Tying You Down (17 page)

He looked in her bedroom window, but saw nothing through the blinds. He knocked on the window for good measure. He continued on to the back door that led to the kitchen and knocked on it, too. Still no answer. He tried the door and it was locked. The bolt lock had been engaged on the back door.

With a frown he walked around the house and had started to walk past the enclosed garage when he heard something. It was the sound of a motor. Coming from the garage.

His heart started beating faster. Was Jo in the garage with the car running? How long had she been in there?

He forced himself to calm down. She might not have heard him ringing the doorbell and had gone into the garage.

But something told him that something was wrong. Dead wrong.

He looked for some way into the garage but a quick scan told him there was no way to get into it from outside. He hurried to the front door and knocked again.

“Jo?” he shouted. “Are you in there?”

Even as he called to her, he picked up one of the decorative bricks along a path and slammed it into a window beside the door. Glass shattered and he used the brick to knock enough glass out of the way so he could climb in.

He saw her purse sitting on a table as he ran to the garage door. It was locked from the inside and he unlocked the bolt and the lock on the doorknob and jerked the door open.

The smell of car exhaust nearly overwhelmed him. His gaze shot straight to the car and he saw Jo, limp and pale, slumped in the driver’s seat.

Panic tore through him like a hot knife. He ran to the car, yanked the door open, and caught Jo to him as she tumbled from the car. He felt for her pulse. It was faint. She was still alive.

He hurried to hit the garage door button with his elbow and rushed outside into the fresh air where he laid her on the dry grass and jerked his phone out of its holster. He dialed 9-1-1 and fought to keep calm.

She was alive. She was going to be okay. She had to be.

He knew she needed oxygen therapy and she needed it fast. He tried to wake her but she remained out cold. How long had she been in there? He’d been here a good fifteen minutes. Why had she been in there with the window down and the garage door closed?

He refused to think that she’d been trying to commit suicide. Something must have happened and she passed out after starting her car.

It was only a matter of minutes before he heard sirens and in moments the paramedics arrived in a fire truck. They rushed from the emergency vehicle and started firing questions at Tate while they started Jo on oxygen.

An ambulance pulled up behind the fire truck and the next thing he knew they had her on a gurney and were loading her in the back of the ambulance. Tate wanted to go with them but they said he’d have to follow in his own vehicle.

He hadn’t turned off the car and the garage door was wide open, so he hurried back into the garage, cut the engine, and locked the door from the garage into the house, and locked the front door. He left the garage bay open for the carbon monoxide to clear out.

Neighbors had gathered around. He hadn’t even noticed them. He asked if someone could watch the house since the front window was broken and the garage open.

It only took him a matter of minutes to close up the house and talk to the neighbors and then he was rushing to the hospital in his truck.

While he drove, he called his brother Gage who lived the closest and told him what was going on. Gage said that he would go straight to the house and take care of whatever needed to be done and Tess would join Tate at the hospital.

Tate found a fairly close parking spot and rushed into the ER. He told the receptionist he was her fiancé since they would only allow family to see her. A nurse took him back to the room Jo had been taken to.

When he saw her lying in the bed with the oxygen mask on, and her eyes still closed, his gut churned even more. He went to her and took her hand.

Her eyes fluttered open and his heart jerked. She looked at him as if she was confused, not sure what had happened or where she was.

“You’re going to be okay, honey.” He squeezed her hand.

She looked like she wanted to talk but couldn’t with a full oxygen mask over her nose and mouth.

“Shhh.” He stroked hair from her face. “We can talk as soon as the doctor thinks you’re ready. Okay?”

Her eyes fluttered shut and she passed out again.

* * * * *

“I don’t remember anything.” Jo looked pale as she spoke to Tate. She was still breathing in pure oxygen, but now through tubes in her nose. “I was getting dressed to go out with you and I planned to run to the store to get a few things. That’s it.”

“Do you think you passed out for some reason when you were in the garage, after you started your car and before you opened the garage door?” he asked.

