The Inn at Holiday Bay: Secret in the Santa by Kathi Daley

Author:Kathi Daley [Daley, Kathi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kathi Daley Books
Published: 2022-12-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

The next hour was a nightmare. It took me almost the entire sixty minutes to get ahold of Colt while trying to calm Georgia, who, as expected, was nearly hysterical. I understood that Colt was likely busy and calling me wasn’t at the top of his “to-do” list, but he must have known that once he shared his news with Lonnie, it would get to Georgia and me and that we’d want answers.

“I don’t know much at this point,” Colt said. I’d put him on speakerphone at Georgia’s insistence. “A man named Ronald McVanderhorn called me this morning to inform me that when he showed up at five a.m. to open for the early shift at the warehouse, he found a man passed out in his truck. The truck was running, and the heater was on, so the warehouse worker figured the guy was sleeping off a late night of partying. He planned to run him off, but he had his arms full of boxes, so he went inside, figuring that he’d drop off the boxes and then go back out and wake the man. When he entered the building, however, he found a gunshot victim dead on the warehouse floor. He called 911, and I responded to the call. As McVanderhorn had described, Tanner was passed out in his truck, and the gunshot victim was dead on the floor inside the warehouse. I recognized the dead man as one of the men who’d been with Tanner when I stopped by the bar to check on things last night, so I went out to the truck and woke Tanner. He confirmed that the dead man was Bellingham Walton, a wealthy businessman from Boston. He also confirmed that he’d been drinking with the man the night before and that he’d given him a ride to the warehouse to meet with someone. He’d waited in the truck while Bellingham went inside, and he shared that he must have passed out since he didn’t remember a thing that happened after that.”

“Maybe this man was shot by whomever he met at the warehouse,” Georgia said.

“Perhaps,” Colt agreed. “That’s a good possibility, but we found the gun used to shoot the man on the floorboard of Tanner’s truck.”

“He couldn’t have done this,” Georgia said. “You know he has to be innocent.”

“I agree. There’s no way I’m buying the fact that Tanner Peyton shot a man in cold blood, but the evidence points to him as the killer, so until I can prove otherwise, I had no choice but to arrest him.” Colt paused and then continued in a low tone of voice that held just a touch of defeat. “Tanner was really drunk when I stopped by the bar last night. All the men were. I asked the bartender to make sure they didn’t drive home, and he assured me he’d call a cab or an Uber.”

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Georgia cried. “I should be there.”

“The road is closed and is unlikely to open until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest,” Colt said.

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