A Lawman's Justice (Sweetwater Ranch Book 8)

by Delores Fossen

  Multiple stab wounds to the chest.

  It was hard to count how many because of the blood, but there were plenty of them. Seth aimed the light on the dead guy’s head, and his heart slammed against his chest.

  Oh, hell.

  “What’s that on his face?” Shelby repeated, moving to the side so she could no doubt see better.

  “A paper mask,” Seth answered.

  Of sorts.

  It looked as if someone had enlarged a photo and then cut it out to create an image to cover the dead man’s face.

  “A mask?” Shelby leaned in. And she gasped again. “That’s a picture of my father.”

  Yeah, it was. Whitt Braddock. The very man Seth’s mother was accused of murdering.

  “Oh, God,” Shelby mumbled, and she just kept saying it. “Who’d do such a sick thing?”

  Seth had to shake his head. He had no idea.

  He wanted to take off the mask to see who was behind it, but he couldn’t compromise any evidence that might be there. Shelby and he had perhaps compromised enough just by going inside the building. However, when he’d gotten that call from the CI, the last thing he’d expected was to find a dead body.

  Seth backed up, trying to follow the same path that he’d used to get into the room so he would disturb as little of the area as possible. He bumped into Shelby, who wasn’t moving. She seemed frozen. Her gaze was fixed on the body, and her mouth was trembling. She’d only been seven or eight years old when her dad had died, but this had to bring back what bad memories she had.

  “They never did find my father’s body,” she said. More trembling and this time, it wasn’t just her mouth. She sagged against him. “But the cops think he was stabbed multiple times because there was blood everywhere.”

  Seth was very familiar with the details. Heck, he’d memorized them.

  “Come on,” he told her. “We need to get out of here.”

  The last thing he wanted was to get into a shouting match with Cooper because Seth hadn’t followed this search to the T.

  When Shelby didn’t budge, Seth took her by the arm to get her moving. But they only made it a few steps when he heard the plinking sound. Like something metallic falling onto the concrete. That barely had time to register in his mind when the smoke started to billow right toward them.

  But it wasn’t ordinary smoke.

  It was tear gas.

  Both Shelby and he started to cough immediately. The tear gas burned his throat and eyes. Seth tried to get them out of there, but it was hard to see anything. Hard to think, too.

  Each step was an effort, but he headed straight for the door. He also kept his gun ready because someone had thrown that tear gas grenade, and that someone no doubt was lurking outside waiting to do heaven knew what to them.

  Shelby and he were still several feet from the door when he heard a sound to his right. A footstep. But it was the only warning that Seth got before someone wearing a gas mask reached out and touched him with something.

  The jolt went through Seth, all pain and static, and he had no choice but to drop to the floor.

  Someone had used a Taser on him.

  A split second later, Shelby made a sharp groaning noise and fell right next to him. Their eyes were open, gazes fixed on each other.

  But neither could move.

  Seth could only lie there as the footsteps came right toward them.

  Chapter Two

  The moment Shelby opened her eyes, the light stabbed into them, and she groaned.

  Oh, mercy.

  She was in a lot of pain. Her head throbbed like a toothache, her mouth was bone-dry and it took her several moments to remember why.

  She’d been Tasered.

  Seth, too.

  Sweet heaven. That reminder got her eyes open wider, and Shelby automatically reached out her hands to fend off another attack. But no one was attacking her at the moment. And her hands didn’t reach far.

  That was when she noticed the ropes.

  What the heck? Someone had tied her by the wrists to a wooden post.

  Shelby glanced around to try to figure out what was going on. The rope was secured around a stall post in a barn. An old, rotting one from the looks of it, but not old or rotting enough that it gave way when she tugged as hard as she could. Of course, she couldn’t tug that hard since her arms were weak and wobbly, like the rest of her.

  Where was she?

  Sunlight speared through holes in the ceiling and hit the floor like mini spotlights on a stage. But other than the holes and the disrepair, it could have been any old barn. She certainly didn’t recognize it.

  A sound quickly caught her attention. It was a hoarse groan, and she looked behind her to see Seth. Not his usual cocky self, either. He, too, was tied to a wooden post in the hay-strewn stall, and he looked as dazed as Shelby felt.

  Another groan and Seth fully opened his eyes. He blinked hard, and it took him a moment to focus. However, he grumbled some profanity when his gaze finally landed on her face. Despite his wrists being tethered with the rope, he reached for his gun.

  It wasn’t there.

  He was still wearing his shoulder holster, but it was empty.

  Other than the missing gun, they were fully clothed. Seth even had on his Stetson.

  “Where are we?” he asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “And how the hell did we get here?”

  Shelby had to shake her head on both counts, and she again pulled at the thick ropes to see if they’d give way. They didn’t. So she struggled some more. The wood creaked a little, but it held.

  “I remember hitting the floor at that warehouse,” she said when Seth repeated his questions. Good grief, her mouth felt as if she’d eaten a bag of cotton balls, and her heart was racing from the new jolt of adrenaline she’d just gotten. “What about you? What’s the last thing you remember?”