“That’s what the police think I must have done.” Jo frowned. “But I left my purse in the house and I never start the car with the garage door closed. That’s what I apparently did, though. It’s just so strange.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been so damned scared in my life.” Tate shook his head. “When I found you there…I don’t know what I would have done if you’d…” he let the words trail off, his throat closing off, unable to get out what he wanted to say.

“Thank you.” Jo smiled and reached her hand out for him and he took it. “You saved my life.”

Chapter 25

“How could you have screwed this up?” David was on his cell phone in the office of his Phoenix home, his door shut so that his wife and kids couldn’t hear him. He lowered his voice even more. “I told you I wanted that bitch
dead.”

“How was I supposed to know her boyfriend was going to show up?” Russ said. “I had her. She was close to being snuffed out.”

David narrowed his eyes as he stared out the window. “Apparently you didn’t have her. You should have come up with some other way to take her out.”

“When am I gonna get paid the rest of the money?” Russ asked.

“When you finish the job.” David looked at the briefcase on his desk that contained the cash he owed Russ along with his own important documents. “You didn’t do the job right.”

“It’ll cost you more.” Russ sounded pissed.

“Bullshit.” David spat the word. “Finish the job next time and you’ll get your money. I want her dead and you won’t get a cent of it until she is. Don’t call me until you’ve taken care of her.”

Before Russ could respond, David disconnected the call. He clenched his teeth while gripping the phone hard enough that it made his hand ache. He welcomed the pain. His head ached and he wanted to punch a hole through the wall. It was all he could do to restrain himself.

A knock came at the door. “David?” His wife’s voice. She tried to turn the doorknob but he’d locked it.

“What?” he snapped. Then he tried to respond calmly but his body was filled with raw tension. “Hold on. I’m coming.”

He walked across the room and opened the door. Nancy stood on the other side of the door, her hands on her hips. “You know I don’t like locked doors in this house.”

“It was important.” He took her by the arm and jerked her into the room. She gasped and stumbled inside and he locked the door again.

He dragged her to the desk, still gripping her upper arm. “What are you doing, David?” She sounded surprised and a little upset.

Rage still burned through him. “I need to fuck you.”

“You what?” she said but he was already jerking her pants down and stepping on them so that they’d fall off her feet as he lifted her up and turned her around, bending her over the desk. “David!” She struggled to get up but he held her down with one hand on the back of her neck as he jerked his zipper down and freed his raging erection.

He drove into her hard and fast and she cried out at the sudden intrusion. He kept her head pinned down as he fucked her, his hips slamming against her ass.

She struggled as he took her, which only excited him more. He imagined taking Charlee like this and it made him burn even hotter.

All of his pent up rage roared through him and then he came hard. So hard that black spots moved in and out of his vision. For a moment he just stood there, his dick throbbing inside her even as she tried to get up. He pulled out of Nancy, released her and stepped back, zipping up his pants.

She pushed herself away from the desk, turned around, and slapped him hard enough to make his head snap to the side. Her eyes were red with tears and her mouth was in a tight, angry line. “Don’t you ever use me like that again.” She picked up her panties and pants and pulled them on.

He resisted the urge to slap her across the room. But he needed her family contacts and couldn’t afford to have her divorce him. At least not yet.

“I thought you’d like that,” he said.

Fire was in her eyes as she clenched her fists at her sides. “That’s a load of bull. You were angry about something and you took it out on me. Do you know how that makes me feel?”

She didn’t give him a chance to answer. She whirled and marched to the door, jerked it open and slammed it shut behind her.

He stared at the door for a moment then realized he didn’t care how it made her feel. It had freed some of the anger that had been raging through him. It was still there, but he could handle it better now.

The attempt on Jo’s life had failed. This time. Next time she wouldn’t be so lucky.

Chapter 26

On Friday evening, two weeks following Jo’s accident, Tate found himself thinking about what had nearly happened and it had him clenching his jaw so tight it made his head ache. How had Jo passed out in her car with the motor running and the garage closed? He’d seen her purse in the house, so what exactly had happened?

