The Right Kind of Trouble (35 page)

During a summer camp, he'd met William. Although there had been an age difference between them, they'd connected.

That was the information Reid had collected so far.

Gideon wasn't surprised they'd somehow become friends. Like attracted like, and both of them seemed to be evil sons of bitches, and crazy to boot.

Whether they'd stayed tight had yet to be discovered, but Reid was trying to find out if the two of them had connected at some point in New York. Gideon suspected the answer would be yes. He had a feeling Charles had pointed William in Neve's direction.

But that was low on the priority scale.

One thing he did have confirmed was that Charles Hurst was a direct descendent of George Whitehall, possibly the last direct one in the line. His grandmother had been Elisabeth Whitehall Hurst. She'd raised her son—that would be Charles' father—alone after her husband had died—cause of death had been listed as suicide.

Her son had been named Charles George Whitehall Hurst.

He'd been ten when his father died.

The father who'd committed suicide had left behind massive amounts of debt. Those debts had cost Elisabeth a house that had been in the Whitehall family for generations.

She'd died less than ten years later.

It seemed that bad luck plagued the Whitehalls.

Behind him, Deputy Lewis continued to delay leaving. “Look, I ain't trying to cause no trouble, Sheriff. It's just … well. Everybody knows the chief has a thing for Ms. McKay. On top of that, it ain't like that family isn't treated as royalty 'round here. I know they done some important things, but is it right that we circumvent procedure?”

“Are we circumventing procedure? Here I was thinking we were taking the necessary measures when it's deemed that a citizen of this town is in all likely in danger.” Tank's level voice was a sharp contrast to his sudden movement. He'd placed his body between his deputy and Gideon.

As explosive as his temper could get, it wasn't Brannon who might need to be held back if this shit kept up. Gideon sucked in a breath through his teeth and tried to clear the red fog from his brain. Tank's hand was the size of a dinner plate and it was braced against his chest in a silent, physical warning—
think
.

Out loud, Tank addressed his officer. “Deputy, I'd like to ask you to turn your attention to the board over there. You see the picture dead center on the top? That would be Moira McKay as I'm sure you are aware. Please take note of the bruises on her throat. That's from the attack that Deputy Cordell mentioned earlier. We call that assault in our line of work.”

“Sheriff, I ain't saying there might not be cause for alarm.” Lewis set his jaw, face going red. “But it's awful early to be saying there
is
anything wrong—”

“That's enough.” Gideon shoved past Tank. The sheriff gave him a warning look, but Gideon ignored him. He had his temper under control now. He wasn't gonna do anything stupid. Doing something stupid would keep him from finding Moira. Nothing was more important than that. “We have probable cause and a good reason to suspect Charles first. Maybe you have forgotten the basics of law enforcement, but I assure you that I haven't. That man that Cordell told you about being murdered? He gave us a confirmation that the McKays were being targeted.

“Now maybe you've forgotten something else—but when a woman is a target of violence, more often than not, it's an intimate partner, an ex-husband…” Gideon let a sneer fill his voice. “Does that ring a bell? If not, maybe you ought to consider whether or not you should be carrying that badge. Regardless, I want your ass out of my station. Now.”

Tank shot him a fulminating look, but Gideon didn't give a damn.

Lewis turned on his heel and stormed out, muttering under his breath.

Once he was gone, Gideon swung around to stare at the board.

Without looking at any of the men and women in the room, Gideon said, “Anybody else want to imply that my emotions are going to interfere with my job?”

“I think we all know that you have a little more than the typical interest in Moira McKay, but that's been the case for a long time. During all that time, you've never had a problem doing your job. I don't see that changing now.” Maris cocked a brow at him. “As to Hurst? Well, I can't say I ever liked that prick. I see the cause for concern.”

Tank caught Gideon's eyes. “How about we get to that debriefing?”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The stupidest thing Charles could have done—aside from kidnapping her—had been casually mentioning that he planned to drug her again. Granted, he'd thought she was still under the grip of whatever shit he'd pumped into her system, but that wasn't a good enough excuse to talk about his plans, was it?

When he casually reached into the side pocket on the driver side door, she was ready.

He had turned onto a side road not too long ago, and she recognized where they were.

The sight of the trees wrapping around the car like a tunnel made a mad hope flare inside her. Gideon would think to look here—or having somebody look.

Had it really only been a few days since she'd been here with Gideon? Since she'd talked to Kevin right before he'd taken that sip of scotch that had ended his life?

It felt like a lifetime.

The car slowed as they crept over the pitted and narrowed road and she started to breathe in shallow, short breaths. This wasn't good. Not at all. Something ugly and hot climbed up her throat and it only got worse when he slowed the car to a crawl.

The seat belt should have held her snugly in the seat, but she'd been slowly inching her way forward, trying to give herself room to move and when he slammed on the brakes, the locking mechanism clicked in with several inches to spare. The rough edge of the belt's material rubbed against Moira's already abused throat and she fought not to gasp.

With her feet braced on the floor, she shoved herself back as quickly as she could, turning to face Charles as he looked over at her.

She had the blanket.

A pitiful weapon, but it was all she had.

When he sprang into motion, she jerked up the blanket between them. Something wet trickled through and she just shoved harder.

Charles growled, and she sensed more than felt his hand withdrawing.

Then he shoved with a force that had her head smacking against the window.

Dazed, her reaction time was slowed, and she cried out in shock as he jabbed the syringe's needle into her thigh, straight through the material of the pants she'd swiped from Hannah.

“Stupid bitch,” Charles swore, his voice ragged.

She lifted her wrists and balled them up, swinging at him. The drugs hadn't hit her system, but her arms felt heavy and the blow glanced over his chin without making much of an impact.

