She nodded and moved closer.
The metal doors thundered open, and light poured in. Bren bunched Rafe's shirt in her hand and tugged him down to her.
"They're inside," Bren whispered.
Both Bren's and Rafe's breathing seemed to shout at her, making Bren aware they could be discovered. The men, and she couldn't tell who or how many, moved closer. One spoke in Spanish. Her hand tightened. If his words had significance, she couldn't understand them. The others she didn't recognize.
"¿Donde está mi dinero?"
Bren pulled on Rafe's shirt again and whispered, "You speak Spanish?"
He nodded.
"What'd he say?"
Rafe brought his head down to her ear. "He wants his money."
What were the chances they'd witness a payoff? And for what? Bren pushed up and was immediately brought down when Rafe grabbed her around the waist.
He narrowed in on her. "You want to get caught?"
Bewildered, she met his angry gaze and whispered back, "But the money—"
His arms pressed tighter around her middle. "Shh."
Bren clamped her lips shut. She needed to focus. Headstrong and deliberate weren't going to get her answers. Patience would pay if she could ignore her impulses and stay rooted and quiet.
Another man shuffled in and moved toward them.
"Where's Connelly?"
"The boss don't involve himself in these kinds of transactions."
Remaining in the corner of the stall was a huge handicap. Seeing was believing. And Bren wanted to see what was going on. Grabbing Rafe by the shirt again, her quiet little way of letting him know she wanted to speak, she pulled him down to her, and he bent his ear toward her lips. "I can't see."
He drew back and frowned. Nodding, he clamped a hand on her arm and directed her toward the front of the stall but to the right where a saddle and blanket hung across the top and front of the wide slats of the stall. Bren peeked through. There were three men. One short Hispanic nervously paced the aisle. Another of medium height dressed in overalls and a baseball cap leaned against a stall with a heavy work boot resting on a watering trough. The other guy, wearing jeans and a leather bomber jacket, pulled a wad from his jacket pocket. Crisp bills, the denomination yet to be disclosed, were counted out. "This is for José over there."
The guy with the overalls handed it to José. He then added something in Spanish, and Bren sent a questioning lift of her eyebrows toward Rafe.
"Two hundred," Rafe said. She nodded.
Bomber Jacket counted several more bills and handed them to the one in overalls. He took the money, dipped his head, and counted it. His head shot up. "It's only half?"
Bomber Jacket laughed. "I don't make the rules. Mr. Connelly said half. Then half when it's delivered and done."
The words sent a warning so sharp that Bren gasped, and she shook with fear. When it's delivered and done... She glanced up at Rafe, her eyes wide with horror.
He pulled her to him, the strength of his arms the only comfort against what she feared was Smiley's fate. In a low voice she had to strain to hear, he said, "Do you trust me?"
Considering their behavior toward one another last night, his question was utterly soul-searching. He was with her now, holding her trembling body, refusing to let her either crumble or self-destruct. Either of which would give them up.
With him her emotions could never be harnessed.
He made her laugh and even cry, which angered her. Weakness she detested. He had become her best friend unwittingly. He felt things for her, too. Whether it was love or a kindred spirit kind of thing, she couldn't say.
She pulled him down to her level and searched those eyes she had come to read. "Yes... yes, I trust you."
He grinned at her. "That's my girl." He peeked through the slat and came back to her. "Let them hang themselves."
She nodded and concentrated on the men whose voices had become agitated.
"Call his ass down here." The one in overalls loomed above Bomber Jacket, who stepped away and grabbed his phone from his jacket. The chirp of his two-way phone echoed. "Boss, Mason wants to see you."
The phone chirped back, the boom of Wes's voice, her clue that he didn't appreciate the interruption.
Overalls, whom she deduced was Mason, grappled with the phone and yanked it away. "Connelly, you son of a bitch. We had a deal. You renege—" The threat swallowed up when he smashed his lips to the phone and turned away to pace as he leveled his ultimatum in deep whispers.
Mason tossed the phone up in the air. "Catch, Pritchard."
