It was Kirk.
And he was alive. He was moaning.
“Kirk,” Jordan muttered under her breath. She didn’t say more, but Egan figured she was thinking the same thing he was—that Kirk was no longer a suspect. Well, maybe he was. Kirk could have set this up.
Or not.
“He’s been shot,” Thea said. And that had Egan rethinking his theory that Kirk could have done this to himself. It seemed an extreme way to make them believe he was innocent.
Thea set her phone down on the seat, and while it wasn’t a perfect angle, Egan could still see the man. There was blood on Kirk’s shoulder and chest, but the moment Thea untied the gag from his mouth, he opened his eyes. His face was tight, his forehead bunched up, and he was still moaning in pain.
“The ambulance will be here in a few minutes,” Griff called out.
Good. Because Egan didn’t want Kirk dying before he had a chance to answer a whole lot of questions. Egan went ahead with the first question on his list.
“Who did this to you?” Egan asked.
Kirk moaned again and shook his head. “A big guy. He was hiding in the back seat of my car, and I didn’t see him until it was too late.” Kirk glanced around. “Where am I? How did I get here?”
Egan wanted to curse. Either Kirk had been unconscious after he was shot or else he was going to claim that he was. Too bad because that meant the man couldn’t give them critical details.
“Was Tori with you when you were shot?” Jordan asked.
“No. She left in her own car.” Kirk shook his head, and his eyelids fluttered down, threatening to close. If the man was faking this, he was doing a good job because he definitely looked in pain and as if he were fighting to remain conscious.
“Did the shooter say anything to you before he shot you?” Egan pressed.
“No.” Kirk didn’t hesitate with that answer, but he did pause right afterward. “I think he was just a hired gun.”
Probably, but it didn’t explain why the guy would have moved Kirk from his car to the truck. Obviously, the person behind this had wanted the truck to be found, but did that mean the plan had been to leave Kirk alive? Egan just didn’t know, and he might not have the answer to that until Kirk got to the hospital. If his injury was life-threatening, then maybe the hired gun had figured he would just bleed out.
But why hadn’t he just made sure that Kirk was dead?
“I think I know who set the thug on me,” Kirk said. His voice was even weaker now. “I think it was Tori.”
Of all the things that Egan had thought Kirk might say, that wasn’t one of them. “Tori?” Egan and Jordan questioned at the same time. It was Egan who continued, “Why would she have hired someone to kill you?”
Kirk mumbled something that Egan didn’t catch and then he winced in pain. “Because Tori found out that I knew about her.”
Egan would have definitely pressed for more info about that, but Kirk’s head dropped to the side, landing against the dash, and his eyes closed. Thea immediately pressed her fingers to the man’s neck.
“He’s still alive, but he needs to get to the hospital,” Thea said, urgency in her voice. In the background, Egan could hear a welcome sound. The sirens from the ambulance.
“Go with him in the ambulance,” Egan instructed Thea. “If he regains consciousness, ask him about Tori.”
“I will, but Kirk’s lost a lot of blood. You think maybe he was just talking out of his head?”
Egan didn’t know, but he would do everything to find out. “Just let me know whatever Kirk says,” Egan instructed.
He ended the call, turning to Jordan to see if she had any idea about this, but she shook her head. “Because Tori found out that I knew about her,” she repeated. “What would Kirk have learned?”
But she didn’t wait for him to answer. Jordan went to the laptop and accessed the files from her storage cloud. “I had info on the transplant recipients, but I don’t think anything is in here that would give us a clue.”
Neither did he. Because if there had been something, Jordan would have already connected the dots. Still, she scanned through the details she’d saved. However, Egan’s thoughts went in a different direction.
“We both thought it was strange that Tori would be Kirk’s lawyer,” Egan said, thinking out loud. “But what if Tori also knew Drew?”
Jordan immediately looked at him. “I didn’t even look for a connection like that.”
There would have been no reason for her to do that. She’d been researching the organ recipients to find out who might want all of them dead, but Drew didn’t seem to be a viable suspect since he’d had no way to arrange for hired guns. Because he was on death row, all of his visits and correspondence were carefully monitored.
Jordan exited the storage files and instead did an internet search on Tori. “There’s not a lot,” she said. “She’s only been a lawyer...” She stopped. “When she was still in law school, she interned at the law firm that defended Drew.”
That caused a bad feeling to snake up his spine. “You have the number for that firm?” he asked, taking out his phone again.
Egan pressed in the number as Jordan rattled it off, and it took him several minutes to work his way through to someone who might know anything about Tori. He was eventually connected to the head of personnel for the law firm, Stanley Clark. He put the call on speaker so that Jordan would be able to hear it.
“I’m Sheriff Egan McCall,” he greeted the man, “and I need info on one of your former interns, Tori Judd. It’s important. She could be in danger.” Egan wouldn’t mention that she might have had part in shooting in a man.
“Danger,” Stanley repeated. “Does this have anything to do with her heart transplant?”
So, the man knew her. That was a good start. “Maybe indirectly.”
