Abbie gave Boone’s arm a squeeze. A reassurance that she didn’t share Mason’s doubts.
“You two okay?” Boone asked, looking first at her and then at Mason.
She nodded. Glanced at Mason. Waiting for him to answer.
Mason figured it was a good time to change the subject. He wasn’t okay. Neither was Abbie despite that nod, and he didn’t want to slip into a personal conversation with a man he still hated.
“I need to question Stone. You can watch from there.” Mason pointed to the room across the hall. “There’s a two-way mirror.”
Mason headed out fast, but before he stepped into the interview room, he took a moment to gather his thoughts and to mentally slug himself. He was lawman right now, and he had to act like one or the danger was never going to end for Abbie. With that reminder out of the way, Mason got to work.
Stone was already seated, and he had his open briefcase on the table. “Where’s the sheriff?” he immediately asked.
“Busy. You get to talk to me instead.” Mason spun one of the chairs around, dropped down on the seat and rested his arms on the chair back.
Stone didn’t try to hide his disapproval of being relegated to an interview with a deputy, and Mason didn’t attempt to hide his disapproval of a man he thought was a couple of notches below slime. Anyone who worked for Ford for two decades couldn’t have stayed completely legal.
“The proof I promised.” Stone took out a paper from his briefcase, reached across the table and handed it to Mason.
Mason had a good look at the proof. It was a lengthy email from Ford to Nicole, and the first part dealt with Ford’s reelection campaign. Nothing incriminating until Mason got to the last paragraph.
“My daughter has been snooping through our old business files,” Mason read. “Make sure you cover both of us. While you’re at it, take care of that Ryland mess.”
Mason had known that Ford’s daughter, Lynette, had been looking through her father’s files for proof of his wrongdoings. That fit with the date of the email—two months earlier. But Mason had to mull over what Ford had meant by the Ryland mess.
“Ford is telling Nicole to kill all of you, including Boone,” Stone concluded.
Ford was as dirty as they came, but that interpretation was a stretch. “You have anything else?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Stone howled. “Nicole is the one behind these attacks, and she’s operating on Ford’s orders. He probably left her money to carry out his wishes.”
That was possible, but Mason could see this from a different angle. “This might have been about the time that Ford learned my brother Gage was alive. Or he could have been referring to the fact that Lynette didn’t get her marriage to Gage annulled when Ford insisted she do it.”
Stone jumped to his feet. “This isn’t about your brother. It’s about Ford leaving instructions to have you murdered.”
Mason wished that’s what the email proved, but it didn’t. He shook his head and dropped the paper back on the table. “I’ll have Grayson look at it, but I don’t think he’ll come to the same conclusion you have.”
Stone’s hands went on his hips, and he huffed. “Somebody wants you dead, and judging from the way this investigation has stalled, that email is as close to proof as you have.”
“The investigation hasn’t stalled,” Mason mumbled. At least he hoped not. Every passing minute meant Abbie was in danger.
Abbie. He glanced back at the mirror. She was there, watching and listening, and Mason knew it was a bad time to remember that. But each conversation about the death threats had to feel like opening old wounds, especially because this wasn’t just about her. It was about all of them.
Well, not Rodney Stone.
And that brought Mason back to something else he needed to know. “What was in the letter that Ford’s probate attorney gave you when the will was read?”
Stone blinked. In fact, that was his only reaction for several seconds. He obviously hadn’t expected that question. “It was personal.”
That wasn’t the right answer. “Yeah, I bet. But considering it could be important to an attempted-murder investigation, personal doesn’t count. What was in the letter?” Mason pressed.
Stone’s surprise morphed into anger. “Ford thanked me for all my years of service.”
Mason made a circling motion with this finger to tell Stone to keep talking.
This time Stone’s eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing more to add. There was no money, nothing of value. Just his thank-you for twenty-two years of putting up with him.”
Okay, that little outburst seemed genuine. Of course, that could be faked. “I want to see it.”
“You can’t.” Stone met Mason’s stare. “I tore it up.” He rolled his shoulders. “I was upset because I was expecting more.”
“Any reason why?” Mason pressed.
“Yes!” But it took him several moments to continue. “Nicole got a letter, too, but she was grinning from ear to ear when she read hers. I’m betting Ford left her a bundle.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she was grinning to rile you. If so, it worked.”
Stone shook his head. “No, she was pleased about something. Maybe more orders to kill some Rylands.” He cursed. “I was so mad that I ripped my letter of thanks into pieces and flushed it down the toilet.”
“Convenient,” Mason remarked.
“The truth,” Stone corrected. “My letter was nothing. Less than nothing. But Nicole’s, well, you should demand to see it.”
Oh, Mason would, but she’d likely have the same story about getting mad and destroying it. That left Ferguson. Mason might have better luck getting a letter from a nest of rattlers.
There was a rap at the door, and a split second later, it opened. Dade stuck his head in and motioned for Mason to come into the hall. He did, bracing himself for more bad news, and he shut the door behind him.
Dade wasn’t alone. Both Boone and Abbie were there, and judging from their expressions, this was going to be bad.
“Gage just called from the hospital. Ace regained consciousness,” Dade immediately let Mason know.
