Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 56395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 282(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 282(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
“I think there’s a latch along the bottom,” she explained, tilting her head back to study the box.
“There is.” I reached high over her head, opened the hidden panel and removed an old trail camera wrapped in dust and spiderwebs.
Jacqueline muttered something about my height being unfair as I pulled out the memory card. And a smile touched my lips as I caught her around the waist before she could step over a washed-out section of ground, lifting her across it because I could and because the feel of her small body against mine never stopped being worth having her close.
Back in the office, I inserted the card into the reader while Jacqueline perched on the edge of my desk beside the monitor. Most of the files showed deer, coyotes, ranch trucks, and Otis checking the fence, but the date from his log produced a grainy nighttime recording of a Kessler Hauling truck pulling a trailer along the rear road. The company name was visible across the door when the vehicle passed beneath the camera, and the trailer carried a compact excavator with a distinctive white boom and damaged left panel.
Jacqueline leaned closer, one hand braced against my shoulder as the time stamp appeared beneath the image. “That’s the date Grandpa wrote beside C-seven.”
“It is.” I enlarged the clearest frame, caught enough of the trailer plate to narrow the vehicle, and sent the footage to Cipher before calling him. He answered on the second ring, complained once about being interrupted during whatever the fuck he considered a Sunday afternoon, then went quiet when I told him what we’d found.
Within twenty minutes, Cipher confirmed that a mini excavator matching the one in the footage had been reported stolen from a grading contractor the same night. The owner’s report described the damaged panel, and the partial plate on Otis’s recording belonged to a trailer registered directly to Kessler Hauling rather than one of Wade’s disposable subcontractors. The footage didn’t show the machine entering Otis’s barn or prove Wade himself had been behind the wheel, but it connected his company’s truck to specific stolen equipment hours after the theft.
Judge arrived before I finished sending the full file, his motorcycle announcing him from the driveway. He came into the office carrying his tablet beneath one arm and watched the footage twice, understanding the meaning without either of us needing to explain. “Combine this with everything else and Raines should have enough for a warrant on Kessler’s yard.”
“Should?” Jacqueline asked, slipping her hand into mine as she looked from Judge to the image frozen on the monitor.
“Judges enjoy making simple shit sound complicated.” The hard satisfaction in his face said he already believed the evidence would clear the threshold. “Raines still has to lay it out cleanly, but this gives him the direct connection he’s been missing.”
We met the sheriff at Black Castle later that evening, keeping the conversation brief while Judge organized the notebook entries, camera footage, recovered loader, and evidence from the attacks into an affidavit the county attorney couldn’t weaken through incompetence. Raines confirmed that he would contact the on-call judge and hopefully have authorization to execute the warrant in the next couple of days.
Jacqueline sat beside me on the drive home with her hand resting beneath mine on the console, quiet but no longer carrying the restless frustration that had followed every dead end. I told her exactly what Raines planned because I’d promised to keep her informed, and she squeezed my fingers while the lights from the ranch appeared beyond the next rise.
18
JACQUELINE
Ihadn’t stopped looking at the clock all day. After everything Wade had already pulled, I felt like we were waiting for more bad news from Bex’s dad, and it had left me on edge.
Brogan finally stood and wrapped his hand around my wrist to gently tug me to my feet. “C’mon.”
“Where are we going?”
He led me away from the couch and toward the bedroom I had come to think of as ours. “Gonna give you something else to think about.”
A sensual shiver raced down my spine. “That sounds like a great idea to me.”
My focus was wholly on Brogan when he spread me out on the mattress, his big body covering mine completely. He braced himself on his forearms so he wouldn’t crush me, but I still felt surrounded by him. The solid weight of him settled between my thighs felt so right that I couldn’t help the soft sound that slipped from my throat. “There’s my good girl.”
“Brogan,” I whispered.
“I’ve got you, baby.”
He kissed me until I was breathless, his mouth moving over mine as his tongue stroked between my lips. I arched up into him, my fingers sliding into his short hair. Every time I made a little noise, he answered with a low rumble in his chest that vibrated through me. By the time he finally lifted his head, my lips felt swollen and I was aching for more.