Chapter Three
Jameson didn’t know who was more stunned with Worley’s announcement—him or Kelly. But Kelly did look as if she was about to try to sprint out of there. Jameson wouldn’t let her do that. Nor would he take anything Worley said, or what he was wearing, at face value.
Including that badge or his name.
“Federal agent, huh?” Jameson asked him, and he didn’t bother to sound even marginally convinced.
Worley blew out a long breath as if annoyed with this. Well, Jameson was annoyed, too. He didn’t have time for this clown, especially since Worley could be behind the attack and Mandy’s disappearance. Jameson didn’t want to examine why he was suddenly on Kelly’s side. But when it came to Worley, he was.
“I figured you wouldn’t believe me.” Worley checked his watch. “But you should be getting a call any second now from someone you will believe. Your brother, the sheriff. He’s verifying now that I’m an agent. Once that’s done, you’ll turn Kelly over to me.”
“I won’t go with him,” Kelly said just as Jameson snarled, “Like hell I’ll turn her over to you.”
That caused Kelly to look at him, and he saw not tears this time but an unspoken thanks. But a thanks wasn’t going to help right now. He needed some things cleared up.
“Who are you claiming Kelly murdered?” Jameson asked.
“Those two men your brother and his deputies are investigating.”
Jameson certainly couldn’t deny that she had been the one to shoot them. In fact, the evidence pointed to her doing it. But the evidence was equally clear that she’d also been attacked, probably by those two men. Unless...
He didn’t like even thinking it, but Jameson had to at least consider it. Kelly could be playing him again. She might have had a beef with those guys. Could have even written the note herself. But none of that felt right, especially now that Mandy was missing.
“Who were those men?” Kelly asked Worley.
Worley just stared at her. “You tell me.”
“She can’t,” Jameson volunteered. “See that cut on her head? Someone clubbed her, and she has amnesia.”
Worley looked as skeptical about that as Jameson probably had when he’d first heard Kelly say that she couldn’t remember. But some of that skepticism was fading. Worse, he suddenly felt the need to protect Kelly. Coupled with the remnants of the old attraction, that wasn’t a good combination.
Jameson’s phone rang, the sound slicing through the room. Slicing through him, too, because he saw Gabriel’s name on the screen.
“Worley’s here,” Jameson answered, and he put the call on speaker so that Kelly could hear.
“Yeah. And if he told you he’s a Justice Department agent, he is,” Gabriel said. “I just confirmed it. His real name is Lawrence Boyer.”
Kelly hadn’t had much color in her face, but that rid her of what she did have. “Impossible.”
Normally, Jameson would have agreed with her, but he didn’t doubt anything Gabriel told him.
“My source in the Justice Department is reliable,” Gabriel continued, “and according to him, Boyer aka Worley is a joe, someone who spends months or even years in deep cover.”
So Boyer had told the truth, about being an agent anyway. “Does he have a court order for Kelly’s arrest?” Jameson asked.
“No. Why? Is that why Boyer says he’s there? Because my source couldn’t tell me.”
“Yep, but without a court order, Boyer’s not taking our witness to what could be a double homicide. You agree?”
“Agreed,” Gabriel quickly said. “You need backup?”
“Not yet. I’ll call you if I do.” Jameson finished the call, slipped his phone back in his pocket and turned to Agent Boyer. “Tell me everything you know about those men,” Jameson demanded. “In fact, tell me everything you know about Kelly.”
Boyer volleyed several glances at Kelly and him. For a moment Jameson thought he was going to have to remind this agent that the Rangers and the sheriff had jurisdiction here and that meant Boyer had to cooperate. Even if it was obvious that was the last thing he wanted to do.
“You really don’t remember anything?” Boyer pressed when his attention finally settled on Kelly.
“I remember a few things.” It sounded as if Kelly was carefully choosing her words. And lying. But maybe she didn’t want this guy to know that she had no memory of her association with him. Perhaps it was her way of forcing Boyer to tell the truth.
“I met you and your sister about two years ago,” Boyer finally started. “By then, I’d been on a deep cover assignment for well over a year, and I was posing as a money launderer so I could gather info on a cartel operating in the state. I didn’t tell many people who I really was, but I told you, and I gained your trust.”
