Page 8 of Deputies Under Fire (Renegade Canyon #2)

“Good,” Livvy said. “It’ll save you from having to update her. Ike is here with his lawyers,” she went on after gathering her breath. “I’ve put them in the interview room, but I’ll wait until Eden and you are here before I start. Any idea when that’ll be?”

“I’m guessing about fifteen or twenty minutes. We’re just waiting on some paperwork.”

“No rush,” Livvy told him. “It might do Ike some good to stew a while. The more riled he is, the more likely he is to blurt something out.”

“I agree,” Rory and Eden said in unison.

“And besides, there’s something we need to go over before the interview,” Livvy continued. “I just got Brenda’s phone records, and it includes copies of her texts for the past month.”

That was routine in a criminal investigation, so Eden figured Livvy must have found something. Hopefully, something that would help them confirm who’d killed the woman.

“In the past two weeks Brenda sent a half-dozen texts to a number that the techs have identified as a pay-as-you-go, a burner,” Livvy explained. She paused a heartbeat. “The messages are about Ike.”

She felt Rory go stiff. “Read them to us,” he insisted.

“All right. The first was sent exactly two weeks ago, and it seems to be a reply—‘Yes, I believe Ike is behind Mellie’s death.’ There’s no text or call from the unknown number or anyone else to tell us why Brenda sent that, but within five minutes, the unknown caller responds ‘You bet your life he is.’”

So this would have been someone who knew Ike. And that led them back to Helen, or maybe Diedre.

“There’s no name associated with the phone, and the phone is no longer in use,” Livvy added.

That sent up a huge red flag for Eden. It must have for Rory, too, because he asked, “Any idea when the phone was discontinued?”

“I can narrow it down. Brenda sent a text to the number at three p.m. yesterday. According to the ME, that would have likely been only a couple of hours before she was attacked and left for dead. This morning when the techs tried the number, it was out of service.”

So that could fit with…what? Eden had to mentally shake her head. Had this caller been connected to the killer? Or was the caller the actual killer?

“What do the rest of the texts say?” Rory asked.

“Text two again seems to be a reply with no corresponding text or phone call so it’s possible it was in response to another conversation,” Livvy explained. “It says ‘Ike is cleaning house, and I believe you’re right. He’ll come after me.’”

Eden wished the woman had taken this to the cops, and they could have tried to protect her. And they might now have Mellie’s killer in custody.

“The third text isn’t until a week later, and it’s a doozie,” Livvy went on.

“It says ‘We need to find out who else is on Ike’s hit list. Any ideas how we can do that?’ The response came less than a minute later.

‘I think I know someone who can bug his office and hack into his computer. Not sure he’d be careless enough to write something down, though. ’”

Eden groaned. This had certainly escalated. “Was the listening device put in place?” she asked Livvy.

“Yes, according to the next text. That came two days later from the unknown number. ‘Bugs have been planted in his office, truck and bedroom, and I’m listening. Will keep you posted.’ To that, Brenda sent a response of ‘Please do.’”

Eden met Rory’s gaze, and she could see that all of this was as much of a surprise to him as it was to her.

“Request a warrant to have all three of those locations checked for listening devices,” Rory stated.

“Already done. If the CSIs find them, they’ll be brought in for testing. We might get prints off them. If they exist,” Livvy concluded.

Yes, and that was an if they had to consider. Because if the unknown texter was the killer, or Ike, then all of this could be some kind of sick game the killer was playing with Brenda. There could be no listening devices.

“The fifth text also came the day Brenda was murdered,” Livvy continued. “And the sender had this to say—‘Overheard exactly what we suspected. Ike’s cleaning house, and he named names in a meeting with a bomb expert he plans on using. Brenda, you’re on the list.’”

“Hell,” Rory snarled. “And what did Brenda say to that?”

“‘Not surprised,’” Livvy said, continuing to read. “‘Ike hates my guts. I’ll be ready for him if he comes after me the way he did poor Mellie.’”

Eden felt as if someone had punched her. She’d always known Ike was a suspect, but it was a different thing to hear it all spelled out like this. Then again, the spelling out might be all lies.

“Several minutes later, Brenda sent the sixth text,” Livvy continued. “And she asks ‘Who else is Ike after?’”

Eden pulled in her breath, held it. Waited.

“‘Me, of course,’ the person texted back. ‘Frank Mott, too.’”

That name was very familiar to Eden since he’d been questioned in Mellie’s murder. There’d been no evidence against him, but like Ike, Frank wasn’t in favor of Mellie running a foster home so close to his own ranch. He had spent years trying to get the place shut down.

But Frank also had an ongoing feud with Ike.

Eden knew that stemmed from rumors that Ike had had an affair with Frank’s late wife, Miranda. There was zero evidence to support that, but Frank, like Helen, had always been vocal about Ike’s cheating, and how that cheating had crushed Rory’s mom, Doreen.

“There’s another part to that sixth text,” Livvy said, sighing. “Here it is verbatim. ‘And because he wants to nip Mellie’s murder investigation in the bud, Ike will be going after his son, Rory, and Deputy Eden Gallagher.’”