Another name Bren stored away. She pressed her forehead into the rough grain of the wooden slat, her eyes blinking through the crack.
José paced the dirt floor, muttering. Mason plopped on a stool, resigned to his fight, and Pritchard kept his eye on the wide entrance of the stable. The crunch of gravel and the slam of a door brought all three around. Wes arrived and stood, legs apart, hands on hips, an angry dark silhouette backlit against the murk of gray and swirling mist. "You threaten me, Mason?" He took measured steps toward him.
Mason pushed up from the stool. The abrupt movement sent it toppling with a thud onto the dirt floor. "I don't work in draws, Connelly." His grizzly voice gripped the damp air and held, his threat open-ended.
Wes's hand shot up, and he scrubbed the back of his neck with irritation. "You'll get your money. Once I've got delivery confirmation."
"To hell with your confirmation." Thick work boots clumped toward Wes. "All I did was make arrangements."
Wes straightened. Mason had his attention. "I'll see you share the same cell. So keep talking," said Wes.
Terror edged along Bren's spine, the twinge of sudden loss hovering around her. The noose Rafe talked about, agonizingly slow, only gave innuendo. These men were conditioned experts at shadowing the truth. Her fingers, stiff from squeezing the wooden slat, lifted tentatively. The stall door tempted her to make her presence known and demand answers.
But Rafe, sensing her agitation, grabbed for her waist, his warm fingers slipping under her sweater. "Don't."
She bit down on her lip, her throat tight. The ache of tears threatened to expose her fear. "Rafe." Her voice shook. "There's no time." She jerked away from him and grabbed the stall door, but he was on her in seconds. He jerked her back. The baseball cap she wore flew off and her hair fell past her shoulders. Flat on her back with Rafe on top, his weight made it a struggle to breath. "Get—"
His hand came down on her mouth. He pinned her with his eyes, and she flinched with the intensity.
A car door slammed, then another. Their attention swung to the thin strip of space between the dirt floor and the first slat of the stall. His fingers eased and slid to her shoulder. Two black tires and shiny hubcaps winked at them. The thick blue letters "Sheriff" stenciled against a gleaming white paint job announcing the advent of law enforcement made her stomach twist.
There would be no more intelligence-gathering.
José grabbed his head between his hands and bent over muttering. "¡Oh, no. La policía! Ese caballo blanco me persiguen. Yo nunca estuvo de acuerdo. El dinero no vale la pena."
The only words she could pick out were police and white.
Rafe's fingers dug into her shoulder.
"What's wrong?" The hairs along the back of her neck bristled.
He relaxed his grip. "Nothing." His neck craned upward, his eyes trained on the tiny space.
"You know what he said." She yanked his head down even with hers. "Don't lie to me."
"Bren." His brows knit together, and he shook his head.
Her grip tightened on the base of his neck. "Smiley." The name tore from her throat.
He said nothing, only reached to smooth a red shaft of her hair that rested along her cheek and tucked it behind her ear.
Strength born of unbearable loss, she rolled out from underneath him.
With stunned reaction, Rafe reached for her, but she scooted away. Grabbing the stall
door, she pulled herself up.
Rafe cursed and came to his knees.
She slid open the stall, the wooden door rumbling in its track alerting the men deep in verbal battle. She struggled to find something—a weapon, because she meant to murder the son of a bitch, who stood frozen, eyes gaping, wondering what the hell Bren Ryan was doing holed up in one of his stalls.
She spotted it. A vicious smile curled her lips, and she grabbed the pitchfork shoved in a bale and strode up to Wes.
José sent up a high-pitched squeal and darted for the doors. He ran smack into Kevin. Kevin, in his lawman guise, imposing Stetson square atop his head and frame like Gibraltar, teetered backward. "What the—Bren—Rafe—" His words caught and held, and Kevin let José slide by him when he locked onto Bren. With a determined step, she closed the gap with pitchfork in hand, her victim clear in the wide-eyed accusatory gaze of her childhood friend.
"Shit!" Kevin moved forward and called back to his deputy. "Grab him!" He pointed to the fleeing José, who had already whizzed by the patrol car, making tracks for the gravel road leading out onto Route 68.
