Always a Lawman

by Delores Fossen

  Since it was true, Gabriel didn’t deny it. But there was a flip side to this. “If you’d stayed and we’d had sex, it might not have turned out so well.” Of course, almost anything would have been better than what Jodi had endured.

  “Yeah. We’re back to sex is a commitment when both of us know that for you it wasn’t.”

  Gabriel tried to tamp down the slam of emotion that caused inside him. “Sex with you would have been a commitment.”

  As soon as he said the words, he knew it was a mistake. A mistake because it was the truth, and in this case he was pretty sure the truth wasn’t going to help.

  It didn’t.

  She looked at him, shook her head as if that couldn’t possibly be right and then she cursed. Gabriel knew how she felt. He wanted to curse, too. But instead he made the mistake much, much worse by taking hold of her hand.

  He didn’t jump into a kiss. Though that’s exactly what he wanted to do. Gabriel gave her a moment to adjust to his touching her. Gave her another moment while he eased her closer to him.

  “I thought you hated me,” she said.

  “I wanted to hate you,” he admitted. “But mostly I just wanted you. And you were too young. It wouldn’t have taken you long to start resenting that you weren’t out having those life experiences you should have been having.”

  The corner of her mouth quivered with a half smile, but it wasn’t a smile of humor. “So much for life experiences.”

  Yeah. The attack had rid her of that chance. And even though it wasn’t fair, now wasn’t the time to go back and re-create the kiss he’d wanted to give her that night. This was the time to focus on the investigation so he could stop another attack.

  But he didn’t do that.

  While he still had hold of her hand, he leaned in and brushed his mouth over hers. It barely qualified as a kiss, but it slammed into him like a Mack truck. It apparently did some slamming into Jodi, too, because she made a sound that was like a gasp.

  Gabriel pulled back to make sure she wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack. She wasn’t. That wasn’t panic he saw in her eyes. It was the fire from this blasted attraction.

  She didn’t move closer to him. Didn’t touch him. Both cues that he should just back away, but again he didn’t. Gabriel slid his arm around her waist, pulled her to him and kissed her.

  Jodi went stiff. At first. Then, the stiffness vanished when she moved into the kiss. Of course, that meant her moving against him, too. Specifically, her breasts against his chest. Normally, it wouldn’t have been a turn-on to be kissing a woman who was plenty unsure about this, but it fired every part of his body.

  Especially one part that shouldn’t be fired.

  She tasted exactly how he thought she would. Like something special—a mixture of fire and innocence. He forced himself to remember that it wasn’t a good combination. Of course, there was little about this that was good, other than the kiss itself. And that silky moan of pleasure that purred in her throat.

  Kissing Jodi was one thing, but that was as far as it could go. Because that old rule still applied here. Sex with her would still be a commitment, and there was no way either of them was in a place for that to happen. That’s why Gabriel moved back from her.

  “Any feelings of a panic attack?” he asked.

  She hesitated a moment, as if trying to figure that out, and shook her head. “Too bad, huh? Because a panic attack would have kept us away from each other.”

  Jodi was right about that. “It’s still not a good idea for us to be kissing...or anything else.”

  No hesitation that time. She quickly nodded, but then ran her tongue on her bottom lip. She probably hadn’t meant it to be sexual, but it certainly felt that way to his body, which was primed and ready to go. Gabriel had to remind his body that it wasn’t going to get Jodi.

  “But at least now I know,” she said. She lifted her shoulder when he stared at her. “Before I was attacked, I thought a lot about kissing you. Now, I can tick that experience off my bucket list.”

  Yeah, but he was betting her bucket list didn’t include dealing with the flames that kiss had fanned inside them.

  “Sheriff Beckett?” someone called out. Except it was more of a shout. And Gabriel knew that voice belonged to Hector.

  Cameron had been right about Hector not being pleased because when Gabriel opened the door and spotted him, he could see Hector’s eyes were narrowed to slits. The narrowing didn’t ease up when Hector shifted his attention to Jodi.

