The man obeyed and as soon as his arm was at his side, the barrel pointed down, Dan disarmed him and tucked the weapon into the back of his jeans.
“Where’s your gun, Luis?” came the muffled, disguised voice from inside the room, followed by, “Fuck.”
It was clear Luis had just given some kind of sign.
Two shots rang out and Luis crumpled. Dan pushed him aside just in time to see a man in black plunge through the bedroom’s windowpane with a huge crash.
“Stop,” Dan shouted as he raced into the room. In one glance he saw that Renee was unconscious on the floor, her wrists bound, blood pouring down her face from a head wound.
His heart leapt into his throat as he knelt beside her, pain stabbing his gut. Had the man shot her?
He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Luis was down and not coming up behind him. The man was lying on his back, his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
Dan checked Renee’s pulse. Her heartbeat was strong and from the rise and fall of her chest, her breathing appeared regular. He examined her head wound—it looked like a bullet had grazed her, slicing through skin on her forehead and blood continued to pour down her face. Was she shot anywhere else?
He pulled out his cell phone and hit the number to call it in, including an APB on the car that would likely be gone by the time anyone arrived.
Dan took Renee into his arms and swallowed as he laid her on the bed and started checking her over. Her upper arm had a deep gash across it, like she’d been cut with glass and there were small cuts in the soles of her feet. He couldn’t find anywhere else she might be hurt.
Her eyes fluttered open and his heart beat faster. “Where are you hurt?” he said as he unbound her wrists.
“My head.” Her throat worked as she brought her now free hand up to the wound on her forehead. She moved her hand away and she looked in shock at the blood coating her palm.
“It’s a head wound but it looks superficial,” Dan said. “It will bleed a lot at first. Are you injured anywhere else?”
“Just my feet.” She stared at the blood. “I stepped on glass.”
He scooped her up in her arms, wanting to get her away from the body. “We’ll go downstairs where I have a first aid kit.”
“Okay.” She looked up at him, her face pale.
He carried her downstairs and laid her on the leather couch and covered her with a quilted throw. “You stay here, understand?”
She nodded then winced. He went into the kitchen and grabbed the well-stocked first aid kit. He returned to Renee’s side and cleaned her head wound and bandaged it. Like he’d thought, it had just grazed her. Thank God.
He put a bandage over the cut on her arm then was cleaning the glass from the soles of her feet when he heard the sirens.
It was another twenty minutes before a deputy’s car pulled up. One thing about rural areas was the fact that response times could be lengthy. Other emergency vehicles would follow anytime now. Deputy Gatling came up the stairs and Dan met him at the front door.
“Was the car still in the bushes at the turnoff onto my road?” Dan asked the deputy.
Gatling shook his head. “Nothing there. But we’ve got that APB out on it.”
Dan gritted his teeth. “Wait for the ambulance.”
The deputy gave a nod and headed out the front door.
“I’m fine.” Renee smiled up at him and grasped his hand to her chest. “Don’t worry about me.”
He squeezed her hand. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Yes.” She explained everything that had occurred since the men had shown up.
“Do you think the other man was Nelson?” Dan asked.
“My gut tells me it was.” She frowned. “But his voice was muffled and it was like he was speaking deeper, trying to change his voice. He also wore a ski mask with no mouth.”
“Can you remember anything else?” Dan asked.
“He had black running shoes and big feet.” Her brow wrinkled in concentration. “That’s one thing that does make me a little unsure because Jerry has small feet. He also wears hiking boots, not running shoes.” She mentioned the symbol indicating the brand of shoes he was wearing.
“Anything else?” Dan asked. “A tattoo or birthmark that you could see?
She shook her head. “Not that I could tell. He left the lights off so I couldn’t see the color of his eyes in the moonlight.”
“Did they say want they wanted?” Dan asked.
“To kill me.” A shudder went through her. “Luis wanted the other man to hurry and kill me before you got home, but the man seemed intent on taking his time. I think he planned on torturing me.”
If he were a betting man, he’d bet that it had been Nelson. The fact that they’d come after her to kill her and that he’d made it so personal told Dan that this was definitely no random act of violence.
Renee started to shiver and he could tell she was going into shock. He wrapped the quilted throw more firmly around her, also covering the soles of her feet that were now free of glass.
More sirens came closer and Dan went to the window. Looked like another deputy’s cruiser and an ambulance.
It wasn’t long before paramedics were attending to Renee. When they asked her to go to the hospital, she refused despite Dan trying to convince her that she needed a professional to look at her head wound and the deep cut on her arm.
“They took great care of me.” She gestured to the paramedics. “I’m fine.”
A combination of fear for Renee, and relief that she was going to be all right, rolled through him in waves.
But right now what he felt was mostly anger. It burned his skin and rose up inside him in a fury so great he’d have to fight to control it. If Nelson was behind this, which Dan was certain the bastard was, then Nelson was as good as dead.
Chapter 20
Jerry paced the length of the small hotel room, a feeling of satisfaction making him smile. He’d done it. He’d killed that bitch and Luis. Now to sit back and wait for the cash to come rolling in once her estate was handled. Renee had no surviving family members so she’d planned to leave all of her money to a women’s shelter. Of course he’d changed it so that he was the sole beneficiary. The shelter wouldn’t see a dime.
