The prosecutor laughed. “You’re insane.”
“We have the proof!” I said, shaking a sheaf of papers. “What more do you want?”
“I want to not have to go to war against the fucking Federal Bureau of Investigation!”
Okay, that was fair, but there was no getting around it.
“There is an innocent woman currently behind bars because of what these two people have done,” I said, stabbing my finger into the portraits of Addie and Johns we’d attached to the dossiers Trey had put together.
“What’s Johns’ motive here?” the mayor asked.
“Best I can come up with is that he wants my job.”
“It’s an elected position,” the mayor said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Yeah, I never said he was the sharpest tool in the shed.”
In my opinion, Johns was a certified moron to think he’d get away with it. Based on the timeline of events Trey and I had managed to put together, the whole thing had been poorly thought out and executed—which surprised me, given it seemed Addie had been at the helm.
Finally, the prosecutor sighed and said, “Bring them in.”
I was out of my seat and rushing from the office in a flash, Trey hot on my heels.
“Where are we headed?”
“The department seems like a good place to start,” I said. We left the truck parked where it was and walked the few short blocks separating the department from City Hall.
Inside the building, I waved to Bertie and swiped me and my brother into the back. Yet again, all sound vacuumed out of the bullpen at my appearance.
“Anyone seen Johns?” I asked.
“He left on a transport,” one of my younger deputies answered.
Icy dread slid through my veins. “Sutton?” He nodded. “When did they leave?”
“About twenty minutes ago?” he replied, not sounding entirely sure.
“Fuck!” I shouted, and several people startled.
Trey gripped my shoulder, squeezing hard enough to force some sense back into me.
“Where is he taking her?”
“Boise.”
As quickly as we arrived, Trey and I raced out of the station and back to my truck. He was barely inside before I peeled out of town, tires screeching as I turned off Cassia onto the main road, heading north.
I was damn near strangling the steering wheel as I pushed the speedometer higher and higher, going too fast for the slick winter roads, not that I gave a fuck. There was a chance this was nothing more than a routine transfer. It made sense that Addie would file the charges—however fucking bogus they were—in Boise. According to her, that’s where the assault had occurred.
Johnscouldjust be doing his job.
But I didn’t buy that for a second.
My gut instinct was telling me something was very,verywrong.
An intuition that was proven correct a moment later when a vehicle appeared up ahead, coming our way.
I recognized the paint job instantly, that brown two-tone color scheme the sheriff’s department had used since the seventies and never bothered to update, even with the purchase of new vehicles.
