Chapter Eight
Theo was still cursing under his breath after they got in the cruiser, and even though Ivy hadn’t timed it, it’d been well over an hour since his intense phone conversation with Matt Krueger.
During that time, Wesley had accused Theo of attempted murder.
And that’s why Theo had immediately started making plans to go to the sheriff’s office in Blue River. He did that by arranging for Jameson to come out and stay with Nathan while the deputy, Cameron Doran, drove with Theo as backup into town. Theo and Cameron had been friends since childhood, and Theo trusted him. But Ivy made sure she was in on those plans, too, even though Theo had insisted it wasn’t the right thing to do.
Heck, she wasn’t sure it was the right thing, either, but she did want to be there when Gabriel interrogated Wesley. And Lacey, as well. Gabriel had had to reschedule her interview so that her lawyer would be there with her.
“If Wesley’s the one behind this,” Theo said to her, “then you’re not the target. That means there’s no reason for you to be there.”
Theo had already voiced several variations of that argument to get her to stay at the safe house, and it might be true. The investigation had certainly taken a strange turn, what with Wesley’s accusations. Too bad that it might take them a long time to sort it out.
Time they didn’t have.
Nathan was okay for now at the safe house with Jodi and Jameson, but Ivy hated the thought of him being shut away. Hated more that her little boy was in danger. Maybe they would get some answers, and soon, and put an end to that.
Theo continued to mumble profanity while he read a text. He did that while volleying glances all around them. So did Cameron while he drove them toward town. Thankfully, it was a rural road with no other traffic, so it should be easy to spot someone trying to follow them. Unfortunately, there were plenty of old ranch trails and even some thick woods between the safe house and Blue River. That’s the reason Theo had wanted Cameron to make this drive with him.
“SAPD can’t find a money trail for McKenzie and either of the dead gunmen,” Theo relayed to her once he’d finished reading the text.
It was frustrating but something she’d expected. None of their known suspects would have left that kind of evidence behind.
“What about the phone call McKenzie made to Lacey?” she asked.
Theo shook his head. “SAPD can’t even be sure McKenzie made that call. There were no prints on the phone. It’d been wiped clean.”
Ivy huffed. “That means someone could have killed McKenzie and then used his phone to set up Lacey.”
“Yep. And Lacey could have done it that way to throw suspicion off herself. That way, if her name did show up on any of McKenzie’s other outgoing calls, then she could say she was being framed.”
“And she might be,” Ivy admitted. “If someone wants us dead, Lacey would be the perfect patsy since she has motive. Well, motive to go after Nathan and me, anyway. But the person behind this could plan to make it look as if the real target was caught in the middle.” She paused. “Of course, we don’t know who the ‘real target’ is.”
Theo made a sound of agreement. “About how much money does Lacey think she lost out on with the inheritance?” he asked.
“Four million,” she answered after a pause.
That got the reaction she expected. Shock. Yes, she’d married a rich, older man. Practically a cliché. But what was missing from that cliché was that Chad had loved her and had taken very good care of Nathan and her.
“Four million is a lot of motive for murder,” Theo pointed out. “You said something about your late husband wanting Lacey to learn to be more responsible. I take it they clashed?”
“A lot. Lacey hated me right from the start and thought I was trying to replace her mother. She died of cancer when Lacey was just a little girl. I think she would have resented any woman her dad married, but it didn’t help that she and I are so close in age. She probably would have called me a gold digger, but I had my own money.”
Not as much as Chad, but it was close.
“Anyway, Chad divided his estate between Nathan and me,” Ivy added. “He left Lacey only a small amount that’ll remain in a trust until she’s forty.”
Theo shifted his position a little until their gazes connected. “Chad loved Nathan.”
“He did, in his own way. More like an uncle’s love than a father’s.” Chad had loved her, too, but Ivy figured she didn’t need to spell that out. She especially didn’t need to spell out that she’d never loved the man who had made her his wife.
“Good,” he said under his breath just as his phone dinged again with another text message. The texts had been coming in at a steady rate since the earlier call from the DEA agent.
“Wesley brought my boss in on this,” Theo read. “He’s also demanding that Gabriel take me into custody.”
She was betting her brother wasn’t going to do that. Well, unless Wesley came up with some kind of evidence that would force Gabriel’s hand.
Theo groaned softly. “I didn’t do what Wesley said I did.”
