Roughshod Justice

by Delores Fossen

  “They found blood in her apartment,” Jameson added.

  He had to take hold of her again or she would have bolted. Where, Kelly didn’t know, but she had to find her sister.

  “The cops are looking for her.” Jameson’s grip stayed firm on her arm until she quit moving. Then he waited until their gazes were connected before he continued. “A neighbor said she saw Mandy with two men about five hours ago. She didn’t see any guns, but Mandy was walking in between the two.”

  Kelly had to press her hand to her chest to try to steady her heart and her breathing. “Why didn’t the neighbor call the cops?”

  “She didn’t think anything was wrong and didn’t see any signs of an injury. Apparently, she doesn’t know Mandy that well so she thought they might be friends.”

  Definitely not friends. Not with that blood in the apartment. Even though the neighbor hadn’t noticed any injuries, it didn’t mean Mandy hadn’t been hurt in some way. Now those goons had had her for five hours or more, and there was no telling what they could have done to her.

  “They’re holding her until I kill you.” Kelly hadn’t intended to say that aloud, but judging from the sound of agreement Jameson made, that was his theory, too.

  “Please tell me you’re remembering something. Anything,” he added, “that’ll help us with this.”

  Kelly tried again, but the jumble was still there. She tried to catch on to bits of it, but there was only one thing that was clear. “I’ll never see her again if they find out you’re still alive.” And finally something fell from that jumble. Not a memory. But an idea of how to fix it. “Is there a way for you to fake your death?”

  No sound of agreement, but he didn’t jump to nix the idea, either. “But then what? Whoever has your sister might just decide to tie up loose ends and kill her. You’re a loose end, too.”

  Yes. The worst kind. Because somewhere in that jumble of memories was perhaps the identity of the person responsible.

  “I can’t just sit here and wait,” Kelly said. Her voice hardly had any sound, and the blasted tears came again. She cursed the tears because they wouldn’t help. Heck, nothing might at this point. She could risk the men coming after her, but she couldn’t take the chance that they would murder Mandy.

  “There’s more,” Jameson said, sitting on the table beside her. “The neighbor gave the cops a description of the men who were with your sister.” He paused. “It matches the description of the two dead guys.”

  Kelly snapped back her shoulders and shook her head. “I don’t think Mandy was with me tonight. Was she?”

  “There was no sign of her, but the CSI team will process the dead guys’ SUV. We’ll also show the neighbor their pictures to see if she can confirm that’s really the people she saw.”

  And if they were the same men, then that could mean only one thing. Well, one thing if Mandy was still alive. “They wouldn’t just kill Mandy if they plan to use her for leverage to get me to do...something.” The “something” in this case was to murder Jameson. “That means they must have her stashed somewhere.”

  He nodded. “Gabriel will check it out. There might be something on their GPS. The CSIs will also check their phones so that we can try to pinpoint where they’d been in the past five hours.”

  All of that was a good start, but it wasn’t nearly enough. “I can search for her, too.”

  He gave her another of those flat looks. He was good at them, too. “You’re staying here and having those tests. In fact, you’ll probably have to spend the night here.”

  Now she was the one to give him a flat look. That wasn’t going to happen even if she had to sneak out. Too bad she hadn’t managed to hang on to at least one of those weapons the sheriff had confiscated. Of course, even if she had them, Kelly wasn’t sure she’d remember how to use them.

  “So what can I do?” she came out and asked.

  “You can stay put and let the cops and me do our jobs.” He opened his mouth, no doubt to add more. Probably a warning for her not to try to escape. But movement in the doorway caught their attention. At first, Kelly thought maybe it was the nurse coming to take her to those tests, but it was a man. Jameson got to his feet, moved in front of her and drew his gun.

  Kelly stood, too, and she peered over Jameson’s shoulder to get a better look at the man with the shaved head and bulky build. He was tall, at least six-four, and wearing a suit.

