“Where’s Jeb now?” Elle asked. “Is he there with you?”
The woman sniffed, her voice shaky as she said, “No. He’s at the sheriff’s department, making a complaint against Deputy Dawson. He took our son Jeremy and daughter Sandra with him.”
Elle nodded to herself. That could take a while. If they moved quickly, she could get a cab to the Monroe farm and get Janice to the sheriff’s department before Jeb made it back home. She’d just have to make sure to time it right. She’d made a promise to Gabe about staying safe and avoiding any of the Monroe men after all.
“Mrs. Monroe,” she said, “I’m coming to pick you up. But it’s imperative that you be ready to go when I get there.”
As soon as Elle hung up, she called the cab, then placed another call.
“Deputy Abby Morrow.”
Elle was relieved to catch her friend at her desk. “Hey, Abby. It’s Elle.”
“Hey, sweetie,” Abby said. “How’re you holding up?”
Elle groaned. “Been better. I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”
“You know I will,” Abby responded without hesitation. “What do you need?”
“I need you to give me a call as soon as Jeb Monroe leaves the department to head home.”
“Okay…” Abby replied, drawing out the word in her wariness. “Why?”
“Just want to keep track of his movements,” Elle said, flagging down the cabbie as he pulled into Mulaney’s parking lot. “I’ll explain it all later.”
“Should I tell Gabe you called?” Abby asked in a rush. “He’s in with Mac, but I can tell him when he comes out.”
Elle hesitated as she opened the cab door. If he knew what she was doing, he’d come racing out to the farm, probably just in time to confront Jeb. That’s the last thing he needed right then. She’d give him a call as soon as she had Janice safely in the cab and they were on their way back to the sheriff’s department. He’d definitely want to be there to listen in as Janice gave her statement.
“No,” she finally replied to Abby. “I’ll give him a call as soon as I can.”
Elle hung up and glanced at her phone as she got into the cab. Her battery was nearly dead. Her window of opportunity for getting Janice Monroe and her children to safety just got a little smaller.
Damn it!
“Miss? Where to?” the cab driver prompted.
Elle rattled off the address to the Monroe farm. She wasn’t surprised at all that she still remembered it. After looking through Derrick’s file so many times, searing every fact into her brain for the trial, she doubted she’d ever forget any of it. Even the parts she wished she could.
Chapter 22
Gabe sat in the chair in his father’s office, gripping the wooden arms so hard in his rage that his knuckles were white. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Mac’s brows lifted in a look of slight disapproval. “Care to rephrase that?”
Gabe gave his father a defiant look. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, sir?”
Mac jabbed his index finger at his son. “I’m not the enemy here, Son.”
Gabe took a moment to collect himself before he managed to grind out, “Judge Murray owes his entire career to your influence, and the one time you go to him for a favor, he tells you to piss off?”
“It’s an election year,” Mac muttered, rising from his chair and pacing over to his office window.
Gabe waited for the rest of an explanation for several moments before he realized that was all he was going to get. “This is bullshit,” he spat. “You know this, right? I didn’t do any of what Monroe is claiming.”
Mac gave him a terse nod without turning away from the window. “I know that, Gabriel. But it doesn’t matter a damn what I believe. My influence only goes so far in this county.”
“You wouldn’t have said that twenty years ago,” Gabe shot back.
At this, Mac did turn to give him a questioning look. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, young man?”
Gabe meant that twenty years ago, if someone had tried to pull this kind of shit on one of Mac’s deputies, Mac would’ve been paying the bastard a visit to make it clear he wasn’t about to let a move like that go unanswered. There was no way in hell he would’ve taken no for an answer.
“I’m just wondering who else might be worried about an election year,” Gabe admitted.
Mac’s normally stoic face went stormy. “You think I’d let you go down because I was worried about keeping my ass in this chair? You think I’d ever put my career over you boys?”