A Lawman's Justice (Sweetwater Ranch Book 8) (6 page)

“Don’t worry. I’ll only be a second. I know Shelby’s scared spitless of me, but I just want to talk to her.”

That riled her to the core. She hated that this piece of slime could push her buttons, and even though she knew Seth wouldn’t like it, Shelby stepped into the doorway beside him. She wanted to let Hance see that the fear card wasn’t going to work. She aimed her hardest glare at him.

Hance didn’t glare back. The corner of his mouth hitched into a smile that many people would have believed was genuine. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. Hance looked like a TV evangelist with his styled-to-a-T bronze hair, angelic expression and pricey gray suit.

Shelby knew he was in his early forties, but he looked much younger. And he was strong. Beneath that suit was a muscled, violent man with a fierce grip. A former FBI agent who’d been trained to fight. Shelby had firsthand knowledge of just how strong that grip could be and just how vicious his words and threats were.

“We have nothing to talk about,” she assured Hance. “But I know Sheriff McKinnon wants to talk to you.”

“Yes, about the attack on you and Agent Calder.” He glanced at the road behind him. “I figure he’ll be here soon.”

Neither Shelby nor Seth verified that, but as a former agent, Hance would know it was standard procedure to call for backup. And that he would be arrested for violating that restraining order.

“What do you want?” Seth repeated.

“Well, I’m not here about those scathing articles that Shelby wrote about me, even though my lawyers will soon have responses to those.”

More threats. Hance was always claiming he was going to file a lawsuit against her for libel, but so far he hadn’t. Probably because he didn’t want to go another round with the legal system. He’d gotten lucky last time, but his luck might not continue to hold.

Hance stared at her, no doubt watching to see if the threat bothered her. It did. But only because he was delivering it personally. However, Shelby made sure he didn’t see any discomfort in her expression or body language.

Unlike Seth’s body language.

No discomfort, but he kept shooting her narrowed-eyed looks, probably silent warnings for her to go back inside.

She stayed put.

“Earlier today I got a call,” Hance finally continued. “The person said I should go to the abandoned warehouse on Miller Road, that there’d be evidence I could use in the lawsuits I plan to file against Shelby.”

An anonymous call like the ones Seth and she had gotten. Of course, Hance could be lying about getting such a call because he had arranged the ones to Seth and her.

“You have proof of this call?” Seth asked.

Hance nodded. “The number’s on my phone. I’ll turn it over to the sheriff once he gets here.”

“That’s not proof,” Shelby fired back. “You could have hired someone to call you.”

“True,” Hance readily admitted, adding another of those damnable smiles. “But the only reason I’d do something like that would be to cover up that I was the one who orchestrated the attack against you. I didn’t,” he added calmly.

“You got proof of that?” Seth asked again.

No smile this time. Obviously, this was a conversation Hance would have preferred to have without the armed FBI agent who was giving him another cold, hard stare.

“Hard to prove something like that,” Hance answered. “But I wanted Shelby to know that I didn’t set this up. Just the opposite. It’s obvious someone tried to set me up to take the fall for this.”

“And why would someone do that?” she asked.

Hance lifted his shoulders. “I have motive because of the bad blood between us. But ask yourself this.” He tipped his head to Seth without taking his attention off her. “If I’d wanted to get back at you, then why would I have involved him in this?”

Shelby wanted to believe there was a reason, but she couldn’t readily think of one. The masks didn’t help, either, because this didn’t seem connected to Hance but rather her father’s murder. And Hance didn’t have any links to that. He had been just a teenager when Jewell had killed Whitt.

“I’m not sure what’s going on with you and Agent Calder,” Hance continued, aiming his words at her. “But keep me out of it. I don’t want to be in the middle of whatever games you’re playing to have Agent Calder’s mother convicted.”

Shelby huffed. “You think I’m responsible for that anonymous call you supposedly got? Well, I’m not.”

“I don’t care,” Hance snapped. “Just don’t involve me or you’ll find yourself slapped with a restraining order of your own.”

He’d hardly finished that idiotic threat when Shelby heard the siren. It didn’t take long for the Sweetwater Springs cruiser to pull to a stop in front of her house. Colt stepped out.

“Marvin Hance?” Colt asked, already taking out handcuffs.

Hance nodded and extended his hands in surrender. “My lawyers are already on the way to the sheriff’s office,” he said to no one in particular. “While there, they’ll file a complaint against Shelby and then begin a lawsuit against your department to stop this harassment.”