“That’s a shame. She was really sick when she worked here, and I’d hoped the heart transplant would give her a chance at life. Did her body reject the heart or something?”
“I’m not sure.” Yeah, it was a lie, but this guy might clam up if he realized this was a murder investigation. “By any chance, did Tori work on the Drew Paxton murder trial?”
Silence. For a long time. And that silence was a red flag for Egan. “It’s important,” Egan repeated. “I believe she’s been getting threats.”
“No. She didn’t work on his murder trial, but she did on his previous narcotics conviction.”
That was the conviction that had put Drew on parole with Shanna as his parole officer. “Tori worked directly with Drew on the trial?” Egan pressed.
Stanley sighed. “Yes. Everybody warned Tori to keep her distance from that man, but she didn’t listen. Maybe because that was about the time she was getting so sick.”
Or maybe Tori had a thing for bad boys. And Drew was the ultimate bad boy.
“Anyway,” Stanley went on, “I don’t believe anything inappropriate went on between them, but a lot of people thought Tori had allowed herself to get too close to him. It didn’t matter, though, because after the transplant, she went to work for another law firm.” Stanley paused. “Is Drew Paxton the one who’s threatening her?”
“Possibly. Do you know anything about that?”
“Nothing concrete, but I got the feeling that he’d developed a fixation on her, and I thought the man was bad news. I was right because I’ve heard he’s in jail again for murder.”
“He is.” And Egan hated that just talking about the snake brought all the bad memories back to the surface. “Do you have any idea if Tori stayed in touch with Drew after his drug conviction?”
“There were rumors that she saw him, but like I said, she went to work for another firm, and I lost contact with her after that.”
Too bad that had happened because Egan needed to know just how close Tori had gotten to Drew and if it was conne
cted to everything that was going on right now.
“If you remember anything else about Tori, please let me know,” Egan told Stanley.
Egan ended the call and immediately pressed in Tori’s number again. No answer. However, he did leave her a message to contact him ASAP. When his phone buzzed with an incoming message, Egan thought maybe she was calling him, but it was Court.
“Griff just filled me in on what happened with Kirk,” Court said when Egan answered. “You want me to go to the hospital?”
It was tempting because Court was good at interrogation, but Egan needed him to man the office and work the murder investigation. And if Kirk didn’t make it, they’d have another murder to try to solve.
“No. Stay put,” Egan answered. “I just found out that Tori knew Drew, so Jordan and I will be working on that.”
“She what?” Court added some ripe curse words to go with that.
Surprise had been Egan’s reaction, too, and it wasn’t a good thing that Tori hadn’t volunteered that info. A connection to Drew meant she could also be connected to the attacks and killings, and that was probably the reason she hadn’t volunteered that to him.
“If you need any help with the Tori angle, let me know,” Court went on. “In the meantime, the reason I called was to let you know that a pair of CSIs are on the ranch, and they’re examining the dead guy. No ID on him, but they’ll take his prints and run those ASAP.”
“Thanks.” The sooner they knew who the guy was, the sooner they could use him to try to link him to one of their suspects. Of course, their suspect list was changing. Egan was adding Tori as a person of interest, and Kirk had dropped to the bottom. If Kirk had merely wanted to give himself an injury so that he looked innocent, he wouldn’t have taken things that far. Well, unless something had gone seriously wrong with whatever he’d planned.
When he finished his call with Court, he saw that Jordan was already doing a computer search on Tori. Good. Maybe she’d find something they could use.
Egan tried a different angle. He sent a text to the warden at the prison where Drew was incarcerated and asked if Tori had ever visited Drew or written him a letter. Even if there was no record of the letter, it didn’t mean the two hadn’t stayed in touch that way. Letters could often get past security by having a lawyer deliver them.
He debated calling Drew’s lawyer, but the guy probably wasn’t going to admit that he’d broken prison rules by bringing in letters from the outside. Still, it was worth a try. Anything was at this point. Well, anything other than Jordan surrendering herself to this killer.
Egan was about to use the computer to look up a number for Drew’s attorney, but his phone rang again before he could do that. It wasn’t Court this time. It was Thea, and he hoped she had good news.
“We just got to the hospital, and they took Kirk into surgery,” Thea said the moment Egan answered.
Well, at least he was still alive. “Any idea if he’ll survive?”
“Not yet. The doctor didn’t talk to me, but Kirk did. He woke up a couple of times while we were still in the ambulance.”
That grabbed Egan’s attention. Jordan’s, too, because she stood and went closer to him. “What did he say?” Egan asked.
“I’m not sure it makes sense. Kirk was drifting in and out of consciousness so take this with a grain of salt. But Kirk mumbled that Drew found out something. Something important, he insisted. He said that Drew learned that Shanna was the one.”
Jordan obviously heard that because she shook her head. “The one?” she repeated.
“A match,” Thea clarified. “According to Kirk, Drew knew that Tori would be a match to get Shanna’s heart. And that’s why Drew killed Shanna.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jordan heard every word Thea said, but it was hard for her to process it. For two years she’d believed the events of that fateful night had played out because of Drew’s obsession with Shanna.