Another patrol car pulled up. Mason and Pritchard made a move.
"Hold up." Kevin put out his hand.
Two deputies entered the stable.
"Detain these two and get their statements," Kevin ordered.
The deputies closed in, and under duress Mason and Pritchard were led out.
Kevin placed himself between Bren and Wes, his arms flung out like a crossing guard daring her to step off the curb. He glanced back at Wes, who was standing off to the side, his eyes warily keeping tabs on Bren and the pitchfork raised in combat. "You want to fill me in, Connelly?"
"She's—" He pointed an accusatory finger toward her. "—fucking crazy," he sputtered and made quick eye contact with Kevin before his gaze swung back to Bren. "Do something, Bendix, before she kills me."
And that was her intent. He'd made arrangements to have her horse stolen. She'd figured that out, even with the little Rafe had shared when it came to José—his way of keeping her contained. Well, she was a freaking powder keg now, and reason and good sense were beyond her. She'd deciphered the conversation between Mason and the thug named Pritchard. Not until delivery confirmation. Smiley's fate, spelled out in those four words, would be a reality if she didn't get answers, and quick.
Everything faded away, the swirl of the patrol cars' lights, the red and blue bouncing off the walls of the stable. Rafe, his presence a force she sensed without looking back, and the confused face of a friend/lawman who surely believed she'd gone round the bend, remained on the periphery.
She had only one target, and the bastard had just sprung behind Kevin. A pitchfork in her hands, definitely lethal; Kevin would be smart to move out of the way.
Short of Kevin drawing his gun on her, she kept coming. "You're as good as dead, you son of a bitch!" Her threat aimed at Wes, she never took her eyes off him.
"What the—" Kevin became speechless when she made the first jab to the side of him and missed when Wes dodged to the right. "Damn it, Bren. Enough!" Kevin grabbed the pitchfork handle, his hand slipping by degrees as she yanked it back.
"He stole my horse," she grunted and pulled back and aimed to the right but missed again.
Kevin's face went taut. "Put the goddamn pitchfork down."
Like hell. Trembling with rage and the need for answers, coerced or otherwise, she stayed focused on Wes. "Tell me the shipping company, you bastard."
"Shipping?" Kevin glanced back at Wes. "What the hell's she talking about?"
"How the fuck do I know?" Wes's words came out in a rush, his face turning a deep shade of red.
"Sheriff." Deputy Johnson, the one who had gone in pursuit of José, came back winded. "I couldn't catch him. He's probably over the border by now."
Kevin winced at the comment and motioned for him to take a position to his right. "And for crissake, don't discharge your guns." Kevin placed his hand on his service weapon and glared at Bren. "Don't escalate this."
"This," Bren seethed, "is his doing." She shot a burning gaze into Wes. "He stole my horse, damn it!" Her voice cracked, and the pitchfork slipped in her slick hands. She tightened her grip. "Give me the name of the shipping company and the slaughterhouse." She jabbed the pitchfork to the left.
Wes sucked in air, stumbled back, and reached for something at his waist. The glint of a silver semiautomatic followed, and he drew down on Bren. "Come at me again, you crazy bitch, and I'll kill you."
Bren tightened her grip on the pitchfork and swallowed. He would, too, and he'd be in his right to shoot her. She was on his land, brandishing a weapon, with every intention of jamming it dead center into his miserable person.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Kevin's face turned ashen, and he pulled his service weapon and drew down on Wes. "Drop the gun, Connelly."
"Fuck you, Bendix."Wes's head pivoted, and the two deputies took position on either side of him. "She's as good as dead, she makes another move."
Oh, she wasn't twitching a muscle. Wes looked too comfortable in the way he handled the gun. He'd killed Tom. He'd kill her, too.
Wes pierced her with menacing eyes and took a step forward, his finger heavy on the trigger.
Bren closed her eyes, prepared to take the bullet that would end her life, when a scuffle brought them open. Kevin had reholstered his weapon and come up behind Wes, taking him to the ground in one swift motion, the gun hitting the dirt floor same as Wes.
