Losing Ladd

by Dianne Venetta

  The nurse left the room as Nick wheeled her chair to the space where he had been sitting. It made her feel like a heel. She should get up and walk, march herself right over there and be strong—for him, for her mom. For Travis. If she could have moved the first muscle in her body, she would have. But every shred of muscle, every ounce of energy had been sapped. The reality of what happened on the roadside was sinking in. Jeremiah and his friends had tried to kidnap her. They had forced her into their truck. If it hadn’t been for Travis, Felicity would have been who knew where right now in unthinkable danger. Instead, she sat nestled in the safety of Nick’s protective watch. She closed her eyes as guilt poured into her. Travis was lying on a bed in an operating room because he tried to protect her. Without any regard to his own safety, Travis charged Jeremiah and been shot because of it.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” Nick asked, his voice a slip of velvet. Warm, soothing, his presence enveloped her.

  “Jeremiah shot him.”

  “What?”

  “Jeremiah shot Travis. From ten feet away, he pulled the trigger and shot him straight in the chest.”

  As he stared at her in silence, Felicity could feel something change inside him. The line of his jaw hardened, his gaze lost its compassion. It was flinty and cold. Dead. It was like the soul had left him, leaving icy hatred in its place. He didn’t ask another question. He didn’t say another word. Nick simply took her hand in his and cradled it with a tenderness unimaginable. He would take care of her, of them. With Nick, all things were possible. They were lucky to have him.

  A fresh wave of fear blindsided her. She was lucky to have Travis.

  Hopefully it wasn’t too late to let him know.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Nick rose the minute he saw Malcolm and Lacy walk into the waiting room. Cutting the distance in seconds, he said, “Thanks for coming.”

  “We would have been here sooner but with everything going on—”

  Nick silenced him with a hand. “Understood.” Glancing down at Lacy and the baby, he felt a pang of guilt. “Don’t feel like you have to stay if the baby needs to go,” he said. “Ashley said she’d come once she got Albert settled. Said it shouldn’t be too long.” Albert had a doctor’s appointment this morning, and she was shuffling him back and forth between there and home and planned to come as quick as she could to be here for Felicity.

  “Oh, poo,” Lacy said, dishing out a mock frown. “Ashley can come if she wants but I’m staying put for the duration.”

  Nick smiled. Leave it to Lacy’s spitfire personality to ease his mind. Malcolm had married an EF5 tornado packed into a beautiful, petite package. Shiny black hair, ivory skin and big blue eyes, the woman rivaled any Southern California beauty. Leaning down, he kissed her cheek. “Thanks.”

  He’d been running out of options. Casey was helping her mom with Emily, while Cal tried to work between visitation with his daughter and the investigation going on at the hotel. Troy was occupied with the business of getting the horses right. From what Malcolm said, the fire had caused horrific trauma to the animals, and if it weren’t for Troy, they might have lost a few. Considering the brothers hadn’t been getting along of late, it wasn’t a complete surprise to learn Troy chose the horses over sitting vigil for Travis. His parents were here. That was enough.

  Lacy’s big blue eyes latched onto Felicity. Sitting in a chair, the girl continued to stare numbly at the wall as she had for the last few hours. She barely spoke to Travis’ parents. The couple sat two seats over, their hands locked together, yet neither party spoke a word. “How’s she holding up?” Lacy asked.

  Nick followed her gaze. “As expected, she’s pretty stressed. At least we got some good news on her mother. Turning away from Felicity, he said, “Doctor came out a little while ago with an update. The procedure was a success and they’re taking her to recovery but Travis...” Nick’s voice drifted. “He’s not so good.”

  “You said the bullet hit him in the chest?” Malcolm asked.

  “Missed his heart by four inches.”

  Lacy flung a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening in horror. “You said Jeremiah did this?”

  Nick nodded, uncertain how much of his animosity to release, considering it was Lacy who ran off with the man to Atlanta. According to Malcolm, they’d never been intimate but still... If she’d been willing to run off and live with the man in a strange city, she must have had feelings for him. “Yes, and he had two men with him.”

  “Does she know who they are?”

