Page 67 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
“Why did I have sex with him again? Why?”
Willow had expected an argument with Uncle Garrett about coming back so soon. She’d have had one with her parents, but they’d left for the biggest horse show of the year for them. Two days and two nights. They’d be home in time for Lily’s shower.
But she’d play the professionalism card if she had to, to keep Uncle Garrett from calling her dad. One did not rat one’s deputy out to her parents. It would be unprofessional.
It never happened, though.
She ran the gauntlet of deputies who were surprised to see her back and all full of smiles and back pats and fist bumps. Uncle Lash came out of Uncle Garrett’s office and frowned at her as he gave her a hug. “Garrett know you’re back so soon?”
“Where is he, anyway?” she asked without answering the question.
“Out.”
“Obviously,” she said. “Well, I won’t be here long. I just want to check on a few open cases that are drivin’ me nuts. You know how it is.”
“Sure,” he said.
So she went to her desk and checked what she’d missed in her absence. The recording of the anonymous tip IDing Jeremiah as the drugstore-window-breaker was there waiting for her.
She played it, rewound, and played it again. Male voice, apparently doing his best Batman impersonation. Maybe on purpose. Maybe trying to disguise his voice. Interesting.
“I knew I’d find you here,” said Baxter. “Are you supposed to be back at work?”
Willow looked up fast, surprised to see her cousin’s shaggy mane in the sheriff’s office. “Accordin’ to me, I am. Aren’t you s’posed to be trying to grow soybeans in the desert?”
“I’m on a break,” he lied.
She smiled. He worked a half hour away, so coming here on a “break” was unlikely. “What’s up, Bax?”
“Orrin asked me to find you. Said he has info too sensitive to text and he wanted someone with you when you got it. Says to check your private email.”
Baxter was the guy you wanted around if there was bad news. The strong shoulder of the family. Moreover, his brain was so sharp, he could often see solutions nobody else could.
Was she about to get bad news? She tilted her head sideways. “What’s this about?”
Baxter looked around them, then said, “Can we talk in private?”
“Sure.”
She got up and came around the desk, let him out through the front doors and onto the sidewalk. It was already pushing eighty. She walked to a bench further up the sidewalk, but she didn’t sit down.
“After the accident,” Baxter said, “Orrin caught wind that you thought Jeremiah was up to something with you.”
She lowered her head. “Drew tells her brother everything.”
“Yeah, well, nobody knew he was fixin’ to do what he did, but…” He sighed, and pushed a hand through his hair, then paced past a black pole with twin streetlamps on top. “When he went into the bunkhouse durin’ the bonfire, and?—”
“Did he snoop through Jeremiah’s things? Jeez, Bax?—”
“No. He just…helped himself to a wadded up piece of paper on the floor next to the wastebasket.”
“Bax!”
“I know.”
“He’s already furious that I went through his phone.”
“You went through his phone?” Baxter asked. He looked horrified, too.