He knew the sheriff would come by and question him. There was nothing to pin on him though. No finger prints, witness, shoe prints. Nothing.
It was too bad he hadn’t been able to deal with the sheriff, too, but ultimately that didn’t matter. He’d taken care of what did.
His forearm throbbed and he held his hand to the bandage he’d tied around the cut. He’d been sliced open by the glass from the broken French door when he had gone through it to chase Renee. It was the only thing that marred an otherwise perfectly executed plan.
A few miles down the road from the sheriff’s he had left Luis’s vehicle and switched to the rental car he’d left there.
He’d all but broken the speed limit getting back to Nogales. First he’d gone to his hotel room where he’d changed his clothing. He’d headed back out to drive around the area and he ditched the clothes, shoes, gloves, and ski mask into two dumpsters and got rid of the gun in a third one before making his way back to his hotel room. Even if the weapon was found, the serial number was filed off and he’d handled it with gloves after he wiped it down, so there would be no prints.
With his cell phone in his room, shoe prints a larger size than his own, and no other evidence he’d been at the sheriff’s ranch, they could never pin the murders on him.
Perfect.
Now he just needed to book a flight to Philadelphia. He pulled out his wallet and the one credit card that wasn’t maxed and then grabbed his phone. He couldn’t use his laptop to book the flight online considering there was no wireless Internet in this shithole of a motel. Hell, no Internet, period.
It was two a.m. when he called information and was put through to the first airline he asked for and found that outbound flig
hts from Tucson to Philly were full and no flights were available until the next day. He had the same luck with three other airlines. Apparently summer vacation was in full swing and this town was too damned small to have many flights to Philadelphia.
He gritted his teeth then finally went ahead and booked the first available flight. When he finished, he disconnected the call then stuffed the credit card back in his wallet. He had barely enough room left on the card for the flight and a cheap motel, which was why he was in this rattrap. Now he’d have to spend more time here.
Maybe it was better this way. It would look less suspicious if he hung around town another day.
The adrenaline that had been pumping through him finally started to subside. He took a deep breath and smiled as he stripped down to his underwear and climbed into bed for a few hours sleep. Even the thin mattress on metal springs didn’t bother him tonight.
Everything was coming together perfectly.
Chapter 21
Early the following morning, Dan got off the phone, frowning. He looked at Renee, frustration making his muscles tense. “Didn’t take long to get the phone records. They traced Nelson’s cell phone to Nogales. It was there all night.”
“I know it was Jerry who came after me and shot me.” She clenched her hands at her sides. “The more I think of it, the more I’m sure it had to be him.”
“I think so, too.” Anger burned in Dan’s chest as he looked at the bandage covering the superficial bullet wound at her temple. The fury he felt combined with the fear he had felt for Renee. She could have died. “We just have to prove it.”
She let out a sigh. “I know. I hope he doesn’t get away with murdering that man and coming after me.”
“We won’t let that happen.” Dan set his jaw. He took her face in his hands and tried to relax his features. “We’ll get him.”
“I know you will,” she said quietly.
“With the threat he made against you in front of the Nogales police officers, we’ve got enough for a search warrant,” Dan said. “My deputy is taking it to the judge for his signature and then all we need is to find the bastard and we can do the search.”
She gave him a smile, but it was weak.
Despite her arguments to the contrary, and her innate strength and resiliency, Dan knew the night had affected her. She hadn’t slept well if at all. She had just taken some painkillers for a severe headache from the pain of her head wound and she looked tired and pale. Something hard lodged in his gut as he thought of what she’d gone through.
He brushed hair from her face, careful not to touch the bandage. “Get some rest.”
“When I close my eyes I see the men.” Her throat worked as she swallowed. “I see them chasing me with guns and then backing me into a corner when they finally catch me. I see the one I know was Jerry pointing his gun at me.” She looked away before meeting Dan’s gaze again. “And I see the dead man lying on the floor when I regain consciousness. I’ve never seen anyone dead before, not like that. It’s not the same as seeing someone in a funeral parlor.”
“No, it’s not.” Dan brought her into his arms and another pang went through his gut as he felt her body shake.
“I’m sorry.” She drew away and tears streaked her face. “I should be stronger than this.”
“You are strong.” He took her hands in his. “You just went through more than most people go through in a lifetime. You’re entitled to be shaken up.”
“I guess so.” She squeezed his hands in return. “I’ll lie down. I know you need to go into work, so don’t worry about me.”
“You rest on the couch and I’ll make calls in the kitchen so I don’t keep you awake,” he said. “That way I’ll be close if you need me.”
“I’m fine, Dan.” She went to the couch and lay down and he covered her with a throw. She gathered it around her and looked up at him. “I’ll just lie down a bit.”
“Close your eyes.” He knelt beside her. “Try to relax.”
She obeyed and he kissed her forehead. He watched her for a long moment before he got to his feet. He didn’t want to leave her side but he needed to do what he could to find Nelson and prove that he was one of the two men who were here last night.
