Risk Everything

“Jared has a lot of powerful friends. His fraternity brothers,” Marilyn whispered.

“Is Oscar Stobbart one of those?” Tanner asked.

If possible, Marilyn’s face got even whiter. “Yes.”

There was a wealth of agony in that single word. Tanner didn’t press, but he could imagine that there was probably a lot more to Marilyn’s abuse than she had let anyone know about.

A soft tap at the kitchen door had them all turning in that direction. It was Noah.

“I asked Noah to come by just for added security until we have a true grip on what’s going on. Is that okay?” Tanner said. The last thing either he or Noah wanted was to make Marilyn more uncomfortable.

Marilyn was staring at Noah through the glass panes of the kitchen door. She nodded. “No, I’ll feel better if he’s here.”

Noah never took his eyes from Marilyn as he walked in the door. He didn’t move near her, but his focus and awareness of her were almost tangible.

“You can do this,” he said softly.

Marilyn didn’t look like she believed him, but she just shrugged and said, “Doesn’t look like I have any choice.” She rubbed a hand across her eyes. “I should probably leave. Take the kids and get farther away.”

“No,” Noah said. “He’s not going to get to you.”

His brother’s volume might be soft and his tone even, but there was no way to mistake the certainty behind the words. For the first time since Tanner arrived, Marilyn relaxed just the slightest bit. She probably didn’t even know about Noah’s background in Special Forces. But when Noah gave his word that he was going to protect her, he had the skills to back up that promise.

Noah Dempsey may be a rancher by trade, but that didn’t change the fact that he was also a warrior in every possible way.

“If Jared got out on bail three days ago, could he have been the one who set the fire?” Marilyn asked.

Tanner glanced over at Noah, then at Marilyn. “We don’t know for sure, but if Jared was involved, it would answer a lot of questions.”

“Like what?” Bree asked.

Noah leaned back against the counter. The women didn’t recognize the stance for what it was, but Tanner did. Noah was placing himself between Marilyn and any danger that might come through that door.

Tanner took a sip of his coffee. “It looks like the fire was set deliberately, but whoever did it wasn’t trying to burn the building down completely or even hurt anyone.”

“It was set to shake things up,” Noah said. “Get everyone out of their routine.”

“They certainly managed that,” Bree muttered.

“He could’ve been out there,” Marilyn whispered. “Waiting to get me or the kids alone. That’s exactly something Jared would do.”

“And none of us suspected there was any danger.” Bree shook her head. “I almost left the kids with a paramedic. He wouldn’t have known to look out for Jared.”

Tanner rubbed the back of his neck. “We can’t automatically assume it was Jared. He’s got that ankle monitor, and it sends a notification if he goes out of his set range. My colleague in Denver assures me it isn’t hackable.”

Bree actually laughed out loud, rolling her eyes. “Okay. We’ll just let them go on believing that. Everything is hackable.”

He reached over and grabbed his little computer genius’s hand. “Everything is hackable by you. The chances that Jared has someone with your skill in his personal list of friends—no matter how many fraternity brothers he has—is slim.”

Bree nodded. “Agreed. All I’m saying is that a false sense of security that something can’t be hacked might lead to laziness on law enforcement’s part.”

Tanner couldn’t disagree with that. Not when the department already didn’t have a stellar showing when it came to this situation.

A text came in on his phone from Ronnie. Finally a little good news.

“Ronnie got the log for Jared’s monitor. According to the reports, he was not anywhere around Risk Peak at the time of the fire. He hasn’t been out of Denver city limits since he made bail.”

“Unless he did have someone who could hack the anklet for him,” Bree said.

“Could you tell if it had been tampered with?” Tanner asked her. “Would you be able to see if the reports of his whereabouts were wrong?”