Roughshod Justice

by Delores Fossen

  Kelly glanced down at the burner cell phone she had gripped in her hand. One of the deputies had given it to her after she said she wanted to make some calls. Of course, the calls had been related to her sister. Kelly hadn’t remembered any phone numbers—or so she’d claimed—so Jameson had given her a contact at SAPD. The detective had nothing new on Mandy but promised to call Kelly the moment he found anything.

  Jameson hoped what they didn’t find was a body.

  Kill Jameson Beckett or you’ll never see her again.

  That wasn’t exactly a reassurance that Kelly’s kid sister was okay.

  She went to the watercooler and had another drink. Her third in the past hour. Jameson had already had her doctor come to the sheriff’s office to check her and finish his exam, but Kelly had practically dismissed the man. Too bad. Because Jameson was certain that head injury needed additional treatment. Probably even a night or two in the hospital. He doubted, though, that he was going to be able to convince Kelly to go back there after what’d happened.

  They’d nearly been killed.

  It’d been pure luck that both Kelly and he had managed to nail those shots. And they’d managed that before the thugs had gotten their own brand of luck and killed all three of them and anyone else who happened to get in the path of those bullets.

  Jameson finished his call with Cameron and went closer to her. The doctor had told him to watch her for any signs of dizziness or fatigue. He didn’t see either. However, Jameson did see the troubled look on her face.

  “I didn’t hire that man,” she repeated. Except this time, there were tears in her eyes.

  Hell. The tears were his Achilles’ heel, and Jameson had to force himself not to pull her into his arms. That definitely wouldn’t be a good idea.

  She stared at him as if waiting for something. A response, maybe. Maybe that hug. But instead Jameson relayed what he’d just learned from Cameron.

  “No ID’s on either the dead man or woman,” he explained. “But Cameron took their prints and will see if they’re in the system. I called in the Rangers to assist on this. When I have the names, I’ll definitely run them past you to see if they ring any bells.”

  Kelly nodded. “Good.” She repeated both the one-word response and the nod, and she kept staring at him.

  “What about the guy you shot?” she asked. “The one who lied and said he was working for me?” She hadn’t needed to clarify that last part, but the renewed anger in her voice seemed to help with drying up those tears.

  “He lawyered up, but we do have an ID on him. He gave his name to the doctor because apparently he has some allergies to certain meds and wanted the doc to access his records. His name is Coy McGill. Know him?”

  “No.” Kelly added a heavy sigh. “But he’s trying to set me up. Please tell me you know that.” She was clearly calling him on this.

  “I do know that,” he assured her. “The shot that woman fired could have killed you. If you’d been the one who hired them, she would have kept her gun aimed at me. After all, I’m the one that someone wants dead.”

  “Yes,” she said after a long pause. Their eyes met again. “Why?”

  For a simple question, it encompassed a lot. With everything going through his head, he hadn’t exactly had much quiet time to think, but he kept coming back to two things.

  “It could be connected to my parents’ murders. The anniversary is just two days away.” That would mean someone obsessed with the case. It could be someone who wanted revenge for Travis being behind bars.

  “It’s possibly connected to one of your cases,” Kelly provided.

  He had to nod again. As a Texas Ranger, he had made his share of enemies, and there were at least a half dozen guys behind bars who would want him dead. But this felt, well, personal.

  “Why use you to do this?” Jameson was talking more to himself than her now.

  She groaned softly, but it looked as if she wanted to curse. “I don’t know, and that’s why I need to remember.”

  “Then you should let the doctor examine you again. Maybe there’s something he can give you—”

  “He can’t. I asked,” she added. “He can rule out a brain injury with tests, but even if that is what’s wrong with me, the only treatment is time.”

  Jameson had no idea if the doctor had actually told her that or if it was something Kelly had decided was true. Either way, he couldn’t force her. But he could force her into custody.

  “Until Coy McGill starts talking, I can’t let you leave,” Jameson spelled out for her.

