by Lauren Carr
“Why isn’t he wearing a coat?” Agnes asked.
“A beautiful woman charmed it right off my back.” Murphy knelt next to his father. “Are you okay?”
“Of course, I’m not okay. I’ve been shot.” Joshua shoved the pen into Murphy’s hand. “You need to take care of this.”
Murphy slipped the pen into a pocket on his thigh and sealed it shut. “I’m going to give you all cover to make a run for Major O’Callaghan’s cruiser.” He gestured for Agnes to help Officer Fletcher to his feet.
“They’re moving in,” Officer Zigler reported over his shoulder while keeping an eye out the front window from behind the sofa. “They’re more aggressive, too.”
As if to confirm his statement, a shot rang out. Clutching his arm, Officer Zigler fell to his knees.
Murphy jumped to his feet. Moving steadily toward the window, he fired shot after shot until he was standing in front of the window, daring anyone to fire again. Behind him, Officer Zigler crawled toward the kitchen where Mac examined his arm.
“Who’s the major?” Agnes asked.
“David.” Mac gestured for Gnarly to join them.
Moving to the side next to the window, Murphy ejected the cartridge and snapped a full one into his gun. “Get everyone to the cruiser. The sheriff’s deputies and the major’s men, and I’ll cover you.”
“What about you?” Joshua asked.
“I’m going to do my job.” Murphy took a smoke bomb out of his utility belt. “On the count of three, you all move it. Run straight through the smoke. The cruiser will be at the end of the walkway. I’ll provide extra cover from this end.”
With his good arm, Officer Zigler took Joshua on one side. Clutching the cloth to his bleeding neck, Officer Fletcher wrapped his arm around Agnes. His weapon ready to fire, Mac took a position in the front.
On the count of two, Murphy threw open the door and tossed the smoke bomb outside. He then took out both guns and fired simultaneously in both directions to cover the group running for the back of the cruiser.
“Fletcher! Zigler!” David’s shock turned to fury when he saw his two wounded officers.
“It’s like being back in Iraq,” Zigler said.
David turned his eyes to the clock. Murphy said to give him thirty seconds, and there was still no sign of the chopper to back them up. Sheriff Turow’s deputies were trying unsuccessfully to keep the two shooters in the back away from the safe house.
As soon as they jumped into the back of the cruiser, Murphy turned around to see the back door fly open and two gunmen run inside. A third kicked in the kitchen door and dove in.
While shots were flying in his direction, Murphy plunged out the door and hit the ice on his knees. Sliding down the walk, he twisted around to see the gunmen inside the log home running through the kitchen.
“Murphy!” he heard his father screaming at him from the cruiser.
Murphy hit the end of the walkway. Firing three shots with both guns, Murphy fired a shot beyond the gunmen into the house to take out the fire extinguisher while simultaneously taking out the propane tank just outside the doorway where they were perched. Any escape behind them was impossible due to the blinding smoke from the fire extinguisher.
The fireball from the propane quickly spread with the fuel from the fire in the fireplace inside the log cabin to take the roof off the safe house.
Chapter Sixteen
Spencer Inn
On the top floor at the Spencer Inn, Jessica took a moment to pinch herself at the classy style of the suite where she would be staying for the next week during and after her father’s wedding. She never stopped letting herself forget that there was a time when she wasn’t certain if she could finish college, let alone stay in such elegance.
Her stepmother-to-be, Archie Monday, was in the suite across the hall.
I wonder how she’s holding up. She’s tough, but weddings are stressful enough without all of this happening.
Tristan was staying in a suite next door. Because he was one who concentrated on the simple things in life, Jessica doubted if Tristan had even noticed the sunken Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom, the hot tub out on his balcony, or the view of the brightly lit ski slopes leading down to the lake at the bottom of the mountain.
“By the way,” Tristan said upon entering the suite, “when you see Archie, don’t say anything about her hair.”
“Why?” Jessica turned from where she was admiring the view.
