Chapter 59

Ryan

I spent Thursday in the hotel, not feeling like driving all the way out to the ranch that day. Work was back on, but the guys had been told the priority was to get the barn done for Alison. I spent my day with takeout, making calls to my offices back in New York City, and researching what I needed to do to move to Bonanza permanently. I was dead serious about it. Right in the middle of one of my house searches, I got a call from the energy ranch.

“Boss,” a voice said. “It’s Trevor. I think you outta head down to the ranch.”

“Why? What’s going on?” I asked.

“Someone smashed several of the new panels in the south field,” he said. “The damage is bad, and I don’t think they can be repaired. They were like that when we got here this morning, but I didn’t realize it for a couple of hours since the roving watch was trying to investigate it before calling. Sorry, boss. We’ve been short-manned lately.”

“Don’t apologize,” I said. “You’re right. You have been short with the barn going up. You’re all doing a great job.”

“Do you think I should call the cops?”

“No,” I said. “I can almost promise you that won’t do a bit of good. Were these already connected?”

“No, they were brand new and still had the plastic on them,” he said. “We hadn’t been in a hurry to connect them, but it was on our list for the week.”

“Man,” I said, shaking my head. “Did you bring them in?”

“Not yet. Figured we shouldn’t touch them in case you wanted to see or call the police or something,” he replied.

“Good thinking,” I said. “If you think they can’t be repaired, go ahead and put in an order to the main headquarters with my stamp of approval for two new ones. We might keep them locked up for a bit until we sort this all out, though.”

“Got it,” he said.

“I’ll be over in just a few,” I replied.

I hung up the phone and shook my head, feeling very frustrated by the fact that everything seemed to be crashing down around me. I’d just made the ranch my main project, the one I would be working closely with when I moved there permanently, and someone was already messing with me. It was frustrating, to say the least. The last thing I wanted to deal with at that moment was vandalism issues. There was enough going on between the barn being burned down and Sara back in town and our relationship starting to bloom again. I needed to focus on fewer things, but this was my dream, the project I had waited for, and I wasn’t about to let that slip away. I threw on some shoes and headed over to the ranch.

When I got there, I immediately went out to the field to inspect the damage done. He was right. There was no saving these things. That was a lot of money and time that just got flushed down the toilet. It looked like someone had taken a bat or a tire iron to the things, and they made sure to smash right to the plates and the box on the side that housed all the controls. I left the field and went back up to the offices where I locked myself in the spare office. I needed to take a look at the video footage. Whoever did this would most likely be on there. All my equipment was monitored by surveillance, something I was told I wouldn’t need, but after living in the city my whole life, I didn’t take chances with that kind of thing. I was smart about it, though. Instead of putting the cameras on the building, letting people know exactly where they were, I’d had them positioned in trees on the outskirts of the fields. That way, not only would I get more view room from each camera, they wouldn’t be seen and tampered with. I had put them up even before I brought in the first employee, so I was really the only one who knew they were there, and I had access to them from anywhere in the world.

I rewound through the tapes and saw figures at the device, though I couldn’t tell who they were at first because of the speed. It seemed the perpetrators had fallen victim to the video trap, something I knew they hadn’t expected. In this small of a town, it shouldn’t take long at all to get the guys, if the sheriff wasn’t friends with them, that was. I was most likely going to sue them as well, so even if legal charges weren’t brought up, I would see them in civil court. Then, I could explain why the sheriff didn’t charge them. I was already thinking ahead, knowing I had a hard road ahead of me for any legal issues that might arise while I was there.

When it got to the beginning, I pressed play and sat back, rubbing my hands together. I was trying to make a good impression in town, but I wasn’t going to turn a blind eye when someone purposefully attacked me. As the two men came into the picture, I zoomed the footage in, stopping as my mouth slowly fell open. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I sat up in my chair and leaned forward, blinking repeatedly at the screen. Not only had I caught the perps, but it turned out the crooks were no other than Sheriff Janson and his damn deputy, clear as day, smashing the hell out of the panels with aluminum bats. I rewound and played it over and over again, trying to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind and seeing things. There was no denying who it was, and he even looked right in the direction of the camera about halfway through.

