Tanner’s hands were tied at the wrists and resting on his chest. He tried to move his legs but they were restrained also inside this casket-shaped box.
“I’m going to be honest with you, and this might make you think I’m a bad person, but I honestly don’t know the name of the guy in the hospital. Believe it or not, I’ve been prepared for something of this measure to occur for the last ten years. That man lived a wonderful life of luxury and all he had to do was be roughly my same height and build, have the same blood type as me and have his fingerprints removed and mine lasered onto his fingers.”
“He’s your double.”
“Yes, exactly! But honestly, I didn’t even come up with the idea myself. You’d be surprised at how many political leaders have doubles in case their death is the only option for escaping a situation, and yet they don’t actually want to die.”
Tanner shook his head, still trying to shake away some of the cobwebs. This couldn’t be happening.
“I know, right?” Jeter said. “It’s all such cloak-and-dagger craziness. Hard to believe it’s true.”
“So you’ve been planning this from the beginning,” Tanner said. He kept his eyes on Jeter but glanced up behind him and around whenever he could. “I can’t believe you don’t have a whole army here.”
Jeter threw his arms up. “I have been around people—so many damn people—every day for months. I needed time alone for a while. But don’t worry—I still have my loyal followers I’ll band together eventually.”
Tanner followed Jeter with his eyes as the man walked around. Why did this place look familiar?
“Between you and me, I’m not cut out for prison. The man taking my place will do much better, plus his family will live in complete luxury for the rest of their existence. But me? I have other, better things to do than sit in a cell every day. I need to be able to move around. Some people aren’t meant to do nothing, you know what I mean, Tanner? I can’t be someone who doesnothing.”
“Why didn’t you just kill me in the parking lot?”
“Why, Bree, of course. My Bethany. You are the only way I can get her to come to me of her own accord. If I didn’t use you, she would go to ground, hide. And we both know how good she is at that.”
“Do you expect me to just call her and lead her here to slaughter? I’ll die first.”
Jeter actually winked at him. “Don’t worry—you’re going to die anyway. I mean, hell, Deputy, you said so in that hospital room. If I wanted her, I had to go through you.”
“You were listening in the hospital room?”
Jeter rolled his eyes. “I feel like all I’ve been doing for the past twenty-four hours is listening. Listening in the hospital room. Listening to your investigation.”
“What?”
“Oh, come on. I even helped you with the last one. Bethany got a little sloppy making that shell program to trace the chat room. Your suspect wasn’t going to fall for it. And that woman in the box was going to die. I stepped in, shot the suspect in the head and sent you a little message. I would think you’d be a little more grateful for that.”
Jeter had been a step ahead of them this whole time, waiting for the right moment to strike against Bree.
Tanner shifted slightly and finally realized why this place seemed so familiar. They were inside the restaurant where Shelby’s body had been found. One of the first places Whitaker had shown him when he and Bree got here—in his old neighborhood.
“You’ve been inside the police files,” Tanner said. “Otherwise you would’ve never known about this place.”
He shrugged. “I’ve just wanted to be close to Bethany, and this case has been her sole focus the last couple of days. She’s really just so wonderful, isn’t she? Her brain. I want to say it’s the sexiest thing about her, but now that she’s all grown up I can’t say that anymore.”
Tanner began to fight against his restraints.
“Come on now, Tanner. You’re about to be her fiancé, right? You can’t tell me you don’t think she’s sexy.”
Jeter began tossing something casually in his hand. It didn’t take Tanner long to realize it was the ring box.
“You stay away from her, Jeter. Just disappear and leave her alone. I’m not going to let you take her.”
Jeter tilted his head to the side with a condescending smile. “Like I said, you’re not going to be alive to have a say-so. Your case has actually been pretty helpful to me overall.”
Tanner stopped his struggles. There was no way out of this box the way he was restrained. He needed to work smarter, not harder.
And do it before Jeter got Bree here.
“How did the case help you? Besides getting us to Dallas.”