  “Why the hell did you let him do this?” Hector snarled to her.

  Gabriel figured he was the him in that question. He also guessed that the guy in the suit next to Hector was his lawyer. The two uniformed SAPD officers behind them signed off on some paperwork that Cameron gave them and headed out—fast. No doubt because it had not been a pleasant ride with Hector to the sheriff’s office, and they were eager to get away from him.

  “We need you here to answer some questions,” Jodi explained to her very riled boss.

  “You didn’t need the cops for that. I would have come. All you had to do was call and ask.”

  Gabriel was betting Hector wouldn’t have been so cooperative if anyone but Jodi had made that call. And he wouldn’t be so cooperative now, either. Clearly, Hector saw this as a betrayal on Jodi’s part, and Gabriel hoped that didn’t come back to haunt them.

  “You have no grounds to hold my client,” the suit snapped.

  “Yes, I do.” Gabriel motioned for them to follow him into an interview room. “He’s connected to the man who was murdered. A cop named Calvin Lasher. Want to tell me about him?” he added once Hector, the lawyer and Gabriel were inside. Jodi stayed in the doorway. Maybe because she knew this was an official interview, and she didn’t want to do anything to compromise it.

  But it was Hector who waved her in. “You honestly believe I had something to do with a dead cop?”

  “Lasher was investigating you,” Jodi answered.

  If looks could have killed, Hector would have finished Jodi off then and there. Yeah, he definitely saw this as a betrayal, so Gabriel tried to put the focus back on himself.

  “Lasher thought you’d broken the law,” Gabriel told him. “And since we know you’ve done that in the past—”

  “Don’t finish that,” Hector warned him. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” He stopped, huffed, and it seemed to Gabriel that he was trying to rein in his temper. “About a month ago, I got a call from a woman, Kitty Martin. She thought maybe her pimp was bringing in underage girls that he was luring in with drugs. She wanted to go to the cops, but her pimp was violent, and she thought he might kill her.”

  That all meshed with what they’d learned, but there were still some gaps in the information. “Lasher thought you’d done an illegal wiretap on the pimp.”

  Hector was shaking his head before Gabriel even finished. “I had him under surveillance, but that was it. Then, I got a call from Kitty, and she told me to back off, that she didn’t want to pursue the case. So, I stopped.”

  Gabriel couldn’t tell if Hector was lying about that or not, and judging from the sound Jodi made, she was in the same boat. “Why put the file under my name?” she asked.

  Hector’s eyes widened for a moment. Either he was surprised or pretending to be. “Must have been a clerical error. I didn’t do it,” he added when Jodi and Gabriel just stared at him. He cursed. “If I’d wanted to cover up an involvement in this, why would I have left Kitty’s file in the Sentry database?”

  “Maybe an oversight on your part,” Gabriel readily answered. That earned him a glare from both Hector and his attorney.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Hector repeated, turning that glare on Jodi. “I was just trying to help a woman, the same way I tried to help you ten years ago.”

  Jodi glanced
away, and she said some profanity under her breath. “I will always be thankful for what you did for me,” she added, “but Gabriel and I need answers.”

  “You mean you want to send me to jail,” Hector snarled.

  “No,” Jodi readily argued. “I just want the danger to stop.” She paused. “Is it possible that Kitty was setting you up in some way?” Jodi looked at Gabriel to finish that. “Maybe someone posing as a prostitute did this, so they could kill a cop and put the blame on Hector?”

  It was a theory. Not necessarily a good one, but Gabriel thought about it for a moment. If this was a copycat killing to clear Travis’s name, it didn’t make sense to frame Hector. Especially since Hector didn’t have an obvious connection to those decade-old crimes. A copycat would have stood a better chance of framing Russell or August.

  Of course, maybe Russell or August were behind this.

