“Neither does Liam.” Her voice cracked, and Jessa hoped she didn’t lose it before she could get her point across. “My baby’s in danger, and I need to find out why.”
Even if it would crush her heart, she had to know. She couldn’t go on like this, with a threat hanging over his head.
Hector closed his eyes a moment. “I don’t know why, but I swear to you, it had nothing to do with me.”
Now he walked out, and while his parting line had sounded reassuring, it wasn’t. Hector had earned plenty of money from Liam’s adoption, and he’d handled several others that same month. The cash alone was motive enough to cut corners.
“Have you asked for a check of Hector’s financial records?” Jessa asked.
“Yeah.” Cooper went to the front window and watched Hector get back in his sleek silver sports car. “Not just him, either. I’ve asked for checks on everyone involved in this.”
“Including me?” Jessa mumbled.
He glanced back at her. “You, too. I would apologize, but you’d do the same in my position.”
Jessa couldn’t deny that. She would. But considering that almost kiss they’d just shared, it seemed uncomfortable. Like sleeping with the enemy. Too bad she was deeply attracted to this enemy. Also too bad that this particular enemy could end up crushing her heart worse than it’d ever been crushed.
His phone buzzed, and while Cooper continued to watch Hector drive away, he answered it without glancing at the screen. However, he quickly did a double take.
“Donovan?” Cooper spat out like profanity. “I’ve been looking... What?”
That got her moving closer to Cooper so she could hear what had put that stunned look on his face. “Let me talk to her,” Cooper said a moment later.
Her?
Jessa moved even closer, but she only caught a word here and there. It wasn’t a woman’s voice she heard but rather a man’s. A scared one, from the sound of it. The moments crawled by, and the man continued to chatter.
“Too risky,” Cooper finally said.
She missed the man’s answer, but whatever it was, it turned every muscle in Cooper’s body to iron. Then he cursed. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Don’t make me regret this, or you’re a dead man.”
“What’s wrong?” Jessa asked the moment he put his phone away.
“Donovan said Peggy’s at his ranch, and she’s holding him at gunpoint. And if we don’t go out there now, Peggy says she’ll kill him.”
Chapter Eight
Cooper stopped at the foot of the circular driveway that led to Donovan’s house. The place sprawled across the top of a hill, and even though he’d never been inside it, he figured there were at least thirty rooms. Too many places for Peggy to be holding Donovan at gunpoint.
If that was really what was going on.
As far as Cooper was concerned, both Donovan and Peggy were suspects in this mess of an investigation, and he couldn’t rule out that they had partnered up to lure Jessa and him to Donovan’s ranch.
Or maybe this was a ploy to separate him from Liam and Jessa.
No matter which way he went, it could be a huge risk, but since he was the sheriff and a man in need of answers, it was a risk he had to take. Still, he’d taken precautions and left Tucker and a dozen armed ranch hands to guard Liam.
Jessa was a different story.
She’d refused to stay, insisting that she come with him as Peggy had demanded. Jessa had even played her A.D.A. card and claimed she needed to question both Donovan and Peggy. Since their argument had eaten up precious time, Cooper had decided to take the most hardheaded woman in the state with him. That didn’t mean he had any intention of letting her get close to what could turn out to be a hostage situation.
“Wait here,” Cooper growled.
“I could maybe help,” Jessa argued.
“Yeah, by doing as I say and staying put.” Cooper looked at his deputy Reed, who’d just pulled up behind them and gotten out of his vehicle. “And you stay with her. If she tries to come in before I give the all clear, arrest her.”
Oh, she didn’t like that. Jessa hurled little eyeball daggers at him, but Cooper just hurled them right back. Jessa had taken enough chances just by coming here.
He waited until Colt had parked his truck, and the two started for the house. Not a direct route where they’d be in the line of fire. Cooper used some hedges for cover. However, he and Colt had only made it a few steps when his phone buzzed again. Donovan’s name was on the screen, but it was Peggy’s voice he heard when he answered and put the call on speaker.
