He looked down at the floor for a moment, then met her eyes. “Just a long, strange shift today.”
“With the attempted hit and run?”
“Yeah, that. And then later, Brianna’s in the middle of another shitstorm and we got called to that.”
“Wait, what?” Sylvie sat up and moved to the edge of her chair.
“Yeah. She and uh, one of those bodyguard guys went to Riversong later and her brother showed up and caused a scene.”
“Brian Taylor? I thought his uncle banned him from the coffee shop.” There wasn’t a police officer in a fifty-mile radius who hadn’t picked up Brian on some sort of drunk and disorderly charge, everything from bar fights to domestic violence, sadly. He’d racked up a few felonies too, and he wasn’t allowed near Riversong because he tended to pick fights with his family and scare off the customers. A bad seed if ever there was one.
“He is banned,” Frank confirmed. “But he showed up today with a gun in his waistband, demanding to talk to Brianna. So one of her cousins called us. You must have been off shift already.”
Sylvie covered her heart. “That poor girl just can’t catch a break. What did he want?”
Frank shrugged. “He wasn’t making much sense by the time Tom and I got to him. Totally fucked-up.” He looked at the floor again.
“Maybe some connection to what happened to her earlier?”
His gaze darted back up. “No. He was drunk, Sylvie. Making no sense. He’s sleeping it off now.”
“But—”
“We took a gun off him. It coulda been bad.” He paused as he glanced quickly at her screen. “There’s something I need to tell you about festival security.”
Her stomach dropped. “What, Frank?”
He looked over her head at someone coming toward them. “Never mind. Carla looks like she wants you. I’ll talk to you soon.” He winked and walked away.
Dammit. This was her mentor. He had an amazing track record. He’d never steered her or anyone else wrong. He couldn’t be corrupt. Just because he was Tom’s partner didn’t make him guilty by association. And really, she didn’t have solid proof that Tom had done anything. Everything was circumstantial.
Still. The way he looked at the screen. What does he really want to talk about?
Maybe she would talk to Frank about Tom before she went to Robert. Just subtly drop a few hints. She contemplated how she’d feel if she thought Carla were taking bribes and Frank suspected it. Yeah, she’d want him to talk to her first before going in to Robert.
It was a brotherhood thing.
Her stomach told her he might beat her to the punch about Tom. Or he might not say anything at all.
“Hey, Cookie.” Carla came around the cubicle. She glanced the way Frank had gone. “Everything all right?”
What should I tell her?Knowing Carla, she’d want to march right into Robert’s office. She decided to stick to her plan of talking to Frank first. She owed him that.
Sylvie smiled, hoping it looked genuine. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Frank came by to congratulate me. No hard feelings.”
Carla blew out her breath. “That’s a relief. I’ve never seen him so upset the other day. Must not have been about that.”
“Yeah. Must not have been.”
Oh, Frank.Dammit. What’s going on?
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
“All right, girl, you’re on duty tonight,” Alex said to Valkyrie as he loaded her into the SUV. The Malinois wagged her tail and smiled at him, eager to get to work. Alex had gotten texts from both Kyle and Badger asking him to bring one of the dogs down to a restaurant in Lyons where Brock was waiting for him—with Brianna Taylor. The Watchdog grapevine was in fine form, so he didn’t even need to ask why. Brock still gave him some of the overall details. Glass had not shown up to a group dinner with the rest of the workshop, which put everyone on edge. Brock needed to make sure Brianna was protected that evening while he was at a meeting with Kyle and the other bodyguards.
As they pulled into the restaurant parking lot, Alex saw Brock and Brianna, and assessed the situation before him.Badger is going to kill me. This was going to take some finesse. He parked and let the dog out of her kennel as quietly as he could, giving her the hand signal for silence. They quietly stalked through the parking lot to their quarry standing under a lamp post.
Alex wondered how long the couple would continue making out before they noticed a man and a military-trained dog waiting for them to break the lip-lock. Seriously, was he ever this bad at their age? Brianna couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, and though Brock was older, Alex still had a few years on him. And at the same time, he felt the smallest pang of envy that the two of them could make out in public while he and Sylvie had to hide their relationship.
