by Barb Han
Except her car, purse, and cell phone.
With her laptop, her cell phone would be easy enough to track. If she were lucky, she’d hit the jackpot of locating all three.
“Morning,” Lawler said.
“Same to you.” Prudence didn’t like the look on his face. “Would you like to sit down? I can fix a cup of coffee.”
“No, thanks.” He held a shaky hand up. “I’ve had four cups already. Any more and I’m afraid I’ll cause an earthquake.”
She smiled.
“I’ll take you up on the offer to sit, though.” He walked over to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair. “Adam just filled me in about the medication interaction.”
“It’s such a relief to know and be able to stop the blackouts,” she admitted, taking a seat in front of her laptop. Was that also the reason for her new bravado? It was a bravado she planned to hang onto.
“I can imagine so,” Lawler said as Adam joined them.
She looked around. “Nothing seems to be missing. Except, of course, my cell, purse, and car. I’m guessing I had those with me. So, I doubt they had anything to do with the burglary.”
Lawler shook his head and gave an ominous look that caught Prudence’s full attention. She compressed her lips together and didn’t hide a frown.
“I don’t think this is a coincidence,” he started.
“Why not?” She had her own obvious reasons for questioning the timing too. She wanted to hear him out first.
“Burglars usually go the easy route. They’re in and out, stealing you blind before you know it,” he said and then paused. “I suspect this perp and his cohorts were waiting for you to come home.”
“Could he be someone I know?” Didn’t that make the hairs on the back of her neck prickle? Thinking someone familiar to her would break inside her home and wait for her return sent an icy chill down her back.
“I’m not ruling out the possibility. This person might know you from a distance, on social media, or through a work acquaintance,” he said.
“He came for her, right?” She motioned toward Angel.
“That’s my hunch,” he said. The thought made her skin crawl.
“So, they figured out where I live,” she whispered, stating mere fact. “Does that mean they’ll come back?”
“It’s possible.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Probable.”
“My aunt and uncle sold their place a couple of years ago to be close to her sister in Houston, so that’s not an option. I can stay in a motel or something until this is cleared up.” This was nothing like the crime against her parents, and yet that same dark-cloud feeling engulfed her.
“You can stay with me at the ranch. Hell, the main house is empty. You could have it to yourself,” Adam interjected.
“That might be a good idea,” Lawler said.
Letting someone cause her to run away from her own home burned her from the inside out. She wouldn’t be stupid, though. She’d grit her teeth and take the safest action. “Okay.”
Lawler nodded, like he understood the sacrifice she would be making before turning his attention toward Adam. “There’s more.”
Adam picked up a pencil sitting on the table and rolled it around his fingers. “She needs a security system and—”
“It’s about your ex.” Lawler shot an apologetic look toward Prudence like he’d picked up on the attraction running between them. She had no designs on Adam. He was helping her through a rough patch. That was all. They’d kissed a couple of times. Their emotions were most likely heightened since she’d been in danger. An annoying voice in the back of her mind called her out on the oversimplification. Her heart disagreed with the assessment despite logic trying to intervene and convince her their chemistry was circumstantial.
“What about her?” Adam let go of the pencil. It tumbled onto the table and rolled before coming to a stop against the saltshaker.
“I checked on her to see where she was and how she was doing,” Lawler said.
The implication sitting in the room was that he didn’t trust Adam’s story. He reached for the pencil, this time keeping a firm grip on it. Adam’s gaze narrowed and his lips thinned. Was he over her?
“I apologize for being the one to have to tell you this,” Lawler hedged. Hemming and hawing only served to increase Adam’s tension. She could see it in the taut muscles of his face.
“Spit it out. I’m a grown man and we broke up almost a year ago,” Adam said. It occurred to her that he was expecting to hear engagement or marriage news. He tensed like a prizefighter preparing to take a punch.
“Her parents identified her body.” Lawler stopped there as though taking a lighter approach might somehow soften the blow.
The pencil cracked under Adam’s grip.
“How did it happen? When?” A mix of anger and shock laced his tone. There was another emotion present too. Disbelief?
“According to the coroner’s report, she was strangled sometime between four and six days ago,” Lawler said. He lowered his head before adding, “I’m sorry for the loss.”
Murder?
A gasp escaped before Prudence had a chance to bring her hand up to cover. Half a dozen questions sprang to mind. Was Libby in an abusive relationship? For how long? Had she been forced to refuse Adam’s proposal in some way?
Prudence reached across the table to touch Adam in a show of support. He immediately withdrew. The broken pencil slammed into the table as he smacked his hand down.
Angel started fussing as realization rammed Prudence like a head-on collision. One question floated to the surface…was Adam a father?
This news changed everything for Adam.
“Does Angel belong to her?” he asked.
“Yes,” Lawler said.
Adam knew what the sheriff’s next question would be. “I still don’t believe I’m the father.”
“I know,” Lawler said. “And we don’t have to take a sample or do any tests. The most important one is seeing if we can tie the little girl to Elizabeth.”
