Page 59 of The Undercover Cowboy

Lance shook his head. “Big guys. Nasty pieces of work.”

“Could you identify them if you saw them again?”

“Yeah.”

Playing a hunch, Nash pulled out the grainy security picture Miles had given him and held it up. “Are these the guys?”

Lance’s eyes widened as he stared at the image. “That’s them.”

Blevins must have tried a double cross or something, and that was why his own men went after him. But with Lance testifying that these guys were Blevins’s enforcers and he had used them to intimidate people and had threatened to kill him if he didn’t dope up the bulls, that was all Shelby needed to take to the board. He’d let Miles and the FBI sort through the rest.

It was over. Or else it soon would be.

“I need you to type out exactly what you just told me and email it to me. Every detail, no matter how small.”

Lance hesitated for a moment before nodding. He grabbed his laptop and began typing.

Nash watched him. This was it. The breakthrough they’d been waiting for. Blevins was going down. And Nash wouldn’t even need the FBI’s help to do it.

After Lance hit send, Nash confirmed the email’s arrival in his inbox. He handed Lance Garrett’s business card. “Contact him if you think of anything else.”

Lance took the card with a shaking hand.

Nash stood. “I’m not sure what will happen next, but your cooperation might work in your favor when this goes to court.”

With that, Nash left the motel room.

He got in the truck and reached for his phone, his fingers hovering over Dolly’s number. He wanted to hear her voice, to share the news of his breakthrough. But he hesitated, glancing at the clock on the dashboard. It was late, and she was probably already asleep. He didn’t want to wake her.

As he pulled onto the highway, he rubbed his eyes, willing away the fatigue that threatened to overtake him. It had been a long day, and an even longer investigation, but the end was finally in sight. It was close to one a.m. by the time he pulled back into Dallas. He’d call both Shelby and Dolly tomorrow and share the good news. Right now, he just wanted to grab a cheap motel room and sleep for hours.

Chapter Eighteen

Dolly

The next morning,Dolly thought about calling into work and just lounging in bed all day. But she had decided last night, after eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, that she was going to tell Shelby about her escort past. Loretta had a good point. There were people who needed to hear the news from her first.

Of course, she’d ask Shelby not to say anything to Nash until she had a chance to talk to him. She hoped that she still had a job after telling Shelby that if news spread about her working at Leisure Industries, she’d be in violation of her morality clause in her contract.

Taking a steadying breath, Dolly checked her makeup in the mirror and attempted to smooth her tousled hair into some semblance of order. A harsh knock on her door surprised her. It was barely eight a.m. Could it be Nash coming by for a good-morning kiss?

But when she pulled open the door, it wasn’t Nash standing there, but a stern-faced stranger in a crisp suit flashing a badge.

“Special Agent Miles Garrett, FBI. We need to talk, Ms. Keller.”

“Um, come in, I guess. I was just heading to the office.”

Miles didn’t so much as blink at her obvious confusion. He also stayed in the doorway. “We’ve been monitoring Debbi Mitchell’s work computer as part of an ongoing investigation. Our technicians have evidence that you illegally accessed and deleted files related to an open case of ours.”

As realization dawned, cold tendrils of dread snaked down her spine.

“There’s been a misunderstanding,” she protested, fighting to keep her voice steady against the rising tide of panic. “I only deleted a personal file about me. It had nothing to do with any FBI investigation.”

But Miles’s razor-sharp features remained infuriatingly impassive, his mouth a flat line as he stared her down. “My forensic team seems to think otherwise when they recovered the file.”

“Recovered?” Dolly’s throat constricted so tightly she could barely force the words out. “You mean you’ve…you’ve seen…?”

“We’ve seen everything, Ms. Keller.” There was no sympathy in Miles’s tone, only an undisguised warning. “Which is why I need you to come with me.”

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