Savior in the Saddle (20 page)

The gunman made a feral sound, part gasp, part outrage. But somehow, the person managed to hang on to the gun.

That didn’t stop Brandon.

He latched onto Willa’s arm and slung her out of the way. It worked.

Well, it got Willa out of the way.

However, it didn’t stop the other things that had already been set in motion.

Their assailant turned. And fired. Not at Willa or Brandon. But at the person who had just delivered that blow with the tree limb.

But before Brandon could take aim and right his own position, it was already too late. He found himself staring right down the barrel of their attacker’s Sig-Sauer.

“Move and you die,” the person warned.

THE SOUND OF THE VOICE caused Willa’s breath to stall in her lungs. She instantly recognized the person who’d just issued Brandon that death threat.

When all of this had first started, she had thought it was Cash or Wes who was holding her at gunpoint. But it wasn’t either of the men.

It was Dr. Lenora Farris.

Willa stared up from the ground where Brandon had pushed her out of the way, and she looked around. The gun that Dr. Farris had knocked from her hand minutes earlier was there, on the ground. Willa reached out for it.

“Don’t,” the doctor warned. It was hardly the caring, empathetic tone she’d used in the hotel suite when she had shown Willa that DVD.

The doctor grabbed Willa again and put her in front of her. She curved her arm around Willa’s throat. The position literally made her a human shield. It would make it nearly impossible again for Brandon to fire.

While keeping the gun aimed at Willa’s head, the doctor kicked away the gun that Willa had tried to reach. She also used her foot to swat at something else. Something near the tree limb that had hit Dr. Farris in the head.

“Why?” Willa asked, trying to look back at her so she could make eye contact. “You’re the one who tried to help me regain my memory.”

She gave a weary, hollow laugh and shifted her position so that her back was against the tree. “I didn’t want to help you. I was there to find out how much you knew. How much you remembered.” The doctor glanced at her. “You remembered too much, Willa.”

“Obviously not. Because I don’t have a clue why you’re doing this.”

“Dr. Farris is doing it because she’s trying to cover up her guilt,” someone snarled.

It was Cash, and he was on the ground to the doctor’s left. He sounded as if he was in pain, but it was too dark for Willa to see if he’d been hurt. Though he probably had been. After all, Cash was the one who had tried to hit the doctor with the tree limb, and she had fired in that direction. It was also likely his gun the doctor had kicked out of reach.

But Brandon was still armed. And maybe that’s why the doctor turned the gun back on Willa. “Sheriff Ruiz, do as I say, if you want her to live.”

Dr. Farris shot a glance Cash’s way and what she saw must not have alarmed her enough to finish him off. Instead, she kept her attention nailed to Brandon.

“She put a tracking device on your car,” Cash continued. Yes, he was definitely hurt, and he paused to pull in his breath between each word.

God, was he dying? Willa prayed not.

“Why don’t you want Willa to remember?” Brandon asked. He stepped closer.

The doctor shook her head and thrust her gun at Willa’s stomach. “Stay put and drop your gun,” she warned Brandon. “I’m calling the shots here.”

“Yeah,” Cash agreed. “She’s calling the shots because she’s a killer. I didn’t trust her when I saw that photo Dean had given you. She set me up with that picture. She called, said she had evidence about the case, but I’m guessing she did that so she could get something incriminating in case she needed a fall guy.”

If so, then all of this had obviously been premeditated.

“That’s why I followed her when she started driving out here toward your place,” Cash added. “I figured she’d try to kill you.”

Too bad Cash hadn’t been able to stop her.

“Put. Down. Your. Gun.” Dr. Farris’s teeth were clenched when she threatened Brandon.

Willa didn’t want him to drop the gun so she tried to help. It was obvious the doctor was far from being calm and in control. Her hands were shaking, and she looked to be on the verge of killing them all.

“The gunman in the lab wanted me to tamper with some DNA files,” Willa said. It worked. The doctor went still. “It was the DNA taken from beneath Jessie Beecham’s fingernails the night he was murdered.”

That last part was a guess. But it was obviously a good one because Dr. Farris groaned softly. “You do remember,” she mumbled. Now, there was sadness, maybe even regret, in her voice. “The DNA would have sent me to jail for murder. Because it was my skin tissue beneath Jessie’s nails. He scratched me, and I didn’t have time to clean him up.”

