Branded by the Sheriff

by Delores Fossen

  “But you saved me. I didn’t die,” she mumbled.

  Beck shook his head and walked closer. “You didn’t die.” His face was etched with worry, and judging from his bloodshot eyes, he hadn’t slept in a while. Faith had no idea how long it might had been.

  “How long have I been here?” she wanted to know.

  Beck eased down on the side of the bed beside her and pushed her hair away from her face. His touch was gentle. “All night. It’s nearly ten o’clock. There was enough tranquilizer in that dart to knock out someone twice your size. That’s why you had to stay the night here in LaMesa Hospital.”

  “Ten o’clock?” That was too long. She had to find out who’d done this to her. She also had to check on Aubrey. Faith tried to get up, but Beck put his hand on her shoulder to make her lie back down.

  “How are you feeling?” Corey asked.

  So that it would speed things along and get her out of that bed, Faith did a quick assessment. Well, as quickly as her brain would allow. It felt as if her thoughts were traveling through mud. “I’m not in pain.” She touched her throat and looked at Beck. “I guess you got to me before the killer could try to strangle me?”

  “I got to you,” Beck assured her, though that had not been easy for him to say. His jaw was tight again.

  He was blaming himself for this.

  Deciding to do something about that, Faith sat up. Beck tried to stop her again, but this time she succeeded. “How soon can I leave?”

  He didn’t look as if he wanted to answer that. “The doctor should be here any minute to talk to you.”

  She hoped he didn’t hassle her about getting out of here. She wanted to get in touch with Marita and check on Aubrey. And her brother. She had to talk him into surrendering, or he was going to end up getting himself killed.

  “Darin called me last night after you went outside,” she explained to Beck. “He was there in your yard, but I don’t think he’s the one who shot me with the tranquilizer gun. I think someone else was out there.”

  Beck nodded. “There were two sets of tracks. I’m hoping I can match one of the sets to Nolan.”

  Good. That was a start and might finally lead to Nolan’s arrest.

  “I also had your neck photographed so the crime lab can compare your puncture wound to Sherry’s and your mother’s. The killer didn’t leave the actual darts at those scenes so the lab can’t make that comparison. But if the puncture wounds match, then we know the same person’s responsible for all three attacks. Plus, they might be able to get some DNA from the dart I pulled from your neck.”

  And she prayed that DNA wouldn’t belong to her brother. “Any sign of Darin or Nolan?”

  Beck and Corey exchanged an uneasy glance. “No.” Corey handed him an envelope that he’d been holding, and in turn Beck gave the envelope to her. “Darin left this by the rosebushes.”

  “Are these the pictures?” she asked, opening the envelope. “When he called last night, he said he had Sherry’s pictures.”

  “And he obviously did,” Corey mumbled. “I found them when I was processing the crime scene.” He hitched his thumb toward the door. “I’ll get back to the office and see if there’s been any news about the case.”

  Faith waited until Corey was gone before she took out the first photograph. It was blurry and similar to the one in the blackmail letter. In the shot, there was a man lying asleep on a bed, and he was covered from the waist down with a white sheet. Maybe it was Pete, or even Roy, but it could have been Nolan with a wig.

  In the second photo, someone had moved the sheet to expose the man’s bare leg. Faith saw the spot on his thigh. A birthmark, she decided. She looked up at Beck for an explanation.

  “Pete, my father and I all have that same birthmark.”

  Oh, no. Since she was dead certain that wasn’t Beck in Sherry’s bed, that left Roy and Pete. “The birthmark could be fake,” she pointed out. “Nolan could have learned about the birthmark from Sherry and then painted it on to incriminate them.”

  Beck gave a crisp nod, an indication he’d already considered that. So why did he look as if that was a theory he didn’t want to accept?

  Faith tucked the second picture behind the third one. The last one. Again, it was a blurry shot, not of the man in the bed. This one was taken from long range, and it took Faith a moment to realize it wasn’t Sherry.

  It was a shot of her and Aubrey.

  It’d been taken at the park about two months earlier. Right about the time the blackmail letters had been sent to Roy and Pete.