Strong arms came around her and yanked the pitchfork from her hands. "It's over, darlin'," Rafe whispered into her ear as he clamped her tight to his chest.
Bren slumped against him. The two deputies swooped in and assisted Kevin, yanking Wes's arms behind his back, cuffing him while Kevin grabbed the gun and dropped the pistol's magazine onto the dirt floor. He cleared the chamber with a metallic click and dumped the remaining bullet out onto the ground.
"Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?" he demanded.
Wes lifted his head, his breathing labored with the deputies still on his back. Everyone else turned their attention to the voice coming from the wide opening of the stable.
Bren recognized him immediately—the fair head of reason. The only sane Connelly who seemed to have radar designed to intercede when rational thinking had all been lost between his father and her.
Kevin's head whipped around. "You know anything about Bren's horse?"
"Horse?" Robert took a tentative step inside the stable, dressed casual in a dark running suit and tennis shoes. He frowned in confusion as the deputies hoisted Wes to his feet.
"She claims your father stole him and shipped him off for slaughter," Kevin said.
"I didn't steal her goddamn horse!" Wes sputtered.
"He did it. José said so," Bren shot back.
Rafe slipped his arm around her waist. "Easy, Tiger, you got want you wanted," he spoke quietly against her ear.
She bit the inside of her mouth. Sure, Wes put his best murdering foot forward by brandishing a gun. But it still wouldn't save Smiley unless she got answers.
Kevin tucked Wes's gun inside his waistband. "You better hope to hell you registered it," he snarled at the man. Then to his deputies: "Read him his rights and arrest him."
"Robert." The distress in Wes's voice brought Bren around.
He looked to his son, an expression of uncertainty lining his face.
Robert waved a dismissive hand toward his father. "I'm done with you." His eyes then met Bren's—pained and almost looking through her. "Whatever I can do to help, you let me know," he said and walked away.
The deputies shuffled Wes through the wide opening of the stable, and for once Wes was speechless.
An unexpected twinge of regret surfaced inside Bren, and she realized this thing between Robert and his father was no longer funny. She'd never meant to hurt Robert. He'd done nothing to deserve this.
Kevin stood in the way of the exit, talking into his radio.
She eyed him. If he tried to stop her...
He caught sight of them coming toward him. His jaw tensed. "You're not going anywhere until I get a statement so I can charge the son of a bitch."
Bren's back stiffened.
Rafe placed his hand on Bren's lower back. "He's on our side, Red." He grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her forward. "Give the man a statement. Then we're going to see Bean Counter. He's the only one who can help us now."
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rafe paced the marble floor of the expansive entryway of the Connelly home, the click of his boots echoing in the hallowed hall. Wide, opulent staircases, strung on either side, wended their way to the second level like an elegant strand of pearls carved in oak. Bren fidgeted, tapping her work boot against the gleaming marble floor. The contrast between working-class and high-class was stark and uncomfortable the longer she stood in such fine surroundings, waiting for Robert to succeed at his task.
"You sure you trust him?" asked Rafe.
"Shh." Bren strained her neck and peered through the tall double glass doors of Wes's office. Robert sat behind an ornate cherry desk, his glasses perched atop his head, digging through a stack of trucking manifests.
Rafe's fingers locked around her arm and yanked her back. "That's not an answer."
"We're here, aren't we? If he had something to do with Smiley's disappearance, you think he'd be rifling through his father's desk trying to find evidence?" She shook her head. "No, because he'd be signing both his and his father's arrest warrant."
His fingers relaxed, his one brow arching. "No loyalty to family?"
She glanced back at Robert, his head dipped in concentration, thumbing through the stack. "I don't claim to know how his mind works. But from what I've seen, he's a good guy. You can't pick your parents."
Rafe's grip tightened again, his eyes hardened.
"Hey." She stared at that hand, long fingered, wide palm, so male—and squeezing the life from her arm. "That hurts." She tugged her arm.
Relentless (Fallon Sisters Trilogy: Book #1) Page 21