“What?” Kelly snapped. She looked over the man from head to toe, and there wasn’t a drop of trust in her eyes or expression.
Boyer nodded. “Mandy and you were working for my ex, Hadley.” His mouth tightened when he said her name. “She was accusing me of stealing our newborn daughter, but you soon realized she was just doing that to get back at me because I’d broken things off with her. After that, you agreed to help me.”
Jameson went through that info, but it only created more questions. “Hadley knew you were an agent?”
“No. And that should tell you something about her. She got involved with me while thinking I was a criminal.”
Jameson lifted his shoulder. “It tells me something about you, too. It tells me you were lying to a woman pregnant with your child.”
Boyer’s mouth tightened even more, and his eyes were narrowed when he turned to Jameson. “The pregnancy was an accident. On my part anyway. I think Hadley planned it to trap me into marriage. When I didn’t go for that and broke off the relationship, she retaliated by accusing me of kidnapping the child just days after she was born.”
As much as Jameson hated to admit it, that could all be true. He didn’t know Hadley, and in his line of work, he ran into plenty of people who didn’t mind bedding down with criminals.
“So what happened to your daughter?” Jameson asked.
“I don’t know.” Boyer scrubbed his hand over his face. “I suspect Hadley had Amy hidden away from me and the cops, and when she was killed in the car accident, the location of that hidden place died with her. Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t given up finding my daughter, but at the moment I’ve run out of leads.”
Kelly made a sound, sort of a muffled moan. Maybe because she realized this could turn out to be a similar situation for her sister. With a similar ending of them never finding her. But Jameson wanted to prevent that from happening, and maybe Boyer could help with that. He was about to ask Boyer to spill all about the two dead guys, but Kelly spoke to Boyer before he could do that.
“You said you got me to trust you. How exactly did you manage that?” Kelly asked. “Because I’m certainly not feeling any trust for you now.”
Boyer made a sound of agreement. “Ditto. I don’t trust you, either. But your misplaced mistrust is probably because you betrayed me. That’s how you got into this mess you’re in right now.”
Jameson moved to Kelly’s side so he could face Boyer. “Explain that,” Jameson insisted.
“After I told Mandy and you I was an agent, you both said you’d back off so that my cover wouldn’t be blown. A blown cover could have gotten me killed by the men I was doing business with. You also agreed to help me with my assignment.” Boyer paused, gathered his breath. “I needed you to get a file from Jameson.”
Jameson had anticipated what Boyer might say, but he certainly hadn’t anticipated that. He looked at Kelly to see if she was remembering any of this, but she only shook her head.
“What file?” Jameson snapped. “And why the hell not just come to me for it?”
“I didn’t go to you because I didn’t want you to know I was an agent. I didn’t want it leaked, and at the time there were rumors that there was a mole in the Rangers.”
“There wasn’t a mole,” Jameson argued once he got his jaw unclenched. If so, he would have darn sure heard about it.
“I couldn’t risk it. I’d already told Mandy and Kelly, but I only did that so I could get any information you had on your parents’ murders.”
Of course, he’d known the file that Kelly had stolen was about the murders, but he didn’t care for a deep cover agent having an interest in the case. He made another circling motion for Boyer to continue.
But Boyer only said two words. “August Canton.”
Now Jameson had to take a moment because the memories came. Of his parents’ murders. Of the pain and grief over losing them.
“August was originally a murder suspect,” Jameson said. “Several people were. But my father was also investigating a situation where a local widow, Hattie Osmond, had been milked out of lots of money. August was a suspect in that crime, too, but Hattie refused to name him. She passed away last year so there’s no way to press her for the truth.”
Boyer nodded. “I interviewed her. So did Kelly.”
“Kelly?” Jameson repeated. She seemed just as surprised about that as he was.
“Yeah. She talked to Hattie about two years ago. And she questioned Marilyn Deavers, the woman who’d given August an alibi for the night of your parents’ murders.”
Jameson looked at Kelly, but she only shook her head. “I don’t know why I did that. Or if I learned anything.”
“Marilyn is dead now, too,” Boyer went on. “She died in a car accident.”
So if Marilyn had altered her story about August being with her, then there’d be no way to confirm it. Unless they found that file.
