Rustling Up Trouble

by Delores Fossen

  “Seth’s your brother,” Blue said. “He doesn’t want you hurt.”

  That didn’t excuse Seth’s Neanderthal approach to interfering in his kid sister’s life, and she hoped her huff conveyed not only that but the end of this particular conversation.

  “Are you ready to go in there and find out what Gandy claims he has?” she asked. She stared at the bruise on his head. It was a nasty purple color today and went from his hairline to the edge of his eyebrow. “Or have you come to your senses and are willing to let the sheriff or one of the deputies do their jobs and deal with this jerk?”

  “No. I haven’t come to my senses.” And Blue added one of those half smiles that Rayanne wished she could wipe off his face.

  Or at least share with him.

  She was too worried to smile about anything, and she hated that scum like Gandy could hold Blue’s badge in the palm of his sweaty hand.

  “I just talked to Burrell Parker,” Blue said, glancing down at the notepad he was holding.

  Rayanne pulled in her breath. She had known he was on the phone, but she hadn’t guessed he was talking to the very man who might have ordered a hit on her. “And?”

  “And he denied everything.”

  She shook her head. “But there are photos of you meeting with him.”

  “Parker says those are pictures of me threatening to blow his head off because I wouldn’t give him information about my missing partner, Woody Janson.”

  Rayanne took a moment to process that. It made sense. From everything she’d read about him, Parker was dealing in illegal arms, and it was the sort of thing Blue and his former partner would have investigated.

  “You don’t remember talking to Parker about Woody?” she asked.

  “No, but the ATF had already accessed Woody’s phone records. The calls end the same time he disappeared, but prior to that, Woody apparently had several conversations with Parker. I don’t know about what.”

  “But before the concussion, you would have known about the conversations,” she finished for him. “And you would have most certainly asked Parker about them.”

  He nodded. “I did ask him, and Parker says he has no idea what happened to Woody but that Gandy might know.”

  Rayanne huffed. Of course he would say that. Parker and Gandy were rivals in the gun business, and he’d say or do anything not only to take suspicion off himself but also to set up Gandy.

  However, that didn’t mean Parker was lying.

  “Caleb’s bringing Parker in for questioning,” Blue continued. “He might be able to get something from Parker that we can use.”

  Something to help clear Blue’s name and end the danger. Rayanne welcomed that with open arms.

  Blowing out a long breath, she raked her hand through her hair, only to remember that she’d just fixed it. Sort of. She made another attempt to fix it.

  “Ironic that when I woke up yesterday morning, I thought the worst thing I’d have to deal with was my mother’s upcoming murder trial,” she mumbled.

  And while that was horrible, it still paled in comparison to the danger all of this could pose to the baby. Her mother still stood a strong chance of being found not guilty. At least to Rayanne’s way of thinking, anyway. But the threat to the baby was immediate, and there didn’t seem to be a reprieve in sight.

  “I promise, I’ll fix this,” Blue said. It was a promise he likely couldn’t keep, but for some stupid reason, Rayanne latched on to it.

  However, she didn’t latch on to him.

  When he moved closer as if he might give her a hug or something, she stepped back. Best to keep not just physical distance between them but some emotional space, as well. Her hormones were still playing tricks on her, and her body might think a hug from Blue was a whole lot more.

  And it couldn’t be.

  Blue mumbled something about wishing him luck, and he walked out. A moment later Rayanne watched as he walked into the interview room with Gandy.

  When his attention landed on Blue, Gandy chuckled, his gut wobbling. He hooked his thumbs behind the grapefruit-sized rodeo buckle and leaned back in the chair.

  “Somebody messed you up bad, didn’t they, boy?” Gandy said. “Bruised up your pretty face, and if I’m not mistaken, that’s a bandage beneath your shirt. Hurt much?”

  “Yeah,” Blue readily admitted, doling out a dose of the same cocky tone that Gandy was using. “And I’m thinking that the somebody who did this to me might be you.”

