“Yeah, I get that,” Grayson agreed. “So what do we do about the dark entity until then?”
Shaw turned his eyes toward Courtney. He grabbed her hand again. “Courtney seems to be able to help spirits move into the afterlife.”
“Really?” Josh stared at her as if seeing her with fresh eyes. “What about the haunting of Ashley Ridge?”
Shaw scratched his head. “I don’t know much about that.”
Ashley finally spoke up. She hadn’t said much all evening. “That’s Jeremy Haskins.” She spat his name like he was vile, and maybe he was. Josh had told him the previous day that Jeremy had raped Ashley. He couldn’t blame the woman if she hated Jeremy.
Courtney made a small noise of surprise. “Why do you think it’s Jeremy?”
Gray answered for Ashley. “I think his spirit follows the water up and down Ashley Creek.”
“Some of the things the ghost said sounded just like things Jeremy said to me…a long time ago.” Ashley leaned toward Josh, and he put his arm around her. The woman looked like she wanted to bawl.
“If I can find the bones of Jeremy Haskins and let his father lay him to rest, then maybe Jeremy will stop his haunting.”
Josh laughed, but he wasn’t amused. “Jeremy stop haunting? He’d probably keep it up because he’s an ass just like his father.”
“Which brings me to his father,” Shaw interrupted before Josh indulged in a rant. The man really didn’t know when to be quiet.
Shaw glanced at Courtney again, and she nodded her head, one quick jerk up and down.
“Courtney and Gray are Haskins’s biological children. Haskins wants badly to leave a legacy behind when he dies. So I did a little research on the man yesterday, and I found out he’s been visiting a cancer treatment center in Little Rock. Which will not stop me from bringing him down for the crimes he’s committed, but might explain his urgency to settle his inheritance.”
Tori seemed visibly uncomfortable. “Wish we’d known that before we leaked all that stuff to the news reporter about Gray and Jeremy and how Halsey covered that up for Haskins. Knowing that he’s dying…it seems kind of mean to throw Jeremy in his face right now.”
Gray snorted his contempt for any compassion aimed toward Haskins. “That old man invented mean. No sympathy here.”
“Really, Gray? How can you be so—”
“So what, Tori? Cold?”
She leaned away from him and crossed her arms over her chest. A vein pulsed in her neck, a sure sign she was pissed off. “You’ve let your hatred for him change you.”
“No, I have not.”
While the two of them were arguing, Shaw noticed Clark slip out the door. Now, where was the man going? Maybe the can. He had downed three large sodas already.
“Tori… Gray… Stop it. Can’t you see what he’s doing even now? Even when he’s not here? That man is like poison.” Ashley’s face was crumbling with tension.
Both of them backed down.
“So what are we going to do about him?” Josh asked, a valiant attempt to divert everyone’s attention away from Tori and Gray’s argument. “There seems to be some secret plan that you haven’t let me in on.”
“Nothing. You’ll do nothing.” Sheriff Halsey stepped into room from the door on one end.
Deputy Jackson entered at the other end.
Halsey continued. “You think I’m not aware of the way you tried to set me up against Haskins?”
Shaw needed to gain control of the room back from Halsey. He’d seen too many hostage situations play out. Too many players in this scenario. Most of them strong-minded people. A few too many of them with guns on their hips. Too many people unarmed who could get hurt.
“Do you really think you can control this many people, Halsey? You’re outnumbered. Most of us are carrying a weapon. You can’t shoot us all, and we all have mouths to tell the story.”
Halsey smirked and drew his gun. “You won’t tell anyone anything. Because if you do, I’ll make sure Courtney goes to prison for a very long time.”
“How are you gonna do that?”
Courtney pulled on Shaw’s arm, probably begging him not to antagonize Halsey, especially where she was concerned. He kept his eyes on Halsey, unwilling to glimpse the entreaty in her eyes.
Halsey licked his lips as if tasting something tempting. “I have evidence that she killed Jared Crenshaw.”
“Oh, come on,” Josh barked. “No, you don’t. You were there when Lucy confessed. It seems you’re good at creating proof where there is none.”
