Page 80 of Trapped with the Covert Ops Soldier

Smitty’s chuckle chased her until he said, “Oops!”

She glanced over her shoulder. He’d gotten tangled up with the news crew’s camera man. Oops indeed.

As soon as she got inside, the officer at the reception desk pointed to her right, in the direction of the sheriff’s office. She had the route memorized thanks to the three, no four, stern-talking-tos she’d gotten from him regarding her dynamite habit. Off to the left were the holding cells where she’d cooled her heels until he let her out, also thanks to her dynamite habit.

She plunked herself down in one of the sheriff’s guest chairs to wait for him and Smitty.

Out in the bullpen, the sheriff was talking loud enough that she could tell he was frustrated and well on his way to angry, but she could only make out one word in six. Her name, the mine, and gold.

“And you!” the sheriff barked at someone. “You stay out here.”

“But—” That was Smitty.

“She’s going to give me a statement and she’s going to do it without you in the room.”

“Sheriff Johnson,” an unfamiliar male voice said in a calm, almost cold tone that wasn’t quite a question.

“One of you can observe, but that’s all. And none of those lawyers.”

There was a pause, then the voice said, “Acceptable.”

Great, she was going to be grilled with a witness.

The sheriff strode into his office with one of the men in suits behind him. The suit took the other guest chair while the sheriff closed his door.

He walked around to his side of the desk, sat down in his chair, and looked at her. “You look even worse now than you did in the hospital.”

“Gee, thanks,” Abby said dryly. “You always know how to cheer me up.”

Sheriff Johnson winced. “Sorry, Abby, it’s been a shitty twenty-four hours.”

“You think your day has been shitty? Try getting kidnapped at gun point, forced into a tiny root cellar, only to discover it’s actually a shortcut to hell.”

“Is that what happened?”

“Yes, can I go now?”

The sheriff snorted. “Nice try. Elaborate please.”

She sagged in her chair. “I’m not even sure where to start.”

“Start with how you figured out it was Virgil shooting at you.”

“I didn’t,” she corrected. “I found out when he pointed a gun at my head and forced me to show him where I had my stash of dynamite.” She smiled without humor. “You’re the reason he decided I had to have found the mine, by the way.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, he said he saw it somewhere here at the station and because it was old, inferred that it had to be from the mine.”

“Was it?”

“I have no idea. My grandmother’s note didn’t say where she got it. It was all in a potato sack in my root cellar. My grandmother had found it in there and hadn’t known what to do with it, so she asked me, in her will, to get rid of it safely. Which I was doing until you decided I was losing my marbles and hired a babysitter for me.” She allowed herself a grim grin. “So, really, all this is your fault.”

The sheriff rolled his eyes. “I know you went out to your parent’s ranch yesterday, but obviously you didn’t stay there. Why’d you come back to town?”

“I decided that the only way to catch the asshole shooting at me was to give him some bait he couldn’t refuse, then try to talk some sense into him. Jack seemed to think he knew the shooter, kept calling him ghost, so I thought I would start with Jack. I figured if Jack saw where the dynamite was and told the shooter, maybe this whole farce could be resolved.

––––––––

---