“You killed Jessie Beecham,” Willa mumbled. The next question was why, but Willa didn’t get a chance to ask her that.

A weary sigh left the doctor’s mouth, and she loosened the grip she had around Willa’s neck. Since she wasn’t watching Cash, Willa hoped the man wasn’t so injured that he was unable to do something to help.

Without warning, the doctor pulled the trigger.

The sound blasted through the night, and Willa braced herself to die.

But the bullet slammed into the ground next to her. In the same motion, she swung the gun back to Brandon. “Put down your weapon, or I’ll kill you both right now.”

Brandon stared at the woman. And then he shook his head and cursed.

He dropped the gun.

Willa’s heart dropped with it.

That gun was the only thing protecting them, but Brandon had had no choice. Willa didn’t know the doctor very well, but she could tell from the woman’s tone that she wasn’t bluffing. Of course, Dr. Farris intended to kill them anyway so this would only give them a few more seconds at best.

“I won’t go to jail for killing Jessie,” the doctor said in an almost whisper. “The man was scum and deserved to die.”

Maybe. But now, the doctor was apparently willing to keep on killing.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Farris added.

Everything happened fast. Practically a blur. Dr. Farris lifted her hand, aimed her gun back at Cash. She fired. Two shots. Both slammed into something.

Cash, probably.

The doctor didn’t waste even a second. She took aim at Brandon. She was going to fire. Willa had no doubt about that. The doctor was going to shoot Brandon at point-blank range, and he was helpless, standing there, because he couldn’t risk coming at the doctor and hurting Willa.

But Willa could do something.

Yes, it was a risk. Anything was at this point. But she couldn’t just stand there and let Brandon die.

Willa gathered the air into her lungs and let out the loudest yell she could manage. She threw all of her weight to the left, away from the doctor. The jarring motion worked because Dr. Farris’s arm snapped back, releasing the grip she had on Willa’s neck. At first, Willa wasn’t sure why that had happened.

Then, she saw Brandon.

He had lunged across the space that separated him from the doctor. He was obviously trying to tackle her before she got off another shot.

But he was too late.

The blast, loud and thick, tore through the night.

Everything seemed to freeze, and the images clicked through her head as if someone was snapping pictures. Willa saw Brandon slam into Dr. Farris, and they both flew backward, tumbling onto the ground.

Then, Willa saw the blood.

It was everywhere. On Brandon. On Dr. Farris. Even in the evening light, she could see it on both their clothes.

“Brandon!” Willa called out. He had to be all right. He just had to be. She couldn’t lose him.

She scrambled across the yard toward the scuffle. Brandon had the doctor in a fierce grip, his left hand locked around her arm, and his right hand gripped her weapon. And she was fighting back. Though not with much strength.

Willa soon saw why.

Behind Brandon and Dr. Farris, Cash was sitting up, and there was blood all over the front of his shirt. No doubt where Dr. Farris had shot him. He had a gun. The gun that the doctor had knocked from Willa’s hand. And judging from the angle of the barrel, he had fired directly at Dr. Farris.

But Brandon had also been in that line of fire.

For one terrifying moment, Willa thought Cash might fire again. At her or at Brandon. But he simply gave a satisfied nod before he collapsed, the gun falling to his side.

Cash might be dead. That registered in Willa’s mind. But she couldn’t go to him until she helped Brandon. She couldn’t let Dr. Farris use that gun to kill him.

Willa reached out to latch on to the doctor’s arm so she could help drag the woman away from Brandon. But the arm she held was limp and lifeless.

Willa’s gaze flew to Brandon. To his face. To his body. Yes, there was blood. But when he stood, she realized he hadn’t been shot. Dr. Farris had been. Cash’s bullet had taken out a killer.

And Brandon was safe.

He was safe.

The tears came, burning hot in her eyes, and Willa made it to him in one step. Brandon pulled her warm and deep into his arms and held on.

Chapter Eighteen

Brandon glanced at his watch. It was still five minutes until midnight. Five minutes until it was officially Christmas Day.