  “No. But we have photos. Travis took them of Jeremiah and the men downtown. They’re in his camera.”

  “Do you know where that is?” Malcolm asked.

  “No. Could be with his personal belongings here at the hospital. Could be in his truck.”

  “That was towed from the scene,” Malcolm said. “We saw it on our way over.”

  “We’ll get it,” Nick said. “As it stands, I hold Jeremiah responsible for the shooting. He pulled the trigger.”

  Malcolm nodded.

  “If the boy dies, I’m going to see that Jeremiah meets the same fate.”

  “Nick!” Lacy hissed, swiping a glance toward Felicity and the Parkers.

  “I still believe in an eye for an eye,” he said, avoiding the reproach in her gaze. “Not to mention it’s the law.” Shaking the darkness that was beginning to fill him, Nick shrugged it off. “Travis is going to be in there for a while.” And he needed to go. Nick wanted to stay with Felicity, see her through this crisis, but at the same time he felt compelled to do something. He couldn’t sit idle any longer while the people who did this roamed free. With Delaney stowed away in ICU, he needed to get productive. “I have to get back to the hotel.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Malcolm cautioned. “Jillian has an alibi. The phone belonged to Jeremiah. Let the police handle it.”

  “I don’t care about her alibi,” Nick growled under his breath. “There’s a young man lying in there fighting for his life. Delaney, too. Jeremiah might be responsible for Travis, but I know damn well Jillian had something to do with the fire.”

  “You’re forgetting about Jeremiah’s two accomplices.”

  “No.” He ground his jaw. “I’m prioritizing. I’ll see to them after I take care of the viper and the vixen.”

  Malcolm stared at him, hard. Nick understood. Malcolm would prefer he handle the situation through the proper channels, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t stand by and watch Jillian and Jeremiah walk away scot-free because the police believed their bogus alibis. They were guilty and he needed to prove it. “I can’t let it go.”

  Malcolm placed his arm around Lacy’s shoulders and nodded, reluctance pulling in his pale blue eyes. “I know. Be careful, will you?” He glanced over at Felicity, adding quietly, “I don’t want to come back here for a visit to your bedside, next.”

  “Don’t worry. You won’t.”

  Jeremiah whipped open the front door to the boys’ rental house, inflamed by the turn of events. Anger pulsed through his brain as his mind wrapped around the situation with a white-knuckled grip. They had failed. A simple straightforward kidnapping of a teenage girl and they’d botched it. Because her stupid boyfriend had bad timing. Unbelievably horrible bad timing and now Jeremiah might have to answer for a dead body. Already on the police radar for a cell phone call in connection to arson, the addition of a murder charge would send him away for life. “Damn it!” he yelled, slamming a fist against the wall as he passed into the living room. There was no way he was going back to jail. No way he was taking the fall for shooting that kid. It was self-defense. He had two witnesses. It was his word against hers.

  Swiping a bottle of whiskey from the kitchen counter, Jeremiah opened it and slugged back a long swallow, cringing against the burning sensation. Licking his lips, he took another. He should have shot the girl. He should have shot her cold. Leave no witnesses. Wasn’t that the deal? Leave no witnesses, erase all connection and m
ake a clean getaway. Smacking the bottle to the Formica, Jeremiah looked around the rat hole of a kitchen as he soaked in the gradual numbing sensation spreading through his limbs. The alcohol was working its way through him, the effect slow and gradual.

  There was no way he was going to jail. He wasn’t ever going back to jail. Taking another swig, Jeremiah stalked back into the living room. Both brothers stood in the center of the room.

  “Hey, gimme that!” the younger hollered at him. “Don’t you go drinkin’ all my liquor!”

  Jeremiah’s first instinct was to whack the guy over the head with the bottle, easing the tension riddling his body. But darting a glance to the elder, Jeremiah thought better of it. Rob didn’t need an excuse for a fight—a diversion Jeremiah didn’t need at the moment. Setting the bottle on a dining table, he needed to plan, not fight.

  Rob looked at him, sullen and brooding. “Now what?”

  “Now I’m thinking,” Jeremiah shot back.