“I know,” Ivy readily agreed. Theo turned toward her, fast, as if he hadn’t expected her to dismiss the charges so easily. “You’re not the sort to break the law,” she added. “Well, not since you were sixteen.”
The corner of his mouth lifted into a smile. One that lasted only a couple of seconds. But it was nice to see it even for that short time. It brought back memories of other smiles, of happier times.
That seemed a lifetime ago.
“My run-ins with the law were petty,” he said. “And stupid.”
“Yes. I remember the time you and your friends took my dad’s tractor apart and reassembled it in the hayloft. Must have taken you hours.”
“All night,” Theo admitted. “Your dad had warned me not to touch you when I took you out so I wanted to give him a little payback.”
Well, it had certainly struck a nerve with her dad, that’s for sure. But then her father had never liked Theo. Sherman had thought right from the start that Ivy could do a whole lot better than the likes of Theo Canton.
She hadn’t.
In some ways, no man had ever lived up to him. And that wasn’t an especially comforting thought. Things between Theo and her were tense. Maybe not as much as they had been just twenty-four hours earlier, but they were a long way from getting over their pasts.
Something they would have to do for Nathan’s sake.
“Has anyone gotten in touch with your sister?” Cameron asked Ivy. “Because Lauren could be in danger, too.”
Ivy nodded. “Jameson called her. She didn’t answer her phone, but then she usually lets any calls from family go to voice mail.”
She met Cameron’s eyes in the rearview mirror and saw the flicker of emotion. It was gone in a flash and probably something he hadn’t wanted her to see. But Ivy could guess what this was about. Cameron had once been in love with her kid sister, and the murders had torn them apart. Just as it’d done to Theo and her. Now, Lauren had built her life far away from Blue River. Far away from family and friends.
“Lauren is taking precautions in case this guy goes after her?” Theo pressed.
“She texted Jameson back and told him she’d be careful. She has a son now, so I’m sure she will do anything to protect him.”
Theo glanced at Cameron, and even though neither man said anything, everyone knew that Lauren was still a raw nerve for Cameron. It probably hadn’t helped that she’d gotten married and become a mom. A single mom, though, since her husband had died a little over a year ago. Or so Ivy had heard. Lauren hadn’t exactly stayed in touch with her, either.
“So many lives got messed up that night the Becketts died,” Cameron mumbled. “Lauren blamed me for a lot of that.”
She had. And the blame was partially warranted. Cameron had been a rookie deputy at the time, along with being friends with Theo’s family. Just a couple of hours before the murders, Cameron had run into Travis drunk outside the town’s bar. He’d taken Travis’s keys, but he hadn’t arrested him for public intoxication. If Cameron had, then Travis would have been locked up, and he couldn’t have committed two murders. She doubted Cameron would ever forgive himself for that.
And neither would Lauren.
“What the hell?” Cameron said, getting Ivy’s attention. Theo, too.
She followed the deputy’s gaze to the road ahead and spotted a blond-haired woman. Ivy didn’t recognize her, but she was on the gravel shoulder, her hands in the air as if she were surrendering.
“You know her?” Theo immediately asked Cameron.
“No. She’s not local. I have no idea why she’s in the road, but I don’t think she’s carrying a gun.”
Ivy agreed, and since the woman was wearing a body-clinging cotton dress, it would have been hard for her to conceal a weapon. Not impossible, though, and that’s probably why Theo motioned for Ivy to get down on the seat. She did, but not before trying to get a better glimpse of whatever the heck was going on.
“You see anyone else?” Theo again, and the question was directed at Cameron.
“No,” the deputy repeated, and he slowed the cruiser to a crawl. “Keep the windows up,” he instructed—probably because they were bullet-resistant. “She doesn’t have on any shoes, and her feet are bleeding. It’s possible she got stranded by the river or something.”
It was the possibility of that “or something” that troubled Ivy, and when Cameron brought the cruiser to a stop, Ivy could see the woman. She still had her hands in the air. And looked dazed. Her hair was a tangled mess, and while Ivy didn’t have a view of her feet, there was also blood and what appeared to be a bruise on the right side of her face. What she didn’t do was rush forward.
Strange.
After all, they were in a Blue River Sheriff’s Department cruiser that was clearly marked, and both Cameron and Theo were wearing their badges.
Cameron called for an ambulance for backup. He did that because he probably wanted a cop to go with her to the hospital. Then he lowered his window just a fraction.
“Are you all right?” he asked her, sounding very much like the lawman that he was.