Colt ignored all of that, cuffed him and led Hance to the rear seat of the cruiser. He locked the door but didn’t get in with Hance. Instead, Colt walked toward Seth and her. At first Shelby thought it was for a tongue-lashing about all the trouble she was causing the McKinnons. But his expression said otherwise.

“We got an ID on the dead woman wearing the mask of your face,” Colt said. “Her name’s Claudia Ford. Like Boutwell, she had a record for petty stuff. Any chance you knew her?”

Shelby shook her head. Seth did, too, several moments later. “Does she have a connection to Boutwell?” Seth asked.

“None that immediately popped up, but we did get something else on Boutwell.” Colt paused and then took a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it before showing it to them.

It was a copy of a bank statement.

Boutwell wasn’t exactly a rich man. The money seemed to go out as quickly as it came in to the account, and the deposits were well under five hundred dollars.

Except for one.

It was for three grand. A small fortune for a man like Boutwell.

“Notice the date,” Colt instructed.

Seth took the bank statement, and together Shelby and he had a closer look. It didn’t take long for her to see the date of the deposit.

And to know what it meant.

Or possibly could mean.

“My father’s bone fragments,” she managed to say around the sudden lump in her throat. “That’s the date the fragments were found.” Shelby immediately shook her head. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

She hoped.

“There’s more,” Colt said, taking out another piece of paper. “Boutwell got a speeding ticket that same day. Deputy Pete Nichols was the one who pulled him over.”

“Nichols,” Seth repeated. Colt nodded. “Boutwell was in Sweetwater Springs the morning the bone fragments were discovered. And Pete pulled him over less than a mile from the Braddock cabin where Whitt was supposedly murdered.”

Shelby felt as if someone had slugged her in the stomach.

If Boutwell had indeed been paid to put those bones near the cabin, then who had hired him to plant evidence that would ensure Jewell’s conviction for murder? And how had that person gotten the bones in the first place?

Only one answer came to mind.

A bad one.

Sweet heaven, was her father’s killer really still out there?

Chapter Six

This was
not
how Seth had intended to spend the night and following morning.

He’d planned on using the time to go over the latest developments in the investigation. Alone. At his office or back at the guesthouse at the McKinnon ranch, where he’d been staying for the past seven months. He certainly hadn’t planned on being under the same roof with Shelby.

Yet, here he was.

Drinking his third cup of coffee at her kitchen table, watching the sunrise and waiting for Shelby to wake up so he could give her yet another dose of bad news.

As if she hadn’t already had enough.

The news about the money deposited into Boutwell’s account had shaken her up. No doubt because she now had to face the truth.

That Jewell possibly hadn’t killed her father after all.

And that the person who had killed him had planted those bone fragments for someone to find.

Of course, Shelby wouldn’t accept it as fact just on the basis of the three grand someone had given the man. She’d need a lot more than that. Ditto for the DA, and with Seth’s stepmother’s trial now just two days away, they were running out of time to find something to prove to everyone that Jewell was innocent.

And she was innocent.

However, Seth hated that voice in the back of his head that whispered,
What if she isn’t?

His mother didn’t have a violent bone in her body, but maybe she’d been pushed to the limit. Seth hated to admit that, too. Hated that he was starting to have any doubts about her.

Yeah, it was definitely time to put some distance between Shelby and him.

He finally heard Shelby stirring in her bedroom. Several minutes later, she turned on the shower. Seth glanced at his phone again, willing it to ring with good news that would put an end to this.

Nothing.

But at least it was his own phone and not a borrowed one from Cooper. Seth could thank his brother-in-law for that. Austin had brought Seth not only the phone but also his laptop, a weapon and a change of clothes. Along with playing deliveryman, Austin had even offered to pull night duty guarding Shelby.

Something Seth had strongly considered.

But Austin and Seth’s sister Rosalie had a toddler daughter, and with Rosalie on edge because of Jewell’s approaching trial, Seth figured Austin already had his hands full.

He heard Shelby turn off the shower and tried to brace himself for all the bad news he had to tell her. However, he heard a sound that pushed all that bad news to the back burner.

Shelby gasped, followed by a strangled sound that Seth had no trouble interpreting.

Fear.

That got him to his feet. Seth slapped down his coffee cup and ran toward the bathroom. Since Shelby’s room was the first one in the hall, he got there in a matter of seconds and drew his gun along the way.

Seth didn’t knock and wasn’t sure what he’d find when he threw open the door, but what he saw was a half-naked Shelby standing at her bedroom window. A flimsy white robe clung to her still-damp body. She whirled around, her hands coming up as if expecting a fight, and her breath swooshed out when she saw him.

“Outside,” she managed to say.

He went closer, automatically pushing her away from the window and behind him, and looked out into the yard.

