But he hadn’t kept her at arm’s length. He’d let her creep in. The moment he’d had her in his arms, he’d known, with grim, fierce certainty, that somehow this had gotten much more complicated than a simple urge to rescue and protect. Because what he’d felt when he’d held her was much more than an urge—it was a compulsion he’d never felt before in his life.
Now here he was, looking at bloodstains she said weren’t hers, wondering who they were from, what she had left behind, and dreading the moment he saw heading straight for him when he was going to have to arrest her. He would—
He heard the barking at the same moment he heard the car. Startled, he pulled back out of his unit and straightened up in time to see a familiar SUV, a dark one with a heavy-duty winch on the front, pulling over behind them.
Oddly, the first one there was the dog, who had quieted the moment the Foxworths had pulled off the road. The animal was out of the vehicle—what, did they let him out before they even stopped?—and racing over to them before Quinn, who was behind the wheel, even turned the engine off.
Cutter brushed a nose across Brady’s hand as if in acknowledgment, but he clearly had a different goal in mind. The dog jumped up onto the front floor of the unit, and Brady, remembering how the animal had comforted her before, instinctively moved to give him room in the small space.
Ashley looked bewildered, but when Cutter nudged her hand, she laid it on his head. And as if it were a visible thing, Brady saw some of the dead look leave her eyes.
Damn dog’s a miracle worker.
He nearly grimaced at his own thought. And then Quinn and Hayley were there.
“Let me,” Hayley whispered to him.
“Let her,” Quinn recommended, just as quietly. “She’s got the knack.”
Brady went with his gut—and perhaps a bit of his inner reluctance to see any more of Ashley’s pain up close—and backed away a couple of steps to stand beside Quinn.
“What are you doing here?” he asked the man.
“Cutter brought us.”
Brady blinked. “What?”
“I told you he was…unique.” He explained how the dog had erupted into fierce barking and refused to stop until they got into the car, and then “guided” them by more barking whenever they weren’t going the right direction.
“So…he’s quiet as long as you’re going where he wants, but if you miss a turn…”
“Chaos.”
Brady looked over to where Cutter and Hayley were gathered around Ashley, who looked, amazingly, much calmer. Then he looked back at Quinn. “You’re not saying he…knew, are you? That she was here, about to—”
He cut himself off, unable to form the words even in his mind.
“Was she? That bad?”
“I think so. But there’s more to this, and it’s not good.”
The moment the words were out, he wished he hadn’t said them. He didn’t really know this guy, only knew of him secondhand, and no matter how upstanding he seemed he shouldn’t be sharing details of what was obviously going to have to be an official investigation with him. The bloodstains weren’t extensive, more smears than anything, so he was hoping there wasn’t a body lying somewhere, as yet undiscovered.
The blunt realization drop-kicked him back to reality. “I need to make some calls.”
“I know you don’t know me,” Quinn said, so eerily echoing his thoughts Brady stared at him, “but I guarantee you Foxworth won’t get in the way of your duty.”
“What, exactly, are you saying?”
“That she—” he glanced at Ashley “—needs help. That there’s more to this than meets the eye. That Foxworth specializes in righting wrongs.”
“Look, Mr. Foxworth—”
“Quinn, please.”
“All right, Quinn, I know a bit of your reputation, and I know Alex would swear you’re golden, but this is different.”
“And you’re a straight-arrow cop. I get that.” Quinn kept his gaze on him, although Brady suspected he was very aware his wife had left Ashley and was headed toward them. The dog stayed put.
“I’d love to chat about ethics and duty,” Brady said dryly, “but there’s some urgency involved here.”
“If you mean the blood,” Hayley said as she got to them, “it’s not hers.”
He somehow wasn’t surprised at her quickness. It would take a smart, steady woman to keep up with the likes of Quinn Foxworth. “So she told me. That just means there’s somebody bleeding somewhere else.”
“Her mother.”
Brady drew back, rather sharply. “What?”
Hayley glanced at her husband, who nodded, then back to Brady. “It’s her mother’s blood.”
Brady swore, low and harsh.
CHAPTER 12
Ashley was pondering how odd it was, with everything that had happened tonight, that a dog—well, this dog—could still make her feel better. Although Mrs. Foxworth—or Hayley, as she suggested she call her—was really good at comforting. There was something innately calming about her, not as if she didn’t ever get excited or upset, but as if she’d been through enough that she knew when it was warranted and, more importantly, when it was not.
As she thought it, the woman came back.
“The place we’re staying at isn’t far,” Hayley said. “We’d like to go back there, get you out of the cold and maybe get something warm to drink for all of us? Then we’ll figure out what to do.”
Some part of her brain that was hyperaware of what had almost happened, what she’d almost done, laughed rather sourly at how good that sounded. You were about to put a final end to this, in a very cold and painful way, and now you’re wishing for warmth and comfort?
“Brady will follow us,” Hayley said.
Brady. The B in B. Crenshaw stood for Brady. How had she not known that until now?
You almost went to your death not knowing it.
And in this moment, that seemed the greatest shame of all of this.
