The O'Connells Box Set

Chapter 15

Charlotte was perched on the edge of his desk, where he sat with the phone to his ear, the door closed. He’d said nothing to Therese and Colby about his personal business, and then there was Harold, who he knew was handling a call at a property north of town about vandalized farm equipment and a fire that had destroyed half a barn. Arson for sure, but not something he could get his head into today.

He listened to the ring again, furious after having left two messages for the warden of the women’s prison, who had never bothered to call him back.

“Jane Bartlett,” she finally answered, and the ball of rage building in his stomach seemed to grow bigger.

“Warden Bartlett, this is Sheriff Marcus O’Connell. You’re a hard woman to get a hold of. Pretty sure I left two messages for you already.”

“Sheriff, I’m busy running a prison. What can I do for you?” she said sharply. He still remembered how she’d laid the law down on him when Reine was locked up, calling that prison home for nearly three years. Her words, exactly, had been Stay the hell out of how I run my prison.

Stay the hell out of how I run my prison.“I’m calling about Reine Colbert. I would have expected a courtesy call from you to say she was being released.”

There was no pause on the other end, no Oops, sorry. “Why would I notify you? Her lawyer managed to get her before the parole board, and she was granted early release. Is there a problem I should know about? Because unless she’s done something and is having her parole revoked and being returned to my prison, I’m not clear on why we should be talking. The last thing I have any time for is to notify people when a prisoner is being released. As far as I’m concerned, she’s done her time. All she has to do is keep her nose clean. If she gets herself in trouble, she’ll land right back here and will have to serve out the remainder of her sentence. Again, did she do something? Otherwise, I don’t want to hear about it.”

Oops, sorrySometimes he appreciated when a woman got to the point, but right now, the way she talked to him was only pissing him off. Worse, he expected her to cut him off and hang up. Charlotte didn’t pull her gaze from him until he heard a knock on his door, when she slid off the desk and walked over to pull it open.

He looked away, turning his chair toward the large framed map of Montana on the dark wood wall, and shut his eyes for a second, then dragged his hand down over his face, knowing everything would go sideways with this warden when he opened his mouth.

“Look, she showed up at my door this morning,” he said. “I would have appreciated a heads-up so I could prepare and have an idea—”

The warden sighed. “So you’ve arrested her.”

He hadn’t expected that. He realized the warden likely didn’t remember about her daughter, and he found himself shaking his head. “No, of course I didn’t. My wife and I adopted Reine’s daughter, Eva…”

“Of course, yes.” She cut him off. “Well, I’m sure her parole officer will have already advised her not to contact you and her daughter. So she couldn’t help herself. Seems too often they’re out and then right back in here. Okay, here it is. Manny Meskill is her parole officer. You want the number?”

There was something odd about the warden. He never knew what side of the fence she was on.

“No, I know Manny,” he said, recalling a man in his fifties, five inches shorter than Marcus, with messy dark hair, a penchant for fast food, and a belly that hung over his belt. “I’ll call him.”

“Is there anything else, Sheriff?” There it was, the unfriendliness back in her tone as if she didn’t want to hear from him again.

“No, I’ll have a word with Manny. Thank you, Warden.”

He heard the click and knew she’d hung up, so he set the phone back in the cradle with a clatter and slid his office chair around. It squeaked as he leaned forward, resting his forearms on his desk, seeing Harold in the doorway. Evidently, Charlotte was bringing him up to speed. The door was wide open as she walked back over to him.

“Well, what did she say?”

Marcus reached for the phone again to call Manny, a man he’d talked to half a dozen times, but then decided against it. He let out a heavy sigh, feeling Charlotte staring down at him, waiting for him to answer as he tried to wrap his head around this situation.

“Manny Meskill is her parole officer. Her lawyer got her early parole. Karen should have called me and told me…”

“Maybe your sister didn’t know,” Charlotte said.

Harold stared at them, just taking it all in, standing right in front of his desk beside her. “Karen did say sometime about Reine’s father, Duncan, bringing in his own lawyer. Wasn’t he handling things for her now? You know we were cut out of the loop.”

Marcus needed to call his sister. “I’ll call Karen, see what she can find out. In the meantime, I’ll have a word with the parole officer.”

He didn’t have a clue how to deal with Reine’s anger, and he hadn’t really taken the time to consider what would happen when she got out, what it would mean for her to eventually walk through the doors of the prison. It shouldn’t have happened so early, but evidently, here they were.

“She threaten you?” Harold said, resting his hands on his duty belt, all cop, staring down at him.

Charlotte’s gaze lingered on him. Wouldn’t it be so easy to say she had?

He made himself shake his head. He could see the panic in Charlotte’s gaze. She expected him to figure out how to keep Reine away. “No, she didn’t threaten me or us. I wouldn’t say that about her. She wants Eva back, though, which has me wondering what else is coming our way. She’s angry, and the way she showed up, I’m not sure what she’ll do. A woman on the edge, operating on pure emotion… It’s not an ideal situation, and it’s not exactly what I want around my daughter.”

