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Jared was smiling at the both of them from just a few feet away. There wasn’t much Tanner would like more than to let Noah go so he could pound on the smug son of a bitch.

“The case is shaky anyway, Captain Dempsey. No matter what you or your brother do.”

Noah stopped struggling. “How do you know who we are?”

Jared’s cold smile got bigger. “I met Tanner earlier today when he had a non-law-enforcement employee impersonate a lab technician to harass me. But you, I understand, have been spending quite a bit of time with my wife.”

“Soon to be ex-wife, you bastard,” Noah spit out. He tapped Tanner on the arm. “I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Tanner let his brother go, ready to tackle him again, if needed. But Noah had found his control, even if fury seemed to crackle off his body. Tanner got up and offered Noah a hand.

“You stay away from Marilyn and those kids.” Noah’s every word was clipped. “You want to get to them, you’re going to have to go through me.”

Jared tilted his head. “Marilyn will always be mine. All I need is a little time to persuade her of that.”

Noah’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Soon you’ll be rotting away in prison, where you belong. You’ll never be coming near Marilyn again.”

“My lawyer had enough to get me out on bail. Believe me when I say he has more than enough to keep me out of prison for good.”

Now it was Tanner who took a step forward. “I don’t think so, Ellis. I’ve seen the evidence. So enjoy your last few weeks of freedom. Or as much as you can in a two-mile radius. Because if you step one foot outside of that we’re going to nail your ass.”

Jared looked like he was going to charge Tanner, get violent, but stopped himself. Instead, he backed away slowly, holding his hands out in front of him. “I guess we’ll see what happens at the trial. But if I was a betting man, I’d bet I walk out of the court a free man that day.”

He winked at them and Tanner threw out an arm to catch Noah in case he lunged. But Noah had himself under control. Maybe more so than Tanner.

“And after the trial,” Jared continued, backing up step-by-step. “I’ll have as much time as I need to woo my wife back.”

He turned and walked away. “See you at the trial, gentlemen,” Jared called out over his shoulder. “I trust it won’t be again before that.”

Chapter Nine

They were able to move back into the New Journeys building three days later. The residents and townspeople worked together to get everything cleaned up and all their belongings transferred from the old building back to the new one.

Bree was still triple-checking Jared’s ankle monitor every day, making sure her results matched what was being sent to the Denver marshals’ office. She’d also spent at least a couple hours every day still trying to come up with a way Jared might try to outthink the system. She’d gone as far as to hack into the company itself to make sure everything was on the up-and-up.

It was.

Based on the conversation he and Noah had with the man, Tanner didn’t think Jared was behind the fire. It was worse than that, if possible. Tanner was afraid Jared had something up his sleeve when it came to the trial. He told Bree about the brief conversation he and Noah had with Jared—how secure he’d felt that the trial was going to go his way.

Tanner had been poring over every piece of evidence he could find, determined to make sure there was nothing that had been missed that the prosecuting attorney might need.

And all of it weighed pretty heavily on Marilyn.

There hadn’t been a peep from Jared or his ankle monitor. Bree had written a program so that if the monitor went off for any reason, it would send a notification to her computer and damn near everyone’s phone. They wouldn’t have to wait for anyone from Denver to notify them this time. They would know instantly.

But just the knowledge that Jared wasn’t behind bars, that he was so confident about his upcoming trial, ate at Marilyn. She’d been barely keeping it together over the past few days since the fire.

Everyone was glad to be moving back into the new building with its heightened security and the general feeling of being back in their home. The fire would mean that the renovations scheduled for the next few months would have to be pushed back, but ultimately it wouldn’t affect much now.

Cassandra was sitting in her office in the New Journeys building when Bree plopped down in a chair across from her after a day of carrying boxes up and down stairs.

“It’s good to be home,” Bree said.

“Yeah.” Cassandra smiled, but it wasn’t nearly as big as Bree would’ve thought.