“I believe August did scam money from Hattie,” Boyer continued a moment later. “Maybe others, as well. But that’s not why I was investigating him. I believe August is involved in a money laundering scheme. I’d hoped there’d be something in your files that would help, something that hadn’t been in any of the police and FBI reports. But there wasn’t.”
Kelly whispered a single word of profanity under her breath. “So I stole that file for nothing?”
“I obviously didn’t know that at the time.” Boyer didn’t sound the least bit apologetic, either. “When I realized the file was useless, I pressed you to get more info from Jameson. You said you would, but then you disappeared.”
“Why did I do that?” she asked.
“I have no idea. I didn’t hear from you for two years, and then this morning, I got a frantic phone call from you. You said you were in Houston and that someone was trying to kill you.”
“Someone did try.” She touched her fingers to her head. “Who?”
“I don’t know that, and you didn’t know, either. You said someone tried to run you off the road, and you needed my help.”
Jameson considered maybe that was how she’d gotten the head injury, but he dismissed it. She’d been bleeding in the ambulance, and that didn’t look like a wound that’d happened hours earlier. It still looked fresh.
Kelly looked at Jameson. She opened her mouth, closed it, and it seemed as if she changed her mind about what she was going to say.
Had she remembered something?
Something that would incriminate her?
“I told you to go to a hotel,” Boyer continued, “and stay there until I could arrange security. I sent two men, both federal agents, and I believe those are the two men you killed tonight.”
Kelly fumbled around behind her, located the table and sank back down on it. “Why would I have done that?”
“You tell me.” Boyer glared at her. “That’s why you’re under arrest.”
“She’s not,” Jameson argued. “Remember that part about you not having a court order. Plus, we don’t even have ID’s on the dead guys so we don’t know if they’re agents or not. They could be the same men who were trying to kill Kelly in Houston. Once the doc has released her, we’ll all go to the sheriff’s office and get this straightened out.”
That didn’t please Boyer, and he gave Jameson more of that glare. “Why are you protecting her?” Boyer growled. “Are you sleeping with her again?”
Jameson hadn’t cared much for Boyer, and that question didn’t help. “Before tonight, I hadn’t seen her in two years, either.”
He considered telling Boyer about the note that Kelly had tucked inside her shirt. But decided against it. Best to keep that close to the vest until they could figure out what was going on. That started with identifying those two men. And making sure Kelly got the medical attention she needed.
“We also have a witness,” Jameson added just to test Boyer’s reaction. “Someone saw part of the altercation between Kelly and the two dead men.”
And it got a reaction all right. Boyer’s eyes widened. “Who is it? I want to see the person right now.”
“He’s in protective custody.”
Not exactly a lie. The guy was at the sheriff’s office and had hopefully stayed there. Just in case he was thinking about leaving, Jameson stepped to the side and sent a text to Gabriel to tell him to keep an eye on the man and to keep him away from Boyer. Until Jameson was certain he could trust this agent, he didn’t want him to be part of the investigation.
“Are you warning your brother that I’m on my way to the sheriff’s office?” Boyer snapped.
“I sure am,” Jameson admitted.
Boyer cursed and glanced around as if debating whether he should leave or stay there to watch the woman he intended to arrest. “Kelly’s not to leave here unless I say so,” Boyer said as if his order would be obeyed. “I’ll come back after I’ve spoken to this witness.”
“Good luck with that.” And Jameson didn’t bother to take the sarcasm out of his voice.
As much as Jameson hated to pawn Boyer off on Gabriel, he was relieved when the agent stormed out. But not nearly as relieved as Kelly was. She blew out a long breath, and while she didn’t exactly relax, her muscles seemed to loosen up a bit.
“Please don’t let him take me,” she whispered.
He couldn’t promise her that it wouldn’t happen. If Boyer did manage to get that court order, then Jameson would have no choice, and that’s why he needed to press the CSIs to get identities on those dead men. However, his phone rang before he could even start the call. Not Gabriel this time, but rather Cameron.
“Jameson, we got a problem,” Cameron said the moment he answered. “The security guard at the hospital just called 911. He said there’s a guy in the back parking lot, and that he’s got a rifle.”