by Dana Marton
All she wanted was to put all this behind her, for her brother’s name to be cleared. And an official apology in the local paper. Dylan didn’t deserve to be dragged through the mud like this.
But instead of law enforcement investigating how and why Dylan had been framed, they kept on with their idiotic suspicions about him, even dragging her into the mess.
The man next to her kept his eyes on the road. “For now your brother’s personal possessions are evidence in a multiple murder case.”
“The sheriff won’t let me into Dylan’s apartment in Hullett, either.” Everyone seemed to be against her these days.
“They need to get everything processed.”
She hated Moses Mann. He had zero sympathy for her or her situation. He was twice her size and had used that in the interrogation room to intimidate her. He was missing half an eyebrow, which made him look pretty fierce. His muscles were just on this side of truly scary. She had a feeling he knew how to use his strength and use it well.
If he had a softer—reasonable—side, she sure hadn’t seen it. He’d called her brother a conscienceless criminal and pretty much accused her of being the same. He threatened her with Social Services.
Her stomach clenched.
The day she saw Moses Mann for the last time would be a good day. He made her nervous and scared and so self-aware it bordered on painful. She had to watch every move, every word, lest he read something criminal into it. She looked away from him.
The land stretched flat and dry all around them as far as the eye could see. He drove the dusty country road in silence for a while before he resumed questioning her, asking her some of the same questions he’d asked before. She gave him the same answers. He was still trying to trip her when they reached her road at last.
Thank God. Another ten minutes and she would have been ready to jump from the moving car.
He parked his SUV at the end of her driveway, and she was out before he shut the engine off. Her dogs charged from behind the house, Max and Cocoa in the lead, Skipper in the back, all three of them country mutts from the pound.
They greeted her first.
“No jumping.” She pushed Max down then scratched behind his ear.
He kept jumping anyway. Skipper barked, running around her in circles. They were worked up over something.
They checked out the man by her side next, tails wagging. They were about the three friendliest, goofiest guard dogs in Texas, trained to be nice to everyone, since her son often had friends over.
“Be nice,” she said anyway, even if she wouldn’t have been too put out if one of them peed on Moses Mann’s combat boots. Not that she was vengeful or anything.
But the dogs were doing their best to crowd each other out as the man gave them some ear scratching. They seemed to think they’d found a new best friend. Figured.
He looked as if he enjoyed the attention. “There you go. That’s a good dog.”
She hoped he’d at least get fleas.
He gave a few final pats as he looked at her.
She cleared her throat. “Thanks for the ride.” Hint, hint. Go away.
She didn’t like the relaxed smile he’d gotten from playing with her traitor dogs. It made him look more human than soldier machine. If she began to think of him as anything other than “the enemy,” he’d try to trick her into a false confession or something. Since they couldn’t do anything more to her brother now, he and his team would probably do anything to ruin her life instead. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down for a minute.
She waited for him to get back into his car and drive away. She didn’t want him following her into the house, so she went to check the mailbox, playing for time, and bit her lip as she opened the flap door, her hand hesitating.
“What’s wrong?” he called over.
How on earth had he caught that half-second pause? “Nothing.”
She thrust her hand forward and grabbed the stack of envelopes. Everything. Bills scared her these days. She’d received a mortgage check the day before, for the ranch that she’d thought had been long free and clear. Dylan had taken out a new mortgage, apparently.
Which didn’t mean he was a bad brother. Or a murderer. He’d worked so hard, had so much on his mind... He’d simply forgotten to tell her.
She kept her back to Moses Mann. “Just making sure there aren’t any wasps in there. They keep trying to move in.” Also true. She’s had a lot of trouble with wasps this year.
She shuffled through the envelopes, then relaxed. No unexpected bills, thank God. The new mortgage was more than she could handle.
Her cell phone rang and she glanced at the display. The agent from Brandsom Mining. The man had a sixth sense for knowing when she felt desperate. But not that desperate yet. She pushed the off button.
“Who was that?”
She wasn’t going to discuss her problems with Moses Mann. He would have no qualms about using any weakness against her. “Telemarketer,” she said. Sounded better than People who are trying to take the ranch away from me.
The land had some collapsed mine shafts left over from its old coal mining days. The mine had run dry and had been abandoned in her grandfather’s time. But Brandsom Mining wanted to buy the ranch for exploration, thought that with modern methods of surface mining they might be able to get something out of the place.
And ruin the land in the process, mess up the water tables, have heavy machinery tear up the earth. No thanks. Dylan and she had always been in full agreement about that. The ranch was her son’s inheritance. The Rogers Ranch would stay in Rogers hands until there was no longer a Rogers left.
She glanced at her phone. “Bus should be coming in a minute.” Feel free to leave now.
But the guy seemed impervious to hints.
Her heart lifted at the sight of the school bus coming around the bend, its old engine laboring. She glanced at the major pain at her side, wishing he would disappear. If he stayed, Logan would be asking questions about him. But the man was looking at her pickup, his attention 100 percent focused there as the bus stopped and Logan ran down the steps.
