Always a Lawman

by Delores Fossen

  “Hard to forget it. I remember having to wrestle some chocolate cake away from you once when we were kids.”

  Jodi nodded. “And I had to wrestle them from Lauren and your sister, Gilly.”

  She caught the slight change in Cameron’s expression and knew she’d hit a nerve. Two of them, actually. From what Jodi had heard, Gilly had died during childbirth, and Cameron was raising her child. Since that’d happened only a few months earlier, the grief still had to be raw.

  However, there was another rawness, too. One that might never go away, as well. Once, Cameron had been in love with Lauren. And vice versa. But again, those feelings of young love had all been shattered the night of the murders because Cameron had been a deputy then, and Lauren had blamed him for not preventing her parents’ deaths. It probably wasn’t logical for Lauren to feel that way, but those sorts of raw feelings weren’t always logical.

  “Yes,” Cameron said as if he knew what she was thinking.

  His smile stayed in place a moment longer before his attention shifted to Gabriel. “The CSIs are processing the knife right away. We should know soon if the blood belongs to the victim and if there are prints that match our suspect.

  “Sorry,” Cameron added to Jodi. “This kind of talk doesn’t exactly go well with coffee and doughnuts.”

  “It’s all right. I want to know what’s happening with the case. Has the kid said anything?” she asked. “Or has his lawyer arrived yet?”

  Cameron shook his head to both of her questions. “Nothing from him, but you do have a visitor, and he’s demanding to see you. It’s your boss, Hector March.”

  Gabriel shot her a glance, one that seemed like an accusation. “I didn’t call him,” Jodi insisted. And she looked to Cameron for answers. “The murder is already on the news?”

  The deputy nodded.

  Good grief. That hadn’t taken long at all, but then, she hadn’t expected it to stay quiet. Still, she hadn’t wanted to deal with Hector when her nerves were this close to the surface.

  Jodi stood, trying to steel herself up by taking some deep breaths and flexing her hands. “Where is he?”

  Cameron hitched his thumb toward the squad room. “I had him wait out there. Something he’s not very happy about. Apparently, he’s not the waiting-around sort.”

  No, he wasn’t. But if Jodi tried to put Hector off, that would only make him dig in his heels even more. She reminded herself that Hector had been the one to help her get back on her feet when she’d been just nineteen and devastated from the knife attack. He’d been the one to offer her a job and train her. She would probably be in a psych ward somewhere if it weren’t for him.

  She put the coffee and doughnut bag on Gabriel’s desk and went out in the hall and toward Reception. Gabriel was right behind her, of course. And Hector was exactly where Cameron had said he would be. Her boss was dressed in his usual black cargo pants and black T-shirt. He’d once been special ops in the Marines, and he still looked as if he were in uniform.

  Hector immediately went to her, ignoring Gabriel’s scowl. Heck, Cameron was scowling now, too. Apparently, neither approved of Hector’s shades-of-gray approach to his business and justice.

  Hector didn’t touch her. He hadn’t in years, since she usually went board stiff when someone put their hands on her. But he did get close enough to whisper, “Are you all right?”

  She managed a nod. “Neither of us were hit, and Gabriel has a suspect in custody.”

  Hector turned to Gabriel then and extended his hand. “I’m Hector March, owner of Sentry Security.”

  Gabriel didn’t shake his hand. “I know who you are.”

  Hector gave a crisp nod. “And I know who you are, too, Sheriff. Why the hell would you let Jodi get anywhere near that house after we got those threatening emails?”

  That grabbed Gabriel’s attention. “We? You got an email, too?”

  “Yes.” Hector frowned as if annoyed that he would have to take the time to address this. “It came this morning. But Jodi got hers the day before yesterday, right after she told a reporter that she was remembering some more details of her attack. I’m sure she explained that to you, and that’s why you shouldn’t have let her go to the house.”