“Bring Jessa Wells in with you,” Peggy demanded. “I want you both to hear the truth from this lying—”
“Jessa’s staying put,” Cooper interrupted. “Once you’ve surrendered your gun and I’m sure it’s safe, I’ll let her in.”
“Stop arguing with this nutcase!” Donovan yelled. “Get in here and do your job.”
Cooper’s jaw clenched. “My job doesn’t mean putting a civilian in danger. Jessa stays put. Now, where are you two?”
“The foyer,” Peggy answered. “The door’s unlocked. And don’t try anything stupid because I’m watching you on a security camera.”
So that was how she’d known that Jessa wasn’t making her way to the house. It also meant that ducking behind the hedges wouldn’t do any good. Of course, if Peggy wanted him dead, she would have already fired.
Cooper looked up the steps to the porch, where there was a trio of front doors with panels of beveled glass. The light caught the bevels just right, making it hard for him to see more than shadows on the other side. He didn’t know which one was Peggy.
“Where’s the staff? Is anyone hurt?” Cooper asked.
“No one’s hurt.” Peggy again. “Not yet, anyway. I searched the place, and I only found two maids. I made them get on the floor. If their boss moves, I start shooting.”
Hell. So not just one hostage, but three.
“She had me call my ranch hands,” Donovan volunteered. “She had me give the same warning to them as she did to the maids. Personally, I’m hoping one of them or you will put a bullet in her.”
Cooper heard a sound. A hoarse sob, and it took him a second to realize it was Peggy crying. “You have to believe me. I didn’t steal any babies.”
“I’m listening.” Cooper forced his voice to stay calm.
Hard to do though with the whirlwind of emotions whipping through him. Because this showdown could lead to info about Liam. It could also get him shot. Jessa, too. And that was why he had to defuse things before they got any worse.
“Peggy, if you’ll put down your gun and come outside, I’ll listen to everything you want to tell me,” Cooper assured her.
“What she wants to tell you is a pack of lies!” Donovan shouted. “I didn’t steal a kid.” Cooper didn’t think it was his imagination that the man sounded a lot more riled than afraid.
“Like I said, I’ll listen to her,” Cooper went on. “And if she convinces me that you’ve done something wrong, then I’ll arrest you.”
“I’ll kill you before I let you arrest me,” Donovan fired back.
Cooper huffed. That was their old rivalry rearing its ugly head, and he didn’t have time for it now. If Donovan needed arresting, it would happen.
“Peggy, put down your gun and release your hostage,” Cooper repeated. “If you’re as innocent as you say, then you’ll have a chance to prove it. And I’ll help you.”
Silence. For a long time. “Give your phone to Jessa,” Peggy finally said. “I need to tell her something.”
Cooper looked back at Jessa, who was already hurrying closer. Reed managed to get a hand on her shoulder, but that didn’t stop her from shouting out to Peggy.
“I’m here,” Jessa assured her. “And I’m listening.”
Peggy made another of those hoarse sobs. “I have files that’ll prove where I got the babies. I brought them with me.”
“And I’ll read them,” Jessa promised,
walking even closer to the phone. “Just please put down your gun so that no one gets hurt.”
More silence, but Cooper hoped Peggy was at least considering surrendering. The woman didn’t say a word, but several moments later, the front door eased open.
Cooper took aim in case Peggy came out shooting, but it wasn’t Peggy. With his hands raised in the air, Donovan stepped out onto the porch. He looked pretty darn calm and collected for a hostage. There wasn’t a strand of his dark blond hair out of place. Ditto for his expensive-looking dark blue business suit. But there was one thing off.
His hands were tied.
“The dingbat still has a gun trained on me, and she’s accusing Carol and me of being involved with illegal adoptions,” Donovan said though clenched teeth. His steely gaze met Cooper’s, and the man had the gall to smirk. “A good sheriff could have prevented this,” he added.
“Living a clean life could have prevented it, too. Or maybe just a good security system.”
