Alibi by Nicole Edwards
Chapter One
Saturday, January 9, 2021
Brantley Walker expected today to be along day, starting off with a visit from Ryan Trexler and Hunter Kogan, the men in charge of running Sniper 1 Security, the largest private security firm in the state.
They were here at Brantley’s request, and since this was somewhat of a job interview for the soon-to-be disbanded Off the Books Task Force, he figured it needed to run smoothly, hence the reason he was already three hours into his day and it was just now oh-eight-hundred.
He walked into the kitchen as Reese was pouring a cup of coffee.
“You only got seven miles in this mornin’. Somethin’ wrong with you today?”
Brantley could hear the teasing tone, and he appreciated it. If Reese knew Brantley was stressed about this meeting, he wasn’t calling him on it, but he was certainly doing his best to distract him. For a moment, Brantley’s brain flipped back to a few hours ago when Reese had woken him up with that sexy mouth doing sinful things. Needless to say, it’d been one hell of a way to start the day.
“Too much shit to do,” he said, forcing a smile and accepting the cup Reese passed over.
“I just got a text. RT and Hunter’ll be here in a few.” Reese’s tone was calm and collected as usual. “We’ll have plenty of time to introduce them to the team, even have time for questions. Then what’s left? We get to spend the afternoon at the park with the rest of the town?”
Brantley nodded, staring into his coffee mug. “Yeah.”
And that would be the second half of his ridiculously long day.
After he fielded questions from JJ, Baz, Trey, and Charlie regarding the fact they were no longer state employees, Brantley was going to spend the afternoon at the fantasy festival. Coyote Ridge’s first one of the year.
Despite the name, it wasn’t in the least bit kinky, he’d been told. It was a new festival added to the calendar this year, one meant to kick off 2021 with carnival games and rides designed specifically for the children of Coyote Ridge.
As for why Brantley was looking forward to it … well, it certainly wasn’t for the games and rides. No, his reasons were a bit more selfish: he was simply looking forward to some downtime with Reese and if it meant congregating with the rest of the town, so be it.
He just wasn’t sure he could get in the spirit of it today. Ever since they learned that Juliet Prince was involved in the false kidnapping scheme that resulted in JJ’s house being blown to smithereens a week ago, he hadn’t been sleeping much. It didn’t help that they had no idea where the woman was or her next move, but something in his gut said they needed to be hypervigilant.
Brantley’s watch buzzed at the same time Reese’s did, which meant only one thing.
“Looks like they’re right on time,” Reese said. “Why don’t you go out and greet ’em. I’ll head to the barn, start the coffee.”
Brantley nodded because he would take any direction offered. This was foreign territory for him. He had never applied for a job in his life. Well, unless BUD/S, which stood for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL counted. But this wasn’t an endurance test that would allow his body and mind to prove his worthiness. This would require some schmoozing on his part and Brantley would be the first to admit, it wasn’t his strong suit.
With Tesha, their four-legged partner, leading the way, Brantley went to greet their guests.
Stepping out onto the front porch, he steeled his spine, geared up for convincing these men that absorbing the Off the Books Task Force was the best thing to do for everyone involved. Granted, he knew they were already leaning in that direction based on what RT had told him, but they’d driven two hundred miles from Dallas to Coyote Ridge on a Saturday, no less, to seal the deal.
“How was the trip?” Brantley asked, holding out his hand to RT after the man deposited his helmet on the handlebar of the Kawasaki Ninja H2R.
“Perfect way to spend a Saturday mornin’,” RT said with a wide grin, shaking Brantley’s hand in return.
“I told Reese I was still thinkin’ about gettin’ one of those.” Brantley nodded at the sportbike.
“Worth the investment,” RT replied. “You’re more than welcome to try it out if you’d like.”
Brantley grinned. “I might just take you up on that later.”
The other man strolled around, running one hand over his short hair, the other pulling off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of scrutinizing white-gray eyes.
“Brantley Walker, I’d like to introduce you to Hunter Kogan. Hunter, Brantley.”
“Nice to meet you,” Hunter said, gripping his hand firmly. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Brantley joked.
Hunter chuckled. “Likewise.” He nodded his head toward RT. “Especially if it comes from this one.”
RT rolled his eyes. “Anyone who knows me knows I only speak the truth. So when I say y’all are both assholes, you can bet it’s true.”