  Faith drew in a sharp breath. “You think Sherry planned to use Aubrey to blackmail someone?”

  But she didn’t need an answer. She knew. This was exactly the kind of reckless thing Sherry would do.

  “I have to go check on Aubrey,” Faith insisted. She got out of the bed, and Beck looped his arm around her to steady her. If he hadn’t, she would have fallen—her legs felt like pudding.

  “Aubrey’s fine,” Beck assured her. “I talked to Sheriff Whitley less than a half hour ago. No one has attempted to get into the safe house. You can’t go check on her. It’s too risky. Someone might try to follow you.”

  The disappointment was as strong as her concern for her daughter. But he was right. Faith couldn’t take the danger to her child’s doorstep. However, that didn’t mean she had to stay put.

  She was wearing a hospital gown, but Faith spotted her clothes draped over a chair. Wobbling a bit, she reached for the jeans and top.

  Beck had her sit on the bed while he put on her jeans. It was a reminder that he’d done the exact opposite the night before when they were on his bed, and despite the hazy head and the punch of adrenaline, she remembered the heat they’d generated.

  When she met Beck’s gaze, she realized that he remembered it, too.

  “Are you really okay?” he asked.

  “I’m really okay.” She was still wearing her bra, and he slipped off her gown and eased her stretchy blue top over her head so that she could put it on. “This wasn’t your fault.”

  “Like hell it wasn’t.”

  Because he looked as if he needed it, Faith put her arms around him. She would have done more. She would have kissed him for reassurance, both hers and his, if the door hadn’t flown open.

  Pete and Roy.

  Apparently, there wasn’t much security at the small-town hospital if anyone was allowed to march right into her room. That in itself was alarming enough. But her alarm skyrocketed when she spotted the blood on Roy’s shirt. The man also had what appeared to be several fresh stitches on his forehead.

  “Well, isn’t this cozy?” Pete barked.

  Faith stepped away from Beck as quickly as she could. But Beck didn’t step away from her. He stood by her side and slipped his arm around her waist.

  “What happened?” Beck asked his father.

  Roy looked at her. “I had a run-in with your brother about a half hour ago.”

  Oh, God. “Are you hurt? Is Darin hurt?”

  “My father’s obviously hurt,” Pete interjected before Roy could answer. “Darin is a sociopath and a killer.”

  “What happened?” Beck repeated, sounding very much like a cop now.

  Unlike Pete, there was no anger in Roy’s expression or body language. Just fatigue and spent adrenaline, something Faith could understand.

  “I went out to the stables to check on a mare, and Darin was there,” Roy explained. “He said he wanted to talk to me, but I didn’t think that was a good idea. I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket to call you, and Darin tried to stop me.” Roy lifted his shoulder. “I don’t think he meant to hurt me. He just sort of lunged at me, and we both fell.”

  “Dad cut his head on a shovel and needed stitches,” Pete supplied.

  “What about Darin? What happened to him?” Beck wanted to know.

  “He ran off, but I think he was hurt.” Roy touched his wounded head and winced. “He was limping pretty badly.”

  As much
as Faith hated to hear that, she hoped it would make Darin seek medical attention, and then maybe, finally, she could talk to him.

  Roy looked at her. “I heard what happened to you. Could have been worse.”

  “Much worse,” she supplied. “I’m sorry about what went on with my brother. He’s scared, and he needs help.”

  “He needs to go back to the loony bin,” Pete jabbed. “And maybe you do, too.” But he didn’t aim that last insult at her but rather Beck. “What’s this I hear about you being the father of her kid?”

  So the info had indeed been leaked, though it was ironic that the first question about it had come from Pete, the man who might very well be Aubrey’s biological father. Faith didn’t want to know what kind of problems that was going to create if he was. Of course, the alternatives were Roy and Nolan. Nolan was a jerk. Possibly even a killer. And Roy seemed too decent not to own up to fathering a child.

  But then maybe Sherry hadn’t told him.

  “You didn’t mention a word to us about the baby,” Roy continued where Pete had left off. “Or about being with Faith.”

