Page 50 of Single Mom’s Undoing (Lucky Lady Reverse Harems #1)

“Dexter Wright,” Mitch says, nodding. “Ruthless bastard. Although I’m not sure if he’s as smart as Vince was to evade the law the way his club was able to over the past decade.

They’re nothing more than pawns in leather, riding expensive bikes to compensate for their tiny dicks. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Someone’s pulling their strings or using them for their drug distribution organization,” I conclude. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. But in order to get one of them to talk and cooperate, we need leverage.”

“We don’t have leverage,” Tyler points out.

“No. But we do have two active murder cases that I’m guessing they’re somehow involved, either directly or indirectly.

Which reminds me, I’m heading down to the evidence room for Tanya’s box.

You two handle your side of this bloody mess, and I’ll meet you back here later for a summary briefing. Time isn’t our friend these days.”

“Give Tassia my regards,” Mitch says, giving me a playful wink.

“Give her your regards yourself,” I shoot back. “I texted her earlier asking her to join us for dinner later. She said yes.”

Tyler chuckles. “And there you go, breaking your own word.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you’re better off putting some distance between her and us.”

“It doesn’t mean I have to be a crappy host,” I reply, watching them exchange a humor-filled glance.

We all know I’m lying to myself.

I find Tassia at her desk, huddled behind her computer. Her blonde hair is pulled into a loose bun on the top of her head, her blue eyes sparkling against the screen while her slender fingers tap away at the keyboard.

“Hey,” I say, then clear my throat.

Her gaze shoots up, and for a moment, I flash back to the way she looked at me the night before. Her naked curves. The slickness of her warm, wet folds as she opened up like a flower for me.

“Hey,” she replies, sitting back. “Heard you caught another murder this morning.”

“We did. Dina Kellogg.”

“Name doesn’t sound familiar.”

“You don’t hang around in those circles.”

“What circles?” she asks.

I search her face for something that could tell me just a little bit more about that wickedly fast and beautiful mind of hers. “Drug users,” I say. “We’re looking for a connection with the Tanya Burrow case, and so far, that’s all we’ve come up with.”

“I thought Frost Valley was a safe place,” Tassia sighs deeply.

“Then again, judging by what I’ve been logging since I first started working here, said thought doesn’t make much sense anymore.

Motorcycle gangs, drug dealing, gang violence, plenty of thefts and aggravated assault… but murder? That’s a whole new level.”

“It is, and Frost Valley isn’t used to any of it. It wasn’t like this before.”

“Before?”

“Years ago, before Mitch, Tyler, and I were deployed with the Rangers.”

“We’re talking about a couple of decades ago, Sheriff,” Tassia shakes her head. “A lot of things can change in the span of two years, let alone two decades.”

That sounded personal, and the tremor in her voice confirms it. Perhaps I should revisit her file. I’ve got the required credentials to pull it up without drawing any attention. However, right now, I’ve got a more pressing task to deal with.

“Fair enough,” I say before glancing at the stacks of brown, black, and white boxes behind her—seemingly countless shelves in a seemingly endless room. “I need the evidence box from Tanya Burrow’s murder case, if you don’t mind.”

Tassia stares at me for a second. Damn, I wish I could read her mind, to figure her out, to understand what really makes her click. “Which one? There are five.”

“How do you know?”

“Hello. Do you see where I work?” she chuckles dryly.

“I can see you, Tassia. I’m just wondering how you’re able to remember how many boxes, specifically. You’ve got quite the daily workload to deal with.”

She lowers her eyes. “I’ve also got a pretty good memory. Anyway.” She shoots out of her chair and offers me a polite smile. “Five boxes. What are you looking for, specifically?”

“Just let me in and I’ll take a look at all five down here. I don’t need any of it upstairs. I just want to go over it again in light of today’s new case.”

Tassia presses the buzzer that opens the metal gate separating her evidence room from the rest of my station’s generously lit basement.

I go in, feeling as though I’m trespassing into her territory—Tassia has a way of commanding any room she’s in, though I doubt she’s aware of the strength she exudes.

“Thank you,” I say as I follow her through a maze of shelves.

“Right over here,” she points as we reach the end of a corridor. “Let me take them out for you.”

“I can help.”

“No need. There’s nothing heavy,” she insists, checking the side labels before pulling the first box from its shelf and placing it on a nearby wooden table.

I watch her do the same with two other boxes before I’m compelled to intervene and help. Tassia watches me with amused curiosity.