Hell.

There, on the grass outside her window, someone had spray painted a single word in bright yellow paint.

Traitor
.

“Those men were here,” she said, her voice strangled. “Less than five feet from my bedroom window.”

Yes. If not the kidnappers, then someone working for the same scumbag who’d hired them.

Seth glanced around the yard, looking for any signs of who’d done this, but he didn’t see anyone. It also didn’t appear to be fresh paint. Bits of leaves covered some of the letters.

“Did you look out the window last night?” he asked her.

She shook her head, and because she was wobbly again, Seth hooked his arm around her waist, had her sit on the bed and closed the curtains.

“Wait here,” he insisted before hurrying through the rest of the house to look out each window.

No one was out there, thank God.

“Someone could have painted that while we were at the sheriff’s office yesterday,” Seth reminded Shelby when he went back into her bedroom. “Or even earlier.”

He’d checked the house when they’d arrived, but he certainly hadn’t looked at that area of the yard other than to look for any signs of a gunman. It was a reminder that he needed to move Shelby to a safer place. One where idiots couldn’t get this close to her.

“This person wants me scared,” she whispered. “They’re succeeding. I’m scared.”

Seth figured it took a lot for her to admit that. He wasn’t usually a fan of giving in to fear, but in this case, it served a purpose. It could make Shelby more cautious. More agreeable to a plan that she wasn’t going to like much.

“I want you to go somewhere,” he said. “Somewhere other than here, where you’ll be safe.”

Despite her admission of fear, she still shook her head, just as Seth figured she would. “But once the men who kidnapped us are found—”

“They’re still at large.” That was the first round of bad news. He dragged in a deep breath before he continued with things she definitely wasn’t going to want to hear. “Hance is already out on bail. He’ll be charged with violating the restraining order, but he probably won’t get any jail time for it.”

Shelby stayed quiet a moment. Processing. “I see.”

Since the string of bad news would only strengthen his argument for her to leave and go to a safe house, Seth continued, “Cooper brought in both Meredith and Annette for questioning last night. Both claimed they were innocent. Both even agreed to let Cooper examine their bank records so they could prove that they haven’t paid out money for hired guns and kidnappers.”

Seth could dismiss the women’s claims of innocence, but according to Cooper, they’d both fully cooperated. Both had even provided alibis for the time Shelby and he had been kidnapped. Of course, it’d been hired goons who’d done that, but he still didn’t have any proof to warrant arresting Meredith or Annette.

Shelby sat there, clearly trying to steel herself. It didn’t appear to be working. This next bit of news wouldn’t help with that.

“The FBI looked through phone records to determine who made that anonymous call to you, the one that lured you to the warehouse. It was made from a burner cell. No way to trace it, and it was the same number used to call Hance.”

“Hance could have made the call to himself,” she pointed out quickly.

Seth nodded. Hard to rule that out.

She stared at him. “There’s more?”

“Yeah.” And this time Seth eased down on the foot of the bed so they’d be eye to eye. “The CSIs finished processing the barn where we were tied up. They found more rope, a butcher knife and paper masks. This time of you and me.”

“Oh, God.” She pressed her fingers to her mouth for a moment and then repeated it.

That’d been his reaction, too. Yes, he’d figured someone wanted to do them bodily harm, but those masks, knife and ropes meant someone had planned to kill them there and stage the bodies as the others had been.

If Seth went with the most obvious theory, that meant someone had tried to get Shelby, Hance and him to the warehouse. Together. Maybe so Hance could be set up to take the fall for murdering them. Or maybe Hance had hoped for some reverse psychology to make himself look innocent.

“Do you have any good news whatsoever?” she asked.

He had to give that some thought. “We’re alive.”

A burst of air left her mouth. Almost a laugh, but there was no humor in it. She stood as if ready to bolt, but Seth took hold of her arm to stop her.

Not the best idea he’d ever had.

Because she whirled around, his grip on her wrist stopping her, but it sent her colliding right into him. They’d had some experience dodging each other, but this time Shelby didn’t
dodge
. She stayed put, melting against Seth while she slid her arm around him.

She smelled good, like shampoo, soap and mint toothpaste. He’d never considered those scents to be major turn-ons, but like her underwear, they seemed to be now.

“Don’t tell me this is dangerous,” she argued. “Everything about us right now is dangerous.”

He couldn’t argue with that. They’d had enough bad news to last a couple lifetimes, and whether he wanted it or not, it felt good to have Shelby in his arms.

And it felt bad, too.

Very, very bad.

That should have been enough for Seth to step back. Especially when Shelby stared up at him. No tears in her pale gray eyes. Just that worried look followed by a different kind of look that he’d come to recognize.