“And for the murder of Caroline Grayson and Lucy Kimbrough,” Halsey continued as if Josh McCord hadn’t just accused him of tampering with evidence.
“You have nothing on her,” Grayson snapped. “That’s insane.”
“Not as insane as Courtney is going to appear.” He waved the gun at her. “Get up and come over here. You’re going to be staying with me for a while.”
Josh shook his head as if he’d been smacked hard in the face, and from what Shaw had learned about the man, McCord was kind of used to getting clobbered.
Josh sputtered his contempt for Halsey and his abrupt entrance and rose from his seat. “Oh my God, Halsey, you really think there’s some kind of conspiracy to put you and Haskins against each other? Even if there is, Courtney has nothing to do with it.”
What was McCord trying to do? Rile Halsey up even further?
Halsey’s sneer was disgusting. It made Shaw cringe down to his toes.
“You think I’m stupid?” Halsey spluttered.
Yeah, Shaw kind of thought he might be.
McCord hooted his derision. “You brought Jackson with you. Don’t you know he’s the one who planted that fake driver’s license of Cherish Duncan’s on the dead body out on the trail? Now, why do you think he’d do that?”
“Shut up, McCord.” Jackson’s face had turned three shades of purplish-red.
“Brett viewed the body. He’d know his own sister, and that woman wasn’t his sister. Now, why would you try to keep him away from the body of his dead sister, Sheriff?”
“I had no idea she wasn’t Cherish—”
“There’s a cover up somewhere.” Josh continued inserting doubt into Halsey’s mind.
Halsey faltered in his stand. The gun’s aim moved away from Courtney toward Jackson. “What’s he talking about?”
“Nothing, sheriff. He’s just making stuff up.”
Halsey’s eyes narrowed. “You were the first one on the scene. You could have easily planted a fake ID on her.”
“Ask yourself why he would do that?” Josh was using his most reasonable voice. He was a great debater, and he would be a fine hostage negotiator…if he didn’t say something impulsively and get someone killed.
Halsey seemed to think it through. “It’s obvious. Haskins was reminding me what he knows about me. Does Haskins own you, boy?”
Jackson stepped back a pace, right into the barrel of Jordan Clark’s gun.
“Halsey,” Clark began. “This could go down very badly for you. Once Jackson is dead, how are you gonna overcome so many witnesses against you? We’ll all say you shot Jackson.”
Jackson’s hands went up, his gun in the air. “Whoa! Don’t shoot Jackson.”
Clark pried his weapon from his fingers with his free hand, keeping the barrel of his gun in the middle of Jackson’s back.
Josh wasn’t finished taking Halsey apart. “What does Haskins know about you, Halsey? Does he know that your grandson Zach was the last person to see Cherish Duncan alive?”
“So? Cherish isn’t dead. You just said so.”
Josh smiled. “But you thought she was, didn’t you?”
Josh had Halsey thoroughly confused.
“I’ve been working on Cooley’s notes. He wrote them in code, but I’ve been able to decipher them. He had a lot to say about you.”
Shaw had put them in Josh’s hands before they had started eating the pizza. Had he already deciphered some of the code
? If so, he had worked ultra quick.
“Did you know he left notes behind, Halsey? Every time he paid you off for information, he made a note. The date. The amount. The incident.”
Halsey jerked forward, his gun wobbling in his hand. “That’s a lie. He would never keep notes…” He stopped the moment he must have realized he’d incriminated himself.
Tori eased out of her seat and pulled Courtney with her. The two women backed up against the wall of the room. Ashley was out of her seat as well, pressed against the glass window that faced the woods behind the restaurant. Finally, no one was still seated.
“Lucy wasn’t the one who tipped Cooley off. You were. You could see she was losing control. I bet you thought she was going to say something one day. You were going to shoot Lucy to shut her up, weren’t you?” Tori’s question shot around the room, puncturing the intense moment. “You weren’t there because we called for backup. You were there because you thought she’d talk too much.”
Jackson must have recognized the jam he was in. “Halsey does whatever Haskins wants him to do, and he wanted Halsey to keep Cooley informed.”
