Stormy Glenn - Blaecleah Brothers 06 - Cowboy Convenience (15 page)

“I think I recognize the voice.”
John stared intently at Seamus for a moment then reached over and hit the play button on the answering machine. He tried to listen to the voice instead of the words. The words just pissed him off.
“I warned you, Sheriff, and now you’re going to pay for your evil ways. You and everyone you care about, including Seamus Blaecleah, are going to pay for the wicked things that you’ve done. You’re going to wish that you never became sheriff of Cade Creek by the time I’m done with your little friend. I’m going to let you watch as I play with him. You’re going to wish you never even came to Cade Creek. I’m going to kill you, Sheriff, slowly, and I’m going to enjoy every damn minute of it. You’ll beg for mercy before you die screaming.”
As soon as the message was done, John turned to Seamus. “Well?”
“Whoever that is,” Rourke interjected, “he really hates you, John.”
“I’m starting to get that.” And if he really believed that whoever was threatening him might actually be able to get to him, he’d be sick to his stomach. His concern was more for Seamus, who wasn’t trained to watch for danger around every corner. “Do you know who it is, Seamus?”
“There’s something off about the voice, almost like it’s recorded or something.” Seamus frowned, his eyes staring off into space. “Or maybe the voice has been changed somehow. It just doesn’t sound like someone picked up the phone and called. There’s something off about it.”
“He’s right,” Neason said. “The voice has been digitally altered, but if you listen carefully, you can hear certain tones.” Neason shrugged when John just looked at him. “You learn to listen to things more carefully when you can’t see.”
That made sense.
Neason had been involved in a car accident a couple of years ago. He had wrapped his truck around a tree and sustained a head injury that made him go blind. Even after surgery, he had only regained partial vision. While he seemed to live a full and happy life with his husband, Brody, Neason wasn’t even allowed to drive a car.
“So, who is it then?” John asked as he looked back at Seamus.
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
“Deputy Webber.”

Yancy was fuming mad. The look of betrayal that had come over John’s face at Seamus’s revelation was one he never wanted to see on his lover’s face again. To learn that a man he trusted to guard his back in a dangerous situation was in fact a danger himself had to be devastating.

John hadn’t said a word since Seamus named Deputy Webber as the guy leaving the threats, and that worried Yancy. The man had simply gotten up and walked out of the room. A few moments later, Yancy heard the front door open and close. It didn’t slam. If Yancy hadn’t heard it squeak, he probably wouldn’t have known that John left the house at all.

That was an hour ago, and John hadn’t come back yet. Yancy had sat with the rest of the Blaecleah clan as they talked about what they knew about Deputy Webber, a man born and raised in Cade Creek.

Webber was young, and up until this point, considered fairly unthreatening. Yancy barely knew the man, only having met him a couple of times in passing when Ruben and Matty’s mother had tried to kidnap Ruben’s daughter.

All of the Blaecleah boys had graduated a few years before Webber, so they didn’t hang out in school. None of them had much in common with the guy. He wasn’t a rancher, he didn’t attend church regularly, and he didn’t hang out in the same bars as the Blaecleah brothers.