For a second she forgot about Moses Mann as she caught her son up into her arms and held him tight. The dogs were jumping all over them, muscling their way in with enthusiasm.
Logan squirmed. “Mo-om, not in front of the other kids.”
She let him go with a half smile. Right. He was a big kid now, supposedly, eight years old. She made sure not to take his hand,or offer to carry his bag as she turned toward the house. But she did say “I missed you, buddy” as the school bus pulled away.
Moses Mann was walking over, his cell phone in hand. “I need you to go sit in my car.”
Her muscles clenched at the hard expression on his face and the silent warning in his eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Just for a few minutes.”
If she were alone, she would have demanded an explanation. But she didn’t want to get into an argument with the man in front of Logan. Because he could make her sit in his car. He could take her right back with him. She didn’t want things to get worse than they were. Which meant she’d do as he asked. For the time being.
She swallowed and reached for her son’s hand, big kid or not. “This nice gentleman is Mr. Mann.” She did her best to sound normal. “He has a really cool car. Want to check it out?”
“Hi, Mr. Mann. Can I sit in the front?”
He nodded with an encouraging smile, the first she’d seen on him. “Just don’t turn on the siren.”
Logan’s eyes went wide, a big smile stretching his face. “You have a siren? Is it like an undercover police car?”
“Kind of.”
“Are you going to find the bad men who hurt Uncle Dylan?”
He hesitated for a second, his gaze cutting to her
, before he said, “I’m working on that situation.”
Logan sprinted for the car and she walked after him, the streaks of dirt on his back catching her eye.
“What happened to your shirt?”
He froze and looked at his feet. “Nothing.”
“Logan?”
He turned but wouldn’t look at her. “It’s no big deal, Mom.”
Her heart sank. She didn’t have to ask what the fight was about. He’d been teased again with what the papers said about his uncle. “What do we always say about fighting?”
He hung his head and mumbled, “The best way to win a fight is to walk away from it.”
She caught Mo watching them. He didn’t look like the type who walked away from a fight. Well, that was his problem. “All right. Let’s get in the car. We’ll talk about this later.”
When she was behind the wheel, Mo started toward her house. But then he stopped and motioned her to roll the window down, tossed her his keys. “Lock yourselves in.” He fixed her with a stern look. “And if there’s any trouble, you drive away.”
* * *
THE DOGS STAYED by the car, whining to get in. They wanted to play with the kid. Good. Better to have them out of his way. Mo dialed his phone, keeping his focus on the house’s windows as he approached.
The two-story ranch house was well kept, had a new roof. A row of yellow roses trimmed the wraparound porch that held half a dozen rockers. He dashed across the distance to the steps just as Jamie picked up his call on the other end. “I’m at the Rogers ranch. I need a crime-scene kit.”
“You better not be having fun out there while I’m filing reports at the office.”
“Molly Rogers’s tires were slashed. In the past three hours. Everything was fine when I picked her up earlier.”
“You need backup? Ryder just came in.”
Ryder had recently been appointed team leader when the powers that be made the SDDU’s Texas headquarters permanent. The top secret commando unit mostly worked international missions, infiltration, hostage rescue, search and destroy, espionage and the like.
But when a terrorist threat had been indicated for this section of the border, the Colonel sent a small team in. They’d come for this specific mission, but there was enough going on in the border region that the Colonel decided to make the team here permanent.
“If you can bring the kit, that should be enough.” Mo pushed the screen door open as he reached for his gun, then opened the entry door with a simple twist of his wrist and scowled. Hardly anyone kept their houses locked around here. He didn’t understand that kind of blind faith in humanity, not after all he’d seen.
“I think whoever messed with the tires is gone.” The dogs hadn’t signaled an intruder. “But I’m going to check out the place anyway.” He closed the phone and slipped it into his back pocket.
He started with the kitchen. He’d been in here before, with a search warrant and his team, after Dylan’s death. They’d found nothing usable then and he didn’t bother to look for any incriminating evidence now, just for possible danger. He checked the gun cabinet in the hall closet—full of hunting rifles. Locked. Nothing seemed missing.
He moved through room by room. The bathroom at the top of the stairs still held the faint scent of Molly Rogers’s shampoo, everything in its place, everything spotlessly clean.
A little more disorder in the boy’s room, a dozen toy soldiers scattered on the floor. But the next room over, her bedroom, was immaculate. He scanned the old-fashioned antique four-poster bed, feminine and delicate.
Would probably break under his weight— He caught the thought. He didn’t need to think about himself in Molly Rogers’s bed.
But he couldn’t help noticing the strappy nightgown that peeked from under the cover. He forced his gaze past the lavender silk after a long moment.