It took a moment for the relief to set in. “Is he able to talk?”
Dade nodded. “He’s not only talking but making some demands.”
The feeling of relief flew right out the window. “What kind of demands?”
Dade looked at Abbie, and she was the one to answer Mason’s question. “Ace told Gage that he’ll speak to only Boone and me. He says if we come to the hospital, he’ll tell us who hired him. But only us.”
“Hell,” Mason mumbled, and Dade agreed. “This could be some kind of trap.”
Abbie didn’t argue that. “Gage said Ace is heavily sedated, and he’s too weak to even get out of bed. He doesn’t have a gun, and he can’t hurt us.”
Mason wasn’t so sure of that. Maybe physically Ace couldn’t do any harm, but Mason didn’t trust him. If Ace was ready to confess all, then he likely had something up his sleeve.
Maybe.
Or maybe the hit man just wanted to stay alive.
“We don’t have a choice,” Abbie insisted.
“Yeah, we do.” But Mason knew that was a lie. He wanted Abbie as far away from Ace as possible. He wanted her safe inside. Except no place was safe as long as someone wanted to kill her.
“You’ll be with us,” Abbie argued. “But we have to hurry. Ace said the offer is only good for fifteen minutes.”
Mason cursed again. “Why the time limit?”
“Ace thinks his boss will try to kill him,” Dade explained. “He wants to be moved to a more secure location ASAP.”
Now, that was something Mason couldn’t dispute. Ace was definitely a loose end, and the person who hired him wouldn’t want him talking to anyone. Of course, getting him to a safe place wouldn’t be easy.
“I’ll finish up with Stone,” Dade let him know. “Mel’s outside in the parking lot now, just to make sure no one is out there. I’ll also call Ga
ge and have him meet you in the hospital parking lot. Kade can start working on moving Ace.”
It was also his brother’s way of saying for them to get to the hospital fast. If Ace stuck to his unreasonable condition for a confession, the minutes were literally ticking off.
Still, Mason took a moment to consider all the angles. There were some potentially bad angles in a situation like this—like the bad feeling in his gut—and it riled him to the core that he couldn’t do anything about them.
“Let’s go,” Mason said to Abbie and Boone. He took his weapon from his shoulder holster and hurried down the hall toward the back exit. They were right behind him.
When he opened the door, he spotted Mel, the deputy, as she was canvassing the parking lot. She also had her gun drawn and gave them a thumbs-up to indicate it was safe. Well, as safe as she could make it. Mason didn’t waste any time getting Boone and Abbie into his truck and out of the parking lot. Abbie slid in next to Mason, and Boone took the passenger’s side.
Thankfully, Boone drew a weapon as well, his Colt, and he used the side mirror to keep watch, but he also glanced at the dash. Then at Mason. “You kept your granddaddy’s truck,” he commented.
“Yeah.” And Mason didn’t add more. It certainly wasn’t the time to explain that the truck was his last thread of connection to his grandfather. It didn’t mesh with the stone-hard attitude he preferred to toss back in people’s faces.
Abbie leaned in a little, pressing her arm against his. “I like the truck. It suits you.”
Mason frowned and wondered when the heck his choice of vehicles had become of such interest to others. But he didn’t hang on to the anger long. He made the mistake of glancing down at Abbie, and he turned to dust again. That’s because her eyes let him know that her truck talk was a way of calming her raw nerves.
“It’ll be okay,” Mason tried to assure her. He wasn’t one to dole out promises he couldn’t keep, but in this case he made an exception. He wanted to do something to get that worry off her face.
“What if Ace doesn’t tell us what we need to know?” she asked in a whisper.
Mason lifted his shoulder, tried to look as cool and mean as possible. “Then we keep looking. Keep asking questions.” Because there wasn’t an alternative.
Okay, there was.
Marshal McKinney could whisk Abbie away to a new life and a new name. He could make her safe. And even though that twisted away at Mason’s stomach, and even though he didn’t want to explore why it was doing that, there was a bottom line here.
Abbie would be safe.
And for now, Mason would bargain with the devil to make sure that happened.
Mason pulled into the parking lot as close as he could to the entrance, and he waited until he saw Gage in the doorway before he turned off the engine. “Move fast,” he told Abbie. “I don’t want you outside any longer than necessary.”
She nodded and followed behind him when he stepped from the truck. Mason made it just a couple of steps before he heard the sound.
And it was already too late.
A bullet slammed into his truck.
Chapter Fourteen
Abbie barely had time to react to the shot that was fired before Mason hooked his arm around her waist and dragged her to the ground.
She landed on her knees, but Mason pushed her down until she was flat against the parking lot pavement. Then he followed on top of her.
Protecting her.
Again.
“Boone?” she shouted just as another shot crashed into the window on the driver’s side.
“I’m okay. Stay down!” Boone shouted back.
Abbie had no intention of doing otherwise, but she wasn’t the only one in danger. Both Mason and Boone were in the line of fire, and neither would get out of that danger. And all because of her. They could die in this parking lot trying to keep her alive.
“Should I call for backup?” she asked.
Mason shook his head. “Gage will do that. Crawl underneath the truck,” he ordered her.