The deputies had done a good job gathering what evidence there was. Clear shoe prints had been on the ground that was still soft from the recent rains. One set matched Luis Duarte’s shoes. The other set were prints from what appeared to be running shoes, similar to what the man who had escaped through the window had been wearing. Some work would have to be done to determine what make of shoe it was.
Blood had been found in two different locations on shards of glass left in the French door. Tests weren’t back yet, but he suspected one would be a match to Renee’s DNA. She’d had only one wound from the glass yet there was blood in two places. Duarte had appeared to have no recent cuts on his body at the time of his death, so it was possible that the blood on one of the shards was from the other assailant.
It wouldn’t be long before Dan had to leave to work on the investigation, so he called Mrs. Grady from down the road and explained what had happened. The elder lady said she would be over to Dan’s ranch within ten minutes.
Five minutes later his phone rang and he saw on his caller ID screen that it was Deputy Gatling. Dan answered, “Sheriff Cooper here.”
“Sheriff,” came Gatling’s voice. “We tracked Nelson to a motel in Nogales. He used his credit card to pay for the room. He also paid for a flight to Philadelphia, scheduled to leave Tucson tomorrow morning, using the same credit card.”
“Give me the address,” Dan said as he looked out the window and saw Mrs. Grady driving up in her old truck.
Gatling gave Dan the information. He arranged for a team of deputies to meet him at the motel’s address as soon as he had the warrant, and then Dan punched the disconnect button.
He met Mrs. Grady as she came up the porch steps. He took the pie she was carrying and held the door open for her.
“Thought a little apple pie might be good for the girl.” Mrs. Grady walked into the house and saw Renee sleeping on the couch.
“Your pie will be just what the doctor ordered,” Dan said over his shoulder as he took the pie into the kitchen.
When he came back out, Renee was still sleeping and Mrs. Grady was sitting in a chair with a book in hand.
He wanted to kiss Renee goodbye but was afraid he’d wake her. Instead he thanked the elder woman then headed out to his work SUV. He was halfway to Nogales when Gatling called with the news that he had the warrant.
The entire drive to Nogales seemed to go too damned slow. When Dan finally arrived at the dive of a motel, he parked in front next to a couple of Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department cruisers. The deputies had been waiting for him, including Deputy Gatling.
The clerk had already given a key and room number to Gatling.
After he got the room number from Gatling, Dan walked outside, down the row of motel rooms on the bottom floor, until he reached the number for Nelson’s room. A car was parked in front of the room, a sticker from a rental company in the upper left hand corner.
Gatling and the deputies pulled up their cruisers then joined Dan as he reached the door to Nelson’s room. Gatling got out of his cruiser, jogged toward Dan, and handed him the warrant.
Dan knocked on the door. “Sheriff’s department.”
For a moment there was no answer and Dan knocked again on the metal door, louder this time.
The sound of a chain lock sliding and then the thunk of a bolt lock were followed by the doorknob turning and the door opening. Dan casually kept his hand near his gun.
Nelson stood in the doorway and smirked at Dan. “What can I do for you Sheriff?”
“We’ve got a warrant to search the premises and your vehicle.” Dan handed the warrant to Nelson and shoved his way into the hotel room.
Nelson stumbled back, anger in his eyes. “On what grounds?”
“The murder of Lui
s Duarte and the attempted murder of Renee Winfield,” Dan said as the deputies poured into the room and started searching the place.
A flicker of surprise went through Nelson’s eyes but then he seemed to recover. “The attempted murder of Renee?” He did a credible job of looking shocked. He was no doubt surprised she had survived. “Is she all right?”
Dan gave a nod toward the door. “Let’s step outside and let the deputies do their job.”
Nelson gave a not so casual shrug. “Yeah. Whatever.”
When they were outside, Nelson leaned up against the rental car and folded his arms across his chest. His forearm had a fresh bandage on it. “Am I a suspect?”
Interesting that he didn’t ask about Renee again. Dan pulled a notebook and pen out of his pocket. “Where were you last night?”
Nelson glanced at the open door to the hotel room where deputies were at work. “I was here in my room.”
“Was anyone with you?” Dan asked as he made notes.
“I was alone,” Nelson said. “I went to bed early.”
Dan gestured to Nelson’s forearm. “What happened to your arm?”
The man shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
“We need you to come down to the sheriff’s office for questioning,” Dan said.
“I don’t have to go anywhere with you.” An angry glint was in Nelson’s eyes. “You have to get a warrant for my arrest or something like that. But you have nothing on me so that’s not going to happen.”
“We’ll get that warrant.” Dan gave Nelson a hard look. “Count on it.”
Nelson glared at Dan but said nothing.
“We know you’ve booked a flight for Philadelphia tomorrow morning,” Dan said. “You’re not to leave this town much less the state.”
“I want to know what happened to Renee,” Nelson said after Dan had asked him a few more questions.
“You know what happened.” Dan studied Nelson. “You just didn’t know she survived after you shot her. She’s lucky to be alive.”
“I didn’t shoot Renee.” Nelson’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “I—I loved her.”
Lingerie and Lariats (Rough & Ready#7) Page 14