“You’ll know as soon as you see it,” Tristan said.
Tears of sympathy welling up inside her throat for Archie, Jessica swallowed. “How bad is it?”
“I don’t think it’s too bad.” Tristan flopped down into a comfortable chair and propped his feet up on the coffee table.
“You wouldn’t think a shaved head was too bad. You wouldn’t even notice.”
Unable to argue, Tristan shrugged his shoulders.
Hector came out of the bedroom. He had checked each room, door, and window in the suite. “Everything is clear and secured.”
The scream out in the hallway suggested that Hector had spoken too soon. Yanking his weapon out of its holster, the security manager raced out. “Stay here!” he ordered.
They could hear the woman’s hysterical scream fade away as she ran down the corridor and out of earshot either on the elevator or the stairwell.
When Jessica tried to run for the door, Tristan stood up to block her exit. “He said to stay here.”
“But I can’t just stand still—” Clutching Tristan’s arm, Jessica noted Hector Langford’s stern expression when he came back into the suite. “What’s going on?”
“It was the cleaning woman assigned to service Tristan’s suite.” Hector leveled his gaze on Tristan. “You brought her with you.”
Jessica backed away from her brother as if Hector had announced that Tristan was the mastermind behind their current situation. “Tristan! You didn’t! You brought Monique.”
“I couldn’t leave her home alone,” Tristan said in a miserable tone. “My roommates aren’t the most responsible guys around and I was afraid they’d forget about her and she’d have a slow horrible death from starvation.” Seeing Spencer trotting in from the bedroom after checking out the suite, he stood up tall. “Besides, you brought Spencer. At least we can count on Monique not peeing on the rug.”
“Spencer doesn’t have eight legs and isn’t bigger than a dinner plate!” Jessica argued.
“Dinner plates are eleven inches,” Tristan corrected her. “Monique is only eight. She’s just a little bigger than a salad plate.”
“Never mind, you two.” Hector waved his hands. “One good thing about Monique being here, we know as soon as word gets out that Tristan is sharing his suite with a giant tarantula that we can be pretty certain that his room will be safe.” He sighed. “As far as housekeeping, we’re probably going to have to pay the maids hazard pay.”
“She’s in a tank,” Tristan said. “As long as they don’t take off the lid, she can’t hurt them.”
“She’s still creepy,” Jessica said with a shudder.
Tristan’s lip curled. “You’re such a girl.”
“I’m telling Dad and he’s going to kill you.”
Hector stepped between them. “Chill out, you two, or I’m going to tell your father about both of you.”
“What’d I do?” Jessica asked. “All I did was stop at a truck stop to pee—”
“And you hooked up with some guy who you don’t even know.” With a chuckle, Tristan dropped back down into his seat and picked up his tablet. “For all you know, he has a giant tarantula.”
“Tristan does have a point,” Hector said. “Who is this new guy, and will you be expecting him to come up here to your room?” He held up a hand. “Not being nosy. Safe. These guys who are after your father wouldn’t be above luring
you out with a hunky piece of beefcake.”
“He’s Joshua Thornton’s son,” Jessica said. “Murphy Thornton. He’s a lieutenant in the navy. Right now, he’s working with Chief O’Callaghan to rescue our dads.”
“I’m still going to run a check on him,” Hector said. “I promised your father that I’d keep you safe, and that’s what I intend to do.”
“He’s a graduate of the United States Naval Academy,” Tristan said while eying his computer tablet. “He played quarterback for two years on their football team. He was co-valedictorian at his high school with his twin brother Joshua Thornton Junior. Do you want me to check to see if he’s got any restraining orders against him, Hector?”
“Wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Hector said. “I’ll have a couple of my guys stationed out in the hall.”
Jessica waited for the chief of security to leave before sitting down onto the sofa across from her brother. “I take it you don’t have a date for the wedding.”
Tristan grunted. “I don’t have any big yearning for hooking up like you and Dad and everyone else.” His eyes met hers. “And I’m not gay.”
