“We weren’t required to inform anyone of our operation here. We were required to reacquire those missiles, Sheriff, not make nice with the local law enforcement. And my gender has nothing to do with my ability to conduct this end of the investigation.”
He grunted at that. “Yeah, two years in military intelligence and five with DHS. You have a hell of a record under your belt, don’t you?”
She did, and it was one she was proud of, sometimes, she assured herself. When she needed something to find a source of pride in, then it worked.
“I’m not a green agent, Sheriff.” She leaned back in her own chair and stared back at him. “Nor am I out of my element here. You have enough pull that you were able to make certain you were contacted and included in any further investigations. I’m fine with that. But you don’t have the power to give me orders or to direct these interviews. Are we clear?”
His gaze flared with anger for a moment, then the amusement was back. “Just your little lackey, huh?” he murmured, glancing over his shoulder at the sound of the bell over the door tinkling merrily to announce another customer.
Chaya sighed. It was Natches. She could feel him now.
“Shall we get down to business?” She picked up the list of interviewees that she had chosen to visit that afternoon. “Here’s the short list of people I need to see today. I assume we can have this completed before too late tonight.”
Mayes took the list and studied it with a frown. “This isn’t the full list.”
“I’m not required to give you the full list,” she told him, feeling Natches moving in closer, hearing him as a chair scraped across the floor just behind her.
The sheriff’s lips twitched as he continued to study her.
“You like to live dangerously, don’t you, little girl?”
She barely contained her flinch. She had heard those words before, and the hell she had lived through afterward still haunted her nightmares.
“I live as I must.” She shrugged. “Another of those details that I’m not required to discuss with you. Now, as you are the first on my list to be interviewed, shall we get started?”
There was a snort of a laugh behind her. The sound had her hackles rising and a curl of anger prickling inside.
Before Mayes could answer, she turned slowly in her chair and looked back at Natches. He was no more than four feet away from her, staring at her from behind those dark glasses.
“Your presence really isn’t required at this time,” she told him quietly. “Your turn will come.”
She refused to let him intimidate her. If he managed to throw her off balance now, then she was lost. She would never be able to complete her assignment as needed.
He didn’t smile; he didn’t speak. He just stared at her until she turned her back on him again and shuffled through the papers in her files for the information she had tagged regarding the sheriff.
“You’ve been sheriff for how long now?”
“Almost six years.” Mayes was definitely amused now. “They voted me back in for some reason. Personally, I think folks around here consider me a bit of an easy mark, don’t you think?”
That was definitely a jibe at the man behind her. Chaya was well aware of the fact that the sheriff and the Mackays had gone head-to-head several times last year over Dawg Mackay’s activities.
“I wouldn’t know the reasons why.” She smiled tightly. “Johnny Grace was a popular citizen in town though. You had known him for a while?”
Mayes nodded slowly. “I’d known him all his life, Agent Dane. I only spent eight years away from home, not a lifetime. Johnny and his parents are well-known to most people in Somerset and the surrounding towns.”
“Yet you had no suspicion he could have been involved in the hijacking of the missiles?”
“Those missiles were taken in another county, close to an Army base.” His voice was clipped now. “I had my eyes open for them, but there were those who neglected to inform me that they could be in my county.” And that was a jibe at Chaya and DHS.
He was professional enough that his animosity didn’t show, but she could feel it.
“Sheriff, I’m not your enemy, nor was I the head agent in that investigation. You’re snapping at the wrong agent here,” she assured him. “I want to complete this and head home as quickly as you want me out of your county.”
Mayes tilted his head to the side. “Now, what would make you think I want you out of my county? Unlike most people, Agent Dane, I enjoy a good comedy every now and then. And this situation appears to at least have an element of amusement within it.”
The bell tinkled at the door again. When Chaya lifted her head to glance at the mirror placed next to the register behind Sheriff Mayes, she felt like cursing.
The Mackays were amassing. The tall, broad forms of Dawg and Rowdy Mackay were reflected in the glass as they moved across the room. They all but swaggered. Dressed in jeans and light T-shirts, Dawg wore a denim jacket, Rowdy wore a leather jacket. Both were suspicious and more than a little intimidating as they joined Natches at his table.
When her eyes met Sheriff Mayes’s again, the amusement in them had thickened.
“What about known associates of Grace’s?” she asked him then, lowering her voice further. “Did you have any reason to suspect them after the operation completed last year?”
This was the wrong damned place for these questions. She knew it, and she could see the knowledge of it in Mayes’s eyes. She had tried to warn Timothy, several times, this man was no one’s fool. Timothy had arranged this meeting here specifically to allow Mackay involvement.
The sheriff leaned closer. Bracing his arms on the table, he stared back at her warningly.
“Are you sure you want to finish this here, Agent Dane?” he asked her, his voice official, cool.
“This is as good a place as any, Sheriff. If you could answer the question please.”
“I’d have reason to suspect half the county then,” he told her. “If you want to discuss specific suspects though, we’re going to do it elsewhere.”
That was good enough. That was the best answer she would get right here and now—that Mayes did suspect various parts of the Grace and/or Mackay family. She had spent most of her life learning how to read people, and despite the chill in the sheriff’s face, she could read that much in his eyes.