A Lawman's Justice (Sweetwater Ranch Book 8) (10 page)

The images and thoughts were like wildfire in her head, and Seth must have realized she was about to lose it because he slipped his hand onto her shoulder. Her father didn’t miss the gesture because his eyes widened, then narrowed, but Shelby was too shaken to deal with his reaction to Seth and her.

“An elderly woman?” Cooper barked. He didn’t sound shaken. Just furious.

“I don’t know who she was,” her father insisted. “I faded in and out of consciousness for weeks. The woman didn’t have a phone, not even electricity. She was in some hunting shack in the woods, and I remember her saying she was going to try to walk into town and get some help for me. She never returned.”

“You have any idea who this woman is?” Seth asked Cooper.

Cooper holstered his gun. “No, and no woman came into town looking for medical help around that time. Plenty of people were searching for Whitt, and a woman claiming to have an injured man in her cabin would have alerted the hospital and the sheriff.”

But that didn’t mean the woman hadn’t been real. There were plenty of remote areas in the county. Plenty of hunting cabins, too. Of course, that didn’t mean any of this made sense.

“Keep talking,” Shelby told her father. “What happened next?”

“About a week after the woman left, I ran out of food. Still didn’t have a clue who I was or what’d happened to me, but I was stronger, so I took what little money she had lying around, left the cabin and started walking. When I made it to the road, I hitched a ride with a trucker who drove me to Laredo. I stayed in a homeless shelter until I was back on my feet.”

“But you did get back on your feet.” Shelby faced her father head-on. “How long did it take before you remembered who you were?”

He didn’t dodge her gaze. Not physically anyway. But his mouth went flat again. “About six months.”

Six months? Mercy, that felt like another punch to the gut.

“I was in a bad place,” her father hurried to add. “I knew I’d screwed up my life and wanted a fresh start. I’d stashed away some money in offshore accounts. Money that no one else knew about. And I tapped into those accounts so I could start a new ranch. A new life. Something I don’t expect you to understand.”

Everything inside her was twisting and turning, and it felt as if someone had their hands around her throat choking her.

“But you expect me to forgive you?” she asked.

“No,” he said. Then he repeated it several times. “I don’t expect you to understand that I stayed away because I didn’t want my attacker to come after me or my family again. I figured as long as I was near you, I’d put you in danger. But I’m back now.” Whitt’s attention shifted to Seth. “To stop this killer from hurting my baby daughter and to help Jewell get out of jail.”

Certainly, it’d already occurred to Seth that his mother couldn’t be guilty of murder. Not with the alleged murder victim right in front of them. But for Shelby it was just sinking in.

It didn’t sink in well.

“You son of a bitch,” Seth snapped. “You let Jewell sit in jail all this time. For nearly nine months—”

“I didn’t know she’d been arrested,” Whitt interrupted. “My ranch is out in the sticks, way down by the border, and I don’t listen to the news. Don’t even have a TV. When I finally saw the story in a newspaper, I knew I had to come back to Sweetwater Springs. I decided to come to the sheriff’s office first. Glad I did, because otherwise I would have had to go looking for Shelby so I could talk to her face-to-face.”

The words were right, the explanation maybe even plausible.
Maybe
. But something still didn’t fit. “What about the bone fragment? It was found near the cabin, and DNA confirmed it was yours.”

“Yes,” he readily admitted.

Then Whitt lifted the leg of his jeans, and Shelby saw the metal prosthetic leg.

“I was in a bad car wreck about ten years ago, and my leg had to be amputated. I kept a piece of the bone as a stupid memento, but about six months ago, I realized it was missing.”

“Missing?” Seth said, skepticism dripping from his voice. “You’re sure you didn’t use it to set up my mother?”

Whitt stood and met Seth eye to eye. “I wouldn’t do something like that.”

Shelby wanted to believe him. Sweet heaven, she wanted it more than her next breath. But all of it seemed tied up in a too-neat package.

“Does Mom know you’re alive?” Shelby asked, standing, as well.

But he didn’t get a chance to answer.

“Whitt?” Shelby heard someone say. Annette. The woman came out of the interview room, her hand flying to her mouth, and she bolted toward Whitt, throwing herself into his arms. “You’re here.”

That immediately set off alarms in Shelby’s head. Annette hadn’t said “you’re alive” but rather “you’re here.”