  So, perhaps this was as Jodi had suggested and was simply about getting rid of a cop. Someone other than Hector could have had it out for Lasher. Someone who could have seen Hector as an easy target since he had a police record and maybe the wrong enemy who wanted to eliminate both Lasher and Hector. It was certainly something Hector’s lawyer would argue.

  And a judge would agree.

  Now, Gabriel cursed because that meant he couldn’t hold Hector. No way would the charges stick unless he had more evidence. Which he didn’t.

  Hector smiled as if he knew exactly what conclusion Gabriel had just reached.

  “Jodi’s in danger,” Gabriel reminded the man. That caused Hector’s smile to vanish. “I need you to go through all your files and figure out if someone is indeed setting you up. Find me anyone connected to Lasher and you.”

  Hector nodded, but he still looked riled to the core when he stood and faced Jodi. “So, you’re helping Gabriel now?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “He and I are in the same proverbial boat.”

  Hector shifted his gaze to Gabriel, and like before, it seemed as if the man could sense what was going on in Gabriel’s head. And what was going on was the very recent memory of kissing Jodi.

  “Do you know anything about rattlesnakes being put in Russell Laney’s car?” Gabriel asked, and he watched the man’s expression.

  Surprise followed by annoyance went through Hector’s eyes. “Trying to pin something else on me?”

  “Just asking. And waiting for an answer.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Hector insisted. “That sounds like something a coward would do. I’m not a coward.”

  He probably wasn’t, but that didn’t mean Hector hadn’t resorted to this low level of intimidation.

  “Is my client free to go?” the lawyer asked.

  Gabriel took his time nodding and wished that it didn’t have to be this way. He wanted to get at least one of their suspects off the street, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen today.

  Jodi stepped back into the hall so that Hector could leave. The man walked out, shooting her a warning glance from over his shoulder, and his lawyer and he finally left the building. The moment they were outside, Cameron came to them.

  “I didn’t want to say anything with them here,” Cameron started, “but I might have something. I called the prison to see who’d visited Jodi’s father in the last month, and an interesting name popped up. Russell. He was there the day before we found Lasher’s body.”

  Well, hell. This might be exactly the connection Gabriel had been looking for.

  “I’ve already got approval from the warden if you want to visit Travis,” Cameron added.

  “I do,” Jodi and Gabriel said in unison.

  Since Gabriel doubted there was anything he could say or do to stop her from going with him on this visit, he just motioned for Cameron to follow them.

  “Pull the cruiser to the front,” he instructed Cameron, “so that Jodi won’t have to be outside for very long.”

  Cameron nodded and headed out.

  “You don’t have to see your father if you don’t want to,” Gabriel offered her.

  “No. I’m going.”

  That’s exactly what he figured she would say. “How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”

  “Shortly after his conviction eight and a half years ago.” She paused. “The last visit didn’t go well.” Another pause. “He broke down, apologizing for nearly killing me.”

  That got his attention. “I thought he didn’t remember anything about the attacks?”

  She blew out a long, weary breath. “He didn’t. But after sitting through all the court testimony, he had to consider that he could have possibly done it.” She dismissed it with the wave of her hand. “My father is a broken man. I think he would have apologized for anything at that point, and he told me then not to come back. He didn’t want me to see him behind bars.”

  Which would make this visit hard on Travis as well as Jodi. Of course, Gabriel didn’t care a rat how Travis felt. He only hoped this wasn’t a wasted trip.

  The moment that Cameron pulled to a stop in front of the building, Gabriel got Jodi moving. He threw open the back door of the cruiser so she could climb inside, and he quickly followed behind her. However, the moment Cameron drove off, Gabriel’s phone rang, and when he saw Jameson’s name on the screen, he answered it right away. Since this was almost certainly about Billy, he put the call on speaker so that Jodi and Cameron could hear.

  “It was no-go on recording the chat with Billy,” Jameson said right off. “Our chat, if you can call it that, only lasted a few minutes. And his attorney and two doctors were there the whole time. Added to that, Billy was higher than a kite.”