The Foxworth dog unexpectedly insisted on staying with her. She had the crazy thought that at least that would keep… Deputy Crenshaw from carting her off to jail. She wasn’t sure why he hadn’t already, anyway.
She stole a glance at him as he got into the driver’s seat. Funny how every time she saw him she was struck anew by how…amazing he was. Not just his height and obvious strength, or his breath-stealing looks, but that steady, solid core of him that fairly radiated. It was as if each time she saw him, it was new, as if her tortured mind refused to accept he was real and so was surprised all over again when confronted with the proof that he was.
He didn’t say anything until they were rolling again. Then it was in a low, rough-edged voice that made her think he was fighting to keep it level.
“It’s your mother’s blood?” She nodded, clenching her teeth to keep from letting out a moan of pain, pain that wasn’t in the least physical. “What happened?”
“I don’t…know. Exactly.”
“Ashley—”
“I know, I know how crazy that sounds, but what I remember…makes no sense.”
“Is she dead?”
Ashley gasped, and her chest spasmed into a tightness that made it almost impossible to breathe. She had just enough air to get out a strangled “No!”
“Well, that’s a start,” he muttered.
“I didn’t. I would never.”
“You’d never what? Kill her? Or kill anyone?”
“Unless my life depended on it.”
“But you were ready to jump. To end that life.”
“I’m nothing if not a paradox, it seems,” she said, trying not to sound bitter but not succeeding very well.
He didn’t say anything more. The dog at her feet nudged at her, and she petted him again. And again it was oddly, strangely soothing. That or the warmth blowing out f
rom the vehicle’s heater was thawing her out to where she felt normal again. At least, as close to normal as she ever got these days.
When she saw the Foxworths slow, then turn, she looked around. They were pulling into a long driveway that wound through some trees, toward a lovely, lodge-style home that looked back the way they had come, down the moonlit mountain.
“Nice,” she said.
“Yeah.”
He stopped behind the Foxworths, who had pulled into a large garage that also held an ATV and a skimobile. For some reason Quinn Foxworth gestured Brady to also pull into the garage. After a moment’s hesitation he did, and she suddenly understood this would hide his marked sheriff’s vehicle from any casual passerby.
He turned off the motor and turned in his seat to look at her. “Are you going to run?”
The thought of taking off again into the cold night made her shiver, even though she was warm now. “No. Are you going to arrest me?”
“I’m not doing anything until I know what happened.”
She suppressed another shiver that she knew had nothing to do with the chill outside. He was going to question her, that was obvious. Only to be expected. It was his job, after all. And after he’d now saved her life a second time, she owed him answers, didn’t she?
She’d be more certain of that if she had any answers to give him—answers that would make sense, anyway.
And if she was certain her life was worth saving.
* * *
Brady hung up the phone and for a moment just stood there, staring at nothing in particular, his consciousness turned inward. He’d made the call at Quinn’s request, after doing a news search on a sheriff’s detective from their home county, Brett Dunbar. The name had rung a faint bell, and the instant the first entry popped up, an in-depth article on the toppling of their corrupt governor nearly a year ago now, it fell into place. Dunbar was the man who’d done it, who had unearthed the truth along with a dead body. Brady had read this exact article when it had come out, and he remembered mentally congratulating the man and noting his stellar record.
And wondering whom the civilian assistance he’d mentioned but not named was.
Now he knew. That assistance had been Foxworth. Quinn and his organization had helped take down one of the scum of the earth, a crooked, corrupt and murderous politician.
“I trust them more than I do some cops,” Dunbar had told him in the call he’d just ended.
“I got the vibe.”
“It’s for real. I’ve never regretted trusting them, with whatever it takes. They’re the best help you could have. They want the results, not glory. Helps if you don’t ask every question that comes to you about how they get the job done, though.”
“As in nonofficial channels?”
“That are deep and wide and will get you where you need to go a lot faster. You got Cutter?”
Brady had blinked. “I… He’s here, yes.”
He could almost hear the smile in the man’s voice. “Hardest—and smartest—thing I did was learn to trust that dog. He doesn’t just know what he’s doing, he knows things he has no way of knowing.”
“So they’ve said.”
“Believe it. Your life will be a lot easier if you just quit fighting it.”
And so, as he put the phone back down, it was the dog he looked at. The dog who was once more sitting at Ashley’s feet but looking at him. Steadily. Insistently.
Fix it.
Yeah, he could see it in those amber-flecked dark eyes, even if it did make no sense at all. But that was crazy—he was still a dog.
“I know it’s a cliché about a dog being able to judge, but he knows people. We’ve learned we can trust him,” Quinn said quietly, as if reading his wavering. “And we trust that he’s not wrong about Ashley.”
He turned to look at the man. Quinn held his gaze steadily, without flinching.
Quinn’s the guy you want at your back. He was that in the Rangers, and he’s that now. I would trust him with my life. And have.
Dunbar’s heartfelt words came back to him. There was no doubting he’d meant them. Between that and his neighbor’s oft-repeated declaration that the Foxworths had his undying gratitude, Brady made his decision.