  “Because I’m a suspect,” she readily supplied.

  Great. That brought back the tears. They shimmered in her eyes along with tugging at his heart. And Jameson finally caved in and gave her arm a gentle rub. She noticed, too. She looked down at his hand. Then at him.

  And there it came.

  That old punch to the gut. Jameson had been with plenty of women, but none of them had ever made him feel the way Kelly had.

  And that’s why he took a huge step back from her.

  She noticed what he’d done, and the corner of her mouth lifted. A smile, sort of, but it wasn’t from humor.

  “Plus, you can’t let me leave because Boyer is still threatening that arrest warrant against me,” Kelly added a moment later.

  Bingo. There were a lot of pieces in this mess that didn’t make sense, and Boyer was just one of them.

  The door to the interview room finally opened, and Gabriel came out with the witness, a man named Merrill Stover. He wasn’t a local but rather had been to a nearby ranch to look at some calves that were for sale. Jameson had run a background check on the man while Kelly was with the doctor, and Stover had a squeaky-clean record. No indications whatsoever that he’d had part in whatever the heck had gone on in that pasture.

  Stover started for the door but stopped when he saw Kelly. “Ma’am, I’m real sorry for what happened to you.”

  Kelly pulled back her shoulders. “What did happen to me?”

  Stover glanced back at Gabriel, but he waved off the question. “I’ll fill her in. You’re free to go,” Gabriel assured him.

  The man gave a suit-yourself shrug and left. Gabriel didn’t say a word until he was out the door.

  “I believe what he told me,” Gabriel started. “But before you ask,” he added to Kelly when she opened her mouth, “he didn’t see the actual shooting. Only the aftermath of it.”

  She gave another of those weary sighs and scrubbed her hand over the back of her neck. “So I’m not cleared. Boyer can arrest me.”

  “No, he can’t,” Gabriel assured her. “Well, not without a court order, which I seriously doubt he’ll get. That’s because those two dead men aren’t agents as he claimed. They both had long rap sheets.”

  Finally, Jameson saw some relief on her face. It was short-lived, though. “Why would Boyer claim they were agents?” she asked.

  Gabriel lifted his shoulder. “I tried to call him, but he didn’t answer. I left him a message.”

  Kelly leaned against the wall, and her eyelids fluttered a little. Jameson silently cursed. She was probably dizzy, something he was supposed to be watching for. Not that she’d ever admit it. However, she didn’t balk when he took her by the arm and led her to a chair in Gabriel’s office.

  “Why would those men attack me?” She touched her fingers to her head.

  “I don’t know.” Gabriel sounded as frustrated about that as Jameson was.

  But Jameson had a theory. “Let’s say someone wanted me dead and decided to use you to do that. You’re not a thug or hired gun, but you’ve got the skill set to do the job since you’re a PI. To force you to do this, they kidnap your sister.”

  That put some tears back in her eyes. Still, this was something Kelly needed to hear. It was something he needed to say aloud, too, to see if it made sense.r />
  “They would keep your sister alive because that’s the only leverage they have over you,” Jameson reminded her. Now, here was the sticky part. “But something went wrong with their plan. You could have refused to do the hit on me, and the person behind this sent those two men after you. When they found you, you killed them in self-defense.”

  “Self-defense,” she repeated in a whisper. Obviously, Kelly was trying to work this out, as well. She looked at Gabriel. “Did the two men have any kind of defensive wounds on them?”

  “None. Only the gunshots that killed them. The shots came from your gun. We got the test results back on that,” Gabriel added. “And you had gunshot residue on your hands.”

  Kelly stayed quiet a moment. “You think that’s enough to convince Boyer to back off?”

  “I hope so. Because I want you here in our custody at least until SAPD finds your sister.”

  Yeah, and it’d be a good idea to keep her until that head injury was healed enough so she could tell them what was going on. Whenever the heck that would be.