  If Gandy was alarmed by that accusation, he didn’t show it. He dismissed it with the flick of his hand. “I got better things to do than take shots at a rogue gun agent and his deputy girlfriend.”

  Well, at least Gandy hadn’t said pregnant girlfriend, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know. And if he knew, he could somehow use her and the baby to get to Blue.

  If this was all some kind of cat-and-mouse game to do just that.

  “You said you had proof to clear my name,” Blue reminded him, dropping down in the chair on the opposite side of the table from Gandy and his legal entourage.

  “What, no small talk?” Gandy joked.

  “We could stretch this out. I could also find a reason to arrest you. Any reason.”

  That got Gandy’s lawyers whispering to him, but the man waved them off and leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. “I don’t want to get involved in this.” For the first time since this conversation had started, Gandy seemed serious.

  “You’re the one who came to the McKinnon ranch looking for me,” Blue reminded him. “You’ve involved yourself in this already.”

  “Yeah, but only so I could make sure I don’t get blamed for the bullet that somebody put in you yesterday.”

  Blue met the man’s stare with one of his own. “It was your hired thugs who attacked me.”

  Gandy quickly shook his head. “They haven’t worked for me in a while. Not for Parker, either. Let’s just say that trio of idiots was freelancing.”

  “Who hired them?” Blue pressed. “And you’d better not say it was me.”

  “No, it wasn’t you.” He reached for his jacket pocket but stopped when Blue pulled his gun. “You’re a mite touchy, aren’t you? I’ve already been frisked, and I’m not packing heat. This bulge around my waist is just from too many rare T-bones and plenty of beer.”

  The joking tone was back, but Gandy still waited until Blue had given him a go-ahead nod before he took out the small padded envelope and tossed it on the table between them.

  “What’s that?” Blue studied it, but he didn’t touch it.

  “It’s surveillance images of your meeting with Parker. The very one that your boss has pictures of.”

  Blue lifted the edge of the envelope and Rayanne caught a glimpse of the flash drive inside.

  “How’d you get this?” Blue asked, taking the question right out of her mouth.

  Gandy flexed his eyebrows. “I like to keep my eyes on my competition. Now, you likely can’t use that as evidence, because it wasn’t exactly obtained with Parker’s permission, but if you listen to it, you’ll hear that it clears your name.”

  “Listen to it?” Blue repeated.

  Gandy grinned. “It has audio, and it’s real clear, too. Your boss can hear you threaten Parker if he doesn’t man up about your missing agent friend. Of course, that’s just a summary of the threat. You used a lot more words and some very creative profanity.”

  So Parker had been telling the truth. Gandy, too.

  About this, anyway.

  If that surveillance flash drive was what Gandy said it was, then it would indeed stop Blue from being arrested.

  Gandy’s attention stayed fixed on the nasty bruise on Blue’s head. “You do remember this conversation with Parker, right?”

  “Sure,” Blue lied, and that came easily, too.

  Of course, he’d had a lot of practice with deception during his deep-cover assignments. However, it did make him wonder if in that whirl of memories, his deep-cover lies were
getting mixed up with the truth. Not good. They needed him to be able to sort through this and help identify the person who’d hired those thugs.

  “So why help me?” Blue asked Gandy. It was yet something else that Rayanne wanted to know, too.

  Gandy didn’t jump to answer, and he eased back into his chair. “Because this is gonna turn into a big stinkin’ mess, and I don’t want to be part of it.” The man’s gaze went to the mirror. “I’m guessing your girl’s there, watching.”

  “My girl is none of your business,” Blue snapped.

  “Yeah, she is. Well, she is in that whatever I’m about to take out of the other pocket pertains more to her than to you.”

  That brought Blue to his feet. “What the heck are you talking about now?”

  Gandy took that something out of his pocket. A photo. And as with the flash drive, he slid it Blue’s way. “You won’t recognize the fellow in the photo, but your girl will.”

  Rayanne knew Blue wasn’t going to like this, but she hurried straight toward the interview room and threw open the door. She got the exact reaction that she expected.

  Blue scowled at her, mumbled something and stepped in front of her.

