Always a Lawman

by Delores Fossen

  “Wait here,” he told her. “I’ll get some binoculars.”

  He didn’t remind her to stay back from the glass because Jodi was already doing that. But he did hurry. Whatever he’d seen wasn’t coming their direction, but that could change. He didn’t have any night goggles and made a mental note to bring a pair to the house, but he had the standard ones that his dad had used for hunting. Gabriel brought them back to the window and had a look at the spot where he’d seen the movement.

  “Nothing,” he relayed to Jodi, and he handed her the binoculars so she could check it out for herself. Several moments later she made a sound of agreement. That sound was coupled with some relief, too.

  Gabriel took out his phone. “I’ll have one of the deputies go by the place just in case.”

  Even though the CSIs had already processed the pantry and kitchen, he didn’t want any thrill seekers trying to get a look at the crime scene. He also didn’t want to leave Jodi alone so he could do it himself.

  “Wait. It’s a man,” Jodi said, quickly passing him back the binoculars. No relief now. There was an edge and an urgency in her voice. “He’s by the cluster of trees just up the road from your parents’ house. He’s wearing a ski mask.”

  That knot in his stomach had been warranted after all, and he had a look for himself. Yeah, he saw someone all right. And the person was on the move. Not leaving, either. The guy was coming in the direction of Gabriel’s place.

  He handed Jodi the binoculars so he could text Cameron, and he warned the deputy to approach with caution. Since this clown had on a ski mask, this might not be a prank situation after all. It could be the person who’d put Billy up to killing a man and then attacking Jodi and him.

  “He’s got a gun,” Jodi blurted out.

  Gabriel had just finished the text, and he pushed her away from the window and against the wall. She automatically pushed back and brought up both her knee and hand as if to fight him. Gabriel eased away from her, hoping it would lessen the panic he suddenly felt in her. The panic hadn’t come from the guy with the gun, though. It had come because he’d touched her.

  Now, Gabriel had a whole new reason to hate her father. Or whoever the hell it was who’d gone after her with that knife. The attack had left her this way, and after all these years, it might be permanent.

  “I just didn’t want you in this guy’s line of sight,” he reminded her.

  She nodded and lowered both her knee and her hand. At least she hadn’t tried to shoot him. With her training and skills, she might have managed to get off a shot before he could stop her.

  Gabriel went back to the window, only glancing at Cameron’s text response that he was on the way. It took him a moment to spot the guy again. He was definitely coming toward the house, and he was running now. It would be only a couple of minutes before he got there.

  He weighed his options and doubted he’d be able to convince Jodi to hide in the bathroom. That meant Gabriel just had to protect her as best he could.

  “Go in the living room and disarm the security system,” he told her and rattled off the code. “Otherwise, when I open this window, the alarm will go off, and I won’t be able to hear.”

  Gabriel especially needed to hear if this guy had brought a partner in crime with him. One that was even closer to the house than this one.

  Jodi didn’t question his order. She ran out of the room, and Gabriel didn’t take his attention off the thug. The moment Jodi made it back, he threw open the window and took aim. He waited a couple more seconds, until the man was plenty close enough.

  “Stop and put your hands in the air,” Gabriel shouted.

  Judging from the way the guy snapped back his shoulders, Gabriel had surprised him. What the idiot didn’t do was put up his hands. Nor did he stop. He started running, not toward the house but to his right. There were thick woods back there, and Gabriel didn’t want him getting away.

  “Stay here,” he told Jodi.

  He didn’t figure she would, and she didn’t. She was right on his heels and followed him to the door. Gabriel opened it, looking out to make sure he wasn’t about to be ambushed. When he didn’t see anyone, he hurried to the side of the porch that would give him the best view of the trespasser.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot,” Gabriel called out.

  The guy did stop, but he didn’t look up at Gabriel. Instead he glanced in the direction of the road in front of the old house. Specifically, he glanced at Jodi’s car that was still parked there.

  That bad feeling in Gabriel’s gut went up a huge notch. His gut was right. Because Jodi’s car exploded into a ball of flames.

  Chapter Seven

  Jodi had hoped a long shower would help loosen her tense muscles. No such luck, though. Sleep hadn’t helped, either. Too many dreams. Too many nightmarish images. She had the nightmares so often that they were part of what she now considered normal, but sometimes it was next to impossible to deal with her “normal.”

  Being around Gabriel wasn’t helping with those memories, but even with that weighing her down, Jodi had to admit there was something comforting about having him nearby. Which, of course, only put her on edge even more. She’d learned the hard way that when you let down your guard, you got hurt. That’s why she needed to make arrangements for a safe place to stay.

  Clearly, that wasn’t the ranch.

  Though Gabriel had disagreed with that. He’d talked her into staying the night mainly because of the bomber still being out there. He had beefed up security by having two reserve deputies patrol the area, and Gabriel had stayed in the guest room with her. Guarding her.

  From the floor.

  That’s where he’d put his makeshift bed, but Jodi doubted he’d gotten much sleep. She certainly hadn’t.

