Under the Cowboy's Protection

by Delores Fossen

  Best not to complicate things by having sex with Raleigh. Even if that was something that sounded darn good to her.

  She was about to tell him that she would call Court or one of her other fellow deputies to escort her home tonight and stay with her, but Alice took the turn into the parking lot of the security company. That conversation would have to wait.

  As Thea had been doing the whole time they’d been on the road, she glanced around, looking for any signs of trouble. It wasn’t a large building at all, and there were only two vehicles in the parking lot.

  Raleigh had given the owner, Dan Shaw, a heads-up call that they were on the way to see him, and she hoped that one of the two cars belonged to Shaw. Thea didn’t want him stalling them by ducking out on this visit.

  Alice didn’t park in any of the spots. Instead, she pulled directly in front of the door. “You want me to go in with you?” Alice asked Raleigh.

  “No. Wait here and make sure no one else comes inside.”

  Thea hadn’t needed a reminder of the possible danger that came with a visit like this, but that caused her heartbeat to kick up a significant notch. She didn’t draw her gun, but she kept her hand in position as Raleigh and she got out and hurried inside.

  There was a reception desk just a couple of yards from the door, but there was no one seated at it. In fact, there was no one in the room. Despite that, nothing seemed out of order. There was a cup of coffee and a sandwich still in its plastic wrapper next to an open laptop on the desk.

  “Mr. Shaw?” Raleigh called out.

  Nothing. But Thea didn’t go into alarm mode just yet. There was an office to the right, just off the reception area, and a hall to the left, where there were several other rooms.

  Raleigh shouted the man’s name again, and when Shaw didn’t answer, Raleigh took out his phone and called him. Almost immediately, Thea heard the ringing sound in one of the back rooms off the hall.

  Thea looked up at Raleigh and saw that he was just as concerned as she was. Maybe this was just a case of the man trying to hide from them, but it could be something much worse.

  Raleigh and Thea drew their guns.

  They started toward the hall, but she heard another sound in the room across from the reception desk. Someone was in there, and it sounded as if the person moaned.

  Raleigh put his phone away and positioned himself in front of her. “Watch our backs,” he told her.

  Thea would because, after all, the owner’s phone was on the other end of the building. Maybe the owner, too. But it was suspicious that he hadn’t come out when Raleigh had called out for him. Suspicious, too, that someone else was nearby in the other room and hadn’t said anything.

  Raleigh walked closer to the room, keeping his steps slow and cautious, and once he reached the door, he readied his gun.

  Then he cursed.

  Thea had to lean to the side to see what had caused that reaction, and she soon spotted the woman on the floor. She was on her stomach, her arms and legs flung out in an awkward pose.

  And there was blood on her head.

  * * *

  RALEIGH FELT THAT kick of emotion. A mix of dread and adrenaline. There was also some fear, since he figured that Thea and he had just walked into a crime scene.

  His gaze slashed to every corner of the room. It was an office with a desk, but there was no one at the desk or beneath it. Only the woman on the floor.

  “Is she still alive?” Thea asked, automatically taking out her phone. No doubt to call for an ambulance.

  While he continued to keep watch, Raleigh stooped down and put his fingers to the woman’s throat. “She’s got a pulse.” But in addition to what appeared to be blunt-force trauma to the head, she also had two distinctive marks on her neck.

  Someone had used a stun gun on her.

  Just as they had on Thea when she’d been at Sonya’s house.

  “Get Alice in here,” Raleigh told Thea as she continued to make the call. “I need to check those back rooms where we heard the phone ringing.”

  And he didn’t want to do that unless he had someone to help him protect Thea. Of course, Thea wouldn’t appreciate him thinking like that, but she’d already come too close to dying, not once but twice.

  Thea nodded and headed for the door but stopped when they heard another sound. Not a moan or a phone ringing this time. Someone was moving around in the room at the end of the hall. There was a sign next to that particular door, and it had Shaw’s name on it, which meant that was his office.

  “Call Alice and tell her to get in here,” Raleigh repeated to Thea. She started to do that, but again the sound interrupted her.

  But it was more than an interruption this time.

  Shaw’s office door flew open, and before Raleigh could even get a glimpse of the person who’d opened it, a shot blasted through the air. The bullet slammed into the wall right next to where Raleigh was standing. Another quarter of an inch, and he’d have been dead.

  Raleigh hooked his arm around Thea, dragging her to the floor, but she’d already started in that direction anyway. Good thing, too, because more shots came. Thick, loud blasts that tore apart not just the wall behind them but also the reception desk. Since the desk wasn’t much of a barrier at all, Raleigh pulled Thea into the room with the unconscious woman.

  The woman moaned as if trying to warn them, but it was too late for that. Thea and he were under fire, and if Raleigh lifted his head to shoot back, he’d be an easy target.

  Since the injured woman was too close to the door, Thea dragged her to the side so she wouldn’t get hit by a stray bullet, and then Thea hurried back to him. A place he wished she wouldn’t be, but he doubted there was any way he could talk her out of it. Plus, he needed the backup.