Abbie started to do that, but the shots came at them nonstop. She also heard other shots. Not just Mason’s, but ones coming from the front of the hospital where Gage was hopefully returning fire.
But who was trying to kill them this time?
It couldn’t be Ace because he was in the hospital. If he’d somehow managed to escape, Gage would have told them. It wasn’t Stone either, because just minutes earlier they’d left him at the sheriff’s office. Of course, any of their suspects could have hired another triggerman.
Abbie rolled to the side and beneath the truck, but she still couldn’t see anything because Mason adjusted his position so that he was directly in front her. She watched where he took aim and fired. Not in the parking lot or at the hospital. Mason fired the shot toward the parklike area at the back of the building.
The perfect place for a gunman to hide.
There were thick shrubs, trees and benches. So many places to lie in wait. And because the gunman had started shooting almost immediately after they’d gotten out of the truck, that meant the person had been waiting for them. Maybe that same person had used Ace’s demand to put this deadly plan in motion.
“You see him?” Boone called out.
“No,” Mason answered, and he sent another shot into the park. “But he’s using a rifle.”
Oh, mercy. So the gunman could be far enough away from them not to be spotted but still able to deliver a fatal shot.
A bullet smacked into the truck, less than an inch from where Mason had crouched.
“You need to get down!” Abbie demanded.
He didn’t, of course. Mason stayed put and kept firing. Until she heard the thudding click to indicate he was out of ammunition.
“I have an extra magazine of ammo in the glove compartment,” he mumbled.
Mason turned, no doubt to head in that direction, but Abbie latched on to him and pulled him back to the ground. “Are you crazy? If the shooter’s got a scope on that rifle, and he probably does, he’ll pick you off the second you climb back into the truck.”
Mason didn’t argue. Couldn’t. Because he knew she was right.
“I’m nearly out of ammo, too,” Boone let them know.
That wasn’t good news, but thank goodness Gage was still firing. Plus, backup should be arriving any minute.
And then Mason cursed.
Abbie’s heart jumped into her throat. “What’s wrong?”
“The shots are getting closer.”
She listened. Hard to do with her pulse crashing in her ears, but she soon heard what Mason already had. Yes, the shots were getting closer, and that meant the gunman was moving in for the kill. But she also heard something else.
A siren.
Backup would be here soon. Hopefully soon enough.
“Crawl toward Boone,” Mason told her. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Abbie had been about to argue, until he’d added that last part. She didn’t want Mason to stay put and take a bullet. But Boone was farther away from the shots.
For now.
With the shooter moving, it was hard to know where it would be safer.
Abbie scooted to the side, toward Boone, and when she was within reach, he pulled her closer until she was tucked up against him. The shots continued—slower now but seemingly getting louder with each one fired.
Mason was just a few inches from her when a bullet cut through the front tire. The air rushed out, causing the truck to sink down right on Mason. It wasn’t enough to crush him, but Abbie didn’t want to take the risk. She latched on to his arm and yanked him to her.
The sound of the sirens got closer, and then Abbie heard the screech of brakes into the parking lot. She couldn’t see who’d arrived to help, but she did get a glimpse of Gage.
“Stay down!” Gage yelled to them, and he barreled out of the hospital doorway.
Abbie wanted to scream for him to stay put, to keep out of the way of those shots, but just lik
e that, they stopped.
“The shooter’s on the run,” Mason said, and he glanced at Boone. “Stay here with Abbie.”
Before she could ask Mason where he was going or remind him that he was out of ammo, he scrambled out from beneath the truck and ran in the direction where she’d last seen Gage.
“Be careful,” she called out, but it was too late for him to hear her.
Boone heard, though.
Abbie met his weathered gaze, and she saw the realization in his eyes. She had fallen hard for Mason, and it was breaking her heart to see him in danger.
“Does he know?” Boone asked her.
“What do you think?” she whispered.
Boone blew out a weary breath. Nodded. Mason didn’t miss much when it came to people. Especially her. So, yeah, he knew how she felt. That didn’t mean he would do anything about it or even return her feelings.
The sound of the footsteps snapped her attention back where it belonged—on the shooter and the safety of anyone who might cross his path. She prayed it was Mason returning, but she soon saw Dade.
“Get Abbie inside the hospital now,” Dade told Boone. And as Gage and Mason had done, he hurried away.
Boone didn’t waste any time getting her to her feet, and with his gun still drawn, he hooked his left arm around her, and they hurried up the steps to the hospital. He pushed her inside, away from the windows and doors, and stood guard in front of her. They were alone. There were others in the waiting-reception area, and they’d all taken cover behind the chairs and furniture.
Abbie came up on her toes so she could peer over Boone’s shoulder. Her heart sank when she couldn’t see Mason, but she knew he was trying to run down the shooter.
“Mason’s out of bullets,” she mumbled, causing the panic to soar.
“He knows how to take care of himself,” Boone reminded her, but there was concern and fear in his voice. And there was a reason for that. Three of his sons were out there with a killer.
Another police cruiser screamed to a stop in the parking lot, and Mel made a quick exit. She, too, was armed and went in pursuit.
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