tight, hands balled into fists.
Keaton looked up at him as he approached. “Why did you go up to Hickory Hills?”
“That’s none of your business. How is it you have a direct line to their president and you don’t stop this shit from happening down here?”
“What makes you think I have a direct line to—”
“I was there when Kent talked to the president, then suddenly, you called my teammate and asked why I was there. That is not a coincidence.”
“Tate, you don’t know how things work. This is not something you should meddle in.”
“Let me tell you what should happen, Keaton. The BRR has broken their treaty. They’ve shot at a police officer and citizens. They’ve damaged property and beaten-up citizens. The little assholesshouldbe behind bars. The thefts have been going on for years. And you do nothing about it. That’s downright suspicious, and now that I know you’re in contact with the president up there, I’ll go so far as to say, it’s downrightfuckingsuspicious.”
“You cannot go up there again.”
“You aren’t my boss. I don’t answer to you, I answer to the Department of Defense. If you have a problem with me going up into the hills to take care of the bullshit they’re pulling, you call them. Until I’m given the word from the DoD to stop, I will do my job. Regardless of whether you’re doing yours.”
“You don’t understand what my job is.”
“I’ll tell you what you should be worried about. Your daughter.” He pointed toward the bakery. “Do you realize Kent and company have been watching Lara? Do you realize he hates her and he’s not shy about stating that out loud? What in the fuck are you doing to protect her?”
“That’s not true!”
“The hell it isn’t. He told me himself. He looked me in the eye and said she was a bitch.”
Keaton bit the inside of his cheek as they stared each other down. Tate wouldn’t back down from the man he suspected of being dirty. At the very least, he was not being honest.
He took a deep breath. “What’s your interest with the BRR? I won’t stop digging until I find out. And, I think I can make a great case for your interference with base construction, which gets the DoD involved in whatever it is you’re hiding.”
Keaton heaved out a deep breath and looked toward the road. Keaton swallowed then his sullen eyes bored into Tate’s.
“Look, Kent is different. He left the BRR three years ago and went to college. He came back from college changed. Determined. He’s trying to make changes up there.”
Tate shook his head. “No, he isn’t. He’s causing the most trouble down here. Unless by changes you mean making plans to take over the town.”
Keaton laughed, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “They wouldn’t try that. There are only about ninety people living up there. Many of them are women and children. The numbers don’t stack up in their favor.”
“Then what change is he trying to make?”
“He wants them to modernize. He wants electricity and plumbing.”
“They’ll have to pay for that. The lines would have to run up the mountain. That’s not going to happen for free. Or for elixir.”
Keaton shook his head and moved toward his squad car. “You’ll never understand.”
“No, I guess I won’t. Especially not when I don’t have all the facts. You’re hiding something.”
Keaton turned toward the bakery and flinched. Tate looked behind him; Lara was watching them from the window.
“She knows you’re hiding something too.”
“What on earth could I be hiding?”
Keaton stared into his eyes and that weird déjà vu feeling whispered through his body.
Tate whispered, “He’s your son.”
Keaton paled, and without a word got into his squad car and peeled out of the parking lot. Tate trotted to the edge of the lot and watched the squad car turn up the first road toward Hickory Hills.