“I need to interview her,” he said, looking across the room to where the woman and the dog sat.
“Of course. Suggestion?”
“What?”
“Let Hayley stay with her. You’ll get more.”
Brady glanced at the woman beside Ashley, then turned back and studied the man for a moment. “How’d you find her?”
He hadn’t meant to say that, but they were so perfect together, not just personally but clearly professionally as well, that he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
Quinn gave him a rather devilish grin. “I kidnapped her. And her dog.”
Brady blinked. Glanced at the woman and the dog, then back to Quinn. “A tiny bit of elaboration would be helpful.”
The grin widened. “No choice. Classified operation she stumbled onto.”
Foxworth, it seemed, was even more than he’d suspected.
He walked over to where Ashley was sitting beside Quinn’s wife. He noticed a couple of pillows that looked as if they belonged on the sofa were tossed on the floor as if they’d been in the way, and next to them lay a sweater and a sock tangled together. He guessed what the Foxworths had been up to when Cutter had demanded they follow him. And wondered what it must be like to still be so crazy for each other after a year that you couldn’t make it to the bedroom.
Alarm bells clamored in his brain. Sex on a couch should not be on his mind right now, especially with this woman here on said couch.
He sat on the sturdy, lodge pole–style coffee table across from Ashley. “I’m listening,” he said, keeping his voice low.
She gave him a glance that held as much fear as anything else, and he didn’t like it.
“Why don’t you start with this morning?” Hayley suggested quietly. “When did you get up?”
Ashley looked at the other woman, seemingly surprised by the simple question. But she answered it easily. “Kind of late. I…didn’t sleep well,” she said, with a glance at Brady he couldn’t quite interpret.
“What did you have for breakfast?”
Again she looked surprised. Brady saw what Hayley was doing, both lulling her with the ease of the questions and getting her into the rhythm of answering them. Together with her unthreatening demeanor, he could see it was effective. Just as Quinn had said. Even the dog seemed now content to turn it over to her. Cutter rose and walked over to a bed they’d obviously brought for him, given Alex didn’t have a dog, and plopped down with seeming contentment. Although he kept that rather unnerving gaze steadily on Hayley and Ashley as his chin rested on his forepaws.
“Breakfast? I…a muffin.” She glanced at Brady. As if she were remembering that day at the bakery. Or as if she’d had the muffin because she remembered it. That unsettled him somehow.
Hayley led her through what seemed like a routine, if quiet, day. Brady let her, although he had to rein in impatience for the good of the final goal, which was finding out what the hell had happened with her mother.
Ashley answered a couple more ordinary questions, then Hayley, with a glance at Brady, asked quietly, “Where was your mother today?”
“Oh!” Ashley sounded startled. “I should at least text my mom. She’s probably panicked by now.”
Brady frowned as something occurred to him. He knew from being on the other end how easy it was to track people via their cell phones these days. In fact, he’d be surprised if, under the circumstances, her mother hadn’t made that easily possible.
“Let me see your phone,” he said.
She’d told them the phone, and the house key, had been in her pocket by force of habit when she’d gone on what s
he’d intended to be that one-way walk. Looking puzzled, she pulled it out and handed it to him. He swiped to the apps display and scanned until he found a version of what he’d been looking for.
“It’s there?” Quinn asked. Brady looked up and met the man’s steady gaze, saw that he knew exactly what he’d been looking for. He nodded.
“And active,” he said.
“What?” Ashley asked.
“A tracking app,” he said.
Her brow furrowed. “A what?”
“To track your phone’s location. Like parents use to keep track of kids.”
“But I never…” Her voice trailed away. Then, in a much smaller voice, she said, “My mother.”
“Probably.” Brady glanced at Quinn again. “Off?”
“For now, I think. Until we have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”
Brady nodded, powered down the phone, then pulled out the SIM card. And Hayley repeated her question about Ashley’s mother. He sensed her increase in tension, but she answered easily enough. “She went to a charity dinner event. A fundraiser for the Civic Improvement Fund.”
Hayley continued with a few more ordinary questions about the fundraiser. In the exact moment when he practically bit his tongue to keep from taking over this interview—she was getting answers, after all, and rational, calm ones—Hayley gave him another look and a slight nod, as much as saying, “Over to you.” And in that moment, he envied Quinn Foxworth tremendously.
“When did she get home?” he asked, making certain to keep his voice gentle, nonthreatening, as Hayley’s had been.
Ashley was looking at him now, and in those green eyes, a touch of pleading had joined the fear. He didn’t like that, either. “About eight thirty. I know because I’d just watched…some old video and was surprised at how late it had gotten.”
“Old video?” He wasn’t even sure why he asked, it surely didn’t matter.
“Of…my father.”
There was such heartbreak in her voice, in her eyes, that his stomach knotted up again. He’d long ago had to accept that some sad stories hit him harder than others, but he had no explanation of why hers had nailed him to the wall. Or why her visible steeling herself to go on tugged at him so.
Harlequin Romantic Suspense December 2020 Box Set Page 56