She held up her hands. “Hey, you don’t have to tell me. I’m the one who caught you peeping in Meghan Dawson’s window while she was changing out of her cheerleading outfit. Remember?”
“How could I forget? You blackmailed me for four months over that.”
Jessica gazed across at her brother. Tall and slender, he was an attractive young man. He had inherited their father’s square jaw. With his dark-framed glasses, he looked studious, and geeky was “in.”
To her, he was the perfect specimen to study when it came to sexual attraction. Her brother definitely put out the signal to women that he was not interested in any relationship. Therefore, women didn’t even try. While they were not repelled, there was definitely a sense or scent that said he was not looking for a mate.
She could pinpoint the approximate time that she first sensed it in him. His senior year in high school, when that witch had broken his heart. First loves and losses are always the hardest.
“Dad’s in trouble,” Tristan’s voice broke through her thoughts.
“I know.” Jessica leaned forward to put her elbows on her knees. She cupped her chin on top of her hands. Between her long legs and the high heels of her boots, she was forced to spread her feet apart and bring her knees together to create a less-than-sophisticated pose.
“No,” Tristan clarified while swiping his fingers across the screen on his tablet, “Dad is really, really in trouble. Meaning if he gets out of this alive, he could be in jail.”
“How?”
Tristan pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Did Archie tell you about Russell Dooley and how he came to Spencer to make trouble for Dad?”
“She told me last night that he was murdered and that she thinks there has to be a connection between that and the hit squad going after Dad,” she said. “Do you remember the Dooley case?”
“Do you know how many murder cases Dad’s worked?”
“Well, I remember this case,” Jessica said. “I got out of school to attend Leigh Ann Dooley’s trial so that I could write a research paper on sociopaths. She was one—a big one. I even interviewed her daughter, who was my age. Most people could see through Leigh Ann, but not her husband. Guy was in complete denial about her.”
“Love can be deaf, dumb, and blind,” Tristan said.
“Luckily, Bianca, the daughter, was perceptive enough to see through her mother,” Jessica said. “But Russell Dooley bought Leigh Ann’s lies hook, line, and sinker.”
“Which is why he blames Dad for framing his wife and for her suicide,” Tristan said, “which gives Dad motive for killing him in self-defense.”
Jessica stared down at the floor. “That murder case was the tipping point for the end of Dad and Mom’s marriage.”
With an edge in his voice, Tristan asked, “What are you talking about?”
“Since you never saw or met any of these people, you wouldn’t know,” Jessica said. “I saw Leigh Ann on the stand and studied her life—talked to her daughter. I saw a lot of similarities between how Leigh Ann worked people, especially those close to her, and how Mom treated people.” She rose her eyes to meet her brother’s. “Dad must have, too. After that case, things changed between him and Mom.”
Tristan chuckled. “Their marriage broke up because of Mom’s cheating.”
“Why, after over fifteen years of marriage, did Mom suddenly decide to step out on Dad?” Jessica asked. “Could it be because Dad saw a little bit of himself in Russell Dooley and didn’t want to end up as pathetic as him?”
“Dad has never been pathetic in his whole life,” Tristan said. “Even when Mom kicked him out and took everything from him for that bastard, Dad still landed on his feet and did what he had to do to take care of us.” He grumbled. “More than Mom ever did.”
“You’re absolutely right.”
“I think Dad needs us now.” Sitting up and placing his feet on the floor, Tristan handed the tablet across the table to her. “They found Dad’s blood and DNA at the crime scene for Russell Dooley’s murder.”
Jessica studied the report that filled the tablet’s screen. Reading the heading for the forensics report, she gasped, “You hacked into the county police department records!” As if she feared being accused as an accessory to the crime, she tossed the tablet back at him.
“Like if I asked they were going to tell me everything they had against Dad.”
“Like they can trace the IP address directly to that tablet and to you and arrest you for hacking into classified government databases.”