  “Don’t take too long. The cops are gonna be out lookin’ for you.”

  “Me?”

  Rob didn’t look away but instead iced his gaze. “The girl don’t know me from Adam.” Tapping a brief gaze to his brother, he said, “We pack up and leave, we’re gone. Disappeared.”

  Fury wound deeply through Jeremiah as the significance of the statement sunk in. Son of a bitch. Rob was gonna hang him with crime? He was the one who yanked the girl from her vehicle! Jeremiah never touched her! Visions of Clem Sweeney swam in his mind, another dirtbag from his past. Jeremiah recalled he was sitting in jail for the very same crime. Fool had used two idiots to help kidnap Delaney, and look where it got him. Jeremiah glanced between the brothers. Two bumbling idiots, kinda like these two.

  Except Rob. He might not be the sharpest tool in the shed but he was meaner than a rabid possum. What he lacked in brain-power he made up for in temperament. Turning from them, he stuffed his anger away. He wasn’t going down for this one. Clem might be rotting in jail but not him. Jeremiah was a hell of a lot smarter than old Clem and planned to stay one step ahead of the law and everyone else—including these two. Rob was wrong. At the moment time was on his side. Jeremiah couldn’t be sure, but he’d made a clean shot to the chest, up close and personal. If the Parker punk wasn’t already dead, he’d be in surgery for hours—if the blood loss didn’t wipe him out first. A thought that would have brought a smile to Jeremiah’s face if he weren’t so damned mad. “We’ve got to do something.”

  “Like get out of town?” posed the younger of his cohorts.

  Jeremiah wheeled. “No, you idiot. I’m not walking away from here without making it hurt.” Someone was going to pay for his loss. The gold was gone. The safe had been fruitless. Sure, the pendants brought in twenty grand, but split three ways it amounted to nothing. Squat. “I’m talking about giving them a little token of our appreciation.”

  The brothers stared at him, not a clue between them. Jeremiah scowled. Fools. What the hell did they know—it wasn’t their property that had been stolen. It hadn’t been their father’s name on the deed. It had been his. Ernie Ladd had owned this property and he alone. As his only child, the entire tract of land should have reverted to Jeremiah when the bastard died, but it didn’t. It went to Delaney and her daughter because they conned a bitter old man into giving it to them. They played on his senility and conned him into believing they deserved it and Jeremiah didn’t. What they deserved was to suffer. Vengeance snaked through his heart. Delaney didn’t understand what it felt like to live in rot-gut conditions, to get by on the power of your cunning and wit. She’d never been abused by her parent, tossed out to the curb without a care as to how she’d provide for herself.

  No. Aunt Susannah had been the only bright spot in Jeremiah’s life. Delaney’s mom had soft smiles and kind words for him and everyone around her, while his father met him at the door with a belt and a beating. It wasn’t fair that Delaney lived in a loving home while Jeremiah had to endure a hell-hole.

  Resentment cut him raw. Jeremiah despised his father. Ernie Ladd was nothing more than an animal, a sorry excuse for a human being, his brother Albert no better. As he honed in on the brothers, something shifted in his gut. Ladd Springs belonged to him. Jeremiah deserved the property as payback for all those years he’d had to endure living under the same roof as his old man. Delaney might think she had taken it from him, tied her life up into a nice pretty package with a big fancy bow, a new husband, new hotel and probably a brand new home, same as Annie. Wicked pleasure licked at him as he imagined Delaney’s world going up in flames around her. “I know what we’re going to do. We’re going to burn the place to the ground.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” he said coolly, the idea gaining steam. “We’re going to burn the whole damned place to the ground.”

  “I ain’t going to jail for your vendetta,” Rob told him. “I want my money, plain and simple.”

  “The money? There is no money!” What part of an empty mine site did he not understand?

  “Maybe not here, but that ain’t my problem. It’s yours.”

  Staring into the cold eyes of a stony-faced criminal, a man he’d known all his life, Jeremiah wanted to spit. Rob understood what was at stake. He’d been where Jeremiah had been. They’d endured the worst and survived. These people didn’t deserve to be rich and happy. They didn’t earn it. They didn’t suffer for it. Not a bit. “Scared?” Jeremiah taunted.

