Starlight Dunes (30 page)

T
he next day Brent walked into the Sheriff’s Office unannounced to confront Jim Richardson face to face. If the man was behind all the attempts on his life, Brent wanted him to come clean about it, man to man.

He
blitzed past an administrative assistant he didn’t recognize because his own had been let go during his absence and replaced by Jim’s personal aide.

Brent didn’t
bother to knock. Instead he threw back the door and stared at the balding, middle-aged gasbag who’d been a thorn in his side from the moment he’d taken office. Brent stated point blank, “I want you to tell me straight if you’re the one responsible for all the chaos in my life, if you’re the one who wants me dead. The least you could do is face me with the truth.”

“What?
Why would you think that?” Richardson asked, stupefied at the open accusation.

“
Why? Because you haven’t exactly been secretive about wanting my job. You’ve made it clear from day one you thought you were the better man. Ever since I got elected and you didn’t, you’ve done everything you could at every opportunity to sabotage any changes I wanted to make. You made sure you poisoned people against me, making sure they saw things your way. For the most part, I didn’t address the problems between us, a mistake I think. But I’m addressing it now. You’ve gone behind my back slinging a lot of shit. Up to now, I’ve taken it, but no more. Put up or shut up.”

Brent could tell by the expression on Jim’s face the man wasn’t sure whether to admit it or try to bluff. After several long seconds,
Brent was surprised when Jim decided to play it upfront. “I…all right…I admit I tried to damage your administration. But you have to believe me when I say I had nothing to do with all these shootings. I don’t know anything about that.”

“What about your flunkies? Maybe one night during a poker game you decide to put a subt
le word out that you wouldn’t be completely opposed to the idea if someone took me out.”

“I didn’t do that. I talked about mounting another campaign against you in the spring. That’s it.
I confess I wanted to throw up as many roadblocks as I could during the meantime because you have such limited experience. I’ve been in this department since I started as a rookie deputy some thirty years ago. You, you come along after a measly seven years and get elected because of your stint in the military.”

“
I know that’s what you think, but believe it or not, the people elected me because they wanted change. They wanted me to clean up the department. I did or tried to. But you backstabbed me at every turn. You never could accept the difference in opinion.” Brent shifted gears. “Are you the one keeping me on medical disability?”

Jim sent him a sheepish look. “Yes.
But that was because I figured if I could keep you sidelined for as long as I could, it would give me the advantage in the spring. I’d be able to show my detractors I’m better at the job than you ever were.”

“What you’ve done
, Richardson, is split the department in half. And if I decide to fight you on this, I’m taking you down. Are we clear?”

Jim swallowed hard and nodded. “
You wouldn’t.”

“Hey, you might’ve split the department, but I’m about to turn it on its head.”

To Brent’s surprise
when he got outside to his truck, he found his brother leaning against the hood with his arms folded across his chest.

“What are you doing here?”

“River told Hayden where you were headed. I thought I’d better wait out here to see if they had to bring you out on a stretcher or in handcuffs. Either way, I figured you might need bail money.”

Brent grinned.
“So little faith in your big brother. That asshole is pulling strings from the inside to keep me out of action.”

“
I figured as much. But he isn’t responsible for the shootings and the bomb, is he?”

“He’s a slime-ball backstabber
asshole, but he wouldn’t go that far.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’ve confronted and interrogated suspects over the years. From what I could tell Richardson was on the level about that one thing.”

“What are you gonna do? Fight to get your job back?”

Brent blew out a sigh. “Honestly, Ethan, I’m not sure I want the job back. When I got here this morning, I thought I did, had convinced myself I’d do anything. But right now, I’m not sure it’s worth the aggravation. I don’t mind a good fight but my heart just isn’t in it. Did you know Murphy offered me the chief of police job?”

“
I wasn’t sure he’d mentioned it yet. But he asked me to recommend someone back in September, Labor Day weekend to be exact. I told him he should approach you.”

“But that was before I got to Pelican Pointe, before
my house exploded.”

“
Yep.”

“Why? Did you have some premonition about this mess?”

“
I wouldn’t call it a premonition. After all, I had no way of knowing someone would try to kill you in such a drastic way. But I sensed you were unhappy for months before it happened, maybe as far back as last Christmas. Dad felt it, too. We talked about it, thought maybe it was a personal issue, you know, that maybe you didn’t have anyone in your life and you weren’t exactly thrilled about it.”

“
I was spending too much time at work that’s all.”

“If you say so.”

“You don’t think it was eighteen-hour days?”

