“My name is Brandon Garrett. This is Jessica Kegan. I’m her bodyguard. I understand the sheriff is looking for me in regard to a man named Janos Petrov.”
The deputy, Hillman, his badge read, looked up at Bran in surprise and quickly came to his feet. “Yes, sir. You said bodyguard. Are you armed, Mr. Garrett?”
“Not at the moment.”
A second deputy appeared to assist Hillman. They definitely weren’t taking any chances, and as Jessie thought of what Bran was capable of doing, she didn’t blame them.
“If you’ll both come this way.” The second deputy, Crowley, was older, a slight paunch over his belt.
They passed through a metal detector that showed Bran had been telling the truth about the weapon, which he had left locked in the SUV. Crowley checked Jessie’s handbag and motioned for them to follow.
“Right this way,” Deputy Hillman said.
But the man waiting in the interview room wasn’t the sheriff. He was the sheriff’s deputy in charge of the Petrov murder case, Detective Mace Galen.
“Thank you for coming in,” Detective Galen said, a broad-shouldered blond man, rather imposing, Jessie thought, with a thick mustache that curved around his mouth, and intense dark eyes.
“No problem,” Bran said.
Galen turned to her. “Ms. Kegan, is it?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait in the other room. I’ll need to speak to you after I’m finished with Mr. Garrett.”
Jessie’s gaze snapped to Bran. On the drive over, they had reviewed the details of the fight at the resort and also the attack that had left Petrov and Graves tied up in the desert.
“Just tell them the truth,” Bran had said. “Can’t screw up too badly if you’re being honest.”
“What about all the other stuff? My dad, and the reason we’re here?”
“You’re a journalist. You’re working on a story. That’s all you need to say.”
Now, walking out of the interview room, her mind raced as she followed Deputy Hillman into a second interview room next to the first.
“You might as well have a seat,” the young deputy said. “It could take a while.”
The door closed, and Jessie sat down in a pale blue padded vinyl chair at the metal-framed table in the middle of the room. It was cold in there. The room was stark, except for a big rectangular mirror on one wall, a two-way mirror, she figured, just like on TV.
Jessie thought of what might be happening to Bran and shivered.
* * *
“So the cuts and bruises all over Petrov’s body were delivered by you?” Detective Galen sat across from Bran on the opposite side of the metal-framed table.
“I don’t know. I’d have to look at the body.”
“What kind of weapon do you carry?”
“On which particular day?”
Galen glared.
“Mostly a Glock 19. If I need it, a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver ankle gun for backup.” Among others, but he didn’t say that.
“Petrov died from a .45-caliber bullet wound. He was shot right between the eyes.”
“Whoa, brutal.”
“Yes, it was. We know you were army Special Forces. Highly decorated before you were wounded and had to leave the service.”
He didn’t bother to answer. It wasn’t his favorite subject.
“A special ops soldier. That makes you more than capable of delivering a kill shot like that.”
“I could do it, but I didn’t. What about his buddy, Graves? Maybe Graves got tired of playing second fiddle.”
“Is that the way it was? Petrov ran the show and Graves just went along for the ride?”
“I’d say Petrov was the alpha dog, but truthfully, I didn’t pick up that kind of friction between them.”
“We’re still looking for Graves. They both had rap sheets, but Graves had no outstanding warrants so he was released the same night we brought him in. Petrov’s background was a little more sketchy. Plus he was using an alias so we kept him in lockup overnight. When nothing interesting turned up, we released him the next morning. A teenager found him dead in his truck a few hours later.”
“Graves could have been waiting for him.”
“He could have been. What about you? The woman at the resort described a rather spectacular fight on Halloween night.”
“We fought,” he said. “Petrov and Graves were hired to silence my client, Ms. Kegan.”
“By silence, do you mean kill?”
“If necessary.”
“And why is that?”
“She’s a journalist. They wanted to stop her from writing a story she’s working on.”
“What kind of story?”
“Look, what Ms. Kegan writes is none of my business. I’m her bodyguard. Keeping her safe—that’s what I’m paid to do.” Not that