  Gabriel didn’t bother groaning since he hadn’t expected much to come of it anyway. That’s why Jameson surprised him with what he said next.

  “Billy kept mentioning rattlesnakes,” Jameson continued. “In fact, at first that’s all he said while he rocked back and forth and asked for his mommy.”

  Jodi touched her fingers to her mouth, shook her head. They hadn’t needed any other proof that they were dealing with a troubled teenager, but there it was.

  “And then as I was leaving,” Jameson went on, “Billy said a name. Not Russell. But August.”

  “Did he connect August to the snakes?” Jodi jumped to ask.

  “No. But Billy did say I should watch out or that Uncle August would kill me. Then, he said ‘’bye, Jodi.’”

  Jodi. Maybe he’d said that because August had mentioned her to Billy. Or it could simply be something Billy had overheard while he was at the sheriff’s office.

  “Please tell me you found some kind of link between Billy and August,” Gabriel said while he kept watch around them. He didn’t breathe easier until they were clear of all the buildings on Main Street.

  “Not yet. But someone must have told Billy about those rattlesnakes because he was locked up when it happened.”

  Maybe he’d heard it from the person who’d killed, or who’d put him up to killing, Lasher. But that didn’t mean the person was August. As much as it pained Gabriel to admit it, someone could have planted that name in Billy’s sick mind. Heck, planted the idea of rattlesnakes, too.

  “Jodi and I are going to the jail now to see Travis,” Gabriel told his brother, “but when I get back, I’ll question August again.”

  “I can do it. I’m heading back to Blue River right now, and I can call him on the way and have him meet me.”

  “Thanks.” As much as Gabriel wanted to hear what Jodi’s uncle had to say, he was already bone tired, and he had to face Travis. Besides, any confrontation with August would include Jodi as well, and Gabriel doubted that she wanted to deal with him, either.

  Gabriel ended the call and was putting his phone in his pocket when he glanced at the road ahead. They were still several miles from the interstate and were on a two-
lane country road where there was usually little traffic. If this had been normal circumstances, the car ahead of them wouldn’t have caught his eye. But since things lately had been far from normal, Gabriel had a closer look.

  It was a dark blue four-door, and the driver turned on the right blinker before he pulled onto the shoulder. Such that it was. It was really just a narrow strip of gravel that divided the farm road from a ditch.

  “You think that could be trouble?” Cameron asked.

  “Maybe.” And just in case it was, Gabriel added to Jodi, “Get down on the seat.” Thankfully, she didn’t argue, but she did draw her sidearm. So did Gabriel. “Don’t stop or slow down,” he added to Cameron.

  Cameron didn’t, but as soon as they got closer to the car, Gabriel saw that the driver’s-side window was down.

  And that the driver was wearing a ski mask.

  Before Gabriel could even react, the ski-masked thug fired a shot directly into the cruiser.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jodi didn’t see the gunman, but she instantly knew that someone had fired a shot. The sound of it blasted through the air and slammed into the window on the front passenger’s side of the cruiser. The glass cracked, but it held, thank God.

  She lifted her head to see what was going on, but Gabriel pushed her right back down. However, she did get a glimpse of a man behind the wheel of the car. Since he had a gun in his hand, he was almost certainly the one who’d shot at them.

  When he fired two more rounds at them, Jodi had her answer.

  “Get us out of here,” Gabriel told Cameron.

  Cameron did, but Jodi also heard another sound. The squeal of tires from the car that was now behind them. It was coming after them.

  Gabriel cursed. “There are at least two of them.” One to drive and one to shoot, and that’s exactly what was happening.

  The bullets continued to slam into the cruiser. So far, the metal and glass were holding, but eventually the shots could make it through. Worse, Cameron couldn’t get away from the bullets by going on the interstate. Because there’d be plenty of other vehicles, and an innocent bystander could be killed. Of course, the same could happen if one of the ranchers who lived out this way was on the road at the wrong time.