“Adam didn’t say anything about this during his interview,” Grayson mumbled, the disgust and frustration in his voice.
Nate understood that frustration. This case just kept getting more complicated, and they had to find the culprit soon so they could end the danger for the children.
“Adam’s still here,” Grayson added. “I need to talk to him again.”
When Grayson walked out, Nate stayed and continued with the diary, but he quickly realized the page was the last thing Sandra had written. He checked the date at the top.
The night before she died.
Well, the timing was suspect. But then Nate noticed something else. The ragged edge, barely visible, indicating a subsequent page had been ripped out.
Nate looked up at Dent. “Know anything about this missing page?”
Dent seemed surprised by the question and had a look for himself. “No. I didn’t see that until now. Maybe Adam tore it out?”
“You’d like them to think that, wouldn’t you?” Adam snarled from the hall.
With Grayson right behind him, Adam marched into the room and looked at the diary. When he reached for it, Nate blocked his hand.
“It’s evidence now,” Nate informed him. “I’ll have it couriered to the SAPD crime lab for immediate analysis.” He pointed to the blank page beneath the one that had been torn out. “I think we might have impressions so we can figure out what your mother wrote.”
Both Dent and Adam went deadly silent. For a few seconds, anyway.
“We don’t even know if that is my mother’s diary,” Adam concluded.
“True,” Nate acknowledged. “But we have her handwriting on file. It shouldn’t take long for the lab to do a comparison.”
The muscles in Adam’s jaw turned to iron, and he snapped toward Dent. “You’re setting me up.” He whirled back to Nate. “Yes, my mother and I argued, but we worked out everything before someone murdered her.”
“I didn’t kill her,” Dent calmly replied. He seemed to be enjoying Adam’s fit of temper.
“Well, someone did. Either you or my father.” Adam poked him in the chest with his index finger. “And if it was you, then I’m going to prove it.”
That washed away Dent’s calm facade, and Nate was concerned the two men might come to blows. He was too tired to break up a fight. “Are you done with Adam?” he asked Grayson.
His brother nodded.
“Both of you can leave,” Nate told Dent and Adam.
“But what about the diary?” Adam demanded.
“We’ll let you know what the lab says.”
“And then they can arrest you,” Dent concluded. He smiled and walked out.
Adam cursed him, but he didn’t rush after his stepfather. “Don’t let him get away with murder,” Adam demanded.
Nate huffed and motioned for him to leave. For a moment, he thought Adam might argue, but the man finally stormed out.
Grayson put on a pair of gloves and picked up the diary. “I’ll have Tina fax the pages to the crime lab so they can do a quick comparison of the handwriting to make sure it’s Sandra Dent’s. Then, I’ll have a courier pick it up.”
Nate thanked him, and once Grayson was out of the room, he turned his attention to Darcy. She looked several steps beyond exhaustion. And worried. Because he thought they could both use it, he brushed a kiss on her mouth.
Yeah, he needed it, all right, and wasn’t surprised that the kiss worked its magic and soothed him.
Man, he was toast.
“Why don’t you go check on the kids?” he suggested. “I need to make some calls.”
She didn’t question that. Darcy only nodded, turned but then turned back. She kissed him. Like his, it was brief, barely a touch, but she pulled back with her forehead bunched up and a frown on that otherwise tempting mouth.
“We’ll deal with this later,” he promised, figuring she knew exactly what he meant. The only question was how they would deal with it.
Except that wasn’t in question, either.
They’d deal with it in bed. With some good old- fashioned sex. And yeah, it would mess things up with his family. It might even become the final straw of stress that would break his proverbial back. But Nate was certain that sex would happen no matter how it messed up things.
She ran her hand down the length of his arm. “Just yell if you want me,” Darcy whispered.
Despite the fatigue, he smiled. So did she—after she blushed.
