Proof of Guilt

by Lisa Jackson

  Theo came out from cover again, and he fired at the gunman who wasn’t holding Ivy. The bullet hit the thug and despite the fact that he was wearing a Kevlar vest, he dropped onto the porch. That’s when Ivy saw the blood and realized Theo’s shot had gone into his neck. If he wasn’t dead already, he soon would be.

  Her captor mumbled some profanity under his breath and started moving her even faster. It was a mistake. Because it gave Ivy the chance to trip on the last step. She paid for it with pain when he bashed her upside her head with his gun, but that only got him out of position to shoot Theo.

  Theo, however, was in position.

  Now that Theo had a clean shot, he didn’t hesitate; he fired three shots. All three bullets slammed into the guy’s chest. He was also wearing Kevlar, but the bullets must have knocked the wind out of him because he fell, his head smacking onto the side of the SUV.

  The driver’s-side door flew open, and the gunman inside took aim at Theo. However, he barely had brought up his hand when someone fired. Not the gunman or Theo. It was Gabriel. He was now in the doorway of the house, and he’d taken out the thug with a shot to the head.

  While Theo ran toward her, Ivy kicked the gun out of the fallen man’s hand, and it landed a few feet away. Once Theo reached her, he maneuvered her next to the porch railing, where she’d have a little cover in case there was another attack, and he went to the man. The guy was wheezing and clutching his chest, but Theo ripped off the gas mask.

  It was Wesley all right.

  He cursed Theo and then smiled, his head dropping back onto the ground.

  “You just signed their death warrants,” Wesley said.

  Theo was no doubt about to ask Wesley what he meant by that, but then she heard something she didn’t want to hear.

  An explosion.

  She whipped toward the sound of the blast. Her parents’ old house. And it was now in flames.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Theo cursed. He hadn’t exactly relaxed, but he had thought the worst of the danger was over. Maybe not, though. His instincts were to go running to the old house, to make sure no one was inside, but that could be a trap. Something that Wesley had set up in case he failed here.

  Which he had.

  The agent was moaning in pain, but he still had that stupid smirk on his face. A smirk that could be there because he’d put someone in that house. Someone who was now dying because of the fire. The flames were quickly eating their way through the place, and even if they could get the fire department out right away, it might still be too late to save it.

  “Three of the ranch hands are on the way down there,” Gabriel said after reading a text. “And Edwin’s just up the road. He’ll be arriving at the old house in just a couple of minutes.”

  Maybe that would be enough, because it was also possible that Wesley had stashed the rest of his hired guns near there. Hired guns who would kill anyone who came their way.

  Theo checked the SUV to make sure no one else was inside. It was empty. Theo also picked up Wesley’s gun and shoved it in the back waistband of his jeans.

  “Where are the gunmen who were at the back of the house?” Theo asked Gabriel.

  “Dead,” Gabriel answered while he tossed Theo a pair of plastic cuffs that he took from his pocket. “Al’s back there, and he’s keeping watch to make sure no one else sneaks up on us. The hands in the pastures are reporting that they’re not seeing any other gunmen. Not live ones, anyway. They had to shoot a couple of them. Jace has rounded up a couple of them, too.”

  Theo released the breath he hadn’t even noticed he was holding. Of course, there could still be a straggler out there, but maybe that person would just surrender now that his boss had been captured.

  From the end of the trail, Theo saw the cruiser lights as the vehicle pulled to a stop near the burning house. Edwin, no doubt. At least now the hands had law enforcement help.

  Gabriel made a call to someone else, but Theo didn’t wait to hear who he was talking to. He first cuffed Wesley, and since it was still too dangerous for Ivy to be outside in the open where a sniper could pick her off, he put her on the passenger’s seat of the SUV.

  “Stay down,” Theo warned her.

  She gave a shaky nod and caught on to his arm when he started to move away. That’s when he spotted the marks on her throat. Bruises and scrapes from Wesley putting her in that choke hold. It sickened him to think of just how close she’d come to dying.