With a shake of his head, he walked into his barn and turned on the lights to finish his evening chores. No sense in thinking about what could have been. He was just grateful he’d found her.

Tate tossed a flake of alfalfa hay to Silver and then one to Ranger and continued on to his other horses. Just as he finished giving King, his black stallion, a flake of alfalfa, Tate’s cell phone rang.

He brushed his palms on his jeans then un-holstered his phone and looked at the screen. It was his cousin, Garrett. Tate pushed the button to connect the call.

“Hi, Garrett,” Tate said as he pushed up his western hat, letting the breeze cool his forehead. “Do you have anything for me?”

“Sure do,” Garrett said. “This David Smith is good, so it took me some real digging. I had to follow him to Phoenix this weekend just to get enough info on him.”

“All right.” Tate walked out of the barn. “What did you find out?”

“First of all, his name isn’t Smith. It’s David Hearn.”

“Hearn?” Tate narrowed his eyes. “What else did you learn?”

Garrett’s voice grew hard. “You said he’s seeing young Charlee Burke?”

“Yep.”

“The bastard is married.” Garrett sounded disgusted. “Has three kids and goes to their soccer and baseball events on the weekends. On Saturday nights, he has a standing date night out with his wife, and he goes to church with his family on Sundays.”

“Shit.” Hot anger burned through Tate. Jo had been right. “You’re sure about that?”

“Absolutely,” Garrett said. “I gathered info from family and friends, followed him, staked him out, and used a few other tricks of the trade to get what I needed.”

Tate gritted his teeth. “Anything else?”

“There’s something not right with him and it’s more than just his family,” Garrett said. “His business dealings look like they’re pretty shady. I’m going to need a little more time and I’ll dig up more.” His voice sounded even angrier. “The bastard is using a sweet girl like Charlee and I’m not about to let that get by.”

“You and me both,” Tate said. “I’ll kick that sonofabitch’s ass from here to Texas.”

“Hold off going after the guy until tomorrow. Give me the rest of today and tonight to finish up my investigation,” Garrett said. “We’ll get him for more than just screwing around on his wife and hurting Charlee.”

Tate found it hard to maintain his composure as he disconnected the call with Garrett. He wanted to find David
Hearn
and beat the living shit out of him. He didn’t want to wait another day. But maybe that was what he had to do to finish Hearn for good.

Should he tell Jo and ask her to hold off a day?

He knew better than that. Jo would be tearing into Hearn so fast he wouldn’t know what happened to him.

What could one more day hurt?

Tate growled under his breath. He couldn’t keep something like this from Jo. He’d tell her in person when he went to Jo-Jo’s tonight to see her.

His phone rang again. This time he saw that it was one of his ranch hands, Chet.

When Tate answered, Chet said, “We’ve got a problem, boss.”

Tate frowned. “What is it?”

“We’ve got at least ten head of cattle down in the west pasture by the stock tank,” Chet said. “They’re dead. I think the water’s been poisoned.”

“Damn.” Tate felt anger of another kind burn through to his skin. “I’ll be right there. In the meantime, start rounding up the rest of the herd and get them to the corrals. We need to check all of the tanks in the other pastures to make sure they’re not poisoned, too.”

Tate went on, “I’ll empty out the tanks in the corrals before I leave to make sure we get fresh water in them just in case. I’ll call in Bud and Jim,” Tate added. “Just get that herd away from the stock tank and I’ll be right there.”

* * * * *

Jo shivered as a prickling sensation scrabbled up her spine. It was late into the night, actually in the wee hours of Saturday morning. She glanced at her watch. Two a.m.

She felt like she was being watched as she walked down the sidewalk toward her car, away from the entrance of Jo-Jo’s. She looked around her but saw nothing in the darkness or the shadows. The night was quiet. Too quiet.

But then she’d been feeling a little paranoid, ever since the carbon monoxide accident. It had made her feel uneasy, like maybe the poison was still in her system.