  “Frank Worley,” Jameson said like profanity. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Worley. The man she’d been investigating when she disappeared. He might also be the man who’d hired those thugs to take Mandy.

  “No need for that gun,” Worley insisted. “And I’m going to show you why. Don’t shoot me when I pull back my jacket.”

  “Don’t give me a reason to shoot you,” Jameson countered. “But if you pull a gun, you’re a dead man.”

  “What I’m going to show you isn’t a gun, but I’m carrying one. And here’s why.” Worley eased open his jacket, and she immediately spotted something she hadn’t expected to see.

  A badge clipped to his belt.

  “I’m a Justice Department agent,” Worley added, his attention sliding from Jameson to her. “My real name is Lawrence Boyer. And I’m here to arrest Kelly for murder.”

  Chapter Three

  Jameson didn’t know who was more stunned with Worley’s announcement—him or Kelly. But Kelly did look as if she was about to try to sprint out of there. Jameson wouldn’t let her do that. Nor would he take anything Worley said, or what he was wearing, at face value.

  Including that badge or his name.

  “Federal agent, huh?” Jameson asked him, and he didn’t bother to sound even marginally convinced.

  Worley blew out a long breath as if annoyed with this. Well, Jameson was annoyed, too. He didn’t have time for this clown, especially since Worley could be behind the attack and Mandy’s disappearance. Jameson didn’t want to examine why he was suddenly on Kelly’s side. But when it came to Worley, he was.

  “I figured you wouldn’t believe me.” Worley checked his watch. “But you should be getting a call any second now from someone you will believe. Your brother, the sheriff. He’s verifying now that I’m an agent. Once that’s done, you’ll turn Kelly over to me.”

  “I won’t go with him,” Kelly said just as Jameson snarled, “Like hell I’ll turn her over to you.”

  That caused Kelly to look at him, and he saw not tears this time but an unspoken thanks. But a thanks wasn’t going to help right now. He needed some things cleared up.

  “Who are you claiming Kelly murdered?” Jameson asked.

  “Those two men your brother and his deputies are investigating.”

  Jameson certainly couldn’t deny that she had been the one to shoot them. In fact, the evidence pointed to her doing it. But the evidence was equally clear that she’d also been attacked, probably by those two men. Unless...

  He didn’t like even thinking it, but Jameson had to at least consider it. Kelly could be playing him again. She might have had a beef with those guys. Could have even written the note herself. But none of that felt right, especially now that Mandy was missing.

  “Who were those men?” Kelly asked Worley.

  Worley just stared at her. “You tell me.”

  “She can’t,” Jameson volunteered. “See that cut on her head? Someone clubbed her, and she has amnesia.”

  Worley looked as skeptical about that as Jameson probably had when he’d first heard Kelly say that she couldn’t remember. But some of that skepticism was fading. Worse, he suddenly felt the need to protect Kelly. Coupled with the remnants of the old attraction, that wasn’t a good combination.

  Jameson’s phone rang, the sound slicing through the room. Slicing through him, too, because he saw Gabriel’s name on the screen.

  “Worley’
s here,” Jameson answered, and he put the call on speaker so that Kelly could hear.

  “Yeah. And if he told you he’s a Justice Department agent, he is,” Gabriel said. “I just confirmed it. His real name is Lawrence Boyer.”

  Kelly hadn’t had much color in her face, but that rid her of what she did have. “Impossible.”

  Normally, Jameson would have agreed with her, but he didn’t doubt anything Gabriel told him.

  “My source in the Justice Department is reliable,” Gabriel continued, “and according to him, Boyer aka Worley is a joe, someone who spends months or even years in deep cover.”

  So Boyer had told the truth, about being an agent anyway. “Does he have a court order for Kelly’s arrest?” Jameson asked.

  “No. Why? Is that why Boyer says he’s there? Because my source couldn’t tell me.”

  “Yep, but without a court order, Boyer’s not taking our witness to what could be a double homicide. You agree?”

