Page 59 of Operation: Discovery

“There are a few fun things I could think of. We could walk outside and check out the changing leaves.” She glanced at the window. “Or we could do something else.” Her gaze fell to his lips for just a moment, then back to his eyes.

If Dee was going to invite him to kiss her, then he wasn’t going to deny her. He leaned forward and she met him halfway, her feelings for him evident in the way she tenderly touched his face, holding him close.

If he didn’t have to leave, he could’ve stayed there, letting her kiss him all day long but kissing like that was dangerous for both of them. It was distracting, leaving him thinking about her when he should be thinking completely about what he needed to find out from Evie.

“We’ll consider more of that when I get home.” He drew her hands from his cheeks and held them again.

“I’m already considering more of that.” She laughed. “But I can be good and wait.”

“Dee, when this is all over, I think you and I need to have a serious discussion about us and what ‘us’ means. We have a lot of old garbage to work through. I was sure, before you came, that the fault was with you, but I was wrong. It was both of us, maybe even more me than you, and that’s a tough pill to swallow. Can we have that talk?”

She took a deep breath, lifted their threaded fingers to her face, and caressed the back of his hand over her cheek. “I want to. I want to believe that we can do that. I want to look forward to it, but I’m not certain it will happen.”

His heart stuttered for a moment. “Why not? Do you think we have too much baggage between us to work through our problems? If it matters, I don’t.”

Dee slowly shook her head. “Not at all. I want to work all of this out. What worries me is that one of us won’t make it to the end of this. These people keep coming after us and they get closer and closer. What if one of us doesn’t make it?”

ChapterTwenty-Four

An officer Brendon had never met picked him up a half hour later. He wanted to focus on just how soft Dee’s skin was and every word she’d said, even with the task he had to complete, as something good. As the officer waited for Brendon to get his chair into the back seat of the unmarked car, that thought was shattered.

“Name is Otto Cramden. I’m from Cheyenne, so I’ve been on the road for a while already this morning. Connor filled me in on what we’re supposed to be doing, but this seems odd.”

He’d hoped that the officer would be one of Nixon’s men, so they would understand the why and how, and would relieve some of Brendon’s stress. Nixon was stretched to the breaking point with all that was going on and they needed information. Without some solid leads, the case would dry up and a little boy’s murder might never be solved.

“I’ve been working with Nixon Blake when he needs help. We have a very small police force here that is spread over many small communities. With a case like this, where five bodies are found, he needs more help than he normally would.”

The officer nodded his whole body instead of just his head, as if his response was more of a bob to whatever music was in his mind than a reply. “I understand, but this woman hasn’t even been charged yet. She’s awaiting trial. Anything she says might paint her as guilty. It’s a long shot. And a long drive.” He chortled.

Brendon knew the odds of Evie giving up anything were very small, but if Connor wanted him to ask her, he would do what he could. “We have to try. She’s the owner of the house where a little boy lives who was almost abducted. After the boy’s mother told me the neighborhood is often full of cars that troll through looking for something or someone, Evie seems like the perfect person to talk to.”

Otto shrugged. “Maybe. I’m going to have to sit there and listen to everything she says. With a uniform there, she’s unlikely to even open her mouth. And before you ask me if you can be in there alone with her, the answer is no. She’s under very tight security because someone has tried to kill her at least twice already. Only uniforms get in there and only ones who were working for us before she ever came. New hires don’t go near her cell. That’s how risky this is.” He turned up the volume on the radio as some information came through.

When it was silent again in the car, Brendon didn’t feel the need to fill the cab with sound. Otto might not think the visit was a worthwhile task, but he had to do whatever he could to get to the bottom of this case.

“Oh, Nixon mentioned something to me that you might find interesting. He said you were at that building that was bombed a couple of days ago. Glad to see you’re okay.” He continued with hardly a breath. “About an hour after it was reported, a guy showed up at the hospital in Cheyenne with burn marks on his hands that he couldn’t explain, but there was something mighty interesting about that feller.”

Brendon listened, curious about what could be so interesting about a man with burns and how that had anything to do with the bombing. “What’s that?”

“He was already dead.” Otto grinned like he’d known that statement would shock Brendon.

“How?” Eric from Wayside had technically been ‘dead’ when he was very much alive but that seemed like it would be a pretty rare occurrence.

“He was from Oklahoma and went missing after one of them big tornadoes about five years ago. His house was leveled in the storm, and they never found his, nor his brother’s, body. His family put up signs, went on the news, posted his picture up everywhere, but he was just gone. We looked him up, thinking it had to be a guy with the same name, but he’s identical and his prints match the missing guy.”

“Interesting, but what does this have to do with the bombing?”

Otto grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “Since he had those burns, we knew he didn’t wear gloves when he threw that bomb out of the window. When the site cooled in the rain yesterday, they retrieved the canister. Wouldn’t you know there are fingerprints on it that match his. He thought they wouldn’t survive the fire.” He laughed at the man’s mistake. “His name is Gregory Diamond.”

So, there was someone else who might have information. “So can I talk to him, or do we have to pry through a sea of red tape for that, too?”

Otto was ready with an answer practically before Brendon finished speaking. “He’s still in the hospital, all the way back in Cheyenne. I’m sure he’s protected. We’d have to get clearance. If talking to Evie doesn’t do the trick, we can try. I’m sure Nixon has asked my sergeant to keep him under lock and key. It would be pretty out of our way to go today.”

Everywhere in Wyoming seemed to take a long drive, so he doubted Otto was that torn up about driving, especially when he seemed quite happy to keep talking.

“Anything I can’t ask when I’m with Evie?” There would be an officer there that would brief him, but he figured he’d make conversation since they had to sit there together for over three hours for the drive.

“You can’t point-blank ask her if she’s guilty. You can ask her about that house because owning the house doesn’t mean she had anything to do with what went on inside it. Owning the house of someone who was attacked means virtually nothing. You can ask her if she knows about any of the things you’ve experienced, but she won’t answer. I talked to one of her guards who said he hasn’t heard her speak once since she came in. He doesn’t even think she’ll speak at trial. Weird.”

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