  He pulled in a hard breath. “Same here—nothing after someone hit me with the Taser.”

  Of course, before that she remembered the dead body on the mattress with the mask covering his face. Not just any mask, but a likeness of her father. She got another jolt. Not of adrenaline this time but a sickening knot in the pit of her stomach from the memories.

  Shelby didn’t think she’d ever forget seeing that body. That mask. All that blood.

  Obviously someone had killed the man.

  But who?

  And why hadn’t the same person killed Seth and her?

  There must have been plenty of opportunities to do just that once they’d been unconscious. So why had the person left them alive and tied them up like this?

  Too many questions and not nearly enough answers. Or time. Shelby had no idea where their captor was, but she figured it wouldn’t be long before he came to check on them. They needed to be gone by then.

  “Do you see anyone?” Seth asked.

  Shelby had looked around when she first regained consciousness, but she did it again. “No one.” She craned her neck so she could get a glimpse through the partially open door. “I don’t see a vehicle, either.”

  Though someone had brought them here in some kind of vehicle. The warehouse wasn’t close to any barns, so their captor would have had to drive them here. Drag them to the vehicle, too. That explained why her body felt like one giant bruise and why she had scrapes on her hands and knees.

  “Someone must have drugged us,” Seth told her.

  Yes, that had to be it. Unfortunately, the person must have done that right after they were Tasered. Shelby didn’t remember being drugged, but she did recall someone stepping around them in those moments after the initial attack. She’d also felt a stinging sensation in her arm, perhaps from someone injecting drugs into her.

  “The person had on boots,” she said.
/>
  Seth nodded. “And green cargo pants. I didn’t get a look at his face because he was wearing a gas mask, but it was definitely a man. He had beefy hands.”

  Shelby didn’t recall the hands part or the gas mask, but something else popped into her head. “I don’t think he was alone.”

  “He wasn’t.” Seth’s forehead bunched up as if he was trying to recall the details through the fog that the stun gun and drugs had created. “I think someone came in through the back exit.”

  That made sense because it wouldn’t have been easy for just one person to move two adults. Especially Seth. He was at least six foot three, and solid. Plus, while unconscious, Seth and she would have been dead weight.

  Sweet heaven. What else had their captors done to them?

  Seth began to yank at the ropes, but he didn’t have any better luck getting out of them or snapping the wood than she had. He struggled several more seconds and then patted his jeans’ pockets. The ones he could reach anyway.

  And he shook his head.

  “No phone. What about you?” he asked.

  Shelby’s head was still so foggy that she hadn’t even considered making a 9-1-1 call. She couldn’t reach her jeans’ pocket, but she leaned her hip to the side so she could feel it when she pressed down onto the floor. But she also had to shake her head.

  “My phone’s gone,” she answered. “Flashlight and car keys, too.”

  So the person behind this wasn’t just a killer but a kidnapper and a thief, as well. Of course, he’d probably taken the flashlight and keys so she couldn’t use them as pseudo weapons. Whoever was behind this also would have taken their phones to prevent them from calling for help.

  And it’d worked.

  “I have a small knife all the way in the bottom of my front pants’ pocket,” Seth said, moving around. “I guess they didn’t find it when they searched us. Any chance you can reach it?”

  She had more room between the rope and her hands than Seth did, but still it wasn’t enough to reach all the way back to him. Not with a foot of space between them. So Shelby started inching back on her butt while Seth maneuvered himself toward her.

  They collided. Her head bopping into his face. It stung, but at least they were closer now.

  Seth levered himself up to his knees, as far as he could go, and he thrust his hip in the direction of her hand. She could barely reach the pocket so she kept twisting and turning until she could get her fingers inside.

  “Sorry,” Shelby said when her fingers slipped in the wrong direction. She definitely hadn’t wanted to touch him there.

  He dismissed it with a manly sounding grunt, but their gazes met. She saw the discomfort in his cool blue eyes. Of course, there were a lot of reasons for his discomfort other than just her touch, but the unwanted effect from the physical contact certainly hadn’t helped matters.

  Shelby finally located the knife and tried to clamp her fingers around it. The surface was smooth and it slipped a few times, but she worked it out of his pocket. She nearly dropped the darn thing, but she trapped it against Seth’s stomach with her hand.

  He took over from there even though it involved yet more touching.

  Now Shelby was the one who grunted when the back of his hand collided with her breast. No apology. He just kept working, and he used his thumb to pop out the blade.

  “I’ll have to try to free you first,” he insisted. “The angle’s wrong for me to cut through my own rope.”

  Suddenly, the little two-inch pocketknife blade looked as big and sharp as a switchblade, but Shelby held out her hands. Seth didn’t waste a second. He started sawing while he fired glances all around them. No doubt looking for any sign of their captors returning.

  It took a team effort. Seth sliced the knife back and forth while Shelby rocked in rhythm to the blade so that it would do the job faster. She was certain time wasn’t on their side.

