Chapter Two
Ivy’s heart slammed against her chest. She had already been feeling so many emotions, including dread and fear, but this was a different kind of fear.
There’s a killer coming here to the ranch tonight.
She hadn’t exactly dismissed Theo’s warning, but Ivy had prayed he was wrong. Apparently not, though. Because she doubted an armed intruder had good intentions. And according to Gabriel, he was on his way to the house. Ivy would have bolted toward the front stairs if Gabriel hadn’t taken hold of her arm again.
“I’ve already told the others to lock up and get down,” her brother said. “They’re fine.” He slapped off the kitchen lights and tipped his head to the back door where Theo and she had entered. “Lock that,” he added to Theo. Theo did, and Gabriel used his phone to arm the security system.
“There could be listening devices planted in the house and at your office.” Theo hurried into the kitchen with them. “Who else is here?” Theo asked at the same moment that Gabriel threw out a question of his own.
“What do you have to do with the armed guy?”
Judging from the glare Gabriel aimed at Theo, her brother felt his question had priority over Theo’s. Theo must have felt the same way, because he started talking.
“I don’t know who he is, but I have a recording of a CI who says that a killer is on the way to the ranch. I didn’t call because supposedly this killer had managed to plant bugs in the house and the sheriff’s office, and I didn’t want to tip him off that we were onto him. But obviously we’re past the point of being worried about tipping him off.”
“Yeah.” A muscle flickered in Gabriel’s jaw. “How long had Theo been here before you texted me?” he asked her.
“Just a few seconds.” That was possibly true. Ivy honestly had no idea how long it’d been. Time had sort of frozen when she’d come face-to-face with the man she’d never expected to see again.
Gabriel stared at her as if he might challenge that, but then he growled out, “Follow me.”
Ivy was certain that put some renewed panic in her eyes, certain that her brother saw it as well, but Gabriel kept moving, anyway. “We’ll go into my office.”
Not upstairs. Though that’s where Ivy wanted to go. “Nathan,” she said.
“He’s in the guest room with Jameson and Jodi,” Gabriel quickly answered. “They moved him into the bathroom and will make sure he’s all right.”
That steadied Ivy a little. Jameson was a lawman, and Jodi had been trained as a private security specialist. Still, Ivy didn’t want a gunman anywhere near the house or anyone in her family.
“Nathan?” Theo asked.
“Ivy’s son,” Gabriel said before she could answer. “If this gunman makes it to the house, he’ll be seriously outnumbered. But it might not even come to that, because I have three armed ranch hands headed out to stop him.”
Gabriel must have made those arrangements shortly before he’d come to the mudroom. Good. Ivy wanted every precaution taken. Correction: she needed it, because she had to keep Nathan safe.
“You have a son?” Theo asked, his voice practically a whisper now.
“Yes.” She didn’t give any other details. No time. Because Gabriel spoke again.
“I want to know everything about the recording,” Gabriel insisted, glancing at Theo again. “I want to hear what this CI has to say.”
Theo nodded and followed Gabriel into his office, which was just off the family room on the bottom floor. There were plenty of windows here, but Gabriel had already shut the blinds and drapes. He also didn’t turn on the lights. No doubt because it would alert anyone close enough to the house that there was someone in that particular room.
However, her brother did go to one of the windows that faced the back of the house, and he opened the blinds just enough so he could keep watch. Theo did the same to the window across from Gabriel. That one would give him a view of the side of the house. While the inside of the house was practically dark, there were security lights on the grounds, so maybe they’d be able to see this monster coming.
“Is there an extra gun in here?” Ivy asked.
“Bottom right drawer,” Gabriel quickly provided. It was locked, but he rattled off the combination, and she took out a Glock he had stashed there. She wasn’t an expert marksman, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she would use it to defend her son if necessary.
“The CI is someone who regularly gives me intel,” Theo started. “I’ll write down his name for you later. In case the place really is bugged, I don’t want to compromise his identity. The other person you’ll hear on the recording is a federal agent. He’s the one who sent me this, and the voices have been altered—again so that no one will be compromised.”
While still keeping a grip on his gun, Theo took out his phone and hit the play button. He held it up so that Gabriel would be able to hear it, and it didn’t take long before the man’s voice began to pour through the room.
“I heard some stuff,” the man said. “Stuff about them Becketts. I figured I oughta tell you because that family’s been through enough.”
Yes, they had been. The murder of their parents. Also the near murder of Gabriel’s bride-to-be, Jodi. It had changed their lives forever.
It was still changing them.
“There’s a killer coming after them,” the man went on. “I don’t know the fella’s name, but I heard him talking at the Silver Moon Bar over on St. Mary’s Street. He said he’d been hired—and these are his words, not mine—to put some more Becketts in the ground. He said he was going to the Blue River Ranch tonight to finish off as many of them as he could.”
A chill slid through Ivy, head to toe, and she felt her stomach clench into a tight knot. “God, will this never end?” she said under her breath.