  “I didn’t let Jodi do anything.” Gabriel’s voice was as crisp as Hector’s nod had been. “When I saw her car, I stopped to see what she was doing. She trespassed onto private property and then stumbled onto a crime scene.”

  Suddenly, all eyes were on her. Even the emergency dispatcher at the reception desk and the other deputies were looking at her. Maybe they were waiting for some kind of logic from her that they would understand. But it wasn’t something they’d be able to grasp. Because they’d never been left for dead in a shallow grave.

  “I wanted to see if being at the old house would trigger any other memories of the night of my attack,” she admitted. Best not to tell them she had also wanted to draw out the snake who’d knifed her.

  Hector pulled back his shoulders, clearly not approving of that. “And did it? Are you actually remembering new details?”

  “No.” In fact, the only thing it had accomplished was nearly getting Gabriel, Jameson and her killed along with giving her a new set of nightmarish memories.

  All that blood on the pantry floor.

  Mercy, another dead body.

  She prayed the man wasn’t dead because of her, but Jodi had to accept that he could be.

  “Did you give the FBI the email you got?” Gabriel asked Hector at the same moment that Hector asked him, “Is Jodi free to go? I can drive her to her apartment in San Antonio.”

  “I don’t want to go home,” she insisted. “I want to listen when Gabriel talks to the suspect.”

  Hector’s mouth tightened. It was yet something else he didn’t approve of. Tough. She was staying put.

  “And yes, I gave the FBI the email,” Hector answered Gabriel, but he kept his attention on her. “Apparently, it’s not traceable since the person who sent it bounced it around through several foreign internet providers.”

  Not a surprise. Jodi hadn’t figured it would be so easy to find out who was doing this. But then maybe their suspect would spill it all. Not just about the emails but about the person who’d hired him.

  “You think the guy in custody is the one who attacked you ten years ago?” Hector asked.

  She didn’t jump to answer. Because she wasn’t sure how much Gabriel wanted to reveal about this investigation.

  “No,” Gabriel finally said. “He’s too young. Plus, I believe the man who attacked her has already been caught and is in prison.”

  Hector made a quick sound of agreement. He always did when it came to her father. It was the one thing he had in common with the Becketts—they thought her father was guilty.

  “Several other people got threats,” Hector went on. “Apparently, all of you did.” He glanced at Gabriel, Jameson and then her. “But so did Russell Laney and August Canton.”

  Judging from the soft grunt of agreement Gabriel made, he was already aware of those last two. Jodi certainly wasn’t, and she looked at Gabriel for him to provide some details.

  “There are probably others who got the emails, too,” Gabriel said as Cameron stepped away to take a call. “The FBI figures some folks just deleted them as a hoax. But, yes, I suspect anyone connected to the initial investigation was on the receiving end of the threats. Russell and August got theirs the same day I did.”

  Jodi knew both Russell and August, of course. Both had been suspects in the Beckett murders and her attack.

  Them, and Jodi’s own brother, Theo.

  It was public knowledge that the police and then the FBI had questioned all three. Theo, because he’d been a hothead at the time and had a run-in that day with Gabriel’s father, Sherman, over some horses that’d bro
ken fence. Russell had gotten caught up in it simply because Jodi had ended her short relationship with him the week before the attack. August was her dad’s half brother and had been just as much of a hothead as Theo.

  And the cops excluded them all as suspects.

  After they’d found her father passed out drunk with Gabriel’s father’s blood on him.

  “August thinks the threatening emails prove that Travis is innocent,” Hector went on. “In fact, he’s already taking all of this to Travis’s lawyers in the hopes that it’ll help with his last-ditch appeal.”

  August was probably the only other person in Texas who believed her father was innocent. Despite that, it never had felt as if August and she were on the same side. That’s because August had never approved of her friendship with the Becketts. It didn’t matter that the friendship had ended the night of the attack. It was a drop in the bucket, though, to what August held against Jameson. Because Jameson had been the most vocal of the Becketts in professing her father’s guilt.