  Finally, the knife cut through, and Shelby nearly toppled over as the rope fell from her wrists. She quickly righted herself, took the knife from Seth and started to cut him loose.

  “I guess you aren’t behind this?” he asked.

  It took her a moment to realize exactly what he was asking. “You think I murdered someone in the warehouse and then stun gunned, kidnapped and drugged myself?”

  He lifted his shoulder. “I was Tasered and kidnapped, too,” Seth reminded her. “I know you want my mother convicted of killing your father and would do pretty much anything to see that happen. I also know you hate me.”

  She couldn’t argue with the part about wanting Jewell to be punished for what she’d done to Shelby’s father. But the second part? Well, Shelby could take some issue with that.

  “I don’t hate you,” she corrected. “But you’re not somebody I feel warm and fuzzy about.”

  Except for all that touching. That had certainly felt a little warm. Something that she’d carry to the grave, because Shelby had no intentions of admitting it to anyone. Especially Seth.

  “I suspect you have the same non–warm and fuzzy feelings about me,” Shelby added.

  He didn’t agree or disagree with that. He made a sound that could have meant anything or nothing. “I just want to make sure that neither you nor the trial had anything to do with this.”

  That evaporated any trace and memory of a warm feeling from the touching. Yes, he was talking to her as if she was a suspect.

  “I can’t speak for the trial, but I had nothing to do with this,” she said through clenched teeth. “Did you?”

  He gave her that flat look, the one only an FBI agent could manage. “I’m the law,” he reminded her.

  “And the stepson of the woman you’d like to see out of jail.”

  There. If he was going tit for tat, then she’d remind him that he had as much motive for this fiasco as she did.

  Which wasn’t much of a motive at all.

  Good grief. She’d had a few verbal run-ins with Seth in the past seven months since he’d moved to the Sweetwater Ranch to be near his mother for the upcoming murder trial. But during those run-ins, he’d never accused her of multiple felonies.

  “I’m an investigative reporter,” she snapped. “Not a criminal like your stepmother.”

  That probably stung. Had to. Because from all accounts Seth loved Jewell, and some members of her family, Seth included, were likely getting desperate with the trial just days away. Well, Shelby was getting desperate, too, because she’d waited twenty-three years to get justice for her father.

  She hoped her scowl conveyed that to Seth.

  Shelby was so caught up in her little mental temper tantrum and scowling that she made a sound of surprise when the knife finally cut through the rope. She barely had time to move back before Seth snatched the knife from her and started toward the door. She got to her feet and hurried after him.

  He stopped at the door and looked outside, but with the way he was standing, Shelby couldn’t see anything except the sky. The sun was bleached white, almost blinding, and she had to blink hard several times to stop her eyes from stinging.

  “Let’s go,” Seth whispered.

  That was it, all the warning she got before he stepped out still gripping the knife. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

  She’d been right about the vehicles. None was in sight. But there were a rusted-out tractor, an old watering trough and what was left of a single-story, weathered gray house. It was obvious that it’d been a while since anyone had lived there.

  “You recognize this place?” he asked.

  “Afraid not.” But she had no idea how long Seth and she had lost consciousness. Their captors would have had plenty of time to drive them pretty much anywhere, including out of the county.

  Seth pulled her behind the tractor, stopped and lifted his head to listen. She
lby did the same, but the only things she heard were some birds chirping and her own heartbeat drumming in her ears. Definitely no sounds of cars, which meant there probably wasn’t a main road nearby.

  But there was a gravel road leading away from the place.

  “There are some fresh tracks,” Seth said, going closer to have a look at them.

  “Should we just follow this road and see where it goes?” she asked.

  “We’ll follow it, but we’ll have to stay out of sight. These guys will be back for us any minute now.”

  Shelby already had come to the same conclusion, but it made her heart beat faster to hear it confirmed.

  They went off the road and onto the side away from the barn, where there were a few trees and some bushes. Nothing that would give them much cover, but maybe they wouldn’t need it for long. If they could make it to a farm road or highway, someone would possibly see them. Someone who didn’t want to hit them with another stun gun and tie them up.

  “Any idea who did this to us?” Seth asked. There it was again. The interrogating tone that made it sound as if she’d done something wrong.

  “No.” But Shelby immediately had to rethink her answer. “Wait. Maybe. There is this guy, Marvin Hance, who’s mean enough and motivated enough to want to hurt me.”

  “The former FBI agent who was charged with killing his wife?” Seth didn’t even hesitate.

  “The very one. You know him?”

  “Not personally, but I’m familiar with his case, and he still has friends in the FBI.”

  Hance did indeed, and Shelby had run up against a few of his friends who thought she was Satan himself to pursue their friend with her brand of journalism.

  “Well, Hance isn’t a friend of mine,” she clarified. “I did some articles about him, and he didn’t care much for them. Then the murder charges were dismissed on a technicality—”

  “A botched search warrant,” Seth supplied. “Hance has threatened you?”

  “Oh, yes. Threats, phone calls, showing up at my office. It got to the point where I had to get a restraining order.”