Oh, man. Not this.

Not with her wearing only that skimpy robe and smelling fresh from the shower.

Seth was cursing that look, but he should have been cursing himself. Because he was the one who made things a thousand times worse by taking his grip off her wrist and moving his hand to the back of her neck. Dragging her closer. Until he lowered his head and put his mouth to hers.

Now he had a different reason to curse himself. Because with just a touch the fire came. Not a little spark, either. This was a full blast of heat that he darn sure didn’t want. Not with Shelby anyway.

Did that stop him?

No, and it sure as heck didn’t stop her.

Shelby did her own share of gripping. Pulling him closer. And deepening the kiss. As if it needed any deepening. It already felt like scalding-hot foreplay and perhaps would have turned into just that.

If his phone hadn’t rang.

Seth welcomed the sound as much as he welcomed the long breath that he pulled into his air-starved lungs. However, that welcome feeling didn’t last long when he saw Cooper’s name on the screen.

“I need good news,” Seth snapped when he answered. News that would put an end to these close quarters with Shelby.

“I’m sorry,” Cooper said, sounding genuine. And upset. “But there’s been another murder. This time it’s someone Shelby knows.”

* * *

S
HELBY
SPOTTED
THE
crime scene tape the moment Seth took the turn onto the dirt road that led to her father’s hunting cabin. The very place he’d been murdered twenty-three years ago.

Now, according to Cooper, another body was inside. Marcel Haggerty, a ranch hand who’d worked for her family for four decades. Someone had murdered him. Sliced him up with a butcher knife.

“You don’t have to do this,” Seth reminded her again when he pulled to a stop next to a pair of police cruisers and the CSI van. Yet another car was parked next to it.

So many people.

So many memories.

She’d been eight years old when her father’s blood had been found here. Only eight when her world had come crashing down around her. Some of those memories continued to crash right now. It was the same sickening dread that she got every time she laid eyes on the cabin. Her imagination was too good, and Shelby could almost see the nightmarish struggle that had left her father dead.

“You don’t have to do this,” Seth repeated. This time there was a bite to his voice, probably because he’d seen the color drain from her face.

“I want to ID the body. I owe Marcel that.”

“You can’t actually go in the cabin anyway. It’s a crime scene. And you might not be able to see enough to do the ID.”

Part of her wished that she wouldn’t see
enough
, but Shelby had the sickening feeling that she would see a lot more than she wanted. “I’m doing this,” she insisted.

Judging from the look Seth gave her, he still didn’t approve, but he didn’t stop her. In fact, he stayed right by her side, giving her the moral support she needed but wasn’t sure she wanted from him. He probably didn’t want to give that moral support, either, but their shared situation had broken down barriers between them.

So had that kiss.

Barriers that she needed in place to keep her sanity.

Probably Seth’s sanity, too, making her wonder: Deep down beneath the history and the danger, how did he truly feel about the kiss?

How did
she
feel about it?

She was already starting to doubt what she’d believed for twenty-three years—that Jewell had killed her father. And Shelby didn’t want those doubts to gain a foothold because of this insane attraction to Seth.

They made their way to the cabin. Shelby could smell wildflowers and hear the water in the nearby creek. The creek where her father’s bone fragments had been found.

Yes, there were a lot of bad memories here.

The
bad
went up a significant notch when Seth and she stepped into the doorway of the cabin. The place was just one small room with an attached bath, and even though the sheriff and the ME took up a lot of the space, Shelby had no trouble seeing the bed. Or the body that was sprawled out there.

Someone had put a mask of her father’s face on him.

The ME lifted the mask for just a second, and Shelby saw that it was indeed Marcel.

It felt as if someone sucked all the air from her lungs, and even though she didn’t show any outward signs of that, Seth must have sensed it because he took hold of her arm and moved her back on to the porch.

“Who’s doing this?” she managed to say. Shelby wanted to scream. To run. But most of all, she just wanted this sick monster caught and punished.

“We’ll find him and stop him,” Seth said. “Or
her
.”

It took Shelby a moment to realize why he’d added that
her
. Then she saw the woman stepping from a car.

Annette Prior.

It’d been several years since Shelby had seen the woman, but she hadn’t changed or seemingly aged a bit. With her sleek blond hair tumbling to her shoulders, ample curves and expensive clothes, she looked like a celebrity and nowhere close to fifty. However, her forehead was bunched up as if she was upset about something.

“Why are you here?” Seth demanded. Clearly not a friendly greeting. Probably because despite her alibi, Annette was still a suspect in his mind.