  And all because of him.

  “I’m so sorry,” Theo said.

  Ivy shook her head, took hold of the front of his shirt and pulled him to her. She kissed him. It didn’t last long. Just enough to soothe some of the raw nerves inside him. Still, he wanted to beat Wesley senseless for doing this.

  Standing guard in front of Ivy, Theo turned so he could face Wesley. “Who’s in the old house?”

  “Just tying up some loose ends.” The smirk finally faded, and he glared up at Theo. “You might as well go ahead and kill me. You know what they do to former agents in prison?”

  Yeah, he did, but since this piece of slime had tried to kill Ivy, Theo didn’t care what happened to the man.

  “Who are the loose ends?” Theo pressed.

  Wesley groaned in pain. Probably because he had cracked ribs. Or maybe the realization of what he’d done was finally hitting him. “One loose end,” he amended. “Someone who helped me fund this little operation. Don’t worry. I sent proof of the money trail to the sheriff’s office so you’ll know who paid for all these hired guns.”

  Hell. That could maybe be August or Lacey. Theo was hoping, though, that it was just a bluff and the only person dead in that house was the guy who’d fired those rounds of tear gas.

  “It wasn’t supposed to work this way,” Wesley mumbled.

  “No. If things had gone according to your plan, you would have kidnapped Ivy and used her to get me to do whatever you wanted me to do.”

  That could involve anything from destroying evidence to murder. Because Wesley knew that Theo would do anything to get Ivy back.

  But there was another angle to this.

  If Lacey had been the one to “fund” all of this, then maybe Ivy had been as much of a target as Theo. This attack could have been designed to kill them both.

  “The fire department, an ambulance and two more backup cruisers are on the way,” Gabriel relayed after yet another call. “I’ll stay here with Ivy and you until we’re sure it’s safe.”

  Good. But judging from Gabriel’s tone and the way his gaze kept darting to the burning house, that’s where he wanted to be. So did Theo, but it was too big of a risk to leave Ivy alone. Once backup arrived, Theo could get her out of there. Maybe they’d have more answers by then. Answers that Wesley could give them.

  “I had no proof you did anything wrong in that botched raid,” Theo told the man.

  “Didn’t matter. You suspected I had something to do with it, and you wouldn’t have let go of it.”

  Theo shook his head. “I didn’t suspect it until the attacks started.”

  Wesley made a sound as if he didn’t believe that. And maybe he was right. In the back of Theo’s mind, he’d always felt something was wrong. He wouldn’t have let go of it, either, and eventually he would have started digging. That digging would have led him to Wesley.

  “Did you think you could kill and silence everyone who could figure out you were dirty?” Ivy asked Wesley.

  Wesley turned his head to the side, spared her a glance before making a weary sigh. “Yes. You don’t understand. I can’t go to jail.” He groaned. “I’ll die there.”

  “You didn’t mind killing innocent people to save yourself. That makes you a coward,” Theo told him. “And Belinda’s kidnapping and murder is going to put you on death row.”

  Gabriel’s phone buzzed, and he answered it right away
but again didn’t put it on speaker. Nor did he say anything. For several slow, crawling moments, Gabriel just listened to whatever the caller was telling him.

  “The ambulance should be here any minute,” Gabriel finally said, and he ended the call. He looked at Theo. “It’s Lacey.”

  “She came here with Wesley?” Ivy asked her brother.

  “Was forced here, according to what she said. She’s alive, but Wesley had stun-gunned her and left her in the house with a firebomb that was on a timer before he and the thug came over here. She wasn’t burned but took in a lot of smoke before the hands pulled her out.”

  Now it was Ivy’s turn to curse. “Lacey is the one who funded Wesley.”

  Gabriel nodded. “Wesley apparently went to her with the plan, but she’s saying she didn’t have anything to do with any deaths. When Wesley tied her up, though, he told her he was going to pin all of this on her by making it look as if she’d died while launching an attack.”

  Yeah, and it might have worked, too. If they hadn’t gotten lucky.