Not that they would go anywhere to celebrate.

He didn’t intend to leave the hospital until Cash was out of surgery. After all, Cash had probably saved their lives, and Brandon wanted to thank his old friend. However, that didn’t mean Willa had to be stuck in an uncomfortable chair in the waiting room.

“Sheila said she could drive you to her place here in town so you can get some sleep,” Brandon reminded Willa. It’d been a generous offer from his deputy, but both Sheila and Pete were probably reeling from everything that had happened.

Brandon certainly was.

Judging from Willa’s too-pale face and trembling hands, she was as well.

“No thanks,” she answered. “I’d rather wait here with you until the doctor gives us an update on Cash.”

Since Cash had already been in surgery for hours, Brandon had no idea how much longer their wait would be. So he slipped his arm around her and eased her head onto his shoulder. Maybe she would at least grab a nap.

Or not.

Her head came right back up, and her eyes met his. “Dr. Farris deserved what she got.”

“Yeah.” Brandon didn’t dispute that. The woman had tried to commit premeditated murder, and from what he’d been able to figure out from the notes and emails that SAPD had found on the doctor’s computer, she’d taken plenty of steps to do just that.

Thank God she hadn’t succeeded.

But not for lack of trying.

In addition to hiring Martin Shore to find and kill Willa, she had spied on Cash’s computer to find the location of the safe house where Willa and he had been attacked. Cash had been right about that. He’d also been right about the doctor planting a tracking device on Brandon’s vehicle. And to insure that Brandon’s deputies wouldn’t respond to his call for backup, the doctor had planted a jammer at the sheriff’s office where the deputies were wrapping up Shore’s last attack and death. The jammer had prevented their cell phones from ringing. She had even drugged his dogs so they wouldn’t alert anyone that she was on his property.

Dr. Farris had been thorough. And in doing so, she had created plenty of future nightmares. Brandon would never forget how close he had come to losing Willa and the baby.

Brandon heard the footsteps in the corridor and got to his feet. He also tried to brace himself for the worst. Cash had not only taken three bullets, he’d lost a lot of blood.

But it wasn’t the doctor. It was Pete.

“Merry Christmas,” the deputy greeted, though it wasn’t very cheery. The fatigue was heavy in Pete’s weathered eyes.

“Merry Christmas,” Brandon and Willa mumbled back.

“SAPD just called,” Pete explained. “They tried your cell first, but the call couldn’t go through in here.”

Brandon was aware of that. Because the waiting room was right next to radiology, the walls had been reinforced with steel, making reception poor at best. Still, he figured his deputies would keep him informed, and they had. During Cash’s three hours of surgery, either Pete or Sheila had paid them a visit at least every half hour.

“SAPD found more stuff on Dr. Farris’s computer,” Pete continued. He shook his head. “That woman was something else. One of the gunmen who took the maternity hostages was her patient, so she learned about the hostage situation before it even happened. But she didn’t lift a finger to stop it.”

That sent a coil of anger through Brandon. Willa had gone through hell and nearly died while as a hostage, and it could have been stopped before it even started.

Of course, if it had, he might never have met Willa and known about the baby.

Ironic that Willa was here in his arms because of Dr. Farris and those hostage-taking gunmen.

“So, if she knew the gunmen, was she also the one who hired them?” Willa asked.

“I guess you could say she just paid them to do something extra. Their boss had already hired them to tamper with some evidence, and Dr. Farris just paid them on the side to do the same for her. She had her DNA replaced with tissue from the homeless man who was arrested for Jessie Beecham’s murder.”

“A murder that Dr. Farris committed,” Willa mumbled. “Yes. That woman was indeed something else.”

Brandon agreed. But this might not be over. “What about the other hostage situation, the one that’s supposed to happen today?”

“It was a lie,” Pete insisted. “Well, according to the notes SAPD found, it was. She hired Shore to kill Willa and to also get out the word that there’d be another set of hostages taken. But the story was just a ruse to draw Willa out of hiding.”

Brandon cursed. The ruse had worked.

“There won’t be any other hostages,” Willa said. And she repeated it. The breath just swooshed out of her, and when she looked at Brandon, he saw her smile. It was, well, amazing and it lit up her entire face.