Nate watched her walk away. He felt the loss, or something. And wondered when the heck Darcy had become such an important part of his life. Cursing himself and cursing her, he pushed that question aside and got to work. He called Sergeant Garrett O’Malley at SAPD headquarters, the cop working on the Dent case. And now the kidnapping, as well.
“Garrett,” Nate greeted. “What do you have on Marlene Lambert’s financials?”
“There’s nothing much in her checking account, but something else popped up,” he explained, and in the background was the sound of the sergeant typing on a computer keyboard. “Two months ago she sold some land she’d inherited from her grandparents. The buyer gave her a check for nearly fifty thousand, which she cashed, but that fifty grand hasn’t shown up in her financial accounts.”
Nate felt the knot twist in his stomach. This was a woman he’d known for a long time. A woman he’d trusted with the safety and care of his baby girl.
“Of course, Ms. Lambert might have a good explanation,” Garrett went on, “but I’m not seeing it right now.”
So, Nate knew what had to be done. Grayson would have to bring her back in for questioning and grill her until she told them everything. Fifty thousand probably wasn’t enough to have pulled off the entire kidnapping plot, but it would have been enough to get it started.
“What about the financials on Edwin and Adam Frasier?” Nate asked. “I wanted someone to take a harder look at those.”
“I did,” Garrett assured him. “And if either of them spent an unexplained chunk of money from any of their accounts, I can’t find it.”
Those financials had been a long shot since neither man would have been stupid enough to have the money trail lead straight back to them. Especially when Adam or Edwin could have just stolen that money from the safe. But Nate had still hoped he could pin this on one of them. On anyone. He just needed this to end.
“I did see something that might be important,” Garrett said a moment later. “Adam is the sole heir to his father’s estate, and while Edwin doesn’t have a lot of cash, he does own a house that he got from the divorce settlement. It’s worth close to two million. If something happened to Edwin—jail, death, whatever—Adam would be executor of his father’s estate.”
Interesting. Nate was betting Edwin would do something about that now that his son had implicated him in the kidnapping. It was also interesting that if either Dent or Edwin went down for Sandra’s murder, then Adam would benefit.
Yeah. That was motive, all right.
Of course, Dent had just as big a motive. And Nate couldn’t discount Edwin’s jealousy of his ex-wife’s new boy toy. Or Marlene’s possible misguided love.
In other words, he was still at square one. All four of his suspects had motives, and worse, they could have had the means and opportunity, as well.
Nate thanked the sergeant, hung up and was about to check on Darcy and the children, but Grayson was right outside the door. Waiting. And judging from his brother’s expression, something bad had happened.
“The children?” Nate automatically asked.
“Are fine,” Grayson assured him. He stretched his hand across his forehead and ground his thumb and finger into his temples. “But I’m thinking we need to get them to a safe house.”
That nearly knocked the breath out of Nate. “What happened?”
Grayson tipped his head in a follow-me gesture and started toward the front of the building to the dispatcher’s desk, where Tina was packaging the diary for the courier.
“Did you find something in the diary?” Nate demanded.
“No. But Tina did fax copies, so we might know something soon.” Grayson went toward the computer on Tina’s desk. “While you were on the phone, I got a call from Kade. About twenty minutes ago, Ramirez was spotted on a security camera at a gas station off the highway. Less than five miles from town.”
Oh, mercy. That was way too close for comfort. “Is Kade going out there to try to arrest him?”
Grayson shook his head. “Ramirez is already gone.” He turned the computer monitor so Nate could see the feed from the security camera.
Yeah. It was Ramirez, all right, standing under the sliver of the overhanging roof of the gas station. And he wasn’t alone. There was another broad-shouldered man with him. Both were wearing baseball caps and raincoats, but the bulkiness in their pockets indicated they were carrying weapons.
“We have this image and a description of the vehicle,” Grayson pointed out, tapping the black four-door sedan stopped in front of the gas station.
But not just parked. It was directly in the line of sight of the security camera. Nate watched as Ramirez looked up at the camera.
Ramirez smiled.