  “Because I knew you wouldn’t approve.” Not exactly a lie. They wouldn’t have.

  Pete’s hands clenched into fists. “So you’re saying it’s true, that you are the kid’s father?” But then he relaxed a bit. “Oh, wait. I get it. You slept with her on a down and dirty whim, and then she claimed you got her pregnant. And you actually believed her?”

  Roy caught onto Pete’s arm. “If Beck thinks the little girl is his, he must have a good reason to believe it.”

  “I do,” Beck supplied. “I also have a good reason to believe that Pete lied ten years ago. You didn’t sleep with Faith.”

  The anger flushed Pete’s face. “You’re taking her word over mine?”

  “No. I’m taking what I know over what you said. I think you lied because you thought Nolan would pound you to dust if he found out you’d been with Sherry.”

  She expected Pete to return fire, but he didn’t. He went still, and it seemed from his expression that he was giving it some thought. Several moments later, he scrubbed his hand over his face.

  “I wasn’t afraid of Nolan,” Pete finally said. “And I don’t remember what went on in that motel room.”

  Pete seemed to be on the brink of an apology, or at least an honest explanation, but Beck’s cell phone rang. Pete shook his head again, and she could tell that he’d changed his mind about saying anything else.

  “What?” Beck snapped at the caller.

  That got everyone’s attention. So did Beck’s intensity. He cursed and slapped the phone shut.

  “That was Nicole,” he explained. “She said she just found a dead body in the west barn at the ranch.”

  * * *

  BECK CAUGHT ONTO FAITH’S arm to stop her from bolting from the cruiser when he brought it to a stop in front of the west barn at his family’s ranch.

  “I have to see if it’s Darin,” she insisted.

  Not that she needed to tell him that. From the moment he’d relayed Nicole’s message, Faith had been terrified that the body belonged to her brother.

  Beck figured it did, but he didn’t say that to her.

  Still, he couldn’t discount the altercation Darin had had with Roy just an hour or so earlier. His father had even said that Darin was injured. Maybe he’d hit his head, and that had caused his death.

  That wouldn’t make it any easier for Faith to accept.

  This was going to hurt, and Beck wasn’t sure she would let him help pick up the pieces.

  Nicole was there, standing in front of the dark red barn, waiting. There wasn’t a drop of color in her face, despite the cold wind whipping at her.

  “I have to go in first,” he instructed Faith. He drew his weapon, just in case. “I have to do my job.”

  He didn’t wait for her to acknowledge that. Behind him, Pete and Roy pulled up. And behind them was Corey. All three men barreled from their vehicles.

  Beck got out and held out his hands to stop them from going any farther. “Corey, I need you to wait here with Faith. Pete and Dad, you wait with Nicole. As soon as I’ve checked it out, I’ll let you know what’s going on.”

  None of them argued, maybe because none of them were anxious to have a close encounter with a dead body.

  “I couldn’t see his face,” Nicole volunteered. “But it’s a man, and he’s dead in the back stall. There’s blood, a lot of it,” she added in a hoarse whisper.

  Pete pulled her into his arms, and Beck gave Corey one last glance to make sure he was guarding Faith. He was. So Beck went inside.

  The overhead lights were on, so he had no problem seeing. The barn was nearly empty, except for a paint gelding in the first stall. He snorted when Beck moved past him. Beck walked slowly, checking on all sides of him.

  With the exception of six stalls and a tack room at the back, there weren’t many places a killer could hide.

  If there was a killer anywhere around.

  But Beck figured Darin would be the only person he’d find inside. That meant he’d have to interview his father about the fight he had with the man, and Beck only hoped that he had told the truth. He didn’t want to find out his father had shot an unarmed man.

  Beck spotted a pair of boots sticking out from the back stall. Judging from the angle, the guy was on his back. He wasn’t moving, and there was a dark shiny pool of blood extending out from his torso. Nicole had been right—there was a lot of it. Too much for the person to have survived.