She shook her head. “I think I was kidnapped.”
Yes, definitely strange. A person should know for certain if they were kidnapped or not, but maybe someone had drugged her. Whoever had done that perhaps caused that injury to her face.
“What’s your name?” Cameron pressed. “And who kidnapped you?”
Another shake of her head, and a hoarse sob tore from her mouth. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
Cameron huffed. “Then where are you supposed to be, and who brought you here?”
Several moments crawled by, and while Theo was watching her, he continued to glance around. Ivy wanted to help him do that, but she knew it would only make him more on edge if she did.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said.
“For what?” Cameron snapped.
But she didn’t get a chance to answer. That’s because a shot cracked through the air and the bullet slammed right into the woman’s chest.
* * *
THEO DIDN’T SEE the shooter, but he certainly heard the bullet. And he had no trouble seeing the damage it did.
The blonde made a sharp sound of pain, clutched her chest and dropped to the ground. Theo didn’t think she was dead, but she soon would be. The blood was already spreading across the front of her dress.
“We have gunfire,” Cameron said to whoever he had called. Probably Gabriel, who would in turn have to hold off on sending in an ambulance.
“Can you pull her into the cruiser?” Ivy asked, as she sat up to get a better look at their surroundings.
Theo was already debating doing just that. It would be a risk, but at this point anything they did would be. The woman had clearly been drugged and was probably part of a trap to get them to stop. It’d worked, but if she was truly innocent in all of this, she could die.
He didn’t have long to dwell on his decision, though, because there was another sound. A second shot, and this one didn’t go into the woman.
It blasted into the window just above Ivy’s head. The glass held though it did crack, but it wouldn’t hold for long if the shooter kept firing into it.
And that’s exactly what he did.
“You see the gunman?” Cameron asked.
“No. But he must be in those trees across the road.” The woods were thick there, and even though the morning sun was bright, the light wasn’t making it through the dense branches and underbrush.
Who the hell was doing this?
Theo didn’t know, but at the moment their best bet for telling them that was lying on the ground, bleeding out.
“Can you open the window on the front passenger’s side just enough to return fire?” Theo said to Cameron.
Cameron glanced back at him, and he didn’t look any more certain of this than Theo felt. “You’re going to get the woman in the cruiser?”
Theo hoped he didn’t regret this, but he nodded. “Get down on the floor,” he instructed Ivy. That would not only get her a few inches farther from the window, it would free up the seat so he could drag the woman inside.
“Please be careful,” Ivy said, the fear and emotion thick in her voice. It was in her expression, too, and Theo would have liked the time to assure her this was the right thing to do, but there was nothing he could say that would take the worry off her face.
Hell, he was worried, too.
Not for himself and Cameron. But for Ivy. If she was indeed the target, then all of this could be designed to get to her.
Several more shots came at them, each tearing through the window next to Ivy. Obviously, the gunmen were focusing on her. Or else the thug wanted them to think she was the focus. Theo wasn’t going to take any of this at face value.
Cameron kept the engine running, but he moved to the passenger’s window, lowered it just enough to stick out the barrel of his gun and looked at Theo to give him the go-ahead.
Theo nodded.
And Cameron fired.
The moment the deputy did that, Theo threw open his door, and he glanced over his shoulder to make sure Ivy was still down. She was. But she was watching him and mumbling something. A prayer, from the sound of it.
Theo moved as fast as he could and hoped he didn’t do any more damage to the injured woman when he latched onto her arm and started dragging her to the cruiser. The shots didn’t stop. In fact, the gunman picked up the pace, and this time he fired at Theo. The bullets slammed into the ground, kicking up the gravel that was on the shoulder.
The woman cried out in pain, and that’s when Theo realized she’d been hit again. This time in the shoulder. Theo hadn’t needed any more incentive to move as fast as he could, but that did it.
And he got some help.
Unwanted help.
Ivy scrambled over the floor of the cruiser, and the moment Theo was back at the door, she reached out and helped him drag the woman inside. By doing that, she put herself in even greater danger. Later, Theo would tell her what a stupid thing that was to do, but then he saw the bullets slam into the ground where he’d just been. If Ivy hadn’t helped, he could be dead.
“Get us out of here,” Theo said to Cameron as soon as he had the woman on the seat.
Cameron was already moving to do that, and as soon as he was back behind the wheel, he hit the accelerator.
The cruiser sped away as the bullets continued to rip through the window.