But had it all been a lie?
Judging from Egan’s bunched-up forehead and stark expression, he was having trouble with it, too.
“Remember, Kirk might not have known what he was saying,” Thea added. “Or he could have just made it up.”
True, but what reasons would Kirk have had to lie about something like this? The only possibility that came to mind was that this lie was part of some semibotched attempt to make them believe he wasn’t responsible for all the murders and attempted murders.
“Griff took Leeroy to the sheriff’s office to get his statement about finding the truck,” Thea went on. “But once he’s done with that, he can go to the prison to talk to Drew. Or I could go,” Thea continued when Egan didn’t say anything. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to try to talk to him right now.” She paused. “Are you okay?”
Egan cleared his throat, and Jordan could see that he was trying to steel himself up. “Have Griff go out and talk to Drew,” Egan finally answered. What he didn’t do was address Thea’s question if he was okay. He clearly wasn’t.
Even if what Kirk had said was a lie, it was bringing back all the memories and grief for Egan. For Jordan, too. And this time the grief was worse. Something that she hadn’t thought possible. But it was heartbreaking to think that Shanna might not have been killed by a madman after all. She might have been murdered because she could be an organ donor for Tori.
“I want you to stay at the hospital and keep watch,” Egan added to Thea several moments later. “If someone did try to kill Kirk, they might come back and try to finish the job.”
Oh, mercy.
With everything else going on, Jordan hadn’t even considered that. But it was a possibility. And if the person succeeded in finishing off Kirk, that might prevent them from ever learning the truth. She seriously doubted they were going to get the truth from Drew.
Egan ended the call with Thea and then glanced around as if trying to figure out what to do. Finally, he groaned. Then cursed.
Jordan doubted he would want her to do this, but she slipped her arm around him anyway. He didn’t push her away. Nor did he relax any. She still felt his rock-hard muscles.
Egan looked down at her, their eyes meeting, and Jordan got another jolt of that bone-deep pain they were both feeling. At least Egan didn’t seem to be blaming her for that pain.
But she was still blaming herself.
Even if Drew had orchestrated the hostage situation with the ultimate goal of killing Shanna, Jordan should have still been able to stop him. If that was what Egan was feeling, though, he certainly didn’t show it. In fact, he brushed a kiss on her mouth, causing her own muscles to tense. Then relax. He stared at her as if trying to decide if he wanted to kiss her again, but he obviously decided against that because he stepped away from her.
He scrubbed his hand over his face and groaned softly. “Focus,” he grumbled under his breath, and when his attention came back to her again, he did seem all business. “How the hell would Drew have found out that Shanna was a donor, much less a match?” he asked.
She lifted her shoulder. “Maybe Drew saw it on her driver’s license. Or hacked into the DMV database.” Of course, it would have required him to do more than that. “He must have gotten into Shanna’s medical records, too, for him to find out.”
“But that would have only told him her blood type, right? Is there more to it than that?”
“There is. It’s called cross-match typing, where they mix together blood from the donor and possible recipient. If the recipient’s cells attack the donor cells, then the transplant will fail.”
Egan huffed. “So, why would Drew have believed that Shanna was a match in the first place?”
Jordan had to think about that a few seconds. “Maybe because of Shanna’s blood type. She was B-positive, which meant the recipients had to be either B or AB. I was AB,” she added under her breath. “Only a small percentage o
f the population has that particular type.”
And that meant she’d gotten very lucky to even have a donor. Of course, maybe Drew had created that “luck” by trying to get Tori a heart. He probably had no idea that Jordan would be a match for an organ transplant, too.
“If we can find Tori’s blood type,” she went on, “I’m betting it’ll be B or AB.” Well, it would if Kirk was telling the truth.
Egan made a sound of agreement. “Drew’s target could have been Shanna all along. That’s why he shot her in the head with a low-caliber gun.” But he seemed to be talking more to himself than her. “He knew the shot probably wouldn’t kill her immediately. That way, she’d linger on, and there’d be time to harvest her organs.”
The relief came flooding through her. For a couple of seconds anyway. Maybe she hadn’t been to blame for Shanna’s death, but it certainly didn’t feel like a victory. Because Shanna was still dead, and this was all just a theory. To prove it, they’d need a lot more information.
“I’ll try to find out Tori’s blood type,” she offered. “I can use my phone to search for that if you need to use the laptop.”
“I do. I want to read through the files that San Antonio PD collected on Drew for the murder trial. It’s possible they included his internet searches.”
Yes, and that way they could tell if Drew had been looking for ways to save Tori. And speaking of Tori, Egan tried one more time to call her, but it had the same results. No answer, and the call went to voice mail.
On another huff, Egan sank down on the sofa and got to work. So did Jordan, but she’d managed to search for only about five minutes when her phone rang. Jordan’s heart nearly stopped when she saw Unknown Caller on the screen.
“This could be from the killer,” she said to Egan.
He took out his own phone to record the call, and once he’d done that, he motioned for her to answer it. Jordan hit the answer button and pulled in her breath, waiting.
Lawman with a Cause Page 12