Ivy clearly hadn’t said that softly enough, because it caused both Theo and her brother to look back at her. Theo hit Pause. He stared at her as if he might need to intervene in some way. Definitely not something she wanted. Nor did she want to give in to the fear. So she went to the window next to Theo in order to help him keep watch.
Theo continued to look at her while he volleyed glances out the window, but he finally hit the play button again.
“Describe the man who said that.” It was a second person on the recording. Theo’s fellow agent, no doubt. “And did he say who hired him?”
“Didn’t mention a word about that,” the CI answered. “Of course, it wouldn’t have been too smart if he had. And I couldn’t exactly ask him without maybe gettin’ my own self killed. But he was tall, bulky. Built like one of those navy SEALs or something.”
Theo looked at Gabriel then, and her brother nodded. “That matches the description of the man the ranch hand saw.”
“How do you know this hired gun is for real?” the agent asked the CI.
“’Cause he knew things, that’s why. Things about Sheriff Sherman Beckett and his wife, Millie, who got killed ten years ago. It was all over the news, but this fella told me there was something the news didn’t mention. Something that the cops kept out of the papers. He said the killer took Sherman Beckett’s watch. Pulled it right off his dead wrist. And that he took Millie’s necklace. It was a heart-shaped locket and had pictures of her kids in it.”
It was true. All true. Those items had indeed been missing, though they hadn’t been found on the killer, Theo’s father, Travis. Ivy had always assumed that Travis had dropped them or hidden them somewhere, but how would this man have known that?
That didn’t help the knot in her stomach, and Ivy had to fight to hang on to what little composure she had left. She had prayed this was all some kind of misunderstanding, that the CI had been wrong, but apparently no such luck. There really was a killer headed to the house who had plans to finish them all off.
“Did this hired gun say anything else?” the agent pressed. “Anything that would help us figure out who’s paying him to do this?”
“Nope, but I figure it’s gotta be Travis Canton. Yeah, I know he’s in jail, but something like this could get him out from behind bars.”
Theo didn’t say anything, but even in the near darkness, she saw his jaw tighten. “I’ve already checked with the prison,” Theo volunteered, “and other than his lawyer, my father hasn’t had any visitors in the past week. Plus, he doesn’t have the funds to hire a hit man.”
So maybe this was the work of some kind of psycho groupie. There’d been so much interest in the murders, partly because Jodi had also been attacked and left for dead in a shallow grave. And all that interest had attracted some very sick people.
“I know you gotta tell this to the Becketts,” the CI went on a moment later, “but you oughta be careful when you do it. The fella at the bar said he’d put bugs in the sheriff’s place and his house. So if you say anything to them, sure as hell don’t mention my name. I don’t want that SOB comin’ after me.”
“That’s the end of the conversation,” Theo told them. “But you can see why I had to come.”
Yes, she could. Since the CI had been right about the hired killer, maybe he was right about that bug, too. It sickened her to think that someone had been spying on them, listening to their every word. Someone who now wanted to kill them.
Her brother must have realized that, too, because he cursed and fired off a text. Several seconds later, his phone buzzed. He set it aside and put it on speaker, no doubt to keep his hands free for his gun.
“Sorry, Gabriel,” the caller immediately said. It was Aiken Colley, one of Gabriel’s ranch hands. “But we lost sight of the guy.”
That was not what Ivy wanted to hear, and she made a frantic search of every part of the grounds that she could see. No signs of a gunman. No signs of anyone.
Gabriel cursed. “Where was he when you last saw him?”
“By the south barn.”
That wasn’t that far from the house. Worse, there were other outbuildings and fences between the house and that particular barn, and this man could use those to conceal himself so he could get closer.
“I never had a clean shot of him,” Aiken went on. “The guy was running, and every few seconds, he would duck behind cover. Jake and Teddy are out here with me, and I’ve alerted the other hands.”
Jake and Teddy were two other hands, and while none of the hands were in law enforcement, they all knew how to handle guns. But apparently this hired killer knew how to dodge those guns.
“If possible, I want this guy alive,” Theo said.
Gabriel didn’t disagree with that. Probably because a dead man couldn’t give them answers, but at the moment Ivy cared only about keeping this monster away from Nathan and everyone else in the house.
“Kill him only if necessary. And be careful,” Gabriel warned the ranch hand.
“We will. We’ll keep looking for him until we find him,” Aiken added before he ended the call.
Ivy got back to keeping watch. Not that she hadn’t been doing that, but she adjusted her position just enough so that she could try to take in more of the yard and the pastures. Still no sign of him, but she could almost feel him closing in on them.
Who the heck was putting this monster up to this?
The CI had said it was Travis, and perhaps it was. Maybe he’d somehow gotten the money. But there was also another possibility. One that had been a thorn in her family’s side since Travis had first been arrested.
“Could your uncle August be behind this?” Ivy asked Theo. “Because August has been adamant that Travis is innocent.”