That seemed to be the question of the day, and no one had an answer.
“I think we need to track Webber down and question him,” Yancy said. “Maybe question his parents.”
“Mother,” Da supplied. “No one knows who his father is. It was a big scandal back in the day. Marla Webber got pregnant in high school. Since she was dating half the football team at the time, everyone always assumed it was one of them, but no one stepped forward and Marla refused to name him. She gave birth to Webber and raised him all on her own.”
“Where is she at now?”
“Marla passed away about three months ago,” Ma said. “She had cancer.”
Yancy might not have been an active-duty officer in a few years, but he hadn’t forgotten everything he learned. “If Webber recently lost his mother, it might have been what sent him over the edge.”
“But why fixate on John?” Seamus asked. “He had nothing to do with her death.”
“He’s in a position of authority. Webber could simply be striking out at the most prominent figure in his life.” Yancy tapped his fingers restlessly on the table. “Or he could just be ape-shit crazy.”
“Language, Yancy,” Ma said.
Yancy grinned. “Sorry, Ma.”
“Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Yancy would do his level best, but after a lifetime of swearing when the need arose, he doubted this would be the last time that Ma reprimanded him. Yancy glanced at Seamus, noting the sad look on his lover’s face every time he looked toward the front of the house. “Honey, why don’t you go find John and see how he’s doing? I’ll stay here and brainstorm with your folks.”
“Yeah?” Seamus seemed to have to force himself to look away from the doorway. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all. I’m sure that John could use a friendly face right about now.”
Seamus practically jumped up and raced out of the kitchen. Yancy chuckled when he heard the front door slam this time. Seamus was in a hurry. Yancy couldn’t blame the guy. He wanted to go check on John just as much as Seamus did, but he wanted to find out who was after him just as much.
Yancy folded his hands together and glanced at those sitting around the table. “So, how can we go about proving that the man threatening John is his deputy?”
“Except for content, the recordings won’t help very much because they’ve been altered. Only a speech expert can prove that it’s Webber.”
“And except for the phone calls, we don’t have anything else to go on.”
“What about the bullet that shot out the tire in John’s cruiser?” Rourke asked. “If it was recovered, could that lead us to Webber?”
“If it was recovered,” Yancy said. “And that’s a big
if
. The cruiser was towed to the station and gone over. If Webber was the one put in charge of the investigation into the shooting, he could have removed whatever evidence was left behind.”
“I really think we should just track Webber down and question him,” Rourke said. “With enough incentive, anyone will talk.”
“That’s not the way we do things, son,” Da said. “I won’t have you go breaking the law just because you don’t like how things are going.”
“I don’t want to break the law, Da,” Rourke replied. “I just want to…bend it a little.”
“No.”
Rourke frowned. “Yes, sir.”
Yancy hadn’t spent that much time with the Blaecleahs, but even he knew that Da’s word was final. Arguing would most likely just get Rourke smacked upside the head with something. Ma had a mean backswing with a frying pan.
They talked for awhile longer, not coming to any great conclusions that would help them nail Webber’s ass to the wall. Everything they had was just supposition. They didn’t have any actual proof that the guy was behind the threats to John.
When Ma announced that lunch would be ready in a few minutes then ordered everyone to go wash up, Yancy pushed to his feet and headed for the front door. “I’ll go get John and Seamus.” He just hoped he gave them enough time alone to get John in a better mood.
“Try the barn.” Lachlan laughed. “The loft is a favorite.”
“Matty and I prefer the creek,” Quaid said.
Rourke grinned as he looked down at his husband. “Billy and I like the big tree out behind our place.” Billy’s face flushed as he pushed it into Rourke’s arm.
Yancy glanced at Neason and Brody, just waiting for them to add their two cents in.
“The family cabin back behind the house.” Neason snickered.
Yancy chuckled, shaking his head. “At this rate, I may need to pack a lunch, or I’ll never eat.” He was still laughing when he stepped out onto the front porch a moment later. The barn was the closest spot he had been directed to, so Yancy headed in that direction.
There was a distinct dusty smell of hay as he walked into the barn, sort of sweet smelling. While the barn was pretty clean, there was still hay on the floor in the corner, bits of grain, and dirt clumps. Surprisingly, the place didn’t smell like horse manure. Yancy had the impression that all barns smelled like that. Apparently, the Blaecleah barn wasn’t the usual horse barn.
“John? Seamus?” Yancy called out, having no idea where his two lovers might be located. “Ma has lunch ready.”
There was a slight rustle of hay as the horse in the stall closest to him moved, but nothing more. Yancy tilted his head to one side, listening for more. Concern started to weave through him when the small whinny of a horse was his only response.
“John?” he called out louder.
After waiting a moment, Yancy pulled out his cell phone and dialed John’s number. He knew from what the others said that John and Seamus were most likely just off in one of the other places mentioned, but calling them would be so much easier than trying to track them down—and it would relieve the anxiety starting to ride him.
Yancy’s eyes snapped to the corner of the barn near a stack of hay when he heard the faint sound of a ringing phone. He swallowed hard as he looked at his own cell phone then walked over to kick at the hay on the ground.
When he spotted a cell phone nestled in the hay, pure, uncontrolled rage warred with heartache so strong that it almost took him to his knees. Yancy hit the cancel button on his phone, briefly noting that the cell phone in the hay stopped ringing, and dialed the Blaecleah house.
“I’m in the barn,” Yancy said as soon as someone picked up. He didn’t really care who it was as long as they brought help. “I found John’s cell phone in the hay but no John or Seamus.” Yancy felt the lump in his throat thicken with fear when he spotted little red drops in the hay around the phone. “There’s blood.”

Yancy clenched his hand into a fist to stop it from shaking. He couldn’t decide if he was angry or heartbroken or both. Probably both. The entire Blaecleah ranch had been searched, even the cabin in the woods, and there was no sign of either John or Seamus beyond the cell phone and drops of blood in the barn.

Yancy knew that Webber had them. He could feel it in his gut, and he learned long ago to trust his gut. Right now, it was screaming that he needed to find his lovers as soon as possible or there would be no reason to find them at all.

