Her Cowboy Avenger (20 page)

They stood there glaring at each other in the moonlight. It hardly mattered that Travis didn’t want to hear what he had to say, because Matt didn’t know what he even could say. If he were in Travis’s shoes he’d probably feel the same way about things. Short of finding the real killer, there wasn’t going to be any convincing him Elena was innocent. And as for the rest... No, Travis wasn’t likely to believe them about any of that, either.

That didn’t mean Matt was going to put up with any more of the man’s garbage. He probably couldn’t count on the sheriff to do anything to stop him, which meant he was going to have to find some way—

His only warning came a split second before it happened. Travis’s gaze abruptly moved behind him, his eyes widening slightly in response to what he saw.

Matt didn’t have time to react.

Then he couldn’t.

A split second later, something heavy crashed into the back of his head. His vision blurred and he stumbled forward. He tried to regain his balance as the world seemed to swim around him and his feet seemed to have disappeared. Then he was falling, falling endlessly. Until...

Nothing.

* * *

S
OMETHING WOKE HER.

Something loud, a noise of some kind. It prodded her to wakefulness, pushing her from the best sleep she’d had in a long time.

Still half-asleep, Elena registered that she was cold. A source of warmth she’d gotten used to wasn’t there anymore. Matt.

Without opening her eyes, she reached out to find him.

And found only cold sheets.

She opened her eyes to glance at where Matt had been lying at her side.

His half of the bed was empty. He was gone.

Frowning, she slowly sat up, more confused than concerned. “Matt?”

The sound of her voice echoing through the open doorway and down the hall emphasized the emptiness of the house and the sense that she truly was alone.

No answer.

She glanced toward the window, noting the darkness outside. It was the dead of night.

The trouble they’d had the past couple nights suddenly came rushing back to her. Had something happened? Had he heard a noise? Their troublemaker again? Why wouldn’t he have woken her?

No, if he’d heard something he would have woken her, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have simply left her alone and helpless in bed.

Everything was probably fine.

Still, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling of unease crawling along her nerve endings. The house was so quiet. Too quiet. And there’d been that noise, she remembered, trying to place it, trying to recall what it could have been.

Climbing from the bed, she reached for her clothes and quickly tugged them on, then moved to the window. Standing to the side of it, she gently pulled the curtain back an inch, then leaned over and peered out.

Everything appeared to be still. It was a cloudy night, the moon and most of the stars hidden from view behind the dense coverage. It made the darkness more opaque that usual. Some light from the house spilled out into the yard and driveway, and the light fixed on the post next to the barn did its job illuminating most of the area directly in front of it. But there seemed to be far more shadows than usual, stretching across the ground, keeping much of it in darkness. She couldn’t see much out there, except—

It took her a moment to understand what it was she was seeing. And then—

A gasp lodged in her throat.

A man lay on the ground in front of the house.

Everything inside her tensed in shock, in horror.

No
.

He wasn’t visible enough for her to make him out much, just out of range of the big light out front, hidden in the shadows on the edge of the driveway. She couldn’t see his face, couldn’t really make out his clothes. She only saw a silhouette, the figure large enough it looked like a man to her.

Had the intruder come back? Had he done something to Matt?

She tried to peer closer, desperate for any indication it was Matt. But if it wasn’t, where was he?

Whether or not it was Matt, something must be wrong. There was no reason for someone to simply be lying there on the ground unless he was hurt...or dead.

She shoved the thought aside. She couldn’t afford to think like that. She had to figure out what to do.

She could call the police, but somehow she doubted Walt or Travis would rush out here, even if they did believe her. And in the meantime, Matt could be dying.

The hell if she was going to cower in her house while the man she loved was out there, possibly on the verge of drawing his last breath.

Moving back to her bedside table, Elena retrieved her gun, not about to go out there unarmed. And this time, if there were someone who meant her harm, who’d done something to Matt, she wouldn’t be firing into the air.

