His tone wasn’t as sharp as it’d been before, and his glare had softened some. Maybe he was starting to believe that this wasn’t her fault.
Well, not totally her fault, anyway.
Tessa tried to concentrate and latch on to whatever information she could remember. It was strange, but the memories from years ago were a lot clearer than the recent ones. In fact, some of the recent ones were just a tangle of images and sounds.
“Tell me about Joel,” Landon pressed, probably because she was still trying to figure out what to say.
“Joel,” she repeated. And Tessa went with what she did remember. “I started working for him two years ago as a bookkeeper. I didn’t know what he was,” she added. “I was an out-of-work accountant, and he offered me a job. Later, he wanted me to be a PI so I could run background checks for him.”
“But you soon found out what he was,” Landon finished for her.
Another nod. “But I didn’t know how deep his operation went, and he was hiding assets and activities under layers of corporate paperwork.” Tessa had to pause again, brush away the mental cobwebs. These next memories were spotty compared to the ones of her starting to work for Joel.
“Back at the hospital, you said you thought Joel had killed someone,” Landon reminded her. “Who? Emmett?”
Tessa closed her eyes a moment, trying to make the thoughts come. Finally, she remembered a piece of a memory. Or maybe it was just a dream. It was so hard to work all of this out.
“No. Not Emmett. I think the murder might have had something to do with the baby’s mother,” she said. “But...no, that’s not right.” She touched her fingers to her head. “It’s getting all mixed up again.”
“Her mother?” Landon questioned. “So you’re positive she’s not yours...ours?”
“Yes, I’m certain.”
She couldn’t tell if Landon was relieved about that or not. He didn’t seem relieved about anything. Neither was she. The child might not be theirs, but Tessa still needed to protect the newborn.
But who was after the baby? And why?
Her gaze dropped to the baby. “I think I know the reason I have her, though. Because a killer was after her mother, and she left the baby with me for safekeeping.”
“A killer,” Landon said. “You mean Joel?”
“I just don’t know.” Tessa groaned softly. “If I could just rest for a while, maybe that would help me remember?”
“You’ll get some rest later. For now, tell me what happened to the baby’s mother,” Landon demanded.
Tessa had no idea. But this wasn’t looking good. If all of this had happened four days ago, then the mother should have come back by now. If she was able to come back, that is.
Landon cursed. “Is the mother dead or hurt?”
But before she could even attempt an answer, Dade was on the phone, and she heard him ask if there was any information on the baby’s mother that would match the sketchy details she’d just given them.
“Is it possible the woman who had this baby didn’t have anything to do with Emmett?” Landon pressed.
“I just don’t know.” She paused. “But maybe Emmett was helping me find some evidence against Joel?”
As expected, that didn’t go over well with Landon. He didn’t come out and say that she should have contacted him instead of Emmett, but she knew that was what he was thinking.
“But why would Emmett have been helping me?” Tessa asked.
Neither of the men jumped to answer that, maybe because they didn’t have a clue, but it was Landon who finally responded. “Emmett was a DEA agent in Grand Valley, and Joel had a business there.”
The memories were coming but too darn slow. She huffed and rubbed the back of her neck. Or rather she tried to do that but yanked back her hand when her fingers brushed over the sensitive skin there.
“Does it hurt?” Landon asked. He leaned closer, lifted her hair and looked for himself.
“Some.” Not nearly as much as her head, though. “Why? How bad does it look?”
“It looks like a wasp sting or something. But the doctor took an X-ray. If it’s something serious, he’ll let us know.”
Now that the drugs were partially wearing off, she tried to remember what’d happened to cause this particular injury. But nothing came. Everything was still so jumbled in her head, and that couldn’t last.
There were secrets in her memories, secrets that had caused someone to try to kill her, and until she unlocked those secrets, she wouldn’t be able to figure out who had sent that gunman after the baby and her.
And figure out who’d killed Emmett and why.
“Good news, maybe,” Dade said when he finished his call. “There have been no reports of a seriously injured or dead woman who gave birth in the past week, but Josh will keep calling around and see if something turns up.”
“Josh?” she asked, hoping it was someone she could trust. Of course, at the moment Tessa wasn’t sure she could trust anyone.
“Our cousin,” Landon explained. “He’s a deputy in Silver Creek.”
Like Landon. Tessa prayed this Josh was being mindful of those calls and that he didn’t give away any information that could put the baby’s mother in further danger. Of course, it was possible the woman was dead. Just because the cops hadn’t found a body didn’t mean there wasn’t one.
Oh, God.
Another wave of dizziness hit her, and Tessa had to lean her head against the seat. She closed her eyes, hoping it would stop. Hoping, too, that the car would soon stop, as well.
“Where are we going?” she asked. And better yet—how soon would they be there? But the moment she asked the question, Tessa got yet another bad feeling. That feeling only increased when neither Landon nor Dade jumped to answer.
“Where?” she repeated.
“Someplace you’re not going to like,” Landon grumbled.