Still, it infuriated him and he grabbed her bound wrists. She gasped, hoping he wouldn't noticed the loosened ropes. He didn't seem to, hauling her up against him. “Listen,
pet
 … I've been tolerant with you, but try to hit me again and you'll be sorry for it.”

“Tolerant…” She said it slowly. “Sure, Charles. I'll be tolerant. You can get right out of this car and go fuck a gator and I won't judge you at all. How is that?”

For a moment, the pretty blue of his eyes went diamond hard.

Then, to her annoyance, he bent his head and pressed his lips to her brow. “Moira my love … you always did enjoy trying to push your luck. But you won't get out of this one with words, my pet.”

She thought she said something else, thought maybe he even answered.

But his words were … far away and she couldn't really focus on his face now either.

*   *   *

The howling of his dogs wasn't precisely what Zeke would call an unusual noise but he couldn't exactly call it commonplace, either.

Zeke rose from the table where he and his wife Ida had been enjoying a cup of coffee. Behind him, Ida continued to pore over the blueprints they had set aside years ago.

Just a few days ago, Ida had been the one to pull them back out.

He had no idea where she'd put them, just knew that she'd put them away and told him they had to let it go, had to move on.
We can't keep letting this eat at us, all this anger, all this hate. It's not good for us, honey. If it's meant to happen, it will. I'll pray about it. If it's meant to be, God will find a way. But this isn't good for us, baby,
she'd whispered to him.

When he'd told her that she was wasting her time with prayer, she had simply kissed him and said,
That's what you think … but I prayed for you every night you were gone. Every time you had to go on tour, I prayed. And every time you came back.

She was always tripping him up.

She'd even managed to trip him into going to church.

He'd told her that if she wanted to pray, she could pray. If they ever ended up with getting their land, he'd even start going to church with her, every Sunday for the rest of his life.

He had already made good on the promise too.

He'd been more than happy to sit with his wife in the third row of the county Christian church where they had been married almost forty years earlier. He hadn't minded a bit when people came up and shook his hand and chatted with him either, keeping him and Ida there for almost an hour after the service.

Granted, it had kept him away from his dogs.

Zeke had never much cared to be kept away from his dogs for longer than he had to be, but on occasion it was nice to talk with something who actually spoke instead of wagged a tail.

It was more annoying when he had to listen to the comments like,
I do hope it's not so long before we see you again. Most times, it's a wedding or funeral that brings you out.

But those comments wouldn't keep him from coming back the following Sunday. After all, he had made his wife a promise, and Zeke was a man of his word.

Just as he was a man who listened to his instincts.

Right now, as he sat there with the howls rising in the cool, midmorning air, his instincts were screaming. There was more to the caterwauling of his dogs than whatever the canines had perceived as an invasion on their territory. He'd trained them better than that.

They didn't bark because they smelled a rabbit or even a stray dog.

They only raised hell when they sensed a threat.

“Gracious, Zeke.” Ida frowned, concern lighting her pretty, pale eyes. “They certainly are all worked up today, aren't they?”

“Yeah.” Without elaborating, he moved over to the radio on he kept on the long, skinny counter Ida had long since dubbed his “junk station.” It was organized to a fault and every spare inch of space was utilized. There were harnesses to repair, lists of potential owners for his dogs, lists of potential breeders. None of that held his attention, though.

He went straight to the radio.

He kept it on at all times.

Most of the time, the voices on it were white noise, talking about how the world had gone straight to shit and on occasion there would be argument about who was to blame and why and which politician had fucked it up the worst.

The few times it wasn't white noise, it was because something in the region was going on. It didn't matter if it was a storm or a missing child or somebody's Auntie Bess had taken a walk and hadn't come home. Usually Auntie Bess was going senile and would be found some miles from home. Once, a call had gone out for a little boy's lost dog.

Zeke turned up the radio and listened, head cocked as he focused on that noise instead of his dogs.

“…
a BOLO out of Treasure over in Mississippi. Got us a pretty redhead gone missing. They think her ex-husband has her. Name's Myra McKay.”

Zeke's eyes narrowed.

“You got the name wrong there, Bobcat. It's Moira. We got eyes up in Dechamp?”

Zeke hit the button and went to respond as Ida came closer. “Swamprat here. I got eyes. Me and my dogs will be watching.”

“Hey there, Rat.”
Bobcat's voice came out tinny and thin through the radio.
“I'm hearing they think this Hurst guy might head your way if he's in the area. Stay sharp.”

In the center of his workstation was a sink. Over it was a rifle. It was the first one he'd ever owned and while it wasn't the most accurate, the Remington 700 BDL Varmint was still his favorite. He'd spent many days out in the woods with that weapon, listening as his dad taught him all about how to hunt, how he'd once helped his own father hunt and trap for food.

Closing his hand over the Remington, the wood worn and smooth and familiar, he looked over at Ida.

She didn't say anything, just turned back to the table.

He gently turned down the radio until it receded to little more than white noise.

Zeke had been trained as a sharpshooter in the military.

It wouldn't much bother him if he had to raise his weapon now. Whatever had his dogs so worked up certainly wasn't because some poor soul had up and found themselves lost on the way to Grandma's house, that was certain.

“You won't go doing anything foolish, I hope,” Ida said as he took down a harness from the series of hooks on the wall.

“You know me, Miss Ida.”

“Again … you won't do anything foolish, I hope.”

He gave her a smile as he slid out the door.

The dogs saw him and fell silent.

He called to Solo, and his best dog moved to the front, tail wagging, eyes locked on the harness. “It's time to go to work, boy.”

*   *   *

Charles hefted Moira's slim body out of the car, grunting as he was forced to settle her over his shoulder.

One thing he hadn't prepared for all the way was the awkwardness of carrying her.