Page 64 of Colton's Secret Weapon
“This is clearly destruction of property,” he told her, talking way too fast but feeling as though he couldn’t get the words out rapidly enough. “A deliberate destruction. If someone had been joyriding and crashed, then based on the breakage we can see, there’d also have been extensive damage to the keel. The lower hull. There’d be water coming in.”
Her face turned slowly, her gaze brushing up against his. And then connecting. “You think we can prove sabotage?” she asked him.
Breathing a tad more easily, Mitchell said, “Yes.” And then moved closer to her, taking her hands off the wheel and turning her to face him. Without forethought. Just doing it. Looking her right in the eye, he reminded her, “If this was done without taking her out, we’ll have it on video, Dove.”
He saw the focus, the strength, the…hope return to her gaze. So quickly the glow coming from her eyes was almost a physical touch to him. Jumping up, she moved toward the dock, stepping around debris as if it wasn’t even there. “Should we call the police before we access the cameras?” she asked. “I don’t want there to be any chance that anyone can say we tampered with evidence.”
Mitchell didn’t have the heart to tell her the trial, which wouldn’t happen for months, was not her first concern by any means. But because he’d used the end in mind to help her fight back, he could hardly point that out. He had her back. For the moment that was all that mattered.
The rest, like the fact that she mattered more than anything else going on in his life, was just going to have to wait.
Chapter 19
They had him!Standing in her father’s office with Peter Welding and Mitchell, Dove wanted to throw her arms around the attorney’s neck, hug him and never let go.
She didn’t, of course. But she was smiling from ear to ear as Welding took possession of the security-camera memory card that showed Brad Fletcher himself using some kind of gun that shot what looked to be electrical current onto the deck ofWicked Winnings. There’d be no fingerprints, no bullets that could be identified by striations. If not for the cameras that Mitchell had had installed, it could have been near to impossible to prove who’d done the damage.
Welding, as an extra precaution, sent a digital copy of the footage to his secure email at the station, and after Mitchell inserted a new memory card into the camera’s mainframe, the officer walked with Mitchell and her to Mitchell’s car.
Mitchell had an early appointment and needed to drop her off at the hospital first.
“I can take her,” Welding offered, looking from Mitchell to Dove. “It’s only a mile out of my way.” Two for Mitchell, and Welding had no urgent business.
So as disappointed as Dove was not to have those minutes alone with Mitchell, to celebrate the victory in private conversation and ask him the next steps as far as St. JamesBoats was concerned, she said, “I’m good with that,” and before Mitchell could argue, grabbed her bag out of the back seat of his vehicle.
She’d never met Peter in person until that week and enjoyed his conversation as they drove across their small town. She watched as they passed Repo and Namaste, longing for her peaceful space, for her clients, but knew that she carried too much risk of passing her negative energy to them while she still felt…hunted.
Soon, she told herself, feeling as though the universe backed up her silent promise. With Brad Fletcher’s arrest imminent, and so clearly, provably guilty, she could be back in her studio as early as that afternoon.
The thought filling her with happiness, she smiled when Peter mentioned that maybe they could get a cup of coffee sometime. And shrugged. Not ano. Not ayes.
Not an admission that she couldn’t stand the stuff.
He didn’t push. She didn’t reject him. And she gave him an extra warm smile as he pulled up in front of the medical center’s main building. “This where you need to be?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Thank you so much,” she told him. “You have no idea how much this means to my father and me. We are most certainly in your debt. Maybe, once he’s home, we can have you over to dinner. To thank you?”
Let him make what he would of that. He was a nice man. She liked his company.
And had zero desire to lead him on with an acceptance of what could only be considered a predate invite.
“I’d like that,” he said, smiling in a nice way as she hopped out and shut the door quickly behind her, turning to wave and watch him drive off.
More because she didn’t want him to see her walk from the front of the building over to the inpatient wing that was attached to the separate, urgent care portion of the medical complex, rather than the doctors’ and imaging offices where he’d left her.
The man didn’t do anything for her in that department. He might have done. If she’d met him at an earlier time. And maybe, at some future point?
She wasn’t closing the door on the idea. But wasn’t alluding to it, either.
And he wasn’t leaving. Reminding her of Mitchell for a second there. Until she reminded herself he was a good cop and doing his job. He needed to see her enter the building.
And so she did. Waiting around for several minutes, before she headed back out to get over to her father. And then, just to be safe, went out the back way, through the playground and park area set up for lunches or kids who had long wait times between procedures. As she walked, her mind filled with the future’s possibilities.
The early morning chill seemed to lift her to a higher wakefulness, while the sun filled her with the serotonin that fed her intuitive abilities with its added ability to access good feelings.
She had so much to tell her dad. Now that they had Brad, it would be all systems go with the plans to get the boat rental business back to earning good money. Yes, they’d have a bit of a delay whileWickedwas fixed, but with Brad Fletcher’s money, it shouldn’t be hard to at least force the man to pay that bill immediately…
Ugh!
