CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DAN WASN’T SURPRISED to find his daughter having breakfast with Tim O’Grady when he came by to pick up Lucas. Tim had been his daughter’s best friend since they were both five. He was a good enough guy, probably the perfect friend to make his shy Lauren laugh, but Dan’s greatest fear was that she’d fall in love with the neighbor kid and he’d be stuck with a writer for a son-in-law. Then, with his luck, all his grandchildren would be redheaded beanpoles with no common sense, just like their father.
“Want me to go with you today, Sheriff?” Tim asked as he offered Dan a burned pancake. “I know you’re short one deputy and I memorized all the lingo from watching CSI.”
“No thanks.” Dan caught Lauren’s look. That don’t-do-anything-to-hurt-my-friend’s-feelings look all fathers recognize in their daughters by the age of five. “I was hoping you could man the office this morning, Tim. Lauren might have time to help you. I need someone I can depend on.” The words even tasted bad as they came out, but Dan didn’t want to disappoint his daughter, even if it meant putting up with O’Grady.
“Why?” Tim asked. “What’s going on besides Blade Hamilton being in the hospital and not one crime around here has been solved in days?”
Dan just stared at Tim. He knew the writer would have more questions.
“Shouldn’t I be issued a gun? Or does Pearly already have one hidden away somewhere in the office? She seems like the type. You know, little old lady who packs a .45 in her gym bag and doesn’t even have a gym membership.”
That was another tic he had, the sheriff decided. Tim always answered his own questions. Half the time he was too busy telling himself a story to listen to the facts.
“Pearly called in sick. Said she was still in bed.” Dan rattled off facts while he had the chance. “My only deputy is in the hospital. Someone just needs to man the office phone.”
Tim ate half his burned pancake in one bite. “I’ve never known her to miss a day of work. You think we should go by and check on her? At her age she could be dead from near anything.”
Before Dan had to answer that question, Lucas walked into the kitchen. He was dressed in one of Tim’s The Aliens Have Landed sweatshirts and his dark hair was still wet from the shower. Not the polished lawyer look today. He didn’t bother to speak. He simply stared at the three eating breakfast.
“My house guest.” Tim pointed with his fork at Lucas as if Lauren and the sheriff might not notice another person in the small kitchen.
As Lucas accepted a burned pancake, he took the seat next to Dan and seemed not to notice Lauren sitting at the end of the counter.
After drowning his pancake in syrup, Lucas muttered, “Morning, Sheriff.”
Dan hadn’t had enough sleep to figure out the three of them this morning. He decided to concentrate on Lucas. “I sent some of your clothes with Cap to the hospital for Blade. He may get to come home this afternoon. Since the jogging suit didn’t work out, I thought we’d try Western clothes, including your boots.”
Lucas finally gave a nod to Lauren, then turned back to the sheriff. “That’s fine, but I get the feeling Western is not his style, either. Why send him home? He’s probably safer in the hospital. Besides, I don’t think he has a home.”
“I talked to Dakota and she said she and her sister would take him in for a few days. After all, he is their neighbor, and that old house on his land will take weeks to make it livable. Once he’s out of the hospital, he’ll need somewhere to rest and someone to help change the bandages.”
“Don’t look at me.” Tim tried to give Lauren a pancake but she wouldn’t reach for it. “I’m running the hideout, not the recovery center.”
The sheriff smiled. “I think he’ll be in better hands at the Davis place. I’m told Maria is a great cook.”
Lucas shoved his breakfast away after one bite.
Tim swallowed another half of a pancake and changed the conversation as if simply flipping channels on a TV no one was watching. “I hear they superglue bullet holes closed. What if the deputy springs a leak when he’s recovering?” He lifted another pancake from the stack no one was eating. “I wonder if the superglue really works. I read it on the internet. Did they do that to you that time you got shot out on Highway 111, Sheriff?”
Dan motioned for Lucas to head toward the door. “Don’t have time to talk. Thanks for the hideout, Tim.”
He glanced at his daughter and felt like screaming Don’t marry Tim! But maybe he shouldn’t worry. They were just friends.
As he and Lucas walked out to the cruiser, Dan asked, “How long has Lauren been here?”
“I don’t know. She was drinking coffee and talking to Tim when I woke up. You think there’s something between them, Sheriff?”
“Yeah, me.” Dan laughed. “Seriously, they’ve always been friends but if I thought there was more going on, I’d either have to shoot him or myself. I couldn’t live with his constant questions, and he tells the worst jokes I’ve ever heard.”
Lucas climbed into the car and added, “You know, I think he’s my best friend too. I know a lot of people in the city, but not one I’d trust to help me escape from jail. When he found me hiding in his Jeep, he didn’t hesitate to help.”
Dan started the car. “You’re right. Tim’s not so bad.”
“Where we headed, Sheriff?”
“I want to talk to the one Collins we haven’t talked to. Charley. We’re driving out to Lone Heart ranch. One, maybe he can tell us something we don’t know and two, you need to stay out of sight just in case your theory about the shooter thinking Blade was you is right. Our official comment on you is that you have been moved to a safe house.”
“Do you have a safe house?”
“No, but no one has to know that.”
Lucas leaned back and slept while Dan drove. The young lawyer seemed like a man with a great deal on his mind. Things he didn’t plan to share with a lawman. Only, Dan hoped he might share a bit with Charley, and Dan planned to be listening to every word.
The sheriff played with the puzzle pieces in his mind. He had to figure this out before someone else got shot, or killed, or disappeared. At the rate things were going, Crossroads would be a ghost town before his term of office was up.