August was Travis’s half brother. A hothead. In the past ten years, he’d never turned to violence to free his brother, but August could be getting desperate since Travis had exhausted all his appeals.
“I haven’t spoken to August since I left Blue River,” Theo answered. “I tried to call him, but he didn’t answer. If he had anything to do with this, I’ll deal with him.”
Judging from Theo’s tone, that would not be pleasant. Not a surprise. There was no love lost between Jodi and their uncle, and it appeared to be the same for Theo. Of course, that was probably because August was not an easy man to like, and he was always saying that Travis’s “ungrateful kids” weren’t doing enough to help their father.
Theo’s phone buzzed. “It’s the agent who recorded the conversation with the CI,” Theo relayed to them, but he didn’t mention the guy by name. However, as Gabriel had done, he put the call on speaker. “The gunman’s here,” Theo told the agent right off. “Not in the house, but it appears this is where he’s headed.”
The agent didn’t jump to answer. It seemed as if he took a moment to process that. “You want me out there?”
“Not yet. This goon could fire shots at you as you drive up. Plus, I don’t want to send him running.”
Part of Ivy wanted him to run. To get as far away from Nathan as possible. But Theo was right. If the guy ran, he could possibly just regroup and come back for a second attempt.
“Did you find any bugs in the sheriff’s office?” Theo asked.
“Not yet, but the deputies are looking. One of them spoke to Gabriel a little while ago. He stepped outside to do that.”
“Cameron,” Gabriel provided. “He called the moment the agent showed up at the office.”
Of course he had. He wouldn’t have kept Gabriel in the dark about something this big. That meant Gabriel had been plenty busy in the short time since all of this mess had started with Theo’s arrival.
“The deputy wants to know if you need backup,” the agent continued.
“Not yet,” Gabriel answered before Theo could say anything. “But keep watch, because there might be more than one hired gun. Whoever’s behind this could have sent someone there.”
Oh, mercy. She hadn’t even considered that. But if someone had indeed wanted to put the Becketts “in the grave,” then the person might have gone looking for Gabriel at work.
“I just got a call,” the agent continued. “The CI is dead.”
Other than hearing she had a son, Theo hadn’t seemed surprised by much of what had happened. But he was clearly surprised now. And riled. “How the hell did that happen?”
“We’re not sure yet. We had a tail on him, just in case he tried to follow the hired gun or something, but the tail stayed a safe distance back. He saw someone dressed all in black gun the guy down.”
Ivy doubted that was a coincidence, and that meant... Oh, God.
“Was this all a setup?” she asked. Neither Gabriel nor Theo jumped to deny that, and that only caused her heart to pound even harder. “You think the hired gun wanted Theo to come here?” she added.
Again, they didn’t deny it. “If so, it worked,” Gabriel mumbled, and he tacked on some profanity.
Yes, it had. But what did it mean? It didn’t take Ivy long to come up with something that she didn’t want to consider.
All the “survivors” of the murders were now under the same roof. Gabriel, Jameson, Jodi, Theo and her. Along with their sister, Lauren, all five of them had been either in the house where her parents were murdered or on the grounds. Which meant they had all been possible witnesses to the crime.
Possible, but they actually hadn’t been.
Ivy had been in her upstairs bedroom with her headphones on. And crying. Because of the blowup that Theo had just had with her folks. The music had been so loud that she hadn’t heard her mother and father being murdered in the room just below her. Some people had told her that it was a blessing she hadn’t heard because if she had, she would have gone downstairs and possibly been killed, too. But Ivy wished she had heard. Because she might have been able to save them.
Jodi hadn’t heard the murders going on, either. She’d been outside, coming back from Gabriel’s house, which was a short distance away. She’d been attacked that night. Not by the killer, though. But rather by her ex-boyfriend who’d been in a rage over their breakup. Since he was now dead, he was no longer a possible witness.
Jameson and Gabriel had been at their own houses, but they were close enough to the main ranch house that they could have seen something. They hadn’t. But maybe the killer hadn’t known or believed that.
“What could your father or August possibly hope to gain by eliminating witnesses?” Ivy came out and asked.
“They wouldn’t,” Theo answered.
She looked at Gabriel to see if he would argue that. He didn’t. “If they wanted to clear Travis’s name,” Gabriel explained, “they could be desperate enough to arrange a murder. But Theo and Jodi wouldn’t be the targets.”
Because Travis still seemingly loved his children. Of course, that didn’t exclude Travis’s brother. August wasn’t fond of Jodi or Theo. “This could all be something August put together.”
“If August had come up with this plan to make my father look innocent,” Theo went on, “he would have hired someone to stab his victim.”
The way her parents had been killed.
Ivy was about to say that could be the hired thug’s plan. But then she heard a sound that stopped her cold.
“Get down!” someone shouted. Aiken.
But there was no time to do that. Because a bullet came crashing through the window where Ivy was standing.