“You knew he wasn’t dead.” Seth added some harsh profanity to that accusation against Annette.

The woman certainly didn’t deny it. She pressed a flurry of kisses to Whitt’s cheek and probably would have continued those kisses to his mouth if Whitt hadn’t gently moved her away.

Clearly disgusted with all this, Seth stepped to the side and put his gun back in his holster. “I need to make some calls.”

Calls to his sisters and Jewell, no doubt. Since the murder charges would be dropped, Jewell would be set free.

And that meant for the past twenty-three years Shelby had believed a horrible lie.

That Jewell had murdered her father and robbed her, her mother and siblings of the life they should have had.

All a lie.

A lie perpetrated by her father. Maybe he was even lying about the amnesia. At this point, Shelby had to assume anything coming out of his mouth was a lie.

“Shelby,” her father said, walking toward her again. “I know this is hard for you. You were always my little princess. But I’ve prayed that you’ll eventually find it in your heart to forgive me.”

“You actually pray?” she snapped. Yes, it was a petty dig, but right now there was zero chance of forgiveness. “My mother went crazy when you left. And you didn’t just leave her. You left Aiden, Laine and me. We grew up without a father. Though in hindsight, that might have been better than the alternative.”

That brought on another expression that she remembered. The anger flashed through her father’s eyes, but she saw him quickly cover it. Maybe because he realized she had a good reason to be enraged. Or maybe because he knew his anger was only going to make this worse.

Thankfully, Cooper took over with the necessary questions. “How long have you known Whitt was alive?” he asked Annette.

“Not long,” Annette said.

“A long time,” Whitt disagreed, earning him an outraged huff from Annette. “I called her shortly after I regained my memory. Swore her to secrecy, though, so that’s why she didn’t tell anyone.”

Cooper cursed, put his hands on his hips. “And it didn’t occur to you that Annette could have been the one who tried to kill you in the cabin all those years ago?”

“I wouldn’t try to kill him!” Annette howled. “I love Whitt. Always have, always will. It must have been Jewell. Think about it. She hasn’t said a word about being innocent, so you can bet she’s the one who attacked Whitt and left him for dead.”

Maybe Jewell had. But if so, it still wasn’t murder, and considering all the other lies, Shelby figured it was time for her to give Jewell the benefit of the doubt. Any other doubts she had, she’d aim right at her father.

“I can’t be sure if it was Jewell who attacked me,” Whitt explained. “Like I said, the cabin was dark. Could have been Roy, I suppose. He wasn’t exactly happy about his wife carrying on with me.”

No, and neither was Annette. Even now, after all these years, the mention of it caused her eyes to narrow.

“My father had an alibi,” Cooper insisted. “An eyewitness who saw him the day you were supposedly murdered.”

Whitt shrugged, clearly not convinced about the alibi, or maybe he just wanted to muddy Roy’s name a little.

“As much as Roy hated you,” Shelby said to her father, “I suspect you felt the same way about him. How can we be sure you aren’t just trying to set him up?”

That flare of temper went through her father’s eyes again. “I’ll forgive you for implying that I had any part in the violence that went on that day. You’re upset. I get that. But once you come to your senses you’ll remember that someone wanted me dead all those years ago. Someone who’s still killing.”

And that did perhaps lead them back to Whitt’s original attacker, but not necessarily back to Roy. Shelby remembered the kindness Roy had shown her by allowing her to come to the McKinnon ranch. No venom.

But she was seeing plenty of that venom in her father.

Just as she’d seen in Hance.

There was no way Hance could have been the one who’d tried to kill her father twenty-three years ago, but he certainly could be responsible for the recent murders and the attacks on Seth and her.

Of course, Shelby could say the same for Annette.

The woman was mostly lovey-dovey right now, but Shelby knew Annette had a mean streak. And an obsession with Whitt. Heaven knew what Annette would have done while carrying out that obsession.

“I need to call Aiden and Laine and tell them what’s going on,” Shelby said, turning away from her father. She had no choice. With her emotions boiling just beneath the surface, she might slap or curse him if she didn’t give herself some space.

Shelby went to Colt’s desk to make those calls, but the moment she stepped away, Cooper took some handcuffs from one of the other deputies’ desk.

“Whitt Braddock and Annette Prior,” Cooper said, “I’m placing you both under arrest.”