  “I had no idea she’d go this far,” Ivy said. She tried, and failed, to choke back a hoarse sob. “Nathan could have been hurt, or worse.” Another sob. “We all could have been.”

  Theo kept watch, but he pulled Ivy into his arms for a short hug. It didn’t help. Nothing would at this point. That’s why he kissed her.

  “I love you,” he whispered. “And we’re going to get through this.”

  She blinked, clearly surprised by his L-word bombshell. He’d never told her that, and she probably thought it was the adrenaline talking. It wasn’t. He’d always loved Ivy. But now hadn’t been the time to tell her.

  And she certainly wasn’t telling him she felt the same.

  Definitely the wrong time, because Ivy had enough whirling through her head without adding that.

  Theo got a good distraction—he heard the sirens. Lots of them. And he knew it wouldn’t be long before he could finally get Ivy out of there. He took out his phone and handed it to her.

  “Call Jameson,” he instructed. “See if you can talk to Nathan.”

  The moment the cruiser pulled into the driveway, Gabriel came down the porch steps. “Arrest him,” Gabriel told the two deputies who got out of the cruiser, and he tipped his head to Wesley.

  Gabriel must have already instructed the ambulance where to go because it sped past them and went to his parents’ house. The fire truck was right behind it. The two cruisers, however, came to Gabriel’s. Both stopped, and a pair of deputies got out of the first vehicle and a third one exited the cruiser behind them.

  Ivy kept watch of everything going on, but she continued her conversation on the phone. Obviously, she’d reached Jameson and could assure him that everything was okay. Well, as okay as it could be considering just how close she’d come to dying.

  “Wesley said he sent something to the sheriff’s office,” Theo told one of the deputies who approached him. Her name was Susan Bowie, someone he’d known since he was a kid.

  Susan nodded. “A courier delivered some papers about thirty minutes ago.”

  Right about the time the attack had started—though it certainly felt as if the gunfire had lasted a lot longer than that. “The papers implicated Lacey Vogel?”

  Another nod. “They’re records to show withdrawals from an offshore account in Ms. Vogel’s name. There were other bank accounts to show where the money went.”

  Theo was betting they could match the deposits to the dead gunmen scattered over the ranch. Lacey had been an idiot to use a bank to pay for all of this, or else she’d been so hell-bent on revenge that she didn’t take precautions. Of course, Wesley wouldn’t have helped with those precautions, either, since he’d probably intended to set Lacey up right from the beginning. Lacey had helped him by making herself a prime suspect.

  Gabriel stayed right by Wesley until Susan and a male deputy hauled the man into the cruiser. Theo watched, too, and even Ivy got one last look at Wesley before the deputy shut the door. At least Wesley wasn’t smirking or smiling now. It had probably set in that he would never be in a position to hurt them again.

  Nor Lacey, for that matter.

  The ambulance would take her to the hospital, but after that, she’d be arrested. Not only had Wesley ratted out Lacey as funding this attack, Lacey herself had admitted to paying for the thugs used in the attacks.

  “Susan, you and Mick go ahead and take Wesley to jail,” Gabriel told the deputy. “Read him his rights. Do everything by the book.” After Susan nodded, he turned to the third deputy. “I want you to stay here and help Edwin wrap things up. I need to use your cruiser to take my sister somewhere.”

  Gabriel didn’t say where that somewhere was, but Theo figured it was the safe house. There was nothing that would get that look of terror off Ivy’s face faster than seeing her son.

  Their son, Theo mentally corrected.

  He figured it would help settle him down, as well.

  Theo hurried when he helped Ivy from the SUV and into the cruiser, and she ended her call with Jameson, probably so she could hear an update from Gabriel and him. As they’d done on their other trips, Theo got in the back seat with her, and as soon as Gabriel was behind the wheel, he took off.

  “Please tell me we’re going to the safe house,” Ivy said.

  “We are,” Gabriel answered. “I’ll drop you two off there and come back here and deal with the investigation.”