They would be dead.
The entire Blaecleah clan was out searching for John and Seamus. They had broken into teams, searching different places for the two men. Yancy rode in a truck with Lachlan and Asa as they headed for Webber’s house. The other brothers were off searching in additional areas of town, including the sheriff’s station.
Ma and Da had stayed back at the ranch, waiting for word or the possible return of their loved ones. Yancy had seen Ma reaching for the phone as he headed out of the house, and he was pretty sure that most everyone in Cade Creek would know John and Seamus were missing by the time he reached the end of the driveway.
When they pulled up in front of a small yellow one-story house, Yancy tried to imagine the man that lived in the place. The house looked run-down and ill-used. Faded yellow paint was peeling and chipping off the clapboard siding. One window in the front of the house was broken in the corner, and the front door looked like it was about to fall off its hinges.
The house certainly didn’t fit the man. Webber was always impeccably dressed, never a hair out of place or a stain on his uniform. From everything he knew, Webber was a good deputy. John didn’t talk much about the man, but he seemed to respect him, which made Webber’s betrayal all the worse.
Yancy scanned the area as he climbed out of the truck. There were just a few other houses on the street, all of them in the same disrepair as the one in front of him. Every city had a bad area of town. Apparently, this was Cade Creek’s.
Yancy nodded to Asa and Lachlan as they headed for the back of the house. He walked up to the front door, waited a few moments for the other two men to get into position, then knocked on the door.
Somehow, he wasn’t surprised when he didn’t receive an answer.
After knocking again, Yancy checked the doorknob. When it turned easily in his hand, Yancy pushed the door open and stepped inside, quickly looking around for signs of anyone. He was met by a scene he hadn’t expected.
The inside of the house looked like a typhoon had swept through it. Everything had been destroyed, right down to the pictures smashed into pieces and the bits of foam rubber from the couch cushions that littered the floor.
One glance around the living room told Yancy that not only would he probably not find John and Seamus here, but whoever had done this was in a rage. Yancy had a pretty good feeling that it had been Webber.
The man was psychotic, and he had probably been hiding it for years. Something had sent him over the edge, and recently, too. It might have started out with the death of Webber’s mother, but something else was at work here—something more drastic.
“Anything?”
Yancy glanced up from the rubble on the floor to see Asa and Lachlan standing in the archway leading to another room. He shook his head, more frustrated than he thought was possible before today.
“Let’s see if we can find anything in this mess that might tell us where he went,” Asa said as he reached for some papers scattered on the floor at his feet. “Lany, why don’t you go check the back of the house. Yancy and I will look in here.”
“On it.” Lachlan headed off toward the back of the house.
Yancy shook his head as he looked around at the destroyed clutter on the floor. “How are we supposed to find anything in this mess?”
“Anything helps, Yancy.”
“Right.” Yancy grimaced as he walked to a sideboard near the front door. The drawers had all been pulled out, but they lay on the floor right in front of the wooden table. He squatted down and started going through the papers and items from the drawers.
Pieces of cheap costume jewelry, some matchbooks, bills, late notices—pretty much what the normal person would have, although the late notices were interesting. A quick check of them showed that Deputy Webber was in debt—deeply in debt.
That might explain some of why he had lost his mind. There were a lot of unpaid medical bills as well as a foreclosure notice on the house. Yancy knew that caring for a sick parent took a lot of money, especially if that parent was terminal, and Webber had been trying every means necessary to keep his mother alive.
“Anything?” Asa asked as he walked over.
“Webber was in debt up to his ears.” Yancy waved the papers in his hand. “I get the feeling that he was spending money he didn’t have to try and keep his mother alive just a little bit longer.”
“He could have asked for help,” Asa said. “Kidnapping his boss wasn’t the answer.”
“Actually,” Lachlan replied from behind them, “in Webber’s mind, it might have been the only answer.”
“Huh?” Yancy stood, turning to look at Lachlan. “What are you talking about?”
Lachlan held up a stack of old faded letters in his hand. “I found these in the back bedroom. I suspect it was Marla’s bedroom. It’s pristine, not a thing out of place. It’s almost creepy how good the room looks compared to the rest of the house. These were neatly stacked in a box on the end of the bed.”
Yancy frowned. “What are they?”
“I think that they are old love letters.” Lachlan glanced down at the letters, a bit of shock on his face. “But they finally answer the question of who Webber’s father is.”
Yancy didn’t know what that bit of information had to do with his missing lovers, but he couldn’t deny the fact that he was curious. “Okay, who is it?”
Lachlan’s grass-green eyes were kind of wide and rounded when he looked up, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was reading even though it was right in front of him. “Sheriff Miller.”