“Shut up, Jackson.”
“How do you think Cooley knew when there’d be a raid on his labs? Halsey would tip him off.”
“That’s a lie.” Halsey had the look of a trapped animal. He shook his gun at Jackson. “No one’s going to believe you. It’s your word against mine, and I’m the Sheriff. All I have to do is put you on administrative leave.”
“We all heard it, Halsey,” Josh said, with a none-too-gentle tone.
Halsey’s eyes went wide and wild. “Who’s gonna believe any of you?”
Ashley Rivers held up her cell phone and waved it at him. She’d obviously recorded every word of Halsey’s admission.
Halsey’s face turned red. “That’s not admissible evidence.”
Josh was ready with a rebuttal. “What expectation of privacy did you have here, Halsey? You busted in on our private conference uninvited. We were making that recording for our benefit.”
The situation had gotten horribly out of control. Shaw nodded at Gray. Shaw circled Halsey on one side and Gray swept around the other. Halsey switched from aiming his gun at Gray to aiming it at Shaw, and then back to Gray.
Gray jerked and Halsey reacted. Josh made his move, but Halsey didn’t respond to his action in time. Before Shaw could blink, Josh had twisted the gun out of Halsey’s hands and yanked his arm behind his back.
“Halsey, you’re under arrest.”
Halsey struggled against Josh’s hold. “You can’t arrest me.”
Gray stepped closer to the sheriff. “Accepting bribes from Cooley. I think that’s a solid charge.”
Shaw smiled at Josh over Halsey’s shoulder. “Would you like to do the honors?”
Josh grinned. “You know I would.” He spun Halsey around, put a death grip on his shoulder, and nudged him in the back with his other hand. Then, spoke in his ear. “You remember all those times you accused me of crimes I didn’t commit? Well, we got you on this one. Paybacks are hell.”
Gray grabbed his loose elbow. “Move, Halsey.”
Josh McCord would derive immense pleasure from Halsey’s walk of shame.
Gray stalled. “I can’t go with you.”
No, he couldn’t. The con on Haskins was still in play. Halsey had disavowed Grayson already, and the whole Department was talking trash about him behind his back.
Clark stepped up, dragging Jackson with him. “I’ll help McCord escort them to the county lock up.” Jackson struggled a little, but Clark elbowed him in his back. “Planting false evidence. How much do you owe Haskins?”
Shaw nodded toward the door. “I think I should go with you. Might take all three of us to make sure they make it all the way back to the Hill County Sheriff’s Department.”
Halsey snarled. “You can’t do this to me. I’m the duly elected Sheriff of Hill County.”
“Not for long.” Josh’s face displayed pure pleasure.
Just as he shoved Halsey through the door to the meeting room, a flash of lightning streaked across the sky outside the picture window. It struck the restaurant, shaking the building on its pier and beam foundations.
Everyone froze.
The electricity died, plunging the restaurant into almost pitch-black darkness. Funny, it wasn’t supposed to rain. When Shaw glanced through the glass toward the woods behind the restaurant, nothing fell from the sky. Odd. Multiple streaks of lightning illuminated the restaurant in a macabre sort of fractured dance, highlighting movement in bits and pieces.
“Don’t even think about it, Halsey,” Josh muttered from the darkness.
Behind him, Courtney screamed and Shaw turned to find out what had caused her sudden fear. Plastered against the window, a skeleton grinned at them, two orbs glowing red where his eyes had been.
Another shot of bright light. Grayson was in motion, heading for the door to the outside deck. Clark held firm to Jackson, while McCord tightened his grip on Halsey. All light emptied from the room again and surrounded them in pitch black.
Another shattering bolt of lightning and the accompanying boom of thunder busted the glass. Wind and debris rushed through the opening in the window. A whirlwind of leaves and small sticks whipped around the room. Everything smaller than a chair lifted from every surface and joined the natural debris in a funnel-shaped whirlwind. Shaw ducked as a drinking glass headed toward his head.