“Libby,” Adam corrected.
“She went by Libby. Her full name is…” Lawler flashed eyes at Adam, “was Elizabeth Sue Warrington.”
“Warrington? Isn’t that a prominent Houston family?” he asked.
“Yes,” Lawler responded.
“She told me her last name was Daniels.” He was certain he’d seen identification as such. “I was never told that,” he conceded, wondering what else she’d hidden.
“There are signs when someone’s had a baby,” Prudence chimed in.
“Obviously,” Lawler agreed. “It’s the reason I’d like to run the test.”
Prudence compressed her lips in a frown. She looked at the baby with the most tender expression.
Despite the breakup, hearing Libby was dead hit him in a dark place. She was too young, too vibrant. Looking back, she might not have been right for him and she seemed to have sense enough to know it, but he didn’t wish this on her. Losing his grandfather was difficult, but the Marshall had lived a full life. Libby’s had barely even begun. The unfairness of it fisted his hands. No life should be cut short from senseless violence, especially not someone with her whole life ahead of her.
Angel wiggled in his lap and he could have sworn the little girl could sense his mood shift. She’d gone from happy and contented to fussy and agitated in a matter of seconds.
“I can feed her,” Prudence offered.
Adam nodded.
She took a turn fixing the bottle and he handed over the baby, still reeling from the news. And what if Libby was Angel’s mother? What then? What would happen to the little girl?
“She was secretive about her family,” he said to Lawler after reclaiming his seat. “Told me they didn’t get along and she rarely spoke to them. Was that true?”
“I have a deputy over there speaking to them right now. You know I can’t comment on an ongoing murder investigation,” Lawler said.
“I’m just trying to
figure out how much of our relationship was a lie.” To think he’d planned to spend the rest of his life with someone who’d kept her identity from him. It seemed like something out of a TV show, not real life. Not his life. How did Libby get one over on him for almost a year of dating?
Job hazard, he thought. He worked long hours on the ranch. Animals needed care seven days a week. He’d been covering for Casey during his wife’s pregnancy, so they could spend more time together. And then there was his aversion to all things social media. The only reason he ever turned on a screen was to watch an occasional game. It was easy to have as background noise when he was at his home. He wasn’t much on surfing the internet and Libby had almost always come to him after the initial few months of dating. There’d been a dinner out when he’d almost gone face-down at the table during calving season.
Looking back, he realized it took a special person to want to be a rancher’s wife. She would have to be real comfortable being alone for long periods of time, and happy to stay in rather than go out much of the time. Libby had come to him, but he’d sensed she was getting bored with staying in.
Considering he didn’t know her real last name, he couldn’t take much of their relationship on face value. Was she spending time with him to hide out from an ex? Was she seeing someone else during their relationship? What about her folks? Did they know about him as she’d said? Or had she kept him a secret from them too?
Adam stood up and paced around the room as anger surfaced. “What do you need for a DNA test?”
He didn’t believe he was Angel’s father. However, he needed to put the question to rest.
“Swab of the inside of your cheek,” Lawler said. “And hers.”
“Simple enough.” Adam made another lap. Now, he needed to know who had targeted Prudence. Was it the same person who’d killed Libby? The coincidence would be…
Right. The only connection was him. Libby lived in Austin where they’d met on a weekend when he’d gone to hear his favorite low-key country band play, Bottoms Up Red, featuring a local girl done good, Raleigh Perry.
Libby had caught his eye. She was a beautiful woman with her long blonde hair and green eyes. She’d put on more makeup than he thought she needed, the complete opposite of Prudence who barely wore any.
The pink gloss on her lips called attention to her creamy skin. But he was supposed to be thinking about Libby. She had always been dressed to the nines. Hair done up and always wearing heels. She’d been a little too slick for him in the beginning with her bronzed skin and California beach body. In fact, he’d nicknamed her California in the early days. It had taken a month for her to finally pluck up the courage to ask him not to call her by that name.
Strange thinking about it now, considering she’d lied about the very thing she was upset about. He didn’t know her last name.
“She had a fake ID with a different last name on it,” Adam told Lawler.
The lawman perked up at the news.
“Oh yeah?” he asked.
“Daniels. Her ID said Libby Daniels,” Adam supplied. He couldn’t help but think about Prudence’s raw honesty. Her simple beauty had drawn him in. She didn’t feel the need to cover up her true self. He’d liked that about her instantly. He also never would have described a pair of sweatpants as sexy before, except that was what he thought when she had them on.
Still, he had no plans to act on his attraction to Prudence. The couple of white-hot kisses they’d shared were the end of it. Period. Whatever was going on between them needed to be cut off right then and there before someone got hurt.
His job required all of his attention. His grandfather had just passed away. His time was already committed to the family and the ranch.
Speaking of being so tired he could barely remember his name, it dawned on him that Libby had stopped by after the breakup. Once. They’d had breakup sex. He’d insisted on using a condom, like always, but the possibility Angel was his child could no longer be denied.