He checked the next two small rooms, including the closets, found no signs that anyone had been in the house. He put his gun away and plodded down the stairs. In the kitchen, he pulled out a business card with his cell-phone number and stuck it on the fridge with a magnet decorated with elbow macaroni, probably made by Logan. Then he strode down the driveway, told them to get out of the car.
He turned to the boy first. “I need to talk to your mom for a second.”
Logan looked at his mother.
“Why don’t you go play some video games?” she suggested.
He grinned as wide as a grin could go and ran up to the house, his backpack bobbing, the dogs following him. He glanced back and yelled, “Goodbye, Mr. Mann.”
He lifted a hand in a wave. Seemed like a well-raised kid.
“What did he get into a fight over?” he asked when the boy had passed out of hearing distance.
“Kids have been picking on him this last couple of weeks because of what they’d heard about his uncle.” She shot him a glare as if it was all his fault. “Usually he’s pretty good at walking away, but he really idolized my brother.”
Whatever Dylan Rogers had done, someone beating on the kid for it didn’t sit well with Mo. “You can’t always walk away from trouble. I could teach him how to defend himself.”
“Absolutely not. I’ll handle my son’s problems.” She crossed her arms. “What were you doing in my house?”
Mo rolled his shoulders. She was right. Her son was none of his business, had nothing whatsoever to do with his op. Getting personally involved would have been a bad idea. Back to business. He gestured her over to her pickup and pointed at the slashed tires, watching for her reaction.
She stared, her jaw tightening. For a second he thought he might have seen moisture in the corner of one eye as her gaze filled with misery. “I can’t afford new tires.”
Money was the least of her problems. “We’ll be taking some fingerprints.” He gave her a hard look. “I want you to keep your doors locked. Car doors, house doors, garage door, the works. Do you know how to shoot any of those guns in the gun cabinet?”
She drew her gaze from the tires at last. “I might be a pacifist, but I’m still a Texan.”
He watched her, trying to puzzle her out. Back in the interrogation room, his threat of calling Social Services had scared her. The slashed tires hadn’t, just annoyed her. He liked that she was brave, but he wanted her to be careful. “I left my number on your fridge. Call me if you need me for anything. Don’t take this lightly.”
She looked back at the tires. “Why would somebody do this to me?”
He had a fair idea. “Maybe one of your brother’s friends saw me pick you up. This could be a warning to make sure you don’t tell any secrets.” He paused for emphasis. “We could protect you and your son. If you were to cooperate.”
Instead of jumping on that offer, her muscles only tightened another notch, true anger coming into her eyes.
“Quit blackmailing me with my son. I don’t know any secrets. Goodbye, Mr. Mann.” Then she turned on her heels and marched up to the house, hips swinging. She let the screen door slam shut behind her.
He would have lied if he said all that fire didn’t draw him in, at least a little.
To distract himself from that thought, he checked the outbuildings while he waited for Jamie. Not a single door locked, barn, stables, shed, all the outbuildings open. But he found no signs of damage inside any of them. If the tire slasher had gone through, he hadn’t messed with anything else.
As he stepped back outside, he scanned the endless fields around the buildings, not another house in sight. He made a mental note to check on the status of Dylan Rogers’s bachelor pad when he got back to the office. Molly and her son would be better off moving there, into town, for the time being.
Not that keeping her safe was his job. For all he knew, she was guilty as sin. But her kid didn’t deserve to be in the middle of all this bad business.
“How is it that you get both the girl and the action, while I’m stuck in the office?” Jamie’s arrival ended the trip down memory lane.
“You’re here now.”
He looked around. “Sounded more exciting over the phone. Didn’t find anyone here?” He sounded disappointed at the missed opportunity for a scuffle.
His steps were sure as he brought the crime-scene kit over to the pickup, but he had a slightly uneven gait. Both of his legs were missing, courtesy of a rough overseas mission that had ended badly. He walked with the aid of two space-age technology prostheses, well hidden under his black cargo pants, originally developed for Olympic athletes.
He looked over the damage carefully. “Find anything else beyond the slashed tires?”
“Nothing.”
While Jamie lifted prints, Mo dabbed the tires around the slashes with oversize cotton swabs and sealed those into evidence bags.
Jamie put away the prints he’d collected. “Could be a warning for her to keep quiet about her brother’s dealings.”
“That was my first thought.”
She had no idea how out of her depth she was in all this. He looked toward the house, not liking that he was beginning to feel protective toward Molly Rogers and her son. That could become a problem.
“She’s a person of interest in the investigation,” he said out loud to remind himself of the exact nature of their relationship.
Maybe if he kept telling himself that was why he was so interested in her, eventually he’d believe it.
His phone rang at the same time as Jamie’s. They clicked into a conference call with Ryder.
“Hey, Shep just called. He found some chopped-off fingers. No body to go with them,” their team leader said on the other end.
“Where?” Mo tensed, pretty much expecting that he wasn’t going to like the answer. He was right about that.
“Rogers land,” Ryder said.