“Arrest?” Whitt snapped. “You don’t have any grounds to do that.”

“Sure I do. I can hold you for suspicion of obstruction of justice for not coming forward when Jewell was arrested. It’s the same for Annette.”

Whitt’s glare turned nasty. “That’ll never hold up.”

But her father was talking to himself because Cooper was already slapping the cuffs on him.

Chapter Ten

Seth had to force himself to stop pacing across the waiting room of the county jail. Hard to do, though, with his mind racing a mile a minute. When he’d woken up this morning he’d had no idea that this would become one of those life-changing days.

First, the attack on Shelby and him.

Whitt’s return from the dead.

Now his mother would finally be released from jail.

Too bad the paperwork for that release was moving a lot slower than Seth wanted, but Jewell’s sister, Kendall, and her lawyer were literally walking the paperwork through in the hope Jewell would be out in the next hour or so. That was why Roy, Rosalie, Rayanne, Rayanne’s husband and Seth all had come to the jail to wait.

Shelby had come, too.

It was probably the last place on earth she wanted to be considering they had nearly been killed here after their last visit, but she hadn’t wanted to stay at the sheriff’s office with her father.

And Seth couldn’t blame her.

Colt and Cooper were tied up with Whitt’s and Annette’s interrogations, but their other brother, Tucker, had called to say he’d be at the jail as soon as he wrapped up a case in San Antonio.

On the Braddock front, Shelby’s brother, Aiden, was on his way to confront his dad. Aiden was the county sheriff, and Whitt was at the Sweetwater Springs sheriff’s office—Cooper’s jurisdiction since Cooper was the town’s sheriff. Seth didn’t expect that to be a friendly meeting, since it was common knowledge that there was no love lost between Aiden and his father.

Right now, the same could be said for Shelby and Whitt.

She was leaning her back against the concrete wall, no doubt using it for support, and she kept nibbling on her bottom lip.

“You should sit down,” Seth suggested for the umpteenth time.

But she only shook her head and motioned toward Roy and his sisters, who were on the other side of the room. They were all seated at a round table normally used for visitors meeting with prisoners who’d been charged with lesser crimes and therefore required less security.

“You should be over there with them,” Shelby said. “This is a day of celebration for all of you.”

Seth stayed put. “I’m sorry. Not for my mother being set free. But I’m sorry your father did this to you and your family.”

She tried to wave him off, but her breath broke, and because she likely had no choice, Shelby sank down into one of the chairs. The tears came. Tears that she’d no doubt been fighting since her father had walked back into her life. But this time she couldn’t stop them. They streamed down her cheeks. She wiped them away only to have fresh ones return.

Seth gave a heavy sigh and dropped down next to Shelby, pulling her into his arms. The gesture earned him a grumble from Rayanne, but Seth ignored it.

“I can’t believe he did this,” Shelby whispered. She pressed her hand over her heart. “I grieved for him. Ached for him. Cried my eyes out over him. So did my mother. And all this time he was alive.”

Shelby had left out the part about fighting for most of her life to bring his killer to justice. It had defined her. Been her obsession. Now she had to realize that her fight had been all for nothing. However, that did leave Seth with a huge problem.

Who the hell was killing people and putting those masks on their faces?

Who was trying to kill Shelby and him?

Hance was still on his suspect list. Annette, too. But now Seth had to add Whitt to the possible suspects.

Except that didn’t make sense.

Why would Whitt want Shelby dead?

If there was a good answer for that, Seth couldn’t come up with one. Unless...

“Whoever attacked your father all those years ago could have figured out he was alive and wanted to finish what he or she started.” Seth was really just thinking out loud, but it seemed to strike a chord with Shelby because she stopped crying, paused, then nodded.

“A lot of people disliked my father,” she added. She groaned. “Too many. We’re talking bad blood over land deals, cattle sales and his extramarital affairs. Meredith, Annette and Jewell weren’t the only ones he slept around with.”

No, they hadn’t been. Seth had done some digging to come up with possible suspects in the hopes of clearing Jewell’s name, but it’d been hard to sort gossip from fact, and most of Whitt’s lovers hadn’t been willing to admit anything that would make them potential murder suspects.

“Once my mother’s out of jail,” Seth said, “we can start looking at some of Whitt’s discarded lovers. Their husbands, too, since Whitt’s attempted murder could have come at the hands of a jealous spouse.”