I wink at her. “A gentleman’s nature, I’m afraid.”

“I can’t say that I mind,” she replies as I stack the last two on top of one another and carry them over to the examination table.

“Alright, let’s see.”

“That one has the items recovered from and around the body,” Tassia points to the first box. “Jewelry, broken glass, her clothes. It’s all bagged and tagged accordingly.”

“And I assume already fingerprinted and checked for trace evidence.”

“Yes, sir. DNA, gunpowder residue, any drug paraphernalia, etc.”

Yet none of that yielded a suspect. The people we questioned all had solid alibis and the few folks we did consider as potential suspects had no motive to kill Tanya.

“This has felt like a dead-end since day one,” I mutter.

Tassia takes the top off the first box, and I let my gaze wander over everything inside. I recognize most of it, taking in every detail when I was mere feet away from Tanya’s lifeless, bloodied body.

“Heavy smoker,” Tassia says, holding up a glass jar with plenty of cigarette butts and ashes sealed inside. “This was just one ashtray. She had three more scattered throughout the house.”

“The focus of that crime scene was her bedroom and her bathroom where the struggle and the actual murder took place.” I pause, taking out a transparent plastic bag filled with the remnants of a charm bracelet. “I remember this.”

Tassia stares at the bag for a moment. “Her charm bracelet. Likely ripped off during the struggle.”

“No trace DNA on it other than Tanya’s, though.” I frown. “Hold on,” I say as I open the bag and empty its contents on the table.

A broken chain falls out, followed by a dozen tiny charms made of silver and semi-precious stones. All blues and greens with marine motifs. A dolphin, a sea turtle, starfish, mermaid, palm tree, and a swordfish.

“What is it?” Tassia asks.

“There was another piece here. Another charm. I saw it clearly when Gary plucked it up with his tweezers and dropped it into this very bag.”

She thinks about it for a second, her brow furrowed in concentration. “What did it look like? I never miss any of the items I log.”

“It wasn’t a jab at your ability to do your job, Tassia.”

“Nevertheless, what did it look like?”

“Round, golden or gold brushed, I guess. And I think it had some tiny red gemstones embedded into it,” I tell her.

Tassia shakes her head. “That wasn’t part of the charm bracelet. I put it in a separate bag and tagged it accordingly.”

“Why?”

“Because it wasn’t part of the charm bracelet. I thought I already said that.”

“Gary bagged them together. He’s one of our leading crime scene techs. If he had it bagged with the charms on that bracelet?—”

“Gary wouldn’t know the difference between a pendant and a stud earring,” Tassia says, rolling her eyes.

“I know how he bagged and tagged things at the crime scene. All I did was correct his mistake. The charm you’re referring to wasn’t a charm.

It was a cufflink, and I logged it separately.

I also flagged it for Gary to pick up and retest for DNA traces and prints.

Which he never did, now that I think about it. ”

She pulls a smaller bag from the pile, and I can clearly see it now. A gold-plated cufflink with tiny red gemstones embedded across its circular surface.

Tagged separately.

“They didn’t test every charm on the bracelet before they brought it into the evidence room,” Tassia says. “Once the first few charms confirmed only Tassia’s blood and prints, my guess is they bagged it all together and never gave the cufflink a second thought.”

“But you did.”

“I did.”

“You tampered with evidence.”

The blood drains from Tassia’s face as soon as she realizes the gravity of my statement. She takes a couple of steps back. “Whoa. Tampered with evidence?”

“Why did you feel the need to intervene?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“Because it didn’t seem right to let that cufflink go unseen.”

“I’m just pulling your leg,” I confess.

She gives me a startled look.

“With the evidence tampering statement.”

Without batting an eye, she playfully smacks me over the shoulder. “Badge or not, I will hurt you,” she says, making me laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“My apologies,” I say as I gather my wits about me. “You have no idea how adorable you are when you’re angry.”

The atmosphere shifts between us. I did it on purpose, intentionally disarming Tassia, particularly after the events of last night.

“This is inappropriate, Sheriff,” she manages, tucking a rebel lock behind her ear.

“You’re right. I’ll make my amends later. But I want to know more about this cufflink. How did you even notice it? Your job is logging the items into the evidence system, not analyzing each object in minute detail.”

Tassia sighs deeply. “I guess Tim never told you.”

“Told me what?”

“He wanted to mention it in his recommendation letter, but he didn’t think you’d believe him if he wrote it down.”

“Wrote what down? What’s going on, Tassia?”