  “Theo might have gotten a threatening email, too. Have you been in touch with him?” Hector asked her.

  “No. I haven’t spoken to him in over a year. I don’t even have a phone number for him.”

  Nor did she know who to contact to get one. As a DEA agent, Theo spent a lot of time on deep-cover assignments, and if the copycat/killer had managed to send Theo an email, then he or she was well connected with insider Justice Department information.

  Not exactly a comforting thought if it was true.

  “We have an ID on our young suspect,” Cameron announced as soon as he finished his latest call. “We got a match on his prints because he’s a missing person. His name is Billy Coleman.”

  Jodi repeated that a couple of times to see if she recognized it. She didn’t.

  “He’s a runaway,” Cameron continued. “His parents filed a missing person report about a year ago. Not for the first time, either. He’s run away at least two other times. He’s seventeen, and judging from his juvie record, he’s paranoid schizophrenic. My guess is he’s probably off his meds.”

  Gabriel cursed. And Jodi knew why. Billy was no doubt going to plead mental incompetence, and they might never get answers as to why he’d committed this horrible crime.

  But something about that didn’t sound right.

  “Billy called a lawyer,” Jodi pointed out.

  “Yeah,” Gabriel agreed, and he cursed again. “And he had the name and phone number of the attorney when he got here to the sheriff’s office. Not something a runaway teen would necessarily have.”

  “Especially since he’s not from a wealthy family,” Cameron supplied. “His parents both work at blue-collar jobs.”

  So, that confirmed that someone had likely put Billy up to doing this, and if so, that meant he was just another victim of this tangled mess.

  “What about the dead guy?” Gabriel asked Cameron. “Any ID on him yet?”

  “No. His prints weren’t in the system, so we’ll have to try to get an ID by searching through missing person reports and getting his picture out to the press.”

  That might take a while. Especially if the man was homeless and no one was looking for him.

  “I really think you should let me take you home,” Hector said, turning back to her. “Gabriel can fill you in on anything that happens, including whatever the suspect says in the interview.”

  She was shaking her head before Hector even finished. “I’m staying here.” And she didn’t leave any room for argument in her tone.

  Hector gave a heavy sigh and looked at Gabriel as if he expected him to force her to leave. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for Jodi to be out anywhere right now,” Gabriel answered. “She’ll be safer here.”

  Jodi was more than a little surprised that Gabriel had backed her up. Then she realized why he’d done that. Because she was almost certainly in danger from the person who was manipulating Billy. Gabriel probably didn’t want to be a part of another attack that could leave her dead.

  “Just go,” Jodi told Hector. “I’ll be fine.”

  He obviously knew that “fine” part was a lie. Was also obviously not happy about being dismissed. But he didn’t get a chance to voice that unhappiness. That’s because Jameson finished his phone call, and he got up from his desk, making a beeline toward them.

  “There were prints on the knife,” Jameson said, “and the CSIs got an immediate hit.” He snapped toward Jodi, and that definitely wasn’t a friendly expression he was sporting. “Is there something you want to tell us?” he demanded.

  Jodi shook her head, not understanding why Gabriel’s brother looked ready to blast her to smithereens.

  But she soon found out.

  Jameson turned to his brother to finish delivering the news. “It’s Jodi’s prints on the knife.”

  Chapter Four

  Gabriel had hoped there wouldn’t be any more surprises today, but this was a huge one. Since Billy had been wearing gloves, Gabriel hadn’t expected there to be any prints at all on the knife.

  Especially not Jodi’s.

  Judging from the stunned look on her face, Jodi hadn’t expected it, either. Her attention slashed from Jameson to Gabriel, and she shook her head. She also opened her mouth as if ready to blurt out some kind of denial, but the denial and anything else she might have said died on her lips because she groaned and sank down into the nearest chair.