Tristan laughed. “The local police don’t have the funds for that type of cyber security.”
Jessica’s violet eyes narrowed into slits. “Archie taught you how to do that, didn’t she?”
“She started out teaching me,” Tristan said with a grin. “Now I’ve been teaching her a thing or two.”
Finished exploring the suite, Spencer scurried into the sitting area and leapt from halfway across the room to land in Jessica’s lap. She continued to squirm while her master petted her.
“How did Dad’s blood and DNA get in that crime scene?” Tristan asked his sister. “Not only is it at the scene, it’s also on the knife, too. The murder weapon, Jessie. His blood is on the murder weapon. That puts him at the scene at the time of the murder.”
“He was set up.” Jessica dropped back against the sofa. “In order to plant Dad’s blood and DNA, the killer had to have gotten access to it.”
“Like a jury is going to believe that?”
“Before it can get to a jury, Dad has to be arrested first,” Jessica said. “And I’m not going to let that happen.”
“I’m with you there, Jess,” he said. “We need to find out who set Dad up. He or she had to be close enough to Dad to gain access to his blood. Someone he trusted.”
Leaping out of her lap, the pup ran to the door, sat down, and whined while looking from the door, back to Jessica, and then back again.
“Not necessarily,” Jessica said. “You’d be surprised at how easily someone who knows what they are doing can pick up and plant someone else’s DNA.”
Spencer’s whine at the door made her groan.
“Now? Really?” Jessica looked pleadingly at Tristan.
“She’s your dog.” Without mercy, he closed the cover over his tablet and stood up. “I’ve never heard you offer to clean Monique’s tank.” With a wicked grin, he left the room.
“I need to go check in with Archie anyway,” Jessica said to Spencer. “I’ll stop in after taking you outside in the freezing weather.”
Zipping up the black leather jacket, Jessica recalled the feel of Murphy’s hands on her when he pulled the collar close to cut out the cold wind. She melted when she recalled staring into his deep
blue eyes.
With a bark, Spencer snapped her back into the present.
“Coming!” With a groan, she grabbed Spencer’s leash.
One of Hector’s security officers escorted Jessica and Spencer down the elevator and out into the lobby. Not trusting Spencer to not make a beeline for Jeff’s office and under his desk, Jessica carried her outside and over to the courtyard to conduct her business. With the mountain wind kicking up, she shivered while Spencer sniffed and barked at the brightly colored lights on the Christmas trees.
“Hurry up, Spencer,” she said through shattering teeth. “We need to go see Archie.” She bent over to whisper to the pup. “Don’t say anything about her hair. She’s going through enough as it is.”
“Jessie?”
For a split second, Jessica thought it was Spencer speaking to her. The dog was looking right up at her when she heard her name uttered behind her.
“Jessie Faraday?”
Jessica turned around to see a slender woman approximately the same age as she, peering at her from the sidewalk. Her jeans and brown suede jacket were worn. A red knit cap was pulled down to cover her ears, from which big earrings hung. Her long hair was a chestnut color.
Recognizing her, but not placing a name with the face, Jessica cocked her head at her.
“Bianca.” The young woman patted her own chest. “Bianca Briggs. Used to be Dooley. We had met at my mother’s murder trial.” She stopped to swallow. “I remember how nice you were to me.”
A grin came to Jessica’s lips. “Of course, I remember you.” She stepped forward to take Bianca into her arms in a sincere hug. Stepping back, she looked her up and down. “You look great.”
The last time Jessica had seen her, Bianca had been a young anorexic teenager who exuded a gothic-punk style, complete with pierced lips and eyebrows.
“I grew up,” she admitted. “Got loads of therapy.” She uttered a nervous laugh. “Like years. Put on weight. Stopped drinking and smoking pot and met a great man who knows how to treat a lady.”
“It’s amazing how when a man treats you like a lady, you start to act like one.” Jessica scooped down to pick up Spencer before she had a chance to jump on Bianca. “This is Spencer.”