During each jolt of electricity, Shaw fixed the location of every player in the room. The women pressed against the only solid wood wall in the room. None of the men had moved from their previous positions. One moment the skeleton was on the outside of the restaurant, the next flash of lightning, the skeleton was in the room with them. The backup generator switched on, casting the room in a dim yellowish, surreal sort of glow.
Ashley Rivers bolted as if she’d been released from strong cords that had bound her. She grabbed the American flag that was in the corner of the room, and jammed the pointed top of the pole into the skeleton’s mid-section. The skeleton clattered to the ground and scattered across the floor in every direction. The fire in Ashley’s eyes blazed even in the dark. She picked up the heaviest thing in the room, an umbrella stand, and bashed the skull.
Panic had flared in Josh’s eyes. “Someone help her.”
One more crash of lightning, and the storm that had raged inside the meeting room began to abate. Ashley dropped the stand, and pushed her hair off her face. “You’re never going to hurt anybody ever again, Jeremy. You try to run now, you bastard.”
Barely had the words charged out of her mouth before the scattered bones pulled themselves together. They knitted into a loosely jointed skeleton again. What Shaw assumed were the remains of Jeremy Haskins hung in the air a moment. Ashley backed up a few paces, her face set into a mask of rage and terror. Then, the night seemed to suck the bones back through the busted window, and they disappeared as if they had never been there.
The night stilled outside. The room settled into a strange, eerie quiet. No one moved. The generator sputtered and died. The electricity came back on and illuminated the room once again with its usual fluorescent lighting.
Everyone in the room seemed to pause in order to pull in a deep, ragged breath. The group remained motionless for a fraction of a second too long. Halsey elbowed Josh in his still sore ribs and twisted the gun from his hand. Josh bent over, wincing from the pain that surely had erupted in his side. It hadn’t been that long since he’d been in the hospital.
Shaw broke free from the spell he’d apparently been under and rushed toward them. Halsey didn’t have any qualms about using Courtney as a human shield. Before Shaw could reach them, Halsey had his arm around her neck, choking her, pulling her backward with him. His fingers dug into her face, twisting her head at an odd angle, while his shaky arm aimed the gun at Shaw.
“Back up, Bennett.”
Shaw slowed his advance but didn’t stop.
“I mean it. You come any closer, and I’ll kill the little bitch.” He switched his aim from Shaw to Courtney. The barrel of the gun wavered near her head.
No fear showed on her face, in her eyes. Irritation, more than any other emotion, settled across her features. Courtney seemed…furious. Or just plain pissed off. Her eyes glowed with fierce determination. Halsey had made a critical error, picked on the wrong woman. Courtney was no damsel in distress.
Shaw almost smiled to himself, but he repressed the urge. The intense moment wasn’t the time to admire her awesome survival skills.
Halsey’s mistake was to assume he could control Courtney Jepson. She went limp, and Halsey lost his grip on her. His fingers dragged across her face and dug into her flesh. Even from a distance, Shaw watched as a deep scratch formed on cheek.
Before he could react, she had twisted and jammed the palm of her hand up Halsey’s nose. When he screamed from the pain, leaned his head back, and covered his face, the weapon dropped from his other hand. Blood flowed down his arm and dripped from his elbow. Courtney rammed her knee into his crouch. He bent over double, and her elbow crashed into the middle of his back, probably right where his kidneys resided. Before she was through with him, Halsey was on the ground, writhing in pain.
She swung her leg back, ready to kick him in the side. Shaw reached for her, and she held up one hand, palm up. “Let me finish him. Please just let me finish him.”
Maybe Courtney was enjoying getting the best of Halsey a little too much.
“Josh, you better come get your prisoner before she beats the crap out of him.” He smiled his admiration toward her while pulling her away from Halsey.
She grinned, rolled into his arms, and then let loose a single sob before turning her face into his shoulder. A strange mix of emotions, but then she’d just experienced no ordinary trauma.
Gray and Josh each took an arm and yanked Halsey from the floor. His eyes seemed to burn with his wrath, scorching each one of them in turn. “Let go of me. How dare you handle me like this? You’re fired. All of you.”
Shaw's Landing (Haunted Hearts Series Book 4) Page 24