  “We probably haven’t seen the last of Boyer,” Jameson said. “He could be trying to figure out another reason to arrest you. Do you remember if you trust him?”

  “No specific memories,” she answered without hesitation. “But I don’t trust him.” She didn’t hesitate with that, either.

  Kelly’s lack of trust definitely put Gabriel and him between a rock and a hard place. They wanted to cooperate with fellow law enforcement, but things weren’t right here. Maybe Kelly had done something to Boyer and now he wanted to get back at her?

  Jameson didn’t get a chance to speculate more about that because he heard a familiar voice in the squad room. “Where the hell is the sheriff?” the man snarled.

  Kelly practically bolted from the chair. “Who is that?”

  “It’s August Canton,” Gabriel answered. “I called him in for questioning. I figured since you’d worked for him, seeing him might trigger some memories. I also want to ask him about the attacks.”

  Gabriel and Jameson stepped out in the hall to face their visitor, and Kelly was right behind them.

  It was August all right, but Jameson hadn’t had any doubts about that. August made regular visits to the sheriff’s office, and even though Jameson worked in San Antonio, he still managed to run into the man.

  “That’s August?” Kelly whispered. “When you said he was Travis’s brother, I thought he’d be older. Thought he’d look different, too.”

  “He’s Travis’s half brother and only a few years older than Gabriel and me. As for the looks, well, he doesn’t dress like most ranchers.” More like a magazine version of a rancher in his designer clothes.

  August was the offspring of his father’s second marriage, and when his parents had been killed in a car crash when he was twelve, Travis had raised him. Jameson figured August always thought of Travis as more of a father than a half brother. That was probably why he was always fighting to get Travis out of jail.

  And August had the money to keep up the fight, too.

  Jameson didn’t know the man’s net worth, but August had inherited a trust fund from his mother’s family.

  “You two really need to get another whipping boy,” August snapped. “Because I’m damn tired of you hauling me in here every time something goes wrong in your lives. I can’t help it if some folks just want you two in the grave.”

  It was the typical junk that August spouted, but there was some truth in it. Gabriel and he had plenty of criminals who wanted to do them harm. But August had motive, too, because he blamed them for Travis’s being convicted of the murders.

  August looked ready to launch into more of that tirade, but he stopped when his attention landed on Kelly. The anger and tension dissolved from his expression, and he went to her, pulling her into his arms. The tension definitely didn’t dissolve from Kelly. She went board-stiff.

  “Are you okay?” August asked, leaning back enough so he could make eye contact with her.

  She shook her head. “Someone tried to kill me. Us,” Kelly corrected, motioning toward Jameson.

  “Yes, I heard, and I’m sorry.” August sounded genuine about that. Sounded. “I heard you lost your memory, too? I saw a nurse at the gas station, and she was talking about it.”

  Kelly nodded and eased back farther from him. Her forehead bunched up. “I don’t remember you, but Jameson said you hired me and my sister to find something to clear your brother’s name.”

  “I did. You both looked very hard but didn’t find anything.” August glanced at Jameson. “You don’t think that had anything to do with someone trying to kill Kelly?” But he didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ve told you all along that the real killer is out there, that my brother is innocent. The real killer probably thinks Kelly found something and wants to silence her.”

  Jameson didn’t know whose huff was louder, his or Gabriel’s. “Kelly worked for you two years ago,” Jameson reminded the man. “If there is a real killer and he truly thought Kelly was a threat, why wouldn’t he have gone after her back then?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s your job to find out.” August cursed. “How many more people are going to have to die or be put in danger before you reopen my brother’s case and find the truth? And that truth is he’s an innocent man.”

  Jameson didn’t even bother to groan that time. They’d rehashed this argument so often that it no longer got much of a rise out of him.

  “Do you know where Mandy is?” Kelly asked August. “Have you heard from her?”

  “No,” August said, sounding surprised. “What happened to her?”

