Now there was nothing to do but wait.
Tyler lay on the narrow cot, staring at the ceiling. In the span of a few days, he’d gone from hoping for a fresh start to being accused of murder, from asking Brooke on a date to watching any chance with her disappear, from rebuilding a life to possibly spending it behind bars. Or worse. Wyoming had the death penalty.
Somewhere out there, the real killer was free, maybe laughing at how perfectly this had worked out.
And Tyler was stuck in jail, powerless to do anything but hope the justice system he’d already learned to distrust would somehow work in his favor this time.
Tyler closed his eyes and thought about Brooke’s smile when she said yes to dinner and about how different things might have been if it hadn’t been Sheila who’d died. If he hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time yet again.
And he thought about who might have killed Sheila and how he was going to prove his innocence when everyone had already decided he was guilty.
Chapter 13
Brooke
The Wednesday evening group run met at the golf course. The group followed a variety of routes around town. One amazing thing about Irma was the number of biking and walking paths the town had added a few years earlier as part of a development plan to attract more tourism. While most of the paths were paved, some were packed dirt.
The club’s system was to check the weather report after each run to see what was predicted for the coming week. Rain had been expected for today, which made the paved trail surrounding the greens the perfect choice.
Instead of rain, they were met with oppressive heat. Brooke would’ve preferred one of the trails outside of town, where the trees offered shade or the path followed the river. But they were here.
She knew the run’s location was not what truly bothered her. What lingered was Tyler’s arrest earlier that day. She had nearly skipped the run altogether, but she hoped the miles might help. Even as she stretched, she doubted they would.
Tonight, there were maybe fifteen people milling around, stretching and chatting while they waited for the stragglers. Brooke recognized all of them—this was her community, her people, the ones who understood that sometimes you just needed to run until your mind went quiet.
Yet she recognized their discomfort. They deliberately avoided mentioning what they all knew had happened earlier at her coffee shop. Some avoided her altogether; others looked away when she glanced their way. The tension settled hard in her gut.
“Hey.” Gina appeared beside her, touching her arm. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay,” she lied, staring at her shoes.
“Really?” Gina’s skeptical tone said she didn’t believe it for a second.
“Really,” Brooke insisted, meeting her gaze with a smile, trying to convince herself as much as Gina. “This will help keep me from thinking too much.”
Nick joined them and slipped an arm around Gina’s waist. “Thinking about anything in particular?”
Before Brooke could answer, Joe jogged up. “Sorry I’m late. I had a call with an editor that ran long.”
“I heard you were back in town,” Brooke said, genuinely happy to see him. “How was your trip?”
Something shifted in Joe’s expression. It was brief, but Brooke caught it.
“It was good.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Sure. Fine. Glad to be back. Sorry to hear about what happened to you. I feel terrible that I canceled at the last minute like that. If I had known...”
“I know.” Brooke nodded. “When did you get back? You had the article out on Monday.”
“Yeah, I was back Sunday on the late afternoon flight. I heard about it while I was at Denver Airport waiting for my connecting flight. I didn’t know it was you then.”
“You heard about it while you were in Denver?” Brooke shook her head. Joe was new in town, having onlymoved there earlier in the year, but he still seemed to know everything that happened before anyone else.
“Only the basics. At that time, I didn’t have all the details.”
“Thanks for keeping my name out of it as long as you did.” She gave him what she hoped passed for a grateful smile.