“She came in with the trash.” Donovan’s smirk softened a bit, replaced by a scowl aimed back in Peggy’s direction. “I had the gate open so the trashmen could come in, and she drove in right behind their truck. I didn’t see her until it was too late.”
Clearly, Donovan wasn’t pleased about Peggy getting the drop on him, but he was aiming just as much displeasure at Cooper.
“Peggy?” Cooper called out. “Your turn now. Come to the door so I can see you.”
Cooper held his breath and hoped like the devil that the woman would cooperate. Then he could question both Donovan and her and get a look at the files that she said she had.
But she didn’t answer. She certainly didn’t do anything to surrender her gun.
“Peggy?” Cooper called out again.
And her name had hardly left his mouth when he heard a sound he didn’t want to hear.
A shot blasted through the air.
* * *
JESSA’S STOMACH WENT to her knees.
She didn’t have time to react to the shot before Cooper came running toward her, yelling for her to get down.
Everything seemed to happen at once. Peggy gave a bloodcurdling scream. Cooper dragged Jessa to the ground behind some massive landscape boulders. Donovan jumped off the side of the porch and into some shrubs. And Cooper and his deputies all took aim at the house.
God, why had Peggy fired the shot?
The woman had already gotten everyone’s attention by taking Donovan hostage. She hadn’t needed to do anything else so drastic.
“Peggy!” Cooper shouted. “Put down your gun and come out with your hands up.”
She didn’t answer, but Donovan did. The man started cursing, calling Peggy all kinds of names. Jessa couldn’t blame him. Peggy had broken into his home and held him at gunpoint, but then maybe she’d done that because Donovan deserved having a gun pointed at him. Still, Jessa kept going back to the same question: How would Donovan have gotten Liam in the first place?
He ran a very successful cattle-broker business and was filthy rich. There was no need for him to get involved with adoptions.
Unless Liam’s adoption was somehow personal for him.
Considering his history with Cooper, it could very well be that, but it still didn’t make sense.
Another shot rang out; this time the bullet struck the cement just yards from them. Cooper moved her, pushing her behind the truck, and looked around. Not at the front of the house.
But at the roof.
“The shot came from up there,” Cooper mumbled.
Because her heartbeat was crashing in her ears, it took Jessa a moment to realize something wasn’t right about that, either. How could Peggy have made it from the foyer to the roof so quickly?
And then she got her answer when she caught a glimpse of the man dressed in black. He was armed with a rifle, and he leaned out of one of the dormer windows.
Definitely not Peggy.
That meant she’d brought along some help.
But then, why had she screamed?
Another shot came at them. Then another. The deputies scrambled behind Colt’s truck, using it for cover. Cooper pushed Jessa even lower to the ground, but he didn’t follow suit. He levered himself up and fired.
The shot was deafening, and the tinny echoes clanged in Jessa’s head. Still, it was worth it if Cooper stopped this monster.
But he didn’t.
The shooter fired several more shots, each of them ricocheting off Cooper’s truck and nearby boulders. She prayed none of the shots hit anyone.
After what seemed an eternity, the shots stopped. Jessa sucked in her breath, waited. Prayed some more, too. But the shooter didn’t pull the trigger again.
“Stay put,” Cooper warned her, and he motioned for Reed to move behind the truck with her.
The moment his deputy was in place, Cooper and Colt began to inch their way to the house. They kept cover behind the shrubs, but Jessa knew that wouldn’t give them much protection from bullets.
“You stay down, too,” Cooper said, and she figured he was talking to Donovan.
The man obviously didn’t listen.
“I know you’re not deaf,” Cooper growled, “so that makes you stupid. Stay down!”
“It’s my house,” Donovan argued. “Besides, I want to get my hands around that witch’s neck.”
Jessa heard a thudding sound, and she peered around Reed’s shoulder to see Donovan tumbling onto the porch. Judging from Cooper’s body language, he’d been the one to put him there. He turned his gun on Donovan when the man started to get up.
Donovan stayed put.
But he gave Cooper a glare that would make Hades freeze over.