When she reached the bedroom door, she was about to step out into the hall when she paused, thinking quickly. If someone had gotten to Matt, there was a chance they’d already managed to get inside the house.

They could be here now, coming for her.

Holding her pistol up in front of her, she slowly eased her head through the door frame, looking down the hall to the stairs.

Nothing. The hall was clear.

Not about to take it for granted that would continue to be the case, Elena quickly and silently moved into the hall, her gun poised and ready to be aimed at the slightest sign of motion. She headed for the stairs, checking open doorways along the way, then made her way down to the first level. Nothing stirred. Keeping her breathing as silent as possible, she didn’t hear a single sound in the house or from outside. The quiet only made her more nervous. It was almost
too
quiet, unnervingly so.

At the bottom of the stairs, the front door beckoned to her. She ignored it. She couldn’t go out the front. It was too open; she’d be entirely exposed. Not to mention this could be a trap. Someone could be trying to lure her out of the house, and if so, they’d likely be waiting out there, maybe even by one of the sides of the door, waiting for her to open it, ready to ambush her. She had no choice but to go out there—as long as there was a chance that Matt was vulnerable, hurt, she had to do something—but if this were a trap, she was going to do her best to avoid it. She’d go out the back, stick to the darkness along the side of the house. While there might be someone out there, it would give her the best chance to remain as unseen as possible.

Once she had a plan, she executed it quickly, hurrying to the kitchen. The door was already slightly ajar, drawing her to a halt. What did that mean?
Was
there someone in the house?

If so, that was more reason than ever to get out.

Moving to the open doorway, she pressed herself against the wall and looked out. There was no one lying in wait, at least not on that side. They could still be on the other.

Only one way to find out.

Taking a breath, she raised the gun next to her head, then reached for the doorknob.

One...two...

Three.

She whipped the door open, jumping out and aiming her weapon at the side she’d been unable to check.

Nothing. There was no one there.

She didn’t waste time letting relief sink in, instantly moving forward and around the house.

When she made it to the front, she stopped at the corner, her eyes immediately going to the spot where she’d seen the man. It took her a few seconds to make him out, but he was there, exactly where he’d been before. She quashed every instinct that wanted to rush to his side. That was exactly what she couldn’t do, of course.

Instead, she moved forward slowly, carefully making her way to the figure, keeping her head moving and her eyes shifting in every direction at all times, not about to let anyone sneak up on her.

All the while, she kept glancing back at the man, constantly checking if she could make out his face, her heart climbing higher and higher in her throat the closer and closer she came.

And then she was there. Close enough. She saw his face.

She lurched to a stop, the shock of it too great to let her feel any relief.

The man on the ground wasn’t Matt.

No. It was Travis.

Travis, dressed entirely in black, lay on the ground. Travis, unblinking, stared sightlessly up at the sky.

Travis, mouth agape with horror, had a hole in the middle of his forehead.

A gunshot, she realized, staring in disbelief at the horrible sight. That must have been what woke her. She’d heard the gunshot. But who could have done this? And where was Matt—

“Drop it,” a voice ordered behind her, snapping her out of her daze. The command was punctuated by the sound of a weapon being cocked.

The voice sent relief rushing through her, because she recognized it too well.

Oh, thank God
.

“I said drop it,” the man repeated, the voice unmistakably that of Sheriff Walt Bremer.

She opened her fingers and let the pistol tumble from it.

He slowly shifted in front of her, allowing her to see she hadn’t been mistaken.

“Don’t move,” he ordered. With one quick motion, he kicked the gun away. Keeping both his eyes and his weapon on her at all times, Walt slowly moved to where he’d kicked the gun, then bent to retrieve it, shoving it into the back of his waistband.

His eyes glittered with coldness and...something else.

He reached down to his belt with his free hand, grabbed a pair of handcuffs, then threw them at her feet. “Put those on.”

Her relief instantly died, replaced with fresh fear. His deputy was dead. Walt already thought she’d killed Bobby. He probably thought she’d killed Travis, too.