Brantley laughed, feeling some of the tension dissipate.
“Reese is out in the barn startin’ a pot of coffee. Y’all ready to check it out?”
Hunter’s worried gaze flipped between them. “No one said anything about spendin’ the day with animals.”
“I guess I could clarify. Converted barn. No animals.” Brantley glanced down at Tesha who was sitting at his feet, staring up at them, tongue lolling out of her mouth. “Well, except this girl.”
Hunter turned his attention on the dog. “She in trainin’? Or can I pet her?”
“Very early stages, so she’d much prefer you did.”
Hunter held out a hand, let Tesha sniff. When she gave him a slightly hesitant but approving lick, he reached down and patted her head.
“Is the rest of the team here?” RT asked, glancing around.
Brantley motioned for them to follow. “On their way. I asked ’em to be here by nine. Figured I’d give you a few minutes to look around before they arrived.”
“You tell them yet?”
“No. I just told Reese last night, in fact. I didn’t want to jump the gun.”
RT glanced at the house, then the barn. “Reese mentioned you moved your offices to the main house?”
“We converted a couple of the bedrooms on the second floor,” Brantley confirmed. “Added an exterior entrance. Gives us a little more room.”
“Probably doesn’t help with work-life balance,” Hunter noted. “Havin’ an office in the house.”
Brantley chuckled. “I didn’t realize there was such a thing.”
“Only in the movies,” RT joked.
Brantley keyed in the code to unlock the doors to the barn then stepped back out of the way to allow RT and Hunter to precede him.
“Wow. This is impressive,” RT said as he scanned the interior of the barn.
Brantley glanced around, trying to see it from their viewpoint. He’d spent so much time and effort on this place, he sometimes forgot what it had once been.
Aside from the architectural design—the pitch of the roof, the Y-shaped posts that held up the rafters, and the enormous sliding door—it didn’t resemble much of a barn on the inside anymore. The exterior walls had been insulated and an additional layer of wood, which he’d white-washed, added on the interior for energy efficiency. A solid, electronically controlled door had been installed for security. The original dirt floor had been covered with concrete, then stained and sealed. The hayloft had been converted, losing the original ladder and gaining a staircase. To the right of the door, a conference room had been added, and behind that, along the wall, there was a small kitchenette, a bathroom, and a storage area.
“You did this yourself?” Hunter asked, taking it all in.
“I had some help,” he admitted. “The barn was here when I bought the property. Needed a little bit of work on the exterior, but not much. Replaced some wood, slapped on a coat of paint, added some security. Reese and I built the staircase.”
“Impressive.”
“Thanks. Honestly, I hadn’t had this in mind when I did it. I was just playin’ around out here, passin’ time while I recovered and tried to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Thought maybe it’d be a man cave of sorts, figured it was smart to safeguard it. Then once the governor proposed the task force, I knew it would be a good base of operations.”
“Since you don’t have walk-in clients, I can see that,” Hunter acknowledged.
Reese appeared, setting four empty coffee cups and a steaming carafe on the first desk he came to before formally greeting RT and Hunter.
“Help yourself,” Reese said. “Need cream or sugar?”
“This is perfect,” RT said, pouring a cup before resuming his exploration of the space.
When RT stopped at the base of the staircase, Brantley moved closer.
“That was an afterthought,” he explained. “When the team started to grow, we had to add on. Put in the staircase to utilize the loft square footage. Added the conference room.”
RT moved deeper into the room. “You’ve got what? Three thousand square feet in here?”
“A little more with the loft, but yeah.”
“Even with all this, you’ve got some extra room for growth.”
“We do.”
“I’m curious about this,” Hunter said, motioning toward the row of whiteboards mounted on the wall.
“Those are our evidence boards. We start one with each case. It allows us to see the visual breakdown of what we know and how it all relates.”
“Is that what this one is?” Hunter motioned toward the board at the end, which had various images taped to it as well as writing that connected a few dots.
“Yeah. We’ve been lookin’ into a social media scam, tryin’ to figure out who’s behind it.”
“I’ve heard about that,” RT said, stepping closer to the board. “They infiltrate the virtual community groups on Facebook and whatnot. Pretend to be a member, get to know the others.”