  She dressed in the loaner clothes Gabriel had left for her in the bathroom. Jeans and a loose gray top. She hoped these were things that Ivy had left behind because she didn’t like the idea of wearing something from one of his ex-girlfriends.

  Or maybe he even had a current girlfriend.

  Gabriel hadn’t mentioned one, but it was possible that his “normal” included things like dating and relationships. A life. Something she hadn’t quite managed to get since she’d been put in that shallow grave.

  After she combed her hair, Jodi made her way to the kitchen, where she’d left Gabriel. He was still there but not alone. Jameson and Cameron were seated with him at the breakfast table. She didn’t catch what they were saying, and they hushed when they spotted her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. Because judging from their expressions, there’d been either another murder or a serious hitch in the investigation.

  Gabriel got up, poured her a cup of coffee and motioned for her to sit. Jodi took the coffee, but she stood. She’d found that pacing usually worked a lot better than being seated if she was about to have to take another mental punch.

  “There’s been no sign of the bomber,” Gabriel said.

  Not good but it was something she’d expected. Gabriel and Jameson had searched for several hours after leaving Cameron at the house to watch her. They’d found nothing and called it a night. Now that the sun had been up for several hours, she’d hoped they would find some evidence that would lead them to him. Apparently not.

  “There was a security camera in your car,” Gabriel added.

  With everything going on, she’d forgotten about that. “It’s motion activated, and the feed goes to a storage cloud. Please tell me you saw the guy on there.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “The bomber managed to jam the feed.”

  She took a long sip of coffee, her grip too tight on the cup, but at least it stopped her from gasping, trembling or doing something else to make them think she was losing it. But this was critical. Jamming a camera like that would take some expertise and the rig
ht equipment. It meant this hadn’t been done by some amateur thrill seeker.

  “Billy’s still locked up and didn’t have any computer or phone access,” Jameson explained. “That means he’s probably not the one who sent this thug.”

  “His lawyer could have,” she quickly pointed out. “Or the person who hired the lawyer for him.”

  Jameson nodded. “We’re looking into it.” He didn’t sound very hopeful they’d come up with that, but at least it was a lead. Maybe the only one they had right now.

  “Why would anyone blow up my car?” she threw out there. “It was obvious I wasn’t in it, hadn’t been in it for hours. So, if he wasn’t trying to kill me, what was the point?”

  “To scare you,” Gabriel readily answered. “To send you into a panic so that you did something dangerous like run outside so you could be shot.”

  Jodi heard the disapproval in Gabriel’s voice. Disapproval since she had indeed gone outside, but she hadn’t panicked. Now, she sat down in the chair next to him and tried to piece her thoughts together.

  “If this is a copycat, he’ll want to re-create what happened that night,” she suggested. “Not just by coming after me but also by killing someone else in the house.”

  No one at the table disagreed with that. It wasn’t exactly a settling thought to have three lawmen admit that someone could want to slice her up again. But there was something in Gabriel’s eyes that told her there was more to this than a simple copycat crime.

  “We got some of the lab results on the knife,” Gabriel continued a moment later. “It’s the same one used to murder my parents and attack you. The broken tip was a perfect match to it.”

  That caused the skin to crawl on the back of her neck. Since she was fighting to tamp down the flashbacks, Jodi was sorry she’d sat down, but she couldn’t stand back up. Her legs suddenly felt wobbly.

  “And the blood and prints on the knife?” she asked.

  “The blood belongs to the guy we found in the pantry.” Gabriel looked at her again. “The only prints on it are yours. The lab said they look like defensive prints.”

  In other words, she had managed to grab the knife that night. That meant she must have seen her attacker’s face. Of course, she’d known all along that was possible, but hearing it spelled out made her want to remember even more. If she could just see his face, then it could prove her father hadn’t been the one to try to kill her.

  Maybe.

  And it just might confirm his guilt. But at least she would know. Her father would know, since he’d been too drunk to recall much of what’d gone on that night.

  “The obvious question is—where has the knife been this whole time?” Jameson asked. “It didn’t show any signs of being out in the elements. Or buried.”

  Jameson glanced at her, maybe to make sure those two words hadn’t been too much for her to handle. After all, she’d been buried. But Jodi was pushing away the memories and the panic so she could concentrate on what this new information might mean.

  “The killer—or his accomplice,” she quickly amended, “could have had it hidden all this time. Then, when I leaked it to the press that I was remembering details of the attack, maybe he freaked out and decided to try to scare me off.”

  “Or someone could have found the knife shortly after the attacks, kept it and decided to use it to play a sick game with you,” Gabriel commented.

  Yes, and that led her right back to August. Even if he hadn’t been an accomplice or the killer, August might have found the knife near the scene and kept it, believing that it would incriminate her father. Ironic that it only had her prints and not the person responsible for this nightmarish crime.

  Cameron finished his cup of coffee and stood. “I’ll head to the sheriff’s office and see if I can come up with anything on Billy’s lawyer.”

  Jameson stood as well, and looked at Gabriel. “And I’ll drive into San Antonio and find out who I can press to get one of us an interview with Billy.”