  That wouldn’t be a fast or easy thing to do. Heaven knew how many dead bodies there were, and there was a huge crime scene to process. If there were any gunmen left alive, they would also have to be arrested and interrogated. Gabriel would be putting in a lot of long hours and all because of a dirty agent and a greedy stepdaughter.

  “Wesley sent bank documents to the sheriff’s office,” Theo told Ivy and Gabriel, too, in case he hadn’t heard what Susan had said earlier. “It should be what you need to bring murder charges against Lacey.”

  “Murder?” Ivy repeated on a rise of breath.

  “Yeah. Because of Belinda, the CI and McKenzie. Since Lacey paid for the attacks, both Wesley and she will be charged.”

  Ivy stayed quiet a moment, probably letting that sink in. Then fresh tears sprang to her eyes. “It’s over.” Her voice was mostly breath and filled with relief. So, the tears weren’t from sadness this time.

  “It’s over,” Theo assured her.

  Gabriel took the turn from the ranch, and once he got onto the main road, he sped up. “The safe house isn’t far. Ten minutes or so. That should give you two a little time to…talk or something.”

  Theo met Gabriel’s gaze in the rearview mirror, and even though Gabriel didn’t come out and say it, he seemed to be telling Theo to go for it. But what Gabriel didn’t know was that Theo already had. He’d told Ivy he loved her, and she hadn’t said a word about her feelings for him.

  Maybe their pasts were just too painful for her to put behind her. Hell, maybe she didn’t even want him in her and Nathan’s lives. Well, tough. He was going to be there. At least in Nathan’s, anyway.

  “I’m taking that desk job in San Antonio,” Theo said. Unlike Ivy’s voice, there was no relief in his. But there was some anger. “I could try to put in for a transfer to Houston or wherever you end up—”

  She slid her hand around the back of his neck, pulled him to her and kissed him. Hard. That was probably the fastest way to get him to shut up.

  “I love you,” she said when she broke for air.

  Ivy went back for another kiss. Apparently, that was another way to get him to hush, because it stunned him to silence. Strange considering how much he wanted to say to her. But at the moment, he just mentally repeated those words.

  And savored them.

  Until she’d said it, Theo hadn’t realized just how much he’d wanted to hear them. Not just now. But for years.
Because that’s how long he’d been in love with Ivy.

  “I want to stay at the ranch,” she continued, her breath as ragged as his was. A good kiss could do that. “Maybe build a house.” She paused. “With Nathan and you.”

  That felt like a punch. A good one. Because it caused a warmth to go through him from head to toe.

  “You’d sure as hell better ask her to marry you,” Gabriel grumbled. “After all, you did get her pregnant ten years ago. She’s crazy in love with you, and Nathan needs a dad. Heck, Ivy needs you.”

  Theo hadn’t been certain that Gabriel was listening, but obviously he was. And he was right. That wasn’t just Ivy’s big brother talking. This was right between Ivy and him, and the past was the past.

  “Well?” Theo said, turning to her. “Will you marry me?”

  Just in case she had any notion of saying no, Theo kissed her. He made sure it was long and deep. Made sure he poured his heart into it, too. Which wasn’t hard to do. Because Ivy already had his heart.

  “Yes,” she managed to get out before the kissing continued.

  Later, they could celebrate. And he could get her an engagement ring. Later, there’d be time for a lot of things—like living the rest of their lives together. But for now, it had to wait, because Gabriel took the turn to the safe house.

  The moment they pulled into the driveway, the door opened, and Theo saw something that made this complete.

  Nathan.

  His boy was there, right between Jameson and Jodi. And Nathan was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Mom,” he called out to Ivy.

  Ivy scrambled out of the car, and before she made it to Nathan, Theo saw more tears in her eyes. This time he knew for certain they were happy ones. She pulled Nathan into her arms, kissed him and kept on kissing him until the boy was laughing.

  “Dad,” Nathan said when Ivy finally let go of him. He went to Theo and hugged him.