  “I ain't interested in burning no hotel down!” the younger brother cried out.

  Rob flicked a glance to him. The effect was silence. Then to Jeremiah, he said, “I ain’t in no mood for games.”

  “Who’s playing games?” Jeremiah questioned. “And why the pussy foot around? You know they deserve it.”

  Returning a humorless gaze, Rob approached, kicking Jeremiah’s pulse into overdrive. Sticking a grimy finger in his face, he said, “I done told you I’m here for my money, nothin’ more and nothin’ less. I told you so from the get-go.”

  “You know I don’t have it,” Jeremiah said, trying to calm the battering in his chest.

  “Get it.” Grabbing the bottle of whiskey from the table, Rob tossed back a swallow. Glistening lips spewed a sour breath into Jeremiah’s face. “No games, no fire, just money.”

  Jeremiah fumed inwardly. And let them walk away scot-free while he was picked up for murder and arson? Not a chance in hell. “Fine. I’ll get your money. But I’m leaving a mark, just the same.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  After a quick bite of lunch in the hotel café, Annie, Emily, and Cal gathered in the hotel lobby with Casey and her infant child snug within her arms while she spoke to Troy on her cell phone. The way Casey handled the baby, Cassidy Jo seemed more an appendage than a separate entity. But that was Casey’s style of parenting. Where she went, Cassidy Jo went.

  Casey ended her call and slipped the cell phone into a back pocket of her jeans. “Troy said we could go up and take some of the hotel horses,” Casey said. “He thinks it would do them good to get out of the barn and out into the forest.”

  Cal was glad to hear it. He was anxious to get back to normal operation but wasn’t about to push. Troy knew the horses. If the okay came from him, he was good with it. “Now that’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

  “Are you sure you can’t come, Daddy?”

  Staring down into the eager eyes of his daughter, every fiber of Cal’s being wanted to join them. He wanted nothing more than to ride through the hills, sharing tales of the land and forest with her, but with Malcolm still at the hospital with Nick and Felicity, he was on manager’s duty. With the investigation in full swing, they wanted to remain available to the police department should they require any assistance. His ride with his daughter would have to wait for another day. “I’m sure. But I plan to be free by supper time, so will you save me a seat?”

  She smiled. “Of course.”

  “We’re going to Fran’s,” Annie told hi
m.

  “Good idea. I’ve been hankering for a plate of fried cabbage and Fran makes some of the best.”

  Emily scrunched her nose. “That doesn’t even sound good.”

  “I realize some of our dishes take a bit of getting used to...”

  “Like those boiled peanuts?” Emily didn’t miss a beat. “Those things are awful.”

  Cal gave her a teasing glare. “Now don’t go disparagin’ my favorite snack food, young lady. I’ll have you know that’s the greatest food on the planet. Healthy too.”

  “They are?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Packed with protein and full of antioxidants!”

  Nick Harris walked in the front door, his presence sucking in Cal’s complete attention. Annie and Casey turned. The determination in Nick’s step as he walked over shouted the man meant business. Had he heard something?

  “Cal.”

  “Nick.”

  “Hello, Annie. Casey.”

  “Hello,” they replied in unison.

  “So you must be Emily Foster,” Nick said, his tone easy and relaxed with a smile to match.

  Which couldn’t be easy for him, Cal mused. Nick was under an inordinate amount of stress at the moment, and Cal appreciated the gesture. “That she is,” he said, then introduced, “Emily, this is Nick Harris. He’s the owner of Hotel Ladd.”

  “Really? Wow, it’s so beautiful…”

  “Thank you. I hope the fire hasn’t ruined your ability to enjoy yourself.” He glanced at Cal and said, “It’s normally a very tranquil place.”

  Shadows entered her gaze. “No. I’m only sorry it happened to you and the horses.”

  “Me, too. But we’ve got the best hands working the situation and they’ll be back to normal in no time.”

  “We’re going to see Troy and the horses,” Annie said, ushering forth a small smile. “See if any would like to get out of the barn for a while.”