The anger slammed through him, and Nate wished he could reach through the screen and teach this moron a hard lesson about endangering babies.
“What’s he doing there, anyway?” Nate asked. Because it was clear Ramirez wasn’t filling up the car or buying something.
“He’s leaving a message,” Grayson mumbled.
Yeah. That was obvious. “And that message is he’s begging for me to go after him.”
“Not quite.”
Since Nate hadn’t expected to hear Grayson say that, he snapped toward him. “What do you mean?”
“Just watch,” Grayson instructed.
Nate did, and his heart started to ram against his chest. Within seconds, Ramirez pulled a folded piece of paper from his raincoat pocket, lifted it toward the camera and then tucked it into the glass door. He gave the camera one last smile, and the men got into the vehicle and sped away.
Not quietly.
The tires howled against the wet concrete and created enough noise to get the clerk’s attention. The young man hurried to the door, opened it and caught the note before it dropped to the ground. He read it, his eyes widening with each passing second, and then he raced back into the station and grabbed the phone.
“The clerk called nine-one-one,” Grayson supplied. “And in turn the dispatcher called here. He read me the note.” Grayson took the notepad from the desk and handed it to Nate.
He knew this wouldn’t be good, and Nate tried to brace himself for the worst.
But the message turned Nate’s blood to ice.
Nate Ryland and Darcy Burkhart, you killed my brother and my men. This is no longer a job. It’s personal, and I’m coming after both of you. Get ready to die.
“Uh, guys,” Tina said, “I think we have a problem.”
At first Nate thought she was talking about the note. Yeah, it was a problem, all right. A big one. But Tina was looking out the window.
“There.” Tina tipped her head to the building just up the street.
The rain was spitting on the glass, but Nate could still see the shadowy figure using the emergency ladder on the side of the hardware store. The guy was climbing onto the roof.
And Nate reached for his gun.
“Wait,” Grayson warned. “The windows here are tinted. He can’t see us to shoot inside.”
Grayson was right. Besides, the guy wasn’t in a shooting stance. Once he reached the roof, he dropped onto his belly and pressed binoculars to his eyes.
“Recognize him?” Grayson asked.
Yeah. Nate did. It was the man who’d been with Ramirez on the surveillance footage. Nate automatically glanced around, looking for the man who’d just threatened to kill Darcy and him.
But Ramirez was nowhere in sight.
“You going out there?” Tina asked them.
“No,” Grayson and Nate said in unison.
“Not right now,” Nate finished.
Good. Grayson and he were on the same page, and Nate knew what he had to do. Darcy wasn’t going to like it. Heck, he didn’t like it. But it was necessary if he had any chance of keeping all of them out of the path of a killer.
Chapter Thirteen
Darcy read the note again. And again.
Each time it felt as if the words were razor-sharp knives slicing through her. A monster, a cold-blooded killer, was coming after Nate and her.
“I won’t let him get to you,” she heard Nate say.
Darcy believed that Nate would try. But Ramirez wasn’t just after her. He was after Nate, as well.
She tore her attention from the note and looked at Nate, who was seated next to her. He’d made her sit on the sofa in the second-floor apartment at the sheriff’s office before he’d handed her the note, and that was probably a good thing. After reading it, her legs were too wobbly to stand.
“We have a plan,” Grayson explained. He was standing, his hands on his hips. Grace was behind him, seated on the floor and playing with the babies, trying to keep them occupied.
“Please tell me that plan includes making sure the children are safe.” Darcy’s voice cracked, and she hated feeling scared out of her mind for Noah and Kimmie. Nate, too.
“It does,” Nate assured her. “We’re going to set a trap for Ramirez.” He caught her shoulders and waited until they’d made eye contact. “And I’ll be the bait.”
Oh, mercy. That required her to take a deep breath. Thankfully, Grayson continued so she didn’t have to ask about the details of this plan, which she already knew she didn’t like. She wouldn’t approve of anything where Nate made himself bait.