“Yep,” Brantley confirmed. “And in at least one instance that we know of, they’ve attempted to kidnap a kid.”
“Seriously?” Hunter’s voice had deepened. “That’s bullshit.”
“Yeah, well, unfortunately, that’s humanity for you.”
“You plan to continue lookin’ into it?”
Brantley met RT’s gaze. “Was hopin’ to.”
“I think you should.” RT glanced at Hunter. “You know what’d work great for them?”
Hunter nodded. “It definitely would.”
Lost, Brantley stared at the pair, wondered if they were going to share with the class.
“Oh, sorry.” RT smiled, looked back at the wall, and motioned with his hands. “We’ve been workin’ on a display screen that would allow us to do somethin’ similar. Ours is a bit more complex bein’ that we’re trackin’ multiple clients at a time. It’s digital and live, meaning it changes all the time as our agents update details. But it would work brilliantly for this, too.”
“Display screen?” Reese asked.
“It’s touch screen, like a tablet, only on a grander scale. You’d only need one because you could archive each case in a folder, open them as you need it. We’ve got software that would allow you to write notes, pin things in whatever order, show the images just like you would see them on an evidence board.”
“JJ would go apeshit,” Brantley said with a laugh.
“You said you’ve got a team of six now?” Hunter asked, perching on the corner of an empty desk as he sipped his coffee.
“Seven,” Brantley corrected. “I’ve recently hired JJ an assistant.”
“Potentially eight,” Reese corrected. “He’s made an offer to another … comm specialist, but he hasn’t accepted the position yet.”
“How many more are you lookin’ to bring on?” RT strolled back toward them.
Brantley glanced at Reese, nodded for him to answer.
“That depends on how we structure it,” Reese told RT. “As it is, we’re a bit lean for a full investigative team in this area. Since our cases require us to move quickly in the sense that we’re lookin’ for someone who could potentially be in a life-or-death situation, we need to cover ground quickly. But at the same time, we need to maintain coverage on our workload.”
“The cold cases?”
“Exactly.”
“Will you continue those?” RT asked, glancing between them.
“I’d like to lend a hand to neighboring departments if we’ve got the ability to do so.”
“So how many are you thinkin’ and how much ground are you coverin’?” RT lowered himself into one of the chairs, propped an ankle on a knee, and sipped his coffee.
“I’d say a full team would be roughly ten, maybe twelve. That includes the electronics experts and support personnel.”
“Ten or twelve per region?” RT clarified.
Reese looked at Brantley, then back to RT as though confused by the question. “Yeah, I guess. Are you lookin’ to create more teams?”
“I’m not.” RT motioned toward them. “But I figured y’all are.”
Brantley hadn’t discussed this with anyone, including RT. It had been mentioned, but only once. Something about creating these teams in a few major cities across the US.
“Eventually,” Brantley noted.
“From experience,” RT continued, “I can tell you it’d be wise to keep your electronics and support teams in one place and send field agents where they’re most needed as you grow. Less on overhead that way.”
“We’re willin’ to do whatever you need us to do,” Brantley told RT. “Our only objective is to remain useful to those who need our services.”
RT looked at Hunter, the men clearly having a silent conversation. When Hunter nodded, RT turned a wide grin on him and Reese.
“I’m not gonna pretend we have to get into the minutia to move forward. From the minute you showed interest, we were on board.” He chuckled. “In fact, it took me all of three minutes to present it to the board and get one-hundred-percent buy-in.”
Brantley stared like an idiot. He hadn’t been sure what to expect, but having spent his entire career working for the government, where the wheels turned slowly when it came to decision-making, he damn sure hadn’t anticipated a full-on welcome by the end of this meeting, much less just half an hour in.
“Seriously,” Hunter tacked on. “We’ve taken our fair share of missing-persons cases over the years, but we’ve never had the manpower to dedicate full teams to it. However, there is one caveat.”
Of course there was.
Brantley waited patiently for the bad news.
“Man, don’t look like someone punted you in the balls. It’s not that bad,” RT said with a choked laugh.
“In my experience, it usually is,” he admitted.