Chapter Six
Landon had told Tessa that he was taking her someplace she wouldn’t like. Well, it wasn’t a place where he especially wanted her to be, either, but his options were limited.
And that was why Tessa was now sleeping under his own roof.
Or at least, the roof of the guesthouse at the Silver Creek Ranch where Landon had made his temporary home. Until he could come up with other arrangements, it would be Tessa and the baby’s temporary home, too. With more than a half-dozen lawmen living on the grounds, it was safer than any other place Landon could think to take them.
Landon poured himself a fourth cup of coffee, figuring he’d need a fifth or sixth one to rid him of the headache he had from lack of sleep, and checked on the baby again. She was still sacked out in the bassinet his cousins had provided. Maybe Tessa was asleep, as well, because he didn’t hear her stirring in the bedroom.
Since Tessa had been the one to do the baby’s 2:00 a.m. feeding, Landon had brought the infant into the living-kitchen combo area with him so that Tessa could sleep in. Of course, he’d done that with the hopes that he might get in a catnap or two on the sofa—where he’d spent the night—but no such luck. His mind was spinning with all the details of the attack. With Tessa’s situation. With Emmett’s murder. And despite all that mind spinning, Landon still didn’t have the answers he wanted.
But maybe Tessa would.
By now, those drugs she’d been given should have worn off, and that meant maybe she would be able to tell him not only who was behind the attack at the hospital but also who’d murdered Emmett.
Landon had more coffee and checked outside. Something he’d done a lot during the night and yet another of the reasons he hadn’t gotten much sleep. No signs of gunmen. Thank God. But then, the ranch hands had been told not to let anyone other than family and ranch employees onto the grounds. Maybe that would be enough to stop another attack.
Landon heard the two sounds at once. The baby whimpered, and Tessa moved around in the bedroom. He didn’t wait for Tessa to come out. Since it was time for the baby’s feeding, Landon went ahead and got the bottle from the fridge and warmed it up, just as the nanny had shown him when they’d arrived yesterday. Thankfully, there were three full-time nannies at the ranch now, so he hadn’t had to resort to looking up bottle-warming instructions on the internet.
He eased the baby from the bassinet, silently cursing that his hands suddenly felt way too big and clumsy. The baby didn’t seem to mind, though, and she latched on to the bottle the moment it touched her mouth.
Without the baby’s fussing, it was easier for Landon to hear something else. Tessa’s voice. She wasn’t talking loud enough for him to pick out the words, but it seemed as if she was having a conversation with someone on the phone. The guesthouse didn’t have a landline, but there was a cell phone on the nightstand for guests—something that apparently Tessa had decided to make use of. But before Landon could find out who she was calling, Tessa quit talking, and a moment later the bedroom door opened.
And there she was.
Landon hated that slam of attraction. Yeah, he felt it even now, and it was proof that attraction was more than just skin-deep. Because despite the bruises on her face, the fatigued eyes, and the baggy loaner jeans and shirt, she still managed to light fires inside him that he didn’t want lit.
She opened her mouth, ready to say something, but then her attention landed on the baby. “You’re feeding her,” Tessa said in the same tone someone might use when announcing a miracle. Maybe because he didn’t look like the bottle-feeding type.
“The nanny talked me through how to do it,” he explained. “And since you’d done the other feedings, I figured it was my turn.”
Tessa glanced around as if expecting to see Rose, the nanny, standing there, but the woman hadn’t returned after she’d gotten them settled in the night before. That was Landon’s doing.
“I didn’t want to disrupt the nannies’ routines any more than we already have, so I told her to go home,” he explained. “My cousins have a lot of kids.”
Thirteen at last count. Or maybe fourteen. Sometimes the ranch felt a little like a day care.
“I remember,” Tessa said.
Two words, that was all she said, but those two words caused Landon to release the breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding. Because she wasn’t just talking about remembering that his cousins had plenty of children. She was talking about the memories the drugs had suppressed.
“You know who killed Emmett?” Landon asked.
His relief didn’t last long, because she shook her head. “No. I don’t know the person’s name, but I remember what happened.” Tessa lifted her shoulder. “Well, some things are still fuzzy, probably because of the drugs, but I remembered about the baby. Her name is Samantha.”
“Whose child is this?” he pressed when Tessa didn’t continue.
“She belongs to a friend, Courtney Hager. She wanted me to keep the baby while she made arrangements to move. The baby’s father was abusive, she said, and Courtney didn’t want him anywhere near Samantha or her. She told me not to trust anyone, because the father had connections.”
Landon would want to know more about those connections and the father, but for now he stood and handed Tessa the baby so he could fire off a text to his cousin Holden. Holden was a marshal and would be able to do a quick background check on this Courtney Hager. Of course, Grayson and the other deputies could do it, as well, but they were already swamped with the investigation.
In a way, Landon hated to ask Holden to do this, too. Because Emmett and Holden were brothers, and Landon knew that he and Emmett’s other brothers were sick with grief over their loss. But Landon also knew that Holden and the others would do whatever it took to find Emmett’s killer and that Tessa and this baby could be a connection.
