Page 61 of The Wrong Ride Home (Wildflower Canyon #1)

duke

K az, some other fed (who I hadn’t met before), Elena, and I were crowded in the small observation room.

Kaz had pulled strings to get us in while his partner—a woman who looked like she belonged on a runway rather than in law enforcement—handled the interrogation.

Inside, Piper Novak sat with her attorney, a bulldog of a man with a bad attitude and a sterling legal reputation—precisely the kind of lawyer the rich and powerful hired to make their problems disappear.

“This room smells terrible,” Elena murmured. “And I spend most of my time in a stable with horse manure.”

She was right. The place smelled like frustration. Like waiting for bad fucking news.

Kaz grinned. “I think it’s the coffee.”

The other fed looked thoughtful. He was a portly man who went by the name Agent Smith, which he told me made him feel like the guy in the Matrix , though he didn’t look like it. “I think it’s the old sweat that clings to the walls. You know, when we make the perp sweat?” He laughed at his own joke.

We looked at him like he was the most humorless person we knew. He took it in stride, saying, “This is why I don’t do stand-up.”

As if all of this didn’t make the room seem like a hellhole, we had fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like lazy summer flies.

Through the one-way glass, we watched Piper Novak at the metal table in the interrogation room, her spine straight, her manicured hands folded in front of her.

The overhead lights washed most people out and made them look half-dead.

Not her. No, she looked pristine, polished, untouched—like she was sitting in a boardroom and not an FBI interrogation room.

No fear. No nerves. Just pure, unapologetic arrogance.

I clenched my hands together, knuckles aching from how tight I was holding them. Like if I let go, the whole-damn world might slip through my fingers. Elena reached over, pried open my fist, and laced her fingers through mine.

She was here, I thought in wonder. She was here with me. She wasn’t going to let me go through this alone. I had fallen into luck like a greenhorn lands ass-first into a mud hole—messy, unexpected, but damn if it didn’t feel like I was exactly where I was meant to be.

On the other side of the glass, the door opened, and Agent Romy Boudreaux walked in. She was in a pair of tight jeans that made her ass look amazing, boots, a badge, a blazer…nothing special and yet she looked fine . She also had a Cajun accent that was smooth as silk.

“Stop staring at her like that,” Elena teased.

“I’m human.”

“She’s somethin’, isn’t she?” Agent Smith muttered. “When she first walked in, I thought she was a perp ‘cause no FBI agent looks like that.”

“She finds out you talkin’ about her like that, she’s gonna kick your ass,” Kaz warned.

“I’d take her boot up my ass any time,” Agent Smith said with exaggerated wistfulness.

Elena rolled her eyes. “And these guys are supposed to be the finest of the finest?”

“Yes, ma’am, we certainly are,” Agent Smith replied cheerfully.

We were all trying to lighten the mood, but we all knew that it was a short reprieve because the shit was about to hit the fan.

“How y’all doin’?” Agent Romy Boudreaux said brightly, tossing a thick file on the table with a heavy thud.

She sat on a chair across from Piper and her lawyer Monty Thomas—her stance lazy as all get out.

Monty sighed like this was nothing more than an inconvenience. “Agent Boudreaux, what a pleasure.” It was obvious this was not a pleasure .

She smirked. “I hope you feel the same way in an hour or so, cher . ”

Agent Smith grunted. “I thought we decided she wouldn’t do that Cajun shit no more.”

Kaz raised his hands, palms up. “Romy doesn’t listen to nobody, you know that.”

Monty sighed while his client looked straight ahead. She hadn’t said a word since she’d been arrested, not even the classic “I want a lawyer” ‘cause he was with her when she was arrested, which Kaz said suspiciously felt like she knew she was going to be arrested.

Monty glanced at the file she had put on the table. “Let me guess, you’re building a case for us to sue you for harassment?”

Romy laughed. “Oh, Monty, you’re so funny. Isn’t he funny, Miss Novak?”

This was my first interrogation, and I had no clue what to expect beyond what I’d seen on Law & Order . I had, however, not expected the cop to flirt with the lawyer.

“You address only me and not my client,” Monty warned her, pushing his glasses up his hawk nose.

“So, I gotta say, we got the guy who shot Elena Rivera.”

No reaction from Piper, but Elena and I turned to look at Kaz, who shrugged. “You’re on a need-to-know basis.”

“I think we’d need to know this,” I snapped.

Kaz grinned. “You keep on thinkin’ that.”