  Keeping his gun ready and aimed, Beck went closer. There was a piece of paper on the open stall door. The top of the page was slightly torn where it’d been pushed against a raised nail head that was now holding it in place. Beck decided he would see what that was all about later, but first he needed to ID the body and determine if this person was truly dead or in need of an ambulance.

  More blood was on the front of the man’s shirt. And in his lifeless right hand, there was a .38. The barrel of the gun was aimed directly beneath his chin.

  Yeah, he was dead.

  Blood spatter covered his face, too, and it took Beck a moment to pick through what was left of the guy and figure out who this was.

  “Hell,” Beck mumbled.

  He looked at the paper then. Hand-scrawled with just three sentences.

  !I killed them. God forgive me. I can’t live with what I’ve done.

  He left the note and body in place so the county CSI crew and the Rangers would have a pristine scene to process. That was if Nicole hadn’t touched anything. He wanted them to find proof that this was indeed a suicide or if someone had staged it to look that way.

  Everyone was waiting for Beck when he came back out, including Sgt. McKinney, the Ranger who was still investigating the tranquilizer gun incident from the night before. But it was Faith that Beck went to.

  “It’s not Darin,” he told her.

  Her breath broke, and she shattered. He felt the relief in her when he pulled her into his arms. “It’s Nolan Wheeler.”

  Blinking back tears of relief, she looked up at him. “Nolan?” she repeated.

  So did Pete and Nicole. “What was Nolan Wheeler doing here?” Pete asked.

  “Apparently killing himself. There’s a suicide note.”

  “I’ll have a look,” the Ranger insisted, going inside.

  Faith shook her head. “Nolan committed suicide?”

  Beck couldn’t confirm that. “According to the note, he couldn’t live with himself because of the murders he committed.”

  He saw the immediate doubt in Faith’s eyes and knew what she was thinking. On the surface, Nolan wasn’t the suicide type.

  So did the man have some “help”?

  “Why would he have done this?” Corey questioned.

  Beck was short on answers. “Maybe he thought we were getting close to arresting him.”

  That was the only thing he could think of to justify suicide. But why choose the Tanners’ barn to do
the deed? As far as Beck knew, Nolan wasn’t familiar with the ranch.

  “What were you doing in the barn?” he heard his brother ask Nicole.

  Beck pushed aside his questions about Nolan because he was very interested in her answer.

  Nicole, however, didn’t seem pleased that all eyes were suddenly on her. “I was looking for my riding jacket. I thought I left it in there.” Pete didn’t jump to confirm her answer, so she sliced her gaze at Beck. “Why would I do anything to Nolan Wheeler? I hardly know him.”

  “You went to high school with him,” Corey pointed out, earning him a nasty glare from both Pete and Nicole.

  “I won’t have Nicole accused of this or anything else,” Pete snapped.

  Nicole nodded crisply. “There’s only one person here who had a reason to kill Nolan, and that’s Faith.”

  Beck was about to defend her the way Pete had Nicole, but he spotted the Ranger walking back toward them. “I used my camera phone to take a picture of the suicide note and sent it straight to the crime lab. They’ll compare it to Nolan’s handwriting. We’ve got some samples on file that we’ve been comparing to the threats written in the attic.”

  “And did Nolan write those threats?” Faith wanted to know.

  Sgt. McKinney shook his head. “The results are inconclusive, but we might have better luck with this suicide note since whoever wrote it didn’t print.”

  Before the last word left the Ranger’s mouth, Beck saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned, automatically drawing his weapon. So did the Ranger and Corey. Pete shoved Nicole behind him.

  Darin Matthews was walking straight toward them.

  “Darin?” Faith called out.

  Beck caught her arm to keep her from running toward her brother. Darin was limping and looked disheveled, maybe from the altercation he’d had with Roy.

  “Don’t shoot,” Darin said. He lifted his hands in a show of surrender.

  “Are you hurt?” Faith asked.

  “Just my ankle. I think I sprained it when I was here earlier.”

  Roy took a step closer to the man. “You mean when I ran you off or when you killed Nolan?”

  Darin froze, and his eyes widened. “Nolan’s dead?” And he looked to Faith for confirmation.