“Jesus, Dalton.” Eli cursed, grabbing Tolbert and sliding him across the ice away from us. “No one wins in a headbutt.”
“Yep,” I said, grimacing as I tentatively touched the goose egg already forming on my temple. “I remember that now.”
“Come here,” Tanner turned me, looking at me like I had just got into a high-speed wreck, instead of a stupid game of dumb and dumber with a maniac. “Let me see.”
“I’m fine.” I shoved his hands away and forced him to put the towel back on his cheek, which thankfully was bleeding less than it had been. But we were both still covered with it.
“What the fuck got into him?” Tanner asked, standing up and lifting me to my feet at his side as Sweetie, our monster resident firefighter, sat down on Tolbert’s back, keeping him flat on the ice as if he wasn’t already out cold from my hit.
“Things got a little messy right before the game started.” Thomas said with a grimace. “Goldie can fill you in on the specifics,” he nodded down at our chief. “But long story short, he was trying to save his own ass by taking yours out.”
“Taking it out as in—” I stopped, tilting my head down as the words wouldn’t quite form on my tongue.
“Killing me.” Tanner surmised evenly. Far more calmly than any person deserved to be after an assassination attempt.
I opened my mouth to tell him how fucking insane he sounded, but chaos erupted around us. The doors to the rink all burst open, and federal agents dressed in matching black jackets and superiority complexes flooded the space.
“Tanner!” Goldie cried, sliding across the ice in her sneakers, slipping and almost falling on her ass before she caught herself, “Rhea!”
“Easy,” I cursed, catching her before she slipped again. “He’s okay. Tanner’s fine.”
She glared at me with her cute, pissed off puppy dog look before fawning all over him, making a big fuss of the cut to his face before turning to look at me. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“Me?” I reeled back from her accusation as I caught a glimpse of Anastasia Howe walking across the ice toward us, regal as ever. “What about you?” I turned to Goldie, “You knew this was going to happen, and you didn’t say anything to us?”
“He said he was going to do it after the game!” She yelled back, and I shook my head at the absurdity of the situation.
“Wait,” Tanner separated us, and cocked his head at Goldie. “You knew someone was going to try to kill me? And you watched from the box?”
Goldie’s face morphed into full outrage as she grabbed the front of his jersey and pulled him down a full foot to her height. “I did no such thing, Tanner Brooks! I called in the mother fucking calvary and followed strict instructions not to alert you both to the situation, so he didn’t get away! Had I known he was going to make a play on the ice for your life, I would have run him over with the motherfucking Zamboni! How dare you accuse me of something so cruel!”
I snorted and palmed my forehead, grimacing as I made contact with the goose egg there. Which was a mistake, because that drew Goldie’s fiery eyes my way and she pointed at me, leveling me with a death glare.
“And you!” She accused, “If you ever use your sexy face as a hammer again, I swear to God, Rhea Allister Dalton, I will tie you up and?—”
“Children!” Jasper said, clapping his hands and cutting her off as he joined our group, going right to Thomas’s side. “There are children here.”
“Whatever,” she said, releasing Tanner’s jersey, who to his benefit, had stayed folded over at her height while she read us the Riot Act, and stood back up when she released him. “We’ll finish this later.”
“Anyone care to let us know what the hell is going on?” Travis deadpanned, with Emmie on his shoulders as they hovered at the edge of the crowd.
“Allow me.” Anastasia said, unfolding a paper from her hand as three agents circled Sweetie, where he still sat on top of Tolbert’s back. “Care to release my prisoner, Sir?”
Sweetie shrugged, rolling off the man with all his heavy gear and got to his feet.
“Thank you,” Anastasia said with a curt nod as the agents proceeded to handcuff Tolbert. “This man is not who he’s pretended to be,” she said loudly, as the rink hushed all around, the crowd desperate to hear what was going on. “He has been working behind the scenes to destroy this town. And he’s been successful at it many other times. And today, thanks to your incredible community led by Rhea Dalton, Goldie James, and Tanner Brooks, we’ve finally got the proof we needed to close more than three dozen cold cases stemming from arson, malicious intent, assault, fraud, kidnapping, and the worst of all, murder.”
A collective gasp echoed around the rink as Anastasia turned to a woman who stood at Jasper’s side. She had been up at the railing with them when I first saw Goldie before the game, but I didn’t know who she was.
The man who had tried to frame me for the crimes here in Cedar Bluff started to come to, groaning in confusion before he started fighting his binds. “What the hell—” He cursed, rolling to see who all stood over him, and his face blanched when he saw the agents around him.
“James Walker,” One of the agents began, calling the chief a name I didn’t recognize, as it all started to click to me. “You have the right to remain silent?—”
The rink watched in silence as the agents marched him off the ice, reading him his rights. I would have thought that the reversal of roles between him and I would have felt better. Maybe even justified.
But I just felt—tired.
Anastasia turned to Goldie with a smile. “We’ve got one of them, thanks to you.”