I pulled the video footage and put it on a thumb drive. I had exactly what I needed, exactly what I had been hoping for this whole time. I knew that fucker was going to mess up at some point, and lo and behold, that was exactly what he’d done. He waltzed on to my land, destroyed my property, and did all in front of a state of the art, high-resolution camera system. It was like I had struck gold. I laughed for a minute, surprised at how easy it had become to catch the guy. Then, I picked up the phone and put in a call to the state capitol.

There was a state senator my office had consulted with in acquiring the land we’d bought in Bonanza. I knew he was a no-nonsense guy and definitely wasn’t up Janson’s sleeve. He was too important to give a shit about a sheriff in the middle of nowhere. He would, however, revel at the chance to help me out, especially since he got so much applause for allowing the ranch to be built there in the first place.

“Senator Gray,” I said, clearing my throat.

“Ryan,” he said. “How are you? How’s my ranch coming along?”

“It’s coming along really well,” I said. “Thank you again for all the hard work you put in getting us the permission to put the project here in Bonanza. You should come out sometime, and I’ll give you the VIP tour. We can call out some press and make it a thing.”

“I like the sound of that.” He laughed. “I am a politician, after all. So, what can I do for you today?”

“I have a bit of a problem,” I said. “Someone smashed two of our brand new panels, and the video footage caught the perp. The thing is, though, it’s the sheriff and his deputy. I can’t call state because he has friends on that force.”

“Wow,” he said. “Small-town problems.”

“I know, right?” I chuckled.

“Your best bet then will be to contact the state’s attorney general,” he said. “You can tell him I referred you to get you in the door.”

“Thanks so much,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

“No problem, and I’ll get up with your secretary to plan a tour,” he said.

“Please do.” I laughed.

I looked up the number to the attorney general’s office and gave him a call. It took a minute to convince the secretary to put me through, but when I dropped the senator’s name, she didn’t hesitate any longer. I told the AG about what was going on and how I had run out of places to turn.

“Those are some strong accusations,” he said. “I’d like to review the evidence myself before making any calls.”

“Can you meet in the morning?”

“Sure can,” he said. “I’ll be in at eight. I’ll have my secretary pencil you in.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

As soon as he hung up, I grabbed the address and the thumb drive and ran out to my car. The state’s AG office was in Salem, the capital, so I ended up grabbing about five cups of coffee through the drive. It took me pretty much all night to get there, but every time I started to feel tired, I thought about how good it would feel to bust that son of a bitch. Not only would it solve my problem but Sara’s, too, and that alone was worth the drive.

I arrived in Salem about thirty minutes early, so I parked and walked down to the bakery, grabbing a donut and coffee before heading over. I hadn’t talked to the AG before. The senator had taken care of that for me, so I was a bit nervous, to say the least. When I arrived in his office, the secretary smiled, expecting me this time. I walked into the large office and looked around, impressed with his digs.

“Good morning,” he said, walking from his private bathroom. “Thank you for driving down here so quickly.”

“It was no problem at all,” I said. “Here’s the thumb drive. I cut out the hours of blank footage before it, and it will pick up just before the two men walk into the foreground. I also brought a picture of the sheriff and his deputy so you know who you’re looking at.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking the drive and the photos from me.

He sat down at his computer, and I sat across from him, watching his face as he reviewed the footage. He was an older man, and I could tell he’d been hardened over time by what he’d seen and heard from that position. He watched the video several times and after the last, he sighed, sitting back in his chair.

“Well,” he said. “It seems I need to put out a warrant for the sheriff’s and the deputy’s arrest. This a federal charge, several actually. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’ll have the ADA call you when things get going on it, but they’ll be taken into custody probably before you ever get back there.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “This is a good thing. Not the damage, but that sheriff holds a fear over the people of that town, and I think that they’ll be more at ease knowing they’re in good hands.”

When I left the office, I could feel a sense of relief I had been waiting for since I found out about Janson. It was a huge problem off my plate, something that had really put tension between me and Sara. Now, though, my path to her and our path toward the future was clear, and very soon, we’d be able to enjoy our relationship without worrying about Janson and his cronies. It was definitely a good day.