Harold dragged his gaze from Charlotte to him, taking it all in.

“So was it arson?” Marcus changed the subject because he needed to think of something else for a moment so he could be reasonable instead of reverting to the hard-a*s he likely had been that morning.

Harold shook his head. “Looks like it. Tracking down a couple leads, but seems it could be the same person who wrecked the farm equipment and cut fencing at those two other properties, the Olsons’ place and Lloyd Binnion’s down the road.”

Marcus reached for the keys on his desk and his cell phone, shoving them in his pocket as he stood up, knowing Charlotte still expected him to do something. “You got this, then?” He gestured to Harold, who just lifted his hands.

“Yeah, I got it. What are you planning on doing? Charlotte said you left your house and Ryan was there with Reine. What happened?”

Another call he needed to make. This was his problem, but Ryan had obviously picked up on how sideways it was going.

He took in the open door, unable to shake that off feeling he had, and gestured helplessly, dragging his gaze back over to Charlotte, his wife, the mother of his children, Eva and Cameron. “Maybe Ryan got through to her. I expected him to call. Eva wants Reine to come to family night at Mom’s.”

Harold opened his mouth the way he did when he didn’t know what to say.

Marcus dragged his gaze back over to Charlotte, who crossed her arms over her chest, her lips pressed tightly in a fine line. “I told her no after you left, told her she can’t come,” he said. “So that’s where it was left. Right now, I’m going to pay Manny Meskill a visit and find out why he couldn’t pick up the damn phone and give me a call. He should’ve let me know Reine was out so I could do damage control and figure out a few things instead of being blindsided completely this morning when she showed up at our door. Then I’m going to find out where she’s staying, everything he said to her, and where the f**k she got this idea that she can just walk out of prison and take Eva back. Eva is ours now. I’ll have that chat with Manny, see that things are squared away and he sits down with Reine so she gets her head on straight…”

“Marcus, you mind some advice?” Harold cut in, which was something he didn’t normally do. But then, Marcus couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone so far off the rails. He wanted to say no, as he could see Charlotte expected him to just handle this. He let out a heavy sigh as he held the keys.

“Sure, why not?” He could feel the sarcasm dripping from his tone, but Harold didn’t seem to notice.

“Maybe you need to sit down with Reine and just listen to her,” he said, then lifted his hands as if he’d overstepped, likely because Marcus could feel the Hell, no! on the tip of his tongue. “Look, just hear me out here. What is it you’re planning on doing? You’re going to see Manny and, what, have her parole yanked and get her tossed back in jail? You want to make her life more difficult than it already is?”

Hell, no!Marcus pulled his hand over his face. He wasn’t that kind of cop, he was better than that, but this was his daughter, Eva. “I don’t know. No… I’m not out to toss her back in jail, but the entire situation of her being there wasn’t right. Nevertheless, this is where we are, and the fact is she’s messing with my family. She’s going to hurt Eva, and I can’t have that.”

Charlotte still hadn’t said anything. She was looking at the door, and he knew she wanted to race out of there, pick up Eva from school, pick up Cameron from Jenny’s, and lock the doors at home and not let them out.

“Hey, I get it,” Harold said. “I can see how wound tight you both are. But don’t forget she’s Eva’s mother, so tread carefully. Eva is old enough to understand that her mother showed up this morning, so if she doesn’t see her again, she’s going to ask why. Are you going to lie to her or say it’s complicated? Because I have to tell you, that kid is smart, and if she figures it out or finds out you did something…”

How the hell did Harold do that? His words of reason were an icy splash of water

“s**t! f**k…” Marcus said. “God almighty, she’d never forgive us.” He dragged his hand over his face again and turned back to the map on the wall, wondering why he was so damn focused on it. Then he made himself look back to Harold, who made a face and angled his head, pulling his arms across his chest.

“Again, Marcus, talk to her, sit down with her, find some common ground. Because I can see already what this is going to do. From where I’m standing, it could tear you apart, and that happy little girl. Anger is anger. Reine evidently wants to be part of her life. Can you really deny her that, or Eva?”

He pressed his hand over his eyes. Harold’s words of wisdom told him something he already knew deep down. He tucked his phone in his pocket.

“I’m still having a talk with Manny,” was all he said, then started around his desk, feeling the reality of the situation. When he reached the doorway, he turned back, carrying the weight of every moment of what had happened to Reine: her survival, her wrong choices, her ending up on the wrong end of the law. “I’m just talking, that’s it. I’m not heading there to cause Reine trouble.”

But he still planned on talking one on one with Reine, too. And this time, he hoped the woman he spoke to was the same reasonable one who’d asked him to adopt Eva.