If Whitt was telling the truth about the attack, that was.

With all the man’s other lies, Seth figured Whitt could be lying about that, too. Heck, maybe Whitt had staged his attack so it would implicate Jewell. It could be the same for the bone fragment. Maybe there’d been no break-in, and Whitt had been the one to plant that bone so it would ensure Jewell’s conviction.

But why?

Seth didn’t have time to come up with an answer to that because his phone dinged, indicating he had a text message. It was from Cooper, who wanted Seth to call him back ASAP. Since the cell reception in this part of the jail was bad, he needed to step into the hall just off the security checkpoint.

“I’ll be right back,” Seth told his family, and he took Shelby by the arm to lead her out with him.

However, the moment they were out in the security area, Seth saw a man making a beeline toward them. County Sheriff Aiden Braddock, Shelby’s brother. When he reached Shelby, he immediately pulled her into his arms.

“You okay?” Aiden asked her.

The question caused her eyes to water again. No, she wasn’t okay. But then, Aiden didn’t appear to be, either. No tears for him, but Seth recognized the face of a riled man.

“Did you see Dad?” Shelby asked.

Aiden nodded. “Whitt’s a sick bastard.” And he hugged his sister even tighter.

Since Shelby needed to work this out with her brother, Seth stepped a few feet away to make the call to Cooper.

“This is a heads-up,” Cooper said the moment he answered. “I’ll have to release Whitt and Annette. They both lawyered up, and unless something drastic happens, they’ll be released on bail in the next few minutes.”

Seth groaned. “You gotta be kidding me.” His groan obviously got Aiden and Shelby’s attention, so he put the call on speaker.

“Wish I were kidding,” Cooper continued. “Disappearing in itself isn’t a crime unless it costs lots of money and resources to track a person down. Whitt has offered to pay for that. Plus, he never collected on any life insurance. I can charge him with impeding an investigation by not coming forward with the truth about being alive, but I’m sure his lawyers will argue that he didn’t know Jewell was about to stand trial.”

“He knew,” Seth insisted.

“I agree, and I figure Whitt wanted her to sit in jail as long as possible so he could punish her for their relationship gone bad, but the bottom line is that it’ll be hard to prove. Right now, the most he’s looking at is probation. Maybe not even that unless I can find something else to pin on him.”

Seth cursed. “Find something,
anything
to put his butt behind bars.”

“Whitt’s getting out of jail,” Aiden said the moment Seth finished the call. He didn’t wait for Seth to confirm it, and he cursed, too.

“Did Dad say anything to you that would make sense of all of this?” Shelby asked her brother.

Aiden shook his head. “No. But I only talked to him for a couple of minutes. I figured if I stayed much longer, I’d punch him, and Cooper would have to arrest me.”

Shelby made a sound of agreement. “Someone needs to tell Mom.”

“Laine’s on her way to the mental facility to do that,” Aiden explained. “She’s arranged for the shrink to be with them.”

Good, because Carla might need it, especially after she learned Annette had known Whitt was alive. But maybe Carla could help with finding some evidence that would put Whitt behind bars. Unless Carla wanted to take him back, that was. Seth figured that was a long shot, but Whitt did seem to have a way with women.

A thought that sickened Seth.

The door to the visiting room opened, and Rosalie stuck her head out, her attention zooming right to Seth. “They just brought Mom in.”

“Has she been released?” Seth asked immediately.

“Not yet. But it shouldn’t be long now. The guards are going to let her sit with us while the paperwork’s still being processed.” Rosalie turned to Shelby. “Come in, too. I told Mom you were here, and she wants to see you.”

Shelby volleyed glances between Seth and her brother, and Aiden eased her toward the door. “Go ahead. Talk to Jewell,” he said. “And give her my apologies. I’ll do it myself in person after I find out what the hell’s going on with Whitt.”

“Call me if you find out anything we can use to throw him in jail,” Seth insisted.

And despite the barked order, Aiden only nodded and brushed a kiss on his sister’s cheek before he walked away.

“You don’t have to apologize for anything your father did,” Seth assured her, and he led Shelby back into the visitation room.

His mother was indeed there. Not behind the Plexiglas, either. She was standing in the room, hugging Rayanne and Blue, Rayanne’s husband.

And Roy.

