Glow (Glimmer and Glow #2)(13)
Jim Sheridan had been an all-state linebacker back in his high school days and still had the heft of one—more so, now that the years and his love of the food at the local diner had put sixty pounds on a once lean frame. Jim wore both the experience and the extra weight well. He possessed a friendly, craggy face and a down-to-earth warmth that might initially fool some into thinking he was just a good-old-boy small-town pushover with a badge. Others might be tricked into thinking it was his physical stature that earned Jim so much respect around Morgantown, but Dylan and those closest to the sheriff knew differently. The fact of the matter was, hidden beneath that amiable quick grin and the fading glory of a high school football star, Jim Sheridan was a shrewd observer and a damn good cop.
To this day, Dylan thought Jim had a better understanding and more keen insights into the details and nuances of the Adelaide Durand kidnapping case than any of the FBI agents sent to investigate the crime. Those FBI agents had failed completely, while Jim had been the one to encourage Dylan to never give up. He’d supported Dylan’s trips to regularly visit Avery Cunningham, one of Adelaide’s kidnappers, every year in prison until Cunningham had finally confessed to the crime just before his death. That refusal to give up had been what eventually gave Dylan clues to Addie’s whereabouts twenty long years after she’d first been taken from the Durand Estate.
Of course, Jim didn’t know about Cunningham’s confession yet, and Dylan wanted to keep it that way for a while.
“Odd that the alarm would malfunction tonight. It’s never gone off once—with or without cause—since I moved in here six years ago. I have it regularly serviced,” Dylan was saying to Jim.
“The storm caused some power outages down south,” Jim said from where he leaned against the edge of Dylan’s desk, arms crossed over his broad chest. “Maybe it was some kind of electrical anomaly.” He noticed Dylan’s skeptical look and shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. Trust me. After thirty-seven years on the force, I can’t tell you the number of false alarms I’ve raced to in the middle of the night caused by faulty security systems. You know better than anyone how many Durand execs live in Morgantown. Lots of big houses. Lots of fancy security systems. Lots of malfunctions,” Jim said with a small smile.
“I still don’t like it.”
“Have someone come and take a look at the system—”
Jim paused and blinked. His stare at the door widened. Dylan spun around. Had Jim been mistaken in thinking it was a false alarm?
Alice stood warily several feet back from the open door, her short hair wild and mussed, her robe tied haphazardly and bunching awkwardly around her slender frame. Her face was set and pale, like she was ready for battle. She had a death grip on his five iron.
“Alice. Damn it,” he mumbled under his breath. He crossed the distance to the door rapidly. “I thought I asked you to stay put until I came back.” He grasped her forearm and pulled her into the den after him.
“You might have come up and told me what was happening sooner, instead of leaving me up there to worry all alone while you sit down here having a friendly chat,” she hissed under her breath. She jerked her arm out of his hold and cast a half-apologetic, half-resentful glance at Jim before returning her burning stare to Dylan.
“We just determined there wasn’t an actual break-in a few seconds ago.” He resisted a strong urge to lift her over his shoulder and lock her behind a closed door somewhere. Jim was studying her with avid interest, only adding to Dylan’s sense of growing unease.
Damn Alice for her impulsivity. He didn’t want Jim to suspect the truth. He wasn’t dead set against Jim knowing about his finding Addie in general—the sheriff had been one of the few who had known about Dylan’s continued search all these years, after all. Jim deserved to celebrate the amazing truth with him at some future date. It was just that as soon as Jim knew about Addie, the sheriff would be obligated to inform the FBI. The kidnapping wasn’t Jim’s case. It was a federal one.
Alice wasn’t ready yet to have police and agents swarming around her and asking her a slew of questions. She claimed that she was fine, but Dylan was much less confident about her emotional and mental well-being. It was only two days ago that she’d been told she’d been born a completely different person than the one she’d believed herself to be.
She certainly wouldn’t be prepared if her “mother,” Sissy Reed, and some or all of her many uncles were implicated in colluding with Avery Cunningham, one of Addie Durand’s kidnappers. She hadn’t asked him about the Reeds’ involvement in the past few days and Dylan hoped to spare Alice that reality until some future date. In Sidney Gates’s professional opinion, Alice suspected the Reeds’ collusion and was repressing it. Her silence on the matter was an indication to him that she wasn’t ready to tackle that painful territory yet.
Don’t ask. Don’t tell. That was the course of action Sidney was recommending for now.
To have the Reed clan thrown into prison right this second might give Dylan a rush of sweet vengeance, but it would only leave Alice feeling more torn, confused, and alone. She despised the Reeds, but they were family, too. Dylan knew better than most that feelings toward family members could be a tangled, confusing mess.
He unclenched his jaw and exhaled his frustration. “Jim Sheridan, I’d like you to meet Alice Reed.”