  His phone buzzed, and when Raleigh saw Alice’s name on the screen, he handed it to Thea. “Tell her to call SAPD if she hasn’t already, but I don’t want her coming through that door.” She’d be too easy of a target for the shooter.

  Thea did as he said, but her attention stayed in the direction of the gunman. So did Raleigh’s. Judging from the angle of the shot, it was just one guy, but he could have brought a buddy with him who was holding Shaw. And Raleigh didn’t have to guess what the thugs wanted.

  They didn’t want Thea and him to see the footage from the security camera.

  That told Raleigh plenty about this situation—that he would almost certainly recognize the other man who’d gone to the fertility clinic to try to get a list of Dr. Sheridan’s patients.

  Maybe it was Nick or Simon.

  Of course, it could be someone who could be linked to one of those two. And that’s why it was important for Raleigh to get his hands on that footage.

  “SAPDs on the way,” Thea said when she finished her call to Alice.

  Good. Because the angle of the shots changed. This thug was moving closer, no doubt trying to get in position to kill them both. That meant it was time for Raleigh to do something about that.

  He stayed down, but he levered himself up just enough to send a bullet in the shooter’s direction. Raleigh doubted he’d hit the guy, but it caused the man to growl out some raw curse words, and he kept shooting. However, Raleigh had gotten a decent look at the guy, and he was wearing a ski mask.

  Raleigh fired another shot, too, and quickly moved back to cover. Well, as much cover as he had. The bullets were tearing through the wall, and it wouldn’t be long before Thea and he couldn’t use it for cover.

  “Let’s shoot at him together,” Thea said.

  He hated the idea because it would mean her being in the open. For a few seconds anyway. But SAPD or an ambulance wouldn’t be able to get in and help until they’d contained the gunman. The woman definitely needed medical attention, and it was possible Shaw did, too.

  “Fire now?” Thea asked.

  She waited for Raleig
h to nod, and together they leaned out, both of them pulling their triggers at the same time. Raleigh braced himself for the guy to shoot back. But he didn’t. In fact, there were no gunshots from him, no profanity. Just the sound of someone running.

  Hell, now the snake was trying to get away.

  Raleigh got up, ready to fire, but the man was already ducking back into the office, and he slammed the door.

  “If you want Shaw dead,” the man shouted, “then go ahead and try to come back here.”

  Raleigh didn’t want Shaw to die, but he couldn’t trust that this goon would just keep him alive. In fact, he might use Shaw as a human shield so he could get out of the building.

  The woman on the floor moaned again, a reminder to Raleigh that time wasn’t on their side. She could bleed out and die if he didn’t do something.

  “Stay here with her,” he told Thea. Of course, Thea probably didn’t mind doing that part, but she knew what this meant.

  “You’re going out there,” she said. Not a question. She knew it had to be done, but he could see the worry all over her face.

  Raleigh tried to give her a reassuring nod, but he didn’t want to waste another second. With his gun ready, he hurried out of the room, hunkering down behind the reception desk so he could get a better look at the hall. It wasn’t long—less that twenty feet—but at any point the thug could open the door and start firing again. If Raleigh couldn’t get into one of the other rooms, he’d be a sitting duck.

  Even knowing that, he started moving. He ran to the wall right next to the hall and peered around. There was still no sign of the gunman. No sound of him, either. But there was something.

  The smell of smoke.

  Raleigh got a whiff of it just as it started to seep under and around the sides of the office door. The SOB had set the place on fire.

  That gave Raleigh an even greater sense of urgency to do something.

  “You might have to get the woman out of here,” he called back to Thea, and he prayed that Alice and maybe even SAPD were out there to give her immediate backup.

  Raleigh took a deep breath and started running up the hall. The smoke was already getting thicker, and he could smell something burning inside. He put his hand on the door to make sure there’d be no backdraft, but it was still cool to the touch, so he kicked it open.

  There were flames all right, and they were already spreading across the wall and ceiling. But that wasn’t the only thing that caught Raleigh’s attention. It was the back door.

  It was wide-open.

  And there was no one in the room.

  Chapter Nine

  Thea sat at Raleigh’s desk in the Durango Ridge Sheriff’s Office and tried to make sure she didn’t show any signs of the raw nerves that were just beneath her skin. She had to be strong. Because Raleigh was already blaming himself enough. If she fell apart, that blame would skyrocket.

  No way would he believe this attack wasn’t his fault. He was kicking himself for taking her right into the middle of a gunfight. But he’d been in the middle of it, too, and that was one of the main reasons for Thea’s raw nerves.

  Again, he could have been killed, while trying to protect her.

  And now they were in the middle of another round of chaos. One more layer to add to their already complicated investigation. It was more than just a layer though to Dan Shaw. He was missing, and his assistant, Sandra Millington, was in the hospital, in critical condition from a cracked skull and blood loss.

  Raleigh was pacing in the squad room just outside his office door while he talked to someone in the San Antonio Fire Department. Apparently, he didn’t like what he was hearing, which meant she wouldn’t like it, either. Still, Thea tried not to focus on what was likely soon-to-be-revealed bad news and instead continued to read Madison’s statement.