  Gabriel thanked them both. Cameron left, but Jameson lingered behind and aimed some glances at both Jodi and him. “You’re both welcome to stay at my place. That way, you won’t have to be so close to the old house. I suspect the CSIs will be all over it and the grounds.”

  They would be, but she had to shake her head. “Thanks for the offer, but I have some places in mind where I can go.”

  Jodi didn’t, not yet anyway, but she would. She’d kept money in her apartment and car, but since she couldn’t get to either of those, she would need to go to a bank. Once she had some cash, she could check into a hotel under a fake name and then figure out what her next step was. She didn’t want to be tucked away where she couldn’t investigate this, but she couldn’t allow herself to be an easy target, either.

  Jameson made a “suit yourself” sound and walked out. Gabriel got up, too, and followed him. So he could set the security system, Jodi realized. She hadn’t needed a reminder of the danger, but that did it. So did Gabriel’s expression. It was somehow wired and weary at the same time, and he coupled it with a huff.

  “What places?” Gabriel asked, coming back into the kitchen. He went straight to the coffeepot and poured himself another cup.

  It took her a moment to realize he was asking her where she had in mind to go. “A friend’s house,” she lied. “Not Hector’s,” she quickly added. That wasn’t a lie. She had no intention of going there.

  Gabriel huffed again, and it was louder than his earlier one. “You have nightmares,” he said. “I heard you talking in your sleep, so don’t deny it. You’ve admitted you have panic attacks. Someone tried to kill you, then broke into your apartment and blew up your car. I’m thinking a friend’s house isn’t the place you should be going.”

  He was right, of course. Even if she had any close friends, she couldn’t bring the danger to their doorstep. Besides, judging from Gabriel’s tone, he was thinking friend meant lover.

  “You can’t believe it’s a good idea for me to stay here.” But as soon as she said it, Jodi realized something. Maybe it was a good idea.

  If she wanted a final confrontation with this monster.

  And she did.

  Everything happening seemed to be leading back to this place. To the scene of the original crime. Maybe her attacker wanted to finish what he’d started here. Well, she wanted to finish it, too, but with a totally different ending than this sick piece of slime had planned. This time, she wanted to be the one to end his life and put a stop to the danger once and for all.

  “Fine,” she amended. “I’ll stay here.”

  Gabriel lifted his eyebrow, stared at her. Obviously, he knew what she was doing. But there was no way he could turn her down. Not this time. In fact, after what’d happened ten years ago, he might never turn her down again. Maybe Jodi could use that to bring all of this to a close.

  He got in her face. So close that she had no trouble seeing all those flecks of silver in his blue eyes. “You might think you’re ready to face down a killer, but it can’t go past the thinking stage. Got that?” His jaw was tight. His words spoken through clenched teeth. “I don’t want you outside on your own. And I don’t want you on the trail that leads between here and my parents’ house. I especially don’t want you doing anything stupid like making yourself bait.”

  She shook her head and didn’t dodge his intense stare. “You have to admit I’m the ultimate bait. I’m the one he wants.”

  Gabriel cursed. “You don’t know that. Whoever killed that man could be trying to free your father by going after me or my brother. Especially if it’s August.”

  True, and Jodi hated that she didn’t know the reason behind all of this. Hated even more that her own kin could be responsible.

  And that wasn’t all that was causing her nerves to go into overdrive.

  There was one more facet to thi
s, especially if she did indeed stay here for another night or two. The attraction. She looked at Gabriel to see if that had occurred to him.

  It had.

  “It’s easy for me to lose focus around you,” Gabriel readily admitted, surprising her. Maybe surprising himself, too. “That can’t happen. Because it could get one of us killed.”

  Jodi nodded. With that clarified, she should have looked away, probably should have just excused herself and gone back to the guest room to start making some calls to help with the investigation. But she stayed put.

  Gabriel did, as well.

  And, mercy, the heat came. She could feel it swirling between them. They’d never kissed, something she regretted simply because it made her want to do that now. Jodi wanted to know the feel of his mouth on hers. His taste. She was betting Gabriel was a good kisser, and there was the problem. With the heat and spent adrenaline already in play, it wouldn’t stop with just a single kiss.

  No, they’d land in bed.

  At least, her body would want them to end up there, but Jodi was betting her mind wouldn’t let things get that far. Heck, it was possible the kiss would even trigger a panic attack.

  That reminder caused her to step back, though it wasn’t necessary. Gabriel’s phone rang, the sound slicing through the room—and the heat from the attraction—and he moved back as well to answer it. He didn’t put the call on speaker, so she couldn’t hear what the caller was saying, but whatever it was caused Gabriel’s forehead to bunch up.

  “Text them to me,” Gabriel insisted, and he clicked the button to end the call. “The person who broke into your apartment left some pictures. Old ones from ten years ago.”

  Oh, God. “Not pictures of your parents’ murders?”

  He dragged in a long breath and nodded. “Brace yourself. Because the pictures are of you.”

  Chapter Eight

  Gabriel was a thousand percent sure that it wasn’t a good idea for Jodi to look at the pictures Jameson had just sent him. He was also equally certain that he wouldn’t be able to stop her from seeing them. Not Jodi. She would insist on it.