Hunter glanced between them, his gaze landing on Brantley when he said, “We’re aware you’re both accustomed to bein’ boots-on-the-ground leaders”—Hunter held up a hand, thwarting Brantley’s prepared argument—“which you will remain.” He exhaled with a smile. “However, you’ll also be considered executive management within our infrastructure. With that comes a few additional responsibilities. Financials, sales, whatnot. But you’ll be assigned a personal assistant and a bookkeeper to deal with your office work. If the need arises, we can get you a spot for an office manager, as well. A complete clerical staff’ll free up your team, allowing them to dedicate one hundred percent of their time to the cases.”
Brantley knew JJ would be pleased with that.
“The assistant I just hired…” Brantley glanced between RT and Hunter. “If it’s all the same to you, we’d like to utilize her.”
“Hire whoever you see fit. You will maintain operational control.” RT got to his feet. “But what Hunter’s leavin’ out is the other executive responsibilities. You’d be required to show up a couple of times a month for meetings, keep the board and the other teams up to date on what you’re focused on and how you’re spendin’ your money. As well as the paying clients you’re accumulatin’.”
“Payin’ clients? The ones we help don’t usually need our services again.”
“If they’re lucky, that’s true. But they’re not the clients we’re lookin’ to deal with. However, we provide myriad services.”
Brantley nodded, understanding.
“As for spendin’, we’ve got a relatively foolproof budgeting system, which we’ll go over so you know where your funds are allocated.” RT motioned to the barn. “And if you’re in agreement, we’d like to rent some space for some of our agents.”
Brantley glanced at Reese, looking for confirmation he was in agreement with any or all of it.
“We can move those funds around in the budget,” Reese said, which Brantley took as full agreement.
RT pulled out his phone, tapped something on it. A second later, Brantley’s phone chimed, as did Reese’s.
“Those are your individual welcome packets, outlinin’ salary, benefits, and the like. We can discuss those further whenever you’re ready. We’ve got the same packets for each of your current team members, with the exception of the new assistant since we weren’t aware. But we can have it by early Monday mornin’. It’s all covered. Like I said, we’re thrilled about this expansion. And I personally think it’ll benefit all of us in the end.”
Brantley agreed. He knew they’d have access to resources they hadn’t even had with the state. Plus, and probably most importantly, they’d have some organization. As much as he loved his team, that was one thing they’d yet to master.
When the rest of the team arrived, Brantley had regrettably informed them of the governor’s decision to disband the team. He was surprised there hadn’t been too much pushback. Aside from Baz and Charlie asking about the pensions they’d been promised they could keep, which he’d told them he would have to follow up on.
Once everyone had settled down, they spent a couple of hours mapping out what the new task force would look like under the umbrella of Sniper 1 Security. RT and Hunter had stayed under the guise of offering their insight, but Brantley got the feeling they stuck around because they wanted to see how the team meshed.
It’d been slow going in the beginning, what with Jessica James—known simply as JJ—having a tantrum after learning not only had her personal life gone up in flames, her professional one was in a state of chaos as well. Luckily, they’d managed to talk her off the ledge, and once she was on even ground again, it didn’t take long before she was leading the charge.
As for Charlotte Miller and Trey Walker, the newest members of the task force, they were still in that awkward stage where they acted as though they had little input on the subject matter. Every so often, one or both would speak up, but it had taken Reese’s continuous attempts to include them before they were contributing as true members of the team.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Sebastian Buchanan, a.k.a. Baz. Everyone knew the man was dealing with a personal problem, which happened to be in the form of a one-night stand that had the potential of becoming a life-long relationship. In an effort to lick his wounds, Baz had gotten shit-faced on New Year’s and gone home with a woman. Turned out, that woman—Molly Ryan—was convinced she was pregnant, although it had only been a week and was still too early to confirm. Needless to say, Baz wasn’t in a good place, what with dealing with that and working through his feelings for JJ.
Perhaps because of Baz’s personal crisis, JJ was in rare form, taking full control of their most recent development by claiming she was in charge of the reorganization. That, of course, meant everything had to change, including the layout of the barn.
Good thing the rest of them were pretty casual about the whole thing.
“You know what? I think I’ll leave y’all to this,” Brantley suggested shortly after RT and Hunter had left. The absolute last damn thing he cared about was where desks were placed or who sat where.
“And just where are you off to?”
“I’ve got a couple of errands,” he lied. “Then we’re headin’ over to the festival. It is Saturday,” he reminded everyone. “Y’all should probably do the same.”