Ethan shrugged. “I know how it was with me before meeting Hayden.
It felt like something was missing in my life. And when I fell for her it was like a punch to the gut.”

“Don’t make it sound
so thrilling.”

“I must not be the great writer
I thought I was because what I’m trying to tell you is that taking the fall changes your whole perspective on things. I gave up law enforcement because Hayden showed me that following a dream is what’s important. I’m not sure I’d ever taken the plunge into writing full-time if it wasn’t for the support I got from her.”

“And what if I don’t have a dream?”

“Everyone has something they want to do but might be stymied for whatever reason.”

“Law enforcement is all I know.”

“So is being single.”

“I’m thinking about ending that.”

“Brother, admit it. You’ve been headed that way ever since you met her.”

“I guess I have.”

Over the next
couple of days things got more intense. With the street fair behind them, the entire town went on high alert making sure they looked out for Brent, River, and Luke. Every man took a turn at sentry duty outside Brent’s house. In addition to that, off-duty deputies volunteered their time to stake out the area, courtesy of Jim Richardson. His way of showing Brent he’d had no part in the attacks.

River refused to
hide, even though Brent wanted to send her and Luke out of town. She also wouldn’t let him sit around brooding. So in spite of the circumstances, the newly-minted little family spent as much time doing normal things as they could.

But when they weren’t
shopping for groceries, eating out, or spending time with Luke at the beach, they tried figuring out the puzzle. Who hated Brent enough to kill him? There was plenty of input from friends and family. Even her crew stopped by to put in their two cents. Everyone seemed to have a theory.

They
all had no problem digging into Brent’s past with all the enthusiasm of amateur detectives.

“What about the ex-wife?” Julian asked. “The DNA came back female so, it’s gotta be the ex-wife
, right?”

“I checked Cindy’s alibi, checked her current husband’s. It isn’t either one of them,” Brent explained. “Besides, Cindy’s moved on. Our marriage ended and neither one of us has
any lingering hostility toward the other. There’s no motive there.”

“
And you’ve gone through the list of people you’ve put behind bars?” Ethan wanted to know.

“Several times over,” Brent said.
“I’ve even gone back in time to when I was in the army. An MP makes a fair share of enemies.”

River jumped on that.
“Wait. You think someone from your unit could do something like this?”

“Not in my unit maybe but
I did more than access control in Iraq.”

“What’s
access control?” Laura asked.

“Checking IDs at the gate, making sure
that only authorized personnel get on base, write speeding tickets when warranted, the usual cop stuff. But all that changed once I got to Baghdad.”

“
How so?”

“Other than patrolling and dodging IEDs
you mean? When I wasn’t doing convoy security for senior officers or detainee detail, I broke up fights, arrested soldiers if the situation warranted it, tried to keep the peace among units experiencing heavy conflict. Sometimes tempers flared.”

“
So with all that you could’ve royally pissed someone off, right?” Ethan prompted.

“Sure
, it comes with the territory,” Brent returned with a shrug. 

Ethan
thought about that for longer than he needed to. “You know, I think you might be onto something. This is a connection to someone in Iraq.”

“Intuition?
”

“Some, but more like deduction.
The bomb should’ve been the giveaway.”

While Brent
ran down that avenue until he hit a dead end, he utilized every tactic he had at his disposal to track down the culprit. From his laptop he did online searches, checking on possible names that he’d stuck at the top of the likely suspect list—those he could remember anyway.

A
fter everyone had left and they’d gotten Luke to sleep, River sat curled on the sofa studying the man from across the room. Intense concentration in those deep brown eyes had her staring at them until he finally looked up and made eye contact.

“Should I be concerned that Julianne Dickinson has decided to relocate to Pelican Pointe?”
she asked with a glint in her eye.

Brent scowled in her direction. “Not a bit. Where did you hear that?”

“From your mom. Seems Nick offered Julianne a position as principal at the elementary school when it opens next fall. Julianne accepted.”

“Good for her.
” His brow creased in irritation though at the implication. “So you think I’d be tempted to cheat with Julianne just because she’s handy?”

River sighed.
“It was a joke, Brent, nothing more. Where did you put your sense of humor?” But then she took in the look on his face. “I understand why you’re so edgy tonight but don’t read anything into my comment. I was trying to get your mind off this mess.”

“Sorry. But a
fter having been on the receiving end of cheating, never would I ever do that to another person. And I mean that. I would never put anyone else through the heartbreak and anguish of something like that. Ever.”

“
Just so you know, same goes for me.”