  There wasn’t anything new in the statement. At least Thea didn’t think there was. But it was hard to concentrate when she could still hear the sound of those gunshots and see the blood on the injured woman.

  Mercy.

  She prayed Sandra Millington didn’t die. There’d already been too many deaths connected to this investigation. Deaths maybe because of her. She couldn’t forget that she’d been Marco’s target, and that might mean all of this could be happening because of her or something she’d done.

  Her phone rang, and Thea was so on edge that she gasped at the unexpected sound. And Raleigh noticed her reaction, too, because it caused his frown to deepen. But Thea wasn’t frowning when she saw the name on the screen. Her heart went to her throat.

  Because it was Rachel.

  “Is the baby all right?” Thea blurted out as soon as she could hit the answer button.

  “She’s fine. We’re all fine,” Rachel quickly reassured her. “I was calling to check on you.”

  It took Thea a moment to get her voice and her breathing back under control. Despite all the horrible things that had happened, it would be a thousand times worse if the baby had been hurt or kidnapped again.

  “I’m okay,” Thea lied.

  Judging from Rachel’s huff, she knew it was a lie. “And is Raleigh okay?”

  “I think so. Neither of us were hurt.”

  “No, you were just in a burning building with a gunman shooting at you.” Rachel mumbled something Thea didn’t catch. “I’ve always worried about Griff, Egan, Court and you. It’s a strange feeling to add Raleigh to that worry list.”

  Thea didn’t have any doubts about that. Didn’t doubt, either, that Rachel would soon accept Raleigh as her brother. The question was, would Raleigh accept her as his sister? The bitterness he felt for Warren might get in the way of that.

  “I do have another reason for calling,” Rachel went on. “Griff’s been pressuring the lab to get the DNA results on the baby, and we should have those back later today. Depending on what the test says, we have a decision to make. If the baby is Nick and Sonya’s biological child, is there a reason for us not to hand over the baby to Nick?”

  Thea groaned. Nick was still a person of interest in the attacks, and they certainly hadn’t been able to rule him out. “When you have the results, just call Raleigh and me, and we’ll go from there.”

  They might not be able to keep the child out of Nick’s custody, but Thea wanted to delay that until they had some answers.

  “Will do. Stay safe,” Rachel added before she said goodbye.

  Thea put her phone away at the same time that Raleigh finished his call with the fire department. He stepped inside the office and shut the door.

  “The fire gutted the security company, destroying all the files and computers,” he explained. His forehead was still bunched up, and even though he’d stopped pacing, he looked as if he needed to do something to burn off a lot of restless energy. “It’s possible that Dan Shaw had files off-site or in an online storage, but we won’t know that until we’ve talked to him or his assistant.”

  That tightened the muscles in her stomach and chest. Because they might not get a chance to ask either of them. They’d have to find Dan before they could question him, and as much as Thea hated to admit it, he could be dead. Their attacker could have killed him after he’d used Dan to help him escape.

  Thea got up from the desk and went closer to Raleigh. “Any news on Sandra Millington?” she asked.

  “She’s still unconscious and in the ICU, but the hospital will call if there’s any change. There’s more,” Raleigh said after he paused. “Someone torched the fertility clinic, too. No one was hurt,” he quickly added. “But since the fire started in the records’ room, whatever evidence was there was likely destroyed.”

  Mercy. No wonder Raleigh had been scowling and frowning when he’d been on the phone with the fire department. This definitely qualified as bad news. However, it did make her wonder...

  “What could have been in those records that the killer d
idn’t want us to find?” she asked. “I mean, Madison’s already confessed to the botched in vitro, so what else could have been in there?”

  “Maybe something to incriminate Yvette or Nick? Exactly what that might be, I’m not sure, and we might never know.”

  True, and that led her to the call with Rachel. “Rachel said we should have the baby’s DNA results today.”

  Raleigh cursed, which meant she didn’t need to fill him in on the rest. “Nick’s still not answering his phone. We don’t know if that’s because he was the person in the security company shooting, if he’s a victim or if he’s just lying low. Whichever it is, he’s not at his house. We know that because SAPD is there now, carrying out a search order, and the only one around is Yvette.”

  Thea had known about the search order, but she hadn’t realized it was already going on. Good. If there was anything incriminating, maybe the cops would find it so they wouldn’t have to turn over the baby to Nick. Thea wanted the man to have his child only after he’d been cleared of any suspicion.

  Raleigh looked at her, his gaze sliding from her face to her shirt. At first she thought there might be something sexual in that look, but then he cursed. “You have blood on you. Is it yours?”

  She looked down at her sleeve and saw the small rip, along with the blood. Thea had noticed it earlier but had forgotten about it. “It’s just a scratch.” She’d gotten it when one of the gunman’s bullets had shattered part of the door frame and had sent some splinters flying right at her.

  It might have only been a scratch, but it seemed to be the final straw for Raleigh. He cursed, groaned and scrubbed his hand over his face. He was obviously about to deepen the guilt trip he was already on.

  “That’s not a good idea,” he said when Thea slid her arm around his waist and pulled him to her.

  “I know. A lot of what we do isn’t a good idea. But going to the security company was,” she added.