  “Agreed,” Gabriel quickly said. “You need backup?”

  “Not yet. I’ll call you if I do.” Jameson finished the call, slipped his phone back in his pocket and turned to Agent Boyer. “Tell me everything you know about those men,” Jameson demanded. “In fact, tell me everything you know about Kelly.”

  Boyer volleyed several glances at Kelly and him. For a moment Jameson thought he was going to have to remind this agent that the Rangers and the sheriff had jurisdiction here and that meant Boyer had to cooperate. Even if it was obvious that was the last thing he wanted to do.

  “You really don’t remember anything?” Boyer pressed when his attention finally settled on Kelly.

  “I remember a few things.” It sounded as if Kelly was carefully choosing her words. And lying. But maybe she didn’t want this guy to know that she had no memory of her association with him. Perhaps it was her way of forcing Boyer to tell the truth.

  “I met you and your sister about two years ago,” Boyer finally started. “By then, I’d been on a deep cover assignment for well over a year, and I was posing as a money launderer so I could gather info on a cartel operating in the state. I didn’t tell many people who I really was, but I told you, and I gained your trust.”

  “What?” Kelly snapped. She looked over the man from head to toe, and there wasn’t a drop of trust in her eyes or expression.

  Boyer nodded. “Mandy and you were working for my ex, Hadley.” His mouth tightened when he said her name. “She was accusing me of stealing our newborn daughter, but you soon realized she was just doing that to get back at me because I’d broken things off with her. After that, you agreed to help me.”

  Jameson went through that info, but it only created more questions. “Hadley knew you were an agent?”

  “No. And that should tell you something about her. She got involved with me while thinking I was a criminal.”

  Jameson lifted his shoulder. “It tells me something about you, too. It tells me you were lying to a woman pregnant with your child.”

  Boyer’s mouth tightened even more, and his eyes were narrowed when he turned to Jameson. “The pregnancy was an accident. On my part anyway. I think Hadley planned it to trap me into marriage. When I didn’t go for that and broke off the relationship, she retaliated by accusing me of kidnapping the child just days after she was born.”

  As much as Jameson hated to admit it, that could all be true. He didn’t know Hadley, and in his line of work, he ran into plenty of people who didn’t mind bedding down with criminals.

  “So what happened to your daughter?” Jameson asked.

  “I don’t know.” Boyer scrubbed his hand over his face. “I suspect Hadley had Amy hidden away from me and the cops, and when she was killed in the car accident, the location of that hidden place died with her. Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t given up finding my daughter, but at the moment I’ve run out of leads.”

  Kelly made a sound, sort of a muffled moan. Maybe because she realized this could turn out to be a similar situation for her sister. With a similar ending of them never finding her. But Jameson wanted to prevent that from happening, and maybe Boyer could help with that. He was about to ask Boyer to spill all about the two dead guys, but Kelly spoke to Boyer before he could do that.

  “You said you got me to trust you. How exactly did you manage that?” Kelly asked. “Because I’m certainly not feeling any trust for you now.”

  Boyer made a sound of agreement. “Ditto. I don’t trust you, either. But your misplaced mistrust is probably because you betrayed me. That’s how you got into this mess you’re in right now.”

  Jameson moved to Kelly’s side so he could face Boyer. “Explain that,” Jameson insisted.

  “After I told Mandy and you I was an agent, you both said you’d back off so that my cover wouldn’t be blown. A blown cover could have gotten me killed by the men I was doing business with. You also agreed to help me with my assignment.” Boyer paused, gathered his breath. “I needed you to get a file from Jameson.”

  Jameson had anticipated what Boyer might say, but he certainly hadn’t anticipated that. He looked at Kelly to see if she was remembering any of this, but she only shook her head.

  “What file?” Jameson snapped. “And why the hell not just come to me for it?”

  “I didn’t go to you because I didn’t want you to know I was an agent. I didn’t want it leaked, and at the time there were rumors that there was a mole in the Rangers.”