“I didn’t do this,” she said quickly but firmly.

Walt simply gestured toward the cuffs with a jut of his chin. “Put ’em on.”

There didn’t seem to be any point in arguing, not with that look in his eyes, not with the gun he kept on her with unwavering focus. Heck, he might just be looking for a reason to pull the trigger. She definitely wouldn’t be able to defend herself if she was dead.

She bent down to retrieve the cuffs, moving slowly to demonstrate she wasn’t going to try anything and wasn’t a threat. The metal was cold in her hands. She carefully locked one cuff around her left wrist, then moved to fasten the other.

“Tighter,” he barked out.

Biting her tongue, she complied, squeezing the cuffs until they were taut against her wrists, yet not tight enough to dig into her skin. That didn’t make them feel any less unbearable. She’d imagined the moment Walt would take her away in cuffs, of course, the image haunting her. But never had she pictured it like this. And, of course, she’d imagined Travis would be there in an entirely different context, grinning smugly the whole way.

“I didn’t shoot Travis,” Elena tried again.

One corner of his mouth tilted upward in a humorless smile. “Sure you did, Elena. You and your boyfriend. It’s the only explanation. Travis here had the two of you under surveillance. He saw you were about to run and tried to stop you. The two of you got away. It’s clear as day. Nobody will have any trouble believing it.”

The straightforward way he laid it out made it seem eminently reasonable. Listening to him tell it, she almost might have believed it, too. Except for one thing.

“But I didn’t get away,” she pointed out, even as a warning bell was clanging in the back of her mind, even as the puzzle pieces were clicking into place and she understood that she was in even more trouble than she’d imagined. “I’m still here.”

“Are you?” Walt simply smiled, as though they were sharing a private joke, or maybe he was telling one and waiting for her to get the punchline. Which she already had, she acknowledged, as she realized what she’d deduced had to be true.

This was bad. So very bad.

Because the only thing worse than Walt believing she was guilty of a second murder...

Was if he was the killer himself.

Chapter Fifteen

“
You
killed Travis.”

There was no need to say it. She already knew it was true. It was the only possible explanation, the only thing that made any sense. Except it didn’t make sense, not at all. Part of her really did need him to confirm it, that this was really happening.

Walt smirked. “Why would I do something like that?”

“You tell me,” she shot back, desperately needing him to, desperately needing to understand any of this.

The smirk didn’t fade, but there was still a perceptible change in his demeanor, his expression hardening, his eyes growing colder. “It’s time to end this. I’ve waited long enough.”

“For what?”

His expression barely changed, but something in the way he looked at her made her skin crawl. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

He was clearly insane. She couldn’t believe he’d simply murdered Travis like that in cold blood.

No, not just Travis, she suddenly knew, the knowledge hitting her hard. He must have also—

“You killed Bobby.”

He raised one shoulder and tipped his head slightly, as if it were nothing. The gesture was so infuriatingly casual her anger spiked.

“Why?” she demanded.

He shook his head. “Bobby had that damn fool idea about digging up the back of the spread. I couldn’t let him do that. I couldn’t let him dig up what’s out there.”

That was what this was all about? “What’s out there?”

“Souvenirs. Big Jim was a fool, too, liked to keep his women close. Buried them on his own damn property. Of course, he never thought anyone would be digging out there. He certainly didn’t count on dying as young as he did.”

Souvenirs? Women? Buried on the property? It felt as if he was talking in riddles. She wished he would just cut to the chase and spill it already.

Only one thing was clear enough. Walt had killed Bobby. He was behind all of this.

Which still didn’t make any sense. She thought of the reason she’d dismissed him as a possible suspect. “I don’t understand. If you killed Bobby, you must have had the murder weapon the whole time. Why not just plant it and arrest me?”

“Because I didn’t want to arrest you. I just wanted you to look guilty enough that everybody would believe you ran to escape justice when you disappeared.”