Seth wasn’t immediately sure how he felt about that. After all, Roy had turned her and the twins out all those years ago. Still, if his mother could let bygones be bygones, then he’d have to try, as well. Especially since Roy had been nothing but civil to him since Seth had arrived at Sweetwater Ranch.

“Seth,” Jewell said, going to him. She pulled both him and a hesitant Shelby into her arms. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Wouldn’t be anywhere else,” Seth assured her.

When Jewell pulled back and their gazes met, he could see that she’d been crying. Happy tears, he hoped.

“I’m so sorry,” Shelby whispered to her, and then she repeated it, louder, no doubt for Rayanne, Blue, Roy and Rosalie to hear.

“None of this was your fault,” Jewell answered, and she managed a smile.

“I’ll go check and see what’s holding up the release paperwork,” Blue volunteered, and headed out.

Jewell gave each one of them long looks. Another smile. But the smile didn’t quite make it to her eyes.

“Did you know Whitt was alive?” Shelby came out and asked.

Seth snapped toward her, angry that she would suggest such a thing. But then his stomach dropped to his knees when he saw the expression on his mother’s face.

“Yes,” Jewell answered.

The room went as silent as death.

On a weary sigh, Jewell sank down on one of the chairs at the table. She motioned for the others to do the same, and one by one, they did.

All except Seth.

He already didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking, and he figured he was better off standing.

“What I’m about to say won’t make things better,” Jewell started. “And at this point I’m not even sure telling you is the right thing. Still, I’d rather you hear the truth from me rather than the lies Whitt will almost certainly tell you.”

Oh, man. This is going to be
bad
.

His mother stopped, gathered her breath and slid her hand over Shelby’s. “I’m sorry, but you’re not going to like what I have to say about your father.”

“Nothing you can say will surprise me now,” Shelby insisted.

Jewell made a small “you’re wrong” sound.

“I understand why you had an affair with Whitt,” Roy interrupted before Jewell could say anything else. “I was drinking too much back then. We’d had a backbreaking year with the cattle sales. And I damn sure wasn’t giving you the attention I should have been giving you.”

Now Jewell’s hand went over his. “I didn’t have an affair with Whitt. With anyone.” She paused again. “But I didn’t nip Whitt’s advances in the bud, either. I let the flirting go on because, well, because I was stupid and vain to think that his flirting meant I was still a desirable woman and not just the mother of a houseful of kids.

“I’m sorry,” Jewell added, looking at both Rayanne and Rosalie.

“Flirting?” Roy repeated. “That’s all that happened?”

“That was the beginning of what happened.” Jewell’s breath broke, and it took her a moment to regain her composure. “I started hearing rumors that Whitt and I were having an affair, and I called to ask him to try to put a stop to them. He didn’t. As far as I can tell, he fueled those rumors with gossip of his own. Gossip that I was leaving you for him.”

Seth went through each word. Words that he’d believed right from the start. That his mother was innocent, not just of murder but also of cheating on her husband.

“Then, how the devil did your DNA get in the cabin?” Seth asked.

“I went out there to confront Whitt, to tell him that I wanted no part of the rumors and begged him to set the record straight...”

The tears came, and his mother’s breath caught again.

“Whitt raped me,” she said.

Seth staggered back a step, and it felt as if someone had put a vise around his lungs and heart. Jewell caught on to both Roy and him when they cursed and tried to move away.

“Just stay put and listen,” Jewell insisted, sounding a little stronger than she had just moments earlier. “I fought Whitt, and yes, I did stab him with a hunting knife that he kept in the cabin. It wasn’t enough to kill him, but he did lose a lot of blood.”

“You should have come to me. You should have told me,” Roy snapped.

Jewell didn’t agree with that, but she kept her gaze on Roy. “I was going to the sheriff first so that Whitt could be arrested, but Whitt staggered out of the cabin after me. He said if you found out what’d happened, that you’d go after him.”

“I would have,” Roy assured her. His eyes were narrowed and dark.

She agreed with a nod. “And either you would have killed Whitt or he would have killed you.”

Roy cursed. “That didn’t matter! He needed to pay for what he did to you. He still does.”

“Yes, but we would have paid more. Because I didn’t want you dead for what I’d done.”

“What you’d done?” Rayanne asked. “You think you deserved to be raped for flirting with a man?”