  “I’m not sure, but there were signs of a struggle in her apartment. And blood.” Kelly’s voice cracked when she said that last word.

  August patted her arm much the way Jameson had earlier. Jameson didn’t want to feel that coil of jealousy go through him. But he did.

  Hell.

  He really needed to find a way past these unwanted feelings for Kelly. She wasn’t his, and it needed to stay that way.

  “I’ll make some calls and see if I can find out anything about your sister,” August told her.

  “The cops are doing that,” Jameson snapped.

  It was a knee-jerk reaction whenever he was around August. It came from all those years Gabriel and he had had to deal with August’s claim that they’d arrested, and convicted, the wrong man for their parents’ murders.

  “And we know the cops never drop the ball on things,” August grumbled back. When he turned to Gabriel, there wasn’t a trace of the pleasantness that he’d shown Kelly. “Now, why don’t you tell me why you summoned me here this time, and should I have brought my lawyer with me?”

  “Did you do something illegal that would warrant your attorney being here?” Gabriel fired back. “I want to know if you had anything to do with hiring the thugs who tried to kill Jameson and Kelly.”

  “No. Of course not.” August’s eyes narrowed. “I have no reason to hurt Kelly. And I resent you insinuating that I did. Kelly and I are friends.”

  “Really?” Jameson questioned, and he didn’t bother to sound sincere. “When’s the last time you spoke to your friend?”

  August turned that nasty expression on Jameson. “I haven’t seen Kelly in a couple of years, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still consider her a friend. I want to help her. I want to keep her safe.”

  “We all want that,” Jameson said. And he glanced at Kelly to see how she was handling this intense conversation.

  Not well.

  She was looking shaky again, and Jameson took hold of her arm to steady her. August didn’t miss the gesture, and his mouth tightened. Heck, maybe the man was jealous, but it was just as likely that he didn’t want to see his friend with a Beckett.

  “If I’d known someone was after her,” August continued a moment late
r, “I would have gotten in touch with her. With Mandy, too.” His voice drifted off, because he turned in the direction of the front door that’d just opened.

  Jameson and Gabriel looked there, too. And both probably had a similar reaction—they didn’t need this now. But apparently they were going to get another visit from Boyer.

  The agent’s gaze went directly to them, and he walked toward them, flashing his badge to the deputy who tried to stop him.

  “Hell,” August muttered. “Why is he here?”

  “You know him?” Gabriel asked August, and Jameson realized that with everything else going on, he hadn’t filled his brother in on this.

  “Yeah, and Agent Boyer knows me.” August definitely didn’t sound happy about that.

  Boyer lifted an eyebrow. “And I know you. I’m investigating you for money laundering.”

  “For bilking Hattie Osmond out of a lot of money, too,” Jameson added.

  “It’s all bogus.” August didn’t take his glare off the agent. “Are you here to harass me?”

  “No, he’s here to harass me,” Kelly volunteered. “He thinks I murdered two thugs, but the truth is they were criminals, and I shot them in self-defense.”

  Boyer’s gaze slashed to Jameson and Gabriel as if the agent expected them to confirm that. Jameson just settled for a nod. In light of the latest attack, Jameson was almost certain that’s what’d happened.

  Almost.

  “You sure spend a lot of time fiddling in other people’s business, Agent Boyer,” August went on. “Seems to me you should be focusing on getting your own kid back.”

  That was yet something else Jameson hadn’t had time to explain to Gabriel. And it probably didn’t have anything to do with this case anyway. August was just muddying the waters by tossing it out there. He was also riling Boyer, and it’d obviously hit a nerve. The veins on Boyer’s neck were practically bulging.

  “I’ll deal with you later,” Boyer told August, and it sounded like a threat. “For now, I need to deal with her.” He tipped his head to Kelly.

  “What do you mean by that?” Kelly asked before Jameson could speak. She sounded a lot stronger than he knew she was. After all, she was practically leaning on him. “I’ve told you I’m innocent.”