  “Jodi was obviously set up,” Hector jumped to say.

  Gabriel hated to give the man even a slight benefit of doubt, but Hector could be right. Of course, there was another possibility. One that wasn’t going to help ease that stark expression on Jodi’s already too pale face.

  Gabriel moved closer to her, lifting her chin so they could make eye contact. Like the other time he’d touched her, she tensed, making him wonder just how many “scars” she had from the attack a decade ago. Probably plenty that she wouldn’t want to discuss with him.

  “Do you remember ever touching the knife?” Gabriel asked. He’d chosen his words carefully. No need to say aloud that he wanted to know if she’d taken hold of the handle when her attacker had been trying to end her life.

  Jodi ran her hand through her hair and shook her head. “I honestly don’t know.” She shifted her attention to Jameson, and even though the paleness and nerves were still there, she straightened her posture and took a deep breath. “Is the fingerprint pattern consistent with me having grabbed it while I was being stabbed?”

  Jameson lifted his shoulder. “There are two clear prints. Your right index finger and thumb. The other prints are smeared.”

  “That means nothing. Her attacker could have been wearing gloves.” Hector again.

  It riled Gabriel that Jodi’s boss had taken on the role of defending her. Then again, plenty of things riled him about Hector. Including the fact that Jodi had turned to him and not Gabriel after the nightmare ten years ago. Hector considered himself some kind of victim’s recovery advocate and had come to visit Jodi in the hospital shortly after the attack. She’d allowed him into her life—while excluding Gabriel.

  “Does Jodi need a lawyer?” Hector asked, glancing at both Jameson and Gabriel. “Are you accusing her of something? Because it certainly seems to me that’s what you’re doing.”

  Well, it hadn’t been certain to Jodi. Her eyes widened, and she shook her head again.

  “I know you didn’t stab yourself,” Gabriel said before she could speak. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. There was another component to this situation.

  The most recent murder.

  Jodi seemed to understand that even before Gabriel could bring it up. “I also didn’t kill that man and plant the knife on the doorstep so I could clear my father’s name.” Jodi’s voice was stronger now, and she got to her feet to face him.
She repeated the part about not killing the man.

  Gabriel believed her. Yeah, it was stupid to take her word at face value, especially since he’d hardly seen her in years. He wasn’t sure of the woman she’d become. But he seriously doubted that Jodi had become a killer.

  “The FBI wants to talk to you,” Jameson told her. “They’re sending an agent from their San Antonio office.”

  Which meant the agent would be there soon, since San Antonio was less than an hour’s drive away. That might not be enough time, though, for Gabriel to get answers from their suspect. He hoped that didn’t mean the agent would take her into custody.

  “If this is a copycat killing,” Gabriel volunteered, “then the FBI doesn’t have jurisdiction. I do.” That was splitting legal hairs, but it might stop Jodi from being whisked away and put through what would no doubt be grueling interrogations.

  Hell.

  Gabriel frowned, then silently cursed himself. He wasn’t thinking with his head now. He was thinking like the twenty-four-year-old deputy who had turned Jodi away that night.

  He was also thinking like a man.

  One who was still attracted to a woman who shouldn’t be on his attraction radar. But she was. And there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it.

  “I’ll get you a lawyer,” Hector told her, already taking out his phone.

  “No, don’t. Not yet anyway.” She turned back to Gabriel. “Any idea when Billy’s attorney will be here?”

  Gabriel had to shake his head. “But it should be soon. We’ve already bagged his clothes and tested his hands for gunshot residue. There’s residue, by the way, and coupled with the fact that he attacked us, that’ll be enough to charge him. Well, at least it’s enough to charge him for shooting at us.”

  Jodi continued to stare at him. “You doubt that he killed that man in the house?”

  Gabriel really didn’t want to get into the specifics of what he thought or didn’t think. Not with Hector right there. Not before he’d had a chance to try to work it all out in his head.