There were stone inserts between the glass doors, and Cooper used one of them for cover. “Peggy?” he tried again.
Still no answer.
He said something to Colt that she didn’t catch, and a split second later, the two pivoted into the partially open doorway. They looked inside.
And both cursed.
“She’s gone,” Cooper relayed to Reed.
That brought Donovan to his feet. He’d managed to get his hands untied, and he flung the rope aside and barreled into the foyer. Cooper stopped him from going any farther.
“Get Jessa inside,” Cooper told Reed. “In case the shooter is headed your way.”
That put her heart right back in her throat, and both Colt and Cooper became backup for Reed as he hurried her inside. Cooper immediately positioned her so that her back was to the wall and he was in front of her. Protecting her again.
Jessa looked around the massive foyer and the equally massive rooms that flanked it.
No sign of Peggy.
Just two terrified-looking women in maids’ uniforms. They were on the white-carpeted floor in the living room.
“She ran toward the back,” one of them said.
Cooper tipped his head for Colt and Reed to go in that direction. “Find her. The shooter, too. They’re probably escaping together.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” Donovan snapped, and he would have followed Reed and Colt if Cooper hadn’t grabbed a handful of Donovan’s jacket.
“Start talking,” Cooper ordered.
Donovan threw off his grip and looked on the verge of throwing a punch. His nostrils flared. Eyes narrowed. But then he stepped back and shot Cooper another of those smirks that made Jessa want to slug him. That was no doubt the reason he’d used it—because she could tell it infuriated Cooper, too.
“Start talking?” Donovan coolly repeated. He adjusted his jacket and brushed off some bits of the shrubs as if he had all the time in the world. “Why should I respond to that woman’s lies? Peggy’s clearly mentally unbalanced. You sure she’s not a relative of yours?” he asked, looking at Cooper. “Insanity seems to run in your family. Killers, too.”
If Cooper had any reaction to that, he didn’t show it. “Why would Peggy say you were the one who gave her the baby that Jessa adopted?”
; Donovan lifted his shoulder. “Mentally unbalanced people say a lot of things that aren’t true. I can’t believe you’d listen to a word she said.”
“She said she had proof,” Cooper reminded him.
“Where?” He lifted his hands, palms up. Then he leaned in. “You shouldn’t believe everything crazy people say.”
“I didn’t say I believed her. I just want a straight answer. Did you give Peggy a baby that was meant to be adopted?”
They got into a staring contest that crawled on and on. Donovan was the first to break eye contact, and he laughed. “Me with a baby? Really? Do I look like the baby-handling type? I’m not, and if Molly were alive, she’d vouch for me on that.”
Because Jessa had her hand on Cooper’s back, she felt his muscles go stiff. “What the hell does that mean?” Cooper snapped.
“You want me to spell it out? Well, here it is. Molly and I were lovers—”
“And she broke off things with you and eventually married me,” Cooper interrupted. “Old water, old bridge. Why bring her up now?”
“Simple. I was just making a reference. Molly knew I wasn’t the daddy type, and that’s why she eventually left me and went to you. Because she knew you’d give her a kid.”
Cooper gave him a flat look. “I think you glossed over a few things, like Molly realizing you’re a jerk and ending a toxic relationship.”
Donovan lifted his shoulder, adjusted his suit again. “Obviously, she told you a different version of the truth. If I gave up Molly over my no-kid rule, then why the heck would I want to get into the baby business?”
“I don’t know,” Cooper fired back. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“There’s nothing to tell. Even if I’d wanted to be part of the wonderful world of adoption, why would I go looking for some kid to give to a whack job like Peggy? If I wanted to make money selling black-market babies, I sure as hell wouldn’t use her for a middleman.”
He sounded convincing, but Jessa didn’t trust him. She certainly hadn’t liked the way he’d thrown his relationship with Molly in Cooper’s face.
“You need to come with me to the sheriff’s office,” Cooper said, sounding all business now. But Jessa could still feel his knotted muscles.
Maverick Sheriff Page 8
