Chapter 8
1046 Words
"Someone needs to go to her and tell her what the plan is for tomorrow." Joe sipped his coffee and wiggled a finger in the air to show it wouldn't be him. "I do not volunteer." He said with a grin.
"I think it should be Dylan," Meghan shrugged when Dylan glared at her. "Bud, you have her ear, she listens to you."
"Tanner listens to no one when it comes to Braden," Dylan grumbled. "But fine. You all owe me."
"Good luck, she came back in a very bad mood," Joe said. "I don't think the brief with the spookies went that well."
"Does it ever?" Dylan mumbled as she made her way to Tanner. Tanner stood watching Emily work on one of the horses. "She's good."
"Yes," Tanner agreed. "She gets it from her mom, Amanda," Tanner said. "People would come from all over the world to have Amanda work with their riders and horses. Emily watched her mom from the moment she could see and understand what was happening."
"She told me before, that she wished they could just disappear somewhere where no one knows them, and she can train horses and Braden can take her photographs." Dylan smiled. "Jo and I took her to a rodeo, she absolutely loved it. A mistake on our part, I must admit, because now all she wants to do is barrel racing."
"You've been there for her." It was a statement, so Dylan didn't respond. Just waited. "It should have been me."
"The way I see it, you didn't have much say in the matter."
"No. But still, she's my daughter, I should have fought harder for her." Tanner took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "What's wrong?" She gestured behind them. "That lot have been tip-toeing around and watching me when they think I won't notice."
"We have a situation. And believe me, I tried to talk her out of it. But she refuses to listen to me."
"Where does she need to go?" Tanner shoved her fatigue down and finally turned away from Emily to look at Dylan.
"She has a meeting with one of her clients. He has a show scheduled for next month, and they need to finalize photos."
"She told me that she could do all her work from here." Tanner shook her head. "I'll go speak to her."
"What did the spooks say?"
Tanner laughed. "They have nothing, Dylan. When I tell you nothing, I mean it. They never followed up on our lead, never even looked at it, and they made a note of the letter and our report. And that's it. And on top of that, they want to use Bra- Ms. Roberts as bait."
"No," Dylan said. "We can't allow that."
"That is exactly what I told the President." Tanner rubbed a hand over her face. "Idiots, all of them. They want to do the easy thing here, and not put the work in. They should have, probably could have caught this person already if they just followed the proper channels and leads from the start."
"What did the President say about all of that?"
"We will now get a full report, and she told him to basically get his s**t together." Tanner smiled. "They won't. And I can promise you we won't get all the information. But that's fine. We're going to start our own investigation." Dylan dropped her gaze. "What?"
"Since you say we're going to do this, I have some things I can show you. Get us a head start on the investigation."
"You've been checking into this yourself?"
"The team too. We have the resources, so we figured why not? And we're the ones charged with keeping her safe. We should be allowed to know what's going on."
"Well then, we have a starting point. Let me go find out where we're going, and when, and then we can start working on finding this bastard." She left Dylan to watch Emily.
"If you're here to tell me we can't go, don't bother. I need to go. I made a commitment to my client, and with you here, I feel safe enough to keep the appointment." Braden stared at Tanner. "Please don't make this hard. I won't have to go anywhere again before the showing."
"Ms. Roberts, please understand the difficulty here," Tanner spoke quietly. "I understand that you have work, but after my meeting with the so-called experts, I don't feel comfortable going out."
"So-called? Was it that bad?"
"Yes. Worse, probably." Tanner rubbed a hand over her face. "How badly do you need this meeting?"
"I wouldn't have asked if it wasn't a pressing matter," Braden said. "I stalled it once, I can't do it again."
"Okay, when do you want to go?" Tanner didn't have the energy to fight, and what would be the point? Braden still had to do her job.
"Tomorrow morning, eight."
"Okay, I'll make sure we are ready to go at seven. Emily won't be going, so we'll split the team." Tanner added. "I'll make sure Dylan is on her team, she'll be more comfortable that way and we, you will be more at ease knowing she's here with someone who cares about her while we're out."
"I'd prefer it if she was with us."
"And I prefer to give whoever is after you no target, so I'll settle for only one target. Look, you hired me to do a job, let me do it."
"Fine." Braden eyed Tanner. "Was it really that bad?"
"They have nothing. And the bastard in charge wants to use you as bait. So yes, it was bad. Your mother agrees that's off the table so don't worry about that." Tanner smiled. "At least she agreed on that part."
"I'm surprised she didn't jump at the chance to get me in the crosshairs."
"I noticed that there was strain, but your mother loves you, and she knows you're the best thing for Emily."
"Strain, yes." Braden laughed bitterly. "Let's call it strain."
Tanner wanted to say more, opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. She turned to the door. "I'll go make arrangements for tomorrow." She quietly closed the door behind her as she left Braden, staring out the window.
- Writer