“First, we’ve made arrangements to move Grace, you and the children. We’ll secretly take all of you to a safe house in a neighboring town, where both Mel and I will be with them. So will the town’s sheriff and the deputy.”
Okay. The security was a good start, but it wasn’t enough. Maybe nothing would be with Nate’s life at stake. And that required another deep breath.
“Secretly,” Nate repeated. “Someone is watching the building.”
“Who?” she immediately wanted to know. “Not Ramirez?” Darcy would have jumped off the sofa if Nate hadn’t kept hold of her.
“No. It’s a man who was on the surveillance video with him. Right now, he’s on the roof of the hardware store just up the street. The dispatcher spotted him there about an hour ago. Once we knew he was there, Grayson and I sat down and came up with this plan.”
Darcy shook her head. “Why don’t you just arrest him? Make him tell you where Ramirez is.”
“We considered it,” Grayson explained. “But we figured the guy would die before giving up his boss. And we don’t want a gunfight with the children here. So we decided to make it work for us.”
“How?” she wanted to know.
“Soon, it’ll be dark, and Nate will pretend to leave. It’s raining so we’ll give him a big umbrella and bundles of something to carry. It’ll look as if he has the children with him, but actually we’ll sneak them and you out through the back and into my SUV. Kade will be here as additional protection just in case this guy comes off the roof. But we don’t think he will.”
Darcy tried to think that through. She wished her thoughts would settle down so she could figure out why this sounded so wrong. “You think he’ll report to Ramirez that Nate’s left and then he’ll follow him?”
Nate nodded. “He’ll follow me to the ranch. Ramirez will, too, and that’s where we’ll set the trap for them.”
“The ranch?” she challenged. Now, she came off the sofa. “Your family is there.”
Nate stood, slowly, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “We’ve already moved them. Eve, Kayla and Kayla’s son, Robbie, are already on their way to SAPD headquarters, where they’ll stay until this situation with Ramirez is resolved.”
>
Yes. And it wouldn’t be resolved until Ramirez was dead. Darcy got that part, and she got other things, too. “There’s a big flaw in your plan,” she told them, even though they already knew it. “If Ramirez wants us both dead, then he won’t be satisfied just trying to kill you. He’ll want to come after me, as well.”
Nate attempted a shrug but didn’t quite pull it off. “He might.”
“He will,” Darcy corrected. “And if Ramirez gets lucky and finds me, he’ll find the children, too.”
Neither Grayson nor Nate could deny that. “We won’t let Ramirez get near them.”
Darcy took a deep breath and braced herself for the argument they were about to have. An argument she would win because there was no way she was going to give Ramirez a reason to go after Kimmie and Noah again.
“There’s only one thing that makes sense—for both of us to lead Ramirez away from the children. Anything less than that puts them in danger.”
Nate’s jaw muscles stirred. “But coming with me puts you in danger.”
“Yes.” And she didn’t hesitate. “We know what has to be done here. You don’t have to like it. Heck, I don’t like it. But I won’t be tucked away at a safe house knowing that I could be putting our children in jeopardy.”
He opened his mouth, probably to continue the argument, but Darcy nipped it in the bud. “You can’t change my mind. I’m going with you.”
Nate looked at Grayson, who only huffed and mumbled something. Nate looked as if he wanted to mumble some profanity, but he didn’t. He sat down, his jaw muscles battling, and then he finally nodded.
Darcy tried not to look too relieved. It was easy to do, since she knew full well she was putting herself in the line of fire. Still, better her than the babies.
Nate simply nodded again. “If Ramirez knows we’re at the ranch, he’ll come after us so he can try to avenge his kid brother’s death. But we’ll be ready for him.”
“How?” she asked.
Nate eased her down onto the sofa, but they both glanced back when the children giggled. Grace was reading them a story and making funny voices. The laughter certainly helped Darcy’s nerves and reminded her of why this plan had to work.
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