10
Prudence put two-and-two together, realizing what Adam seemed to be in denial about. He and his ex broke off their relationship less than a year ago. There were fifty-two weeks in a year. It took forty to have a baby. His fatherhood depended on the timeline of their breakup.
Her heart went out to the little girl who would never know her mother. The writing was on the wall about Libby. She had possibly even scribbled the note for someone to get her baby to Adam moments before dying.
How awful was that?
Other inevitable questions followed. Was she trying to get her baby to a man who she knew would protect her? Or was she simply trying to unite a baby with her father?
As Prudence gazed at the sweet little girl who seemed so content taking down her bottle, her heart literally bled at her loss. At least she’d had nine years with her family. It might not be much, but she had a couple of memories she clung to and a box of family photos in the attic she didn’t have the heart to bring down.
Prudence’s mind reeled. She knew what it was like to grow up without a mother. She’d been so young when she lost hers that she barely remembered her. Her aunt and uncle rarely spoke about Prudence’s parents. Now, she realized it had probably been hard on them too. They were good people and it had been such a tragedy. Prudence had developed a stutter, that had taken years to overcome, and it had been part of the reason she’d kept to herself during her school years.
Her aunt had had a cat named Percy. Percy was a fancy Himalayan with more white fur than Prudence had ever seen. The cat would sit at the foot of Prudence’s bed while she read out loud, her aunt’s idea. It had been a stroke of brilliance too. Reading to Percy didn’t make Prudence feel self-conscious when the words wouldn’t come out right. She’d developed two loves during those years, animals and reading.
Even now, Prudence preferred a quiet night at home or with other people’s pets to going out to some splashy restaurant or loud bar. She’d always been a solitary person, long before the tragedy.
There’d always been enough in Lone Star Pass to keep her active and busy. The move to Austin had been harder on her. First of all, living downtown was like being locked inside one of those ant farms. Everyone seemed to be crawling on top of each other, trying to climb somewhere…anywhere else. A memory that stuck out was being on Lake Travis over Memorial Day weekend. Her parents had rented two double kayaks but the wake from passing boats made it next to impossible to go anywhere. Ten minutes into the hour rental, they’d returned to shore.
She glanced down at Angel. Right then and there she promised to be there for the little girl much in the way her own aunt and uncle had been there for her. Without them, Prudence had no idea how she would have turned out.
But then, being a Firebrand would give Angel all the family she could handle. Prudence couldn’t help but muse there was a lot of testosterone over there on the family’s ranch. She knew of Adam’s mother even though she didn’t know the woman personally. Was he close to his parents? Based on what he’d said so far, she didn’t think so.
There was so much the two of them didn’t know about each other. And yet, she could have sworn she saw her entire life flash before her eyes when they’d first met. A life together. A future.
How wild was that?
She chalked it up to residual effects of the medication. Real love developed over time, between two people who knew each other. Yet what she felt with Adam was stronger than anything she’d experienced. An attraction like a planet pulling the sun toward it. And, yes, she’d thought about how amazing he must be in bed considering how well he knew how to work his tongue. But that was physical. This was so much more than that.
There was no way she could ignore how much she was drawn to the man.
Bottle finished, Prudence burped the baby before excusing herself to change her diaper in the living room. At this rate, they would run out of diapers soon. At least the feeding would buy them a few more hours to figure out their next move. She looked around, thinking how
much she hated that jerk who’d broken into her house, for violating her safe haven. Most folks in town left their doors unlocked. She’d always been careful. Seeing how easy it was to violate her home caused a streak of anger a mile wide to course through her.
No one got to take her sense of security away from her again. No one, she repeated to herself for emphasis.
Looking at Angel, she couldn’t help but think she’d go to the ends of the earth to ensure the baby never experienced that kind of fear. Prudence caught herself. She was being overprotective over a child that wasn’t even hers.
When had this little girl wiggled her way into Prudence’s heart?
From Adam’s vantage point in the kitchen, he kept one eye on Prudence and Angel as he waited for Lawler to return with a DNA test kit. He sat there, tapping his fingers on the table, an uneasy feeling gripping him.
It was impossible to imagine Libby dead. His hands fisted, anger surged, and he scanned the room in search of an easy outlet. Their relationship might not have worked out, but damn. He didn’t wish death on his worst enemy. He searched his brain for the timing of their breakup sex. The time period was a still fuzzy considering it had been during calving season but had to be at least a few weeks after she walked away. They’d been together roughly eight weeks shy of a year.
Again, he smacked the flat of his palm on the tabletop.
The back door opened, and Lawler walked in. There were two kits in hand. He sidestepped a patch of broken glass on his way over. Adam figured he could clean up the shards once Lawler joined Prudence and Angel in the living room to collect her sample.
It didn’t take two minutes for the sheriff to take Adam’s DNA.
Adam glanced in the next room and his chest squeezed at watching Prudence play with the baby. Angel was on top of her blanket on the floor, her arms and legs kicking and punching. The sounds of her cooing nearly did him in.
So, the kid was cute. Didn’t mean she belonged to him.