“How long were you supposed to keep the baby?” Landon pressed.
“Courtney said it would only be a day or two. She’s probably looking for us right now. Probably frantic, too.”
Probably. Well, unless something had happened to her. “Was it Courtney you just called?”
She got that deer-caught-in-headlights look. A look that didn’t please Landon one bit. “No. I called a friend,” she said. “I didn’t have Courtney’s number memorized. It was on my cell, but I lost that somewhere in the last day or so. I wanted to try to figure out if this friend knew anything about what was going on, but he didn’t answer the call.”
She didn’t remember Courtney’s number, yet she remembered the number of this other “friend.” Landon wanted to know a lot more about that, too, but it wasn’t at the top of his list of questions.
“Did Courtney have anything to do with Emmett’s murder?” he asked.
“No,” Tessa jumped to answer. Then she paused. “But maybe her abusive boyfriend did. I don’t know his name,” she quickly added. “I’ve only known Courtney a couple of months, and I never met Samantha’s father. She didn’t talk about him much, but I know she’s afraid of him or else she wouldn’t have told me not to trust anyone.”
That was something Holden might be able to uncover in the background check. Maybe this abusive guy had killed Emmett when Emmett was trying to protect the baby, though that didn’t explain the note left on Emmett’s body.
Tessa glanced down at the baby, brushed a kiss on her cheek. “Anything new on the attack? Did they find the gunman?” she added before he could press her for more information.
Landon would indeed press her for more, especially more about that “friend” she’d called, but for now he went with the update on the investigation. Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to be the bearer of good news.
“Grayson and the deputies didn’t catch the man,” he said and paused the bottle-feeding just long enough so he could hit the button on his laptop. “It’s surveillance footage from the hospital, and I want you to take a closer look. Tell me if you recognize the man who attacked us.”
Maybe she would be truthful about that. Maybe.
Landon didn’t look at the screen. He didn’t need to, since he’d studied the footage frame by frame. Instead, he watched Tessa, looking for any signs that she knew the man who’d been trying to gun them down.
She shook her head, moved closer to the laptop. In doing so, she moved closer to Landon, her arm brushing against his. She noticed. Also noticed the scowl he gave her as a result, and Tessa inched away from him.
“I’m not positive,” she said, her attention back on the screen, where she froze one of the frames, “but I think that might be the same masked man who attacked me at my house. The man who killed Emmett.” Tessa pointed to the guy’s hand. “See the way he’s holding his gun, the way he’s standing. He looks like a cop.”
Could be, but Landon wasn’t convinced. He could just as easily be a trained killer or a former cop.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“We still don’t know. But I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that Joel was there just minutes before this clown showed up.”
Tessa made a sound of agreement. “Has anyone questioned Joel yet?”
“Grayson did last night. Of course, Joel claims he had nothing to do with the attack. He also came up with that name of the fire department employee who told his assistant. It was the dispatcher, Valerie Culpepper, and she confirmed she did tell the assistant.”
“You believe her?”
“Not sure. Of course, it’s possible Joel paid th
e dispatcher to say that. He could have known you were at the hospital because he or his hired gun was at the scene of the fire and saw you’d been taken away in an ambulance.”
Since there was only one hospital in Silver Creek and it wasn’t that big of a building, Tessa wouldn’t have been hard to find.
Landon’s phone buzzed, and when he saw Holden’s name on the screen, he stepped away to take the call. Not that he could step far. The guesthouse wasn’t that big, but he went into the living room area.
“Dade told me what happened at the hospital,” Holden said the moment Landon answered. “Any reason I didn’t hear it from you?”
“I’ve been busy. I’m with Tessa.”
“Yeah. I heard that, too.” Even though Holden didn’t come out and say it, Landon heard the disapproval in his cousin’s voice. Probably because Holden knew how Tessa had treated him. “I’m guessing Tessa’s the reason you wanted me to find out about Courtney Hager?”
“She is. The baby that Tessa had with her belongs to Courtney.” Landon nearly added some maybes in that explanation since he wasn’t sure if Tessa was telling him the truth. Not the whole truth, anyway. But Holden would have automatically known that Landon had doubts about his former lover.
“I’ll do a more thorough check,” Holden continued a moment later, “but here’s what I got. Courtney Hager is twenty-nine, unmarried and is a bookkeeper. Her address is listed in Austin.”
“Have someone sent out there to do a welfare check on her,” Landon suggested. That was only an hour away, but the local cops there could do that ASAP.
“She’s in danger?” Holden didn’t hesitate with that question.
“Possibly.” And that was, sadly, the best-case scenario here. If she truly did have an abusive ex, then it was possible she was already dead. “If she’s home, the locals need to take her into custody and bring her here to Silver Creek.”
“Got it,” Holden assured him. “What about Tessa? You want me to arrange a safe house for her?”
Landon Page 5
