Page 79 of My One and Only

Jo’s fingers flew over her keyboard, and he noticed that she glanced down toward his truck every few minutes. Finally she stopped typing. Studied something on her screen. “Found him.”

Chapter 25

Cam stood up and hurried over to her desk. Gwynn’s Facebook page was open. “You can’t see what’s on his page if you’re not friends, but the idiot has his picture on the top of his page.”

Staring at the now-familiar face, Cam’s gut clenched. That guy had broken into his house, armed to the teeth.

He looked at Jo, and her jaw was working as she stared at the picture. Finally she looked up at him. “No question,” she said. “Definitely the guy.”

“I agree,” he said.

He slapped his hand on her desk, and the crack echoed off the walls. “I’m gonna call the police. Make sure he’s still in jail.”

“Good idea,” she said.

Cam pulled the detective’s card out of his wallet and dialed his direct number. After a few rings, a gruff voice said, “Detective Miller.”

“Hi, Detective. This is Cam Pierce. You responded a couple of days ago when I had an intruder in my house. Phil Gwynn was his name. He didn’t bail out, did he?”

“No, we still have him. He’s not going anywhere until his trial, unless he takes a plea. Then he’s going right to prison.”

“You think there’s a chance he’ll take a plea?”Cam asked.

The detective didn’t answer for a moment. Finally he said, “I doubt it. He’s unwilling to cooperate. Refused to tell us who hired him to break into your house. Insists that if he gives up the name, that person will kill his whole family.”

“Are they in protective custody?”Cam asked, swallowing hard.

“No. But we’re coming down hard on Gwynn. One of the things we promised him was protective custody for his family if he’s willing to cooperate. Gwynn is just the tool. We want the person who’s behind the scheme.”

“Yeah, I do, too. Thanks, Detective. I just wanted to be sure he hadn’t been released on bail.”

“Gwynn broke into your house with two guns and two knives. There was a child in that house, so no. No bail.”

“Thanks, Detective. That’ll make it easier to sleep at night.”

“Don’t sleep too soundly, Mr.Pierce. Whoever hired Gwynn is still out there.”

“Yeah, I know,” Cam said, curling his fingers into a fist. “Thanks for your help.”

He disconnected and turned to Jo. “I assume you could hear most of that.”

“Yeah, I did.” She frowned. “Any ideas who might have hired Gwynn?”

He swallowed, acid churning in his stomach at the thought of what might have happened if Jo hadn’t been there that night. “Best guess? Someone in the building inspection office of Ogden. One of the foremen who were involved with the scheme. One of the workmen who was accepting money to install the subpar materials.” He shrugged, but a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Could’ve been a lot of people.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of,” Jo said. She glanced out the window at his truck, as she’d been doing since they arrived, her fingers tapping out a nervous rhythm on the desk. “I’m hoping the person behind the scheme is getting nervous. Makes a stupid mistake. He or she has to be sweating about Gwynn. Wondering if he’s going to crack and give them up.”

Cam shook his head. “Miller didn’t seem to think he’d flip. Said he sounded pretty scared.”

Jo took a deep breath. Blew it out slowly. “Okay, well, we’ll keep paying attention. I’ll keep checking everything.” Jo sat up straight in her chair. “Sooner or later, something will break our way.”

“In the meantime, Fiona is at risk,” Cam said, clenching his hand into a fist.

“Do you want to send your parents somewhere with Fiona?”Jo asked. “Get all three of them away from Ogden?”

“Maybe I should do that,” he said. He didn’t want to be separated from Fiona, but he wanted to keep her safe. “We should talk about it.”

“We have two agents in Chicago,” Jo said quietly. “If you want to get Fiona and your parents out of town, I could check with Mel and see if one of them is available to guard them.”

---