On the other side of the two-way mirror, Romy turned on a large screen and brought up a photograph using her tablet. She also pulled out something from the file, which I assumed was a hard copy of what we were seeing on the screen.

The photo was grainy. Piper Novak stood by what looked like a private jet, talking to a man.

“And?” Monty asked. “I think he might be the steward on the plane.”

“I wish air stewards looked like that, cher ,” Romy remarked. “No, that’s the man we have in custody. He’s a good friend of yours, Miss Novak.”

“Agent, you address me,” Monty pressed.

“Of course.” Romy flipped through various photos showing Piper with the same man at different places. “Now, this man has confessed to the attempted murder of Elena Rivera and…well, the actual target, Duke Wilder.”

Piper leaned close to her lawyer and whispered something. Then she went back to sitting up, spine at attention.

Monty straightened. “That man was employed by Novak Enterprises as a consultant but was let go some days ago for incompetence. If he’s a criminal, we’re very shocked and will obviously support the FBI investigation in every way. Would you like us to hand over his employment records?”

Romy raised an eyebrow and took a deep breath. “Now, we have this guy singing like a gator caught in a shrimp net.” She paused. “And then we have Fiona Turner, who’s singing the whole damn opera.”

Piper didn’t blink or flinch, but I saw an imperceptible flicker in her demeanor. She hadn’t expected Fiona to turn, which was ludicrous.

“She’s not worried,” Elena murmured. “She thinks she’s gonna walk.”

She wasn’t wrong. Piper had the kind of lawyers who made problems disappear. They buried evidence, twisted facts, and turned felonies into misunderstandings.

“Not this time,” Kaz muttered. “This time, we got this tighter than a nun’s pussy.”

Romy continued to bring up various matters with evidence, which I was certain was only the tip of the iceberg. They probably had a lot more if they had been investigating Piper Novak for years.

“I gotta say, Miss Novak, all this will lead you into a prison cell for twenty to twenty-five without parole.”

“That’s why she pays me, Agent,” Monty interjected, “so that doesn’t happen.”

This went on for a while, and it was like watching molasses move. They took breaks, and they repeated the same things over and over. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we got somewhere.

“During our previous break, I received some information. I think you need to be looking at Gloria Wilder,” Monty said smoothly, opening his satchel and pushing some papers toward Romy, making a mockery of having just received this information since it was printed and stuck in a nice envelope.

“We have wire transfers from Mrs. Wilder to the man who was formerly employed by Novak Enterprises.”

Elena held my hand tighter. I knew this was coming, and yet it felt surreal. Nash was a son of a bitch, alright, but he’d never tried to kill me. This was a whole new kind of hell, to know that your mother was so devoid of feeling that she’d murder you for money .

Romy looked through the documents and then set them down. “You got anything else you want to bring to show and tell, cher ?”

Monty handed her another envelope. “This is the will Duke Wilder recently filed at the county clerk’s office in Wildflower Canyon. It clearly states his wishes with regards to what is to happen with the Wilder Ranch.”

Romy waited.

Monty then spoke to the mirror, to…us?

“Miss Novak is no longer interested in purchasing Wilder Ranch. She will not be interfering with any rezoning efforts or any other matters with regard to Mr. Wilder’s property.

Miss Novak is right now working on a big project close to Bozeman, and that will remain her focus for the near and distant future. ”

Elena shifted close to me. “Is he…like telling us that she’s backing off?”

“Yeah.” I looked at Kaz for an explanation, who looked grim.

Monty wasn’t finished. “Miss Novak has proof of crimes committed by Fiona Turner and Mrs. Gloria Wilder that we will be happy to share with you.”

He now slid what looked like a USB stick toward Romy.

“You’re just a fountain of information, counselor,” Agent Boudreaux chirped. “What do you want in return? ”

“Nothing,” Monty said confidently. “Miss Novak is just doing her civic duty.”

After a while, Piper left with Monty, and Agent Boudreaux walked into the observation room.

“What does all this mean?” Elena asked.

Agent Super Model grinned. “This is just the start, Miss Rivera, and like all good negotiations, we go back and forth and back and forth until we can arrest her tight ass and put it on trial.”

“And you’re confident you can do that?” I wasn’t so sure.

“Oh, yeah.” She patted her stomach. “I’m starvin’. Should we get something to eat?” Then she looked at me again. “We will, however, be talking to your mama shortly. She’s in a room across the bullpen. Between her, Piper, and Fiona, I think we can make at least two of them fall.”