  Gandy just grinned that stupid grin and slid the photo in her direction. Despite Blue being in her way, Rayanne got a good look at it by peering over his shoulder.

  It was a grainy shot probably taken from a long-range lens. Two men seated at a booth in what appeared to be a café. Her attention first went to the man on the left.

  And her stomach tensed.

  It was one of the men who’d tried to kill them. He was dead now, lying in the city morgue, but it still sent an ice-cold chill through her to see that face.

  That chill got worse when she saw the other man in the photo.

  “No,” she heard herself mumble, and despite Blue’s maneuvering to stop her, she got around him and picked up the picture for a closer look.

  “You know that man?” Blue asked her.

  Rayanne nodded, didn’t trust her voice to say more right away.

  “That’s Wendell Braddock,” Gandy explained for her. “He’s the father of the man who Rayanne’s mother is accused of murdering.”

  Blue cursed and stepped in front of her again. “Please tell me you got that picture from the surveillance flash drive and that it has audio to go along with it,” he said to Gandy.

  Gandy shook his head. “Afraid not on that one. But from what I heard, your girl here is smart. A deputy sheriff and all. Shouldn’t take much for her to come up with a reason why Wendell Braddock would be talking to a hired gun and why the Braddock patriarch wants her dead and buried.”

  No. It didn’t take Rayanne long at all.

  Wendell was an old man, in his mid-eighties, but he was rich, the owner of not just a successful ranch but several equally successful companies.

  And he hated her and her family.

  Rayanne was well aware of that hatred, not just from Wendell but from the entire Braddock clan. Still, it was a shock to see the man in that photo maybe cutting a deal with someone he was hiring to murder her.

  “Must be hard,” Gandy went on, speaking to Rayanne. “Your mother in jail, and Wendell’s grandson holding the keys to her cell.”

  Blue shot her a questioning glance, and she nodded. “My mother’s at the county jail in the town of Clay Ridge, and Aiden Braddock is the county sheriff.”

  Gandy smiled. “Aiden’s daddy is Whitt, the man Jewell’s accused of murdering, and his granddaddy is Wendell. A bit of a tangled mess, huh?”

  Blue shook his head. “Why the heck was that allowed to happen?”

  “Because Mom couldn’t be held here in Sweetwater Springs, where her son Cooper is the sheriff,” Rayanne explained. “The alternative was to have her sent to another county, and she didn’t want that, because she didn’t want to be that far from the ranch.”

  It was something that still didn’t sit right with Rayanne. That being close was nice for visits, but it had come at a high price, with her mother being in the custody of a man who no doubt hated her. It was on a long list of things that troubled her about her mother’s situation.

  Including this latest development—that photo of Wendell.

  “This explains why those men tried to kidnap Rosalie,” she mumbled to Blue. “So Wendell could get revenge against my mother.”

  “It could mean that, or not,” Blue argued. “Remember, a photo made it look as if I was meeting with someone to set up a hit. Without audio to go along with that, we have no idea what that meeting was about. Heck, it could have been just to set up Wendell so it takes our attention off the real person behind this.”

  Blue shot a cold, accusing look at Gandy.

  It was a reasonable argument, especially since Gandy had been the one to give them the photo, but now it was Rayanne who shook her head. “I have to talk to Wendell.”

  Of course, Blue stopped her from bolting out of the room. Probably because she looked a little crazy and ready to do something totally stupid—like confront Wendell at gunpoint and demand the truth.

  Blue first grabbed the surveillance flash drive that Gandy had given them, then took her by the arm and led her out into the hall. Another good idea, since this wasn’t a conversation that she wanted to have in front of Gandy. He was practically gloating and clearly enjoyed being the bearer of bad news.

  About this, anyway.

  Maybe Gandy had been the one to set all of this up after all. If so, it was working. Wendell was now at the top of her suspect list. However, that didn’t mean she would erase Gandy from that list anytime soon.

  “This could be exactly what Wendell wants you to do,” Blue said the moment that he had the interview room door shut. “If you go after him half-cocked, he can have you arrested. Heck, he could have all of us arrested, since you know we’d stand up for you.”