  “There wasn’t a mole,” Jameson argued once he got his jaw unclenched. If so, he would have darn sure heard about it.

  “I couldn’t risk it. I’d already told Mandy and Kelly, but I only did that so I could get any information you had on your parents’ murders.”

  Of course, he’d known the file that Kelly had stolen was about the murders, but he didn’t care for a deep cover agent having an interest in the case. He made another circling motion for Boyer to continue.

  But Boyer only said two words. “August Canton.”

  Now Jameson had to take a moment because the memories came. Of his parents’ murders. Of the pain and grief over losing them.

  “August was originally a murder suspect,” Jameson said. “Several people were. But my father was also investigating a situation where a local widow, Hattie Osmond, had been milked out of lots of money. August was a suspect in that crime, too, but Hattie refused to name him. She passed away last year so there’s no way to press her for the truth.”

  Boyer nodded. “I interviewed her. So did Kelly.”

  “Kelly?” Jameson repeated. She seemed just as surprised about that as he was.

  “Yeah. She talked to Hattie about two years ago. And she questioned Marilyn Deavers, the woman who’d given August an alibi for the night of your parents’ murders.”

  Jameson looked at Kelly, but she only shook her head. “I don’t know why I did that. Or if I learned anything.”

  “Marilyn is dead now, too,” Boyer went on. “She died in a car accident.”

  So if Marilyn had altered her story about August being with her, then there’d be no way to confirm it. Unless they found that file.

  “I believe August did scam money from Hattie,” Boyer continued a moment later. “Maybe others, as well. But that’s not why I was investigating him. I believe August is involved in a money laundering scheme. I’d hoped there’d be something in your files that would help, something that hadn’t been in any of the police and FBI reports. But there wasn’t.”

  Kelly whispered a single word of profanity under her breath. “So I stole that file for nothing?”

  “I obviously didn’t know that at the time.” Boyer didn’t sound the least bit apologetic, either. “When I realized the file was useless, I pressed you to get more info from Jameson. You said you would, but then you disappeared.”

  “Why did I do that?” she asked.

  “I have no ide
a. I didn’t hear from you for two years, and then this morning, I got a frantic phone call from you. You said you were in Houston and that someone was trying to kill you.”

  “Someone did try.” She touched her fingers to her head. “Who?”

  “I don’t know that, and you didn’t know, either. You said someone tried to run you off the road, and you needed my help.”

  Jameson considered maybe that was how she’d gotten the head injury, but he dismissed it. She’d been bleeding in the ambulance, and that didn’t look like a wound that’d happened hours earlier. It still looked fresh.

  Kelly looked at Jameson. She opened her mouth, closed it, and it seemed as if she changed her mind about what she was going to say.

  Had she remembered something?

  Something that would incriminate her?

  “I told you to go to a hotel,” Boyer continued, “and stay there until I could arrange security. I sent two men, both federal agents, and I believe those are the two men you killed tonight.”

  Kelly fumbled around behind her, located the table and sank back down on it. “Why would I have done that?”

  “You tell me.” Boyer glared at her. “That’s why you’re under arrest.”

  “She’s not,” Jameson argued. “Remember that part about you not having a court order. Plus, we don’t even have ID’s on the dead guys so we don’t know if they’re agents or not. They could be the same men who were trying to kill Kelly in Houston. Once the doc has released her, we’ll all go to the sheriff’s office and get this straightened out.”

  That didn’t please Boyer, and he gave Jameson more of that glare. “Why are you protecting her?” Boyer growled. “Are you sleeping with her again?”

  Jameson hadn’t cared much for Boyer, and that question didn’t help. “Before tonight, I hadn’t seen her in two years, either.”

  He considered telling Boyer about the note that Kelly had tucked inside her shirt. But decided against it. Best to keep that close to the vest until they could figure out what was going on. That started with identifying those two men. And making sure Kelly got the medical attention she needed.