“I’m…” I stopped, hating everything about this. But then I glanced at Ozzie, remembering how his praise went right to my chest.
I can do this.
“I’m dating Ozzie.”
The sheriff’s brows lifted in surprise. “You’re… dating my nephew?” he asked, not unkindly.
“Yes,” I said, unwilling to retreat even though I wanted to throw up. “And my mom walked in on us.”
The sheriff turned to Ozzie. “Y’all were having sex at Mrs. Walker’s house?”
Ozzie let out a laugh and held his hand out to me. I hesitated, then decided I didn’t care. I took it and squeezed it.
“Definitely not,” he said, kissing my knuckles. “We were at Walker’s place, and she let herself in with a spare key. He’d asked her on multiple occasions not to do that, but she didn’t take his request seriously.”
Sheriff Cavanaugh squared his jaw. “So she walks in and sees you two together and…”
“Throws a conniption,” I answered, shivering despite the evening’s warmth.
He adjusted his department-issued cowboy hat. “Help me with the timeline here, Walker. How soon after this did you hear from the school?”
“Just a few hours later.”
“And then the complaint was investigated and for all practical purposes dismissed within twenty-four hours?”
“Yes, Sheriff.”
“I think you can call me Ryan at this point.”
“Yeah, well. That’s not going to happen,” I said. Calling the sheriff by his first name would break my brain.
He chuckled. “Fair enough. So, your mother finds out about you two, and then someone calls in an anonymous tip and it’s checked out more or less immediately. I assume it was clear that their claim was going to go nowhere. And then, within twenty-four hours of that, the restaurant is smashed up.”
I bounced nervously on the balls of my feet. “That’s about the size of things.”
“Obviously, this is just the beginning of the investigation, but I can’t ignore that the report to the school—or the fact that the report seems to have been determined to be unfounded—seems to be related, which means I’ll have to look into it.”
My eyes flew wide. “You’re going to investigate me?”
He shook his head. “No, not as such, just the handling and the timing of this accusation, to see if we can conclusively prove there’s a connection between the two events.”
I bit the inside of my lip, the relief from my rep’s earlier reassurances completely obliterated.
“You are not under arrest, Walker, and assuming you weren’t the one who smashed up this restaurant, you’re not in any legal trouble. However, I have to explore every avenue. By doing that, I’ll be able to get an IP address on the report and chase it down digitally.”
“That means you’ll find out for certain who did this?” I asked, gesturing to the broken glass.
“Well, we’ll learn the location of the device that was used to put in the harassing report. If I can trace it to an individual, I can lean on them and see what they know about this incident.”
“I guess everybody’s gonna find out about me,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach all over again.
“I’ll do what I can to keep your personal details out of it, but… yes. More people will know.”
I turned away from him, knuckling away a tear that had managed to break free.
Ozzie tightened his grip on my hand and addressed his uncle. “This, about Walker—it isn’t just brand-new information to you and me. It’s new to him, too.”
Detective Crow sent me an understanding look. Turning to Ozzie, she asked, “I’m assuming you have cameras set up in and around the bar and restaurant.”