  Yes, she did know that.

  And Rayanne cursed that and everything else she could think of to curse. “Wendell wants to punish my mother by hurting Rosalie and me.”

  Blue took her by the shoulders and forced her to look him in the eyes. “If that’s really his plan, then don’t give him the chance to do that. We’ll find the third surviving gunman, and we’ll get him to talk. If Wendell hired him, then we’ll prove it.”

  She hated that he could be so darn logical at a time when she just wanted to grab Wendell or Gandy by their collars and force them to talk. Considering that Blue was sporting an injury that one of them had perhaps given him, he no doubt wanted the same thing.

  “Everything okay?” Cooper asked.

  Rayanne had been so caught up in her anger and the conversation with Blue that she hadn’t even heard him come up behind them.

  “You need to bring Wendell Braddock in for questioning,” she said, handing the photo to Cooper.

  As she’d done, he studied it a moment before the muscles tightened in his jaw. “Yeah, I’ll bring him in.” Cooper looked up from the photo, his attention going back to Blue. “You finished with Gandy?”

  Blue nodded. “He had this flash drive that proves I’m innocent. I need to get a copy of it to my boss ASAP so he can kill the arrest warrant.”

  “I can do that for you, if you like,” Cooper offered. “I can also finish up the interview and ask the Rangers to help us keep an eye on Gandy, if you want to go ahead and take Rayanne to the hospital.”

  “The hospital?” she snapped.

  Cooper checked over his shoulder as if making sure that no one was within earshot. No one was. “Doc Howland called and said you never showed up for an ultrasound that he said he told you that he wanted to do after the shooting incident.”

  Rayanne released the breath she’d sucked in. For a moment, one horrifying moment, she’d thought Cooper was going to say there was something wrong with the baby.

  “I figured I could have the ultrasound after things settled down,” Rayanne said. “Besides, I’m feeling fine.”

  Cooper gave her a flat look. “You m
ight deliver that baby before things ‘settle down.’”

  Not exactly a comforting thought, because it was the truth.

  “Go to the hospital,” Cooper insisted, and he turned his attention back to Blue. “You’re not looking too steady on your feet, either. Wouldn’t hurt for you to at least have another checkup.”

  He was right—Blue didn’t look too steady. It was a generous offer for Cooper to tie up loose ends for them, especially considering he had to have a ton to do in order to wrap up the paperwork on the attacks.

  And given the fact that he was barely on speaking terms with her.

  However, she’d always heard that her estranged brother was a decent sheriff, so maybe this was all about doing his job and had nothing to do with family or favors.

  “Thanks,” Blue said, handing him the flash drive.

  Cooper’s attention slid back to her again. “You won’t go after Wendell,” he said, and it wasn’t a suggestion. He was sounding more and more like the sheriff that he was.

  Or a very stubborn brother.

  She already had one of those. Didn’t need another one.

  “She won’t go after him,” Blue answered.

  Rayanne huffed. “I’m standing right here. I can speak for myself.”

  Both of them stared at her so long that the stares turned to glares. “All right,” she mumbled. “I won’t go after Wendell.” Not today, anyway. “But if he’s behind this—”

  “Then I’ll arrest him,” Cooper assured her. “Just because we’re not on the same side when it comes to Jewell, that doesn’t mean I won’t do my job.”

  She nodded, eventually, and mumbled a thanks.

  “One of the deputies is at the hospital, tying up some loose ends,” Cooper added. “If you run into any trouble there, he’ll be able to respond.”

  Rayanne felt obligated to issue another thanks. A first. She wasn’t accustomed to doling out multiple thanks to someone who disliked her mother as much as she loved her, but this was far from normal.

  Blue got her moving toward the back exit, and once again he played the part of the supercop by getting in front of her and taking the first look out into the parking lot. He took his time checking things out, too, and after some long moments, he hurriedly ushered them into her truck. He got behind the wheel, of course, even though she was in better driving shape than he was.