“I wasn’t sure you would come,” the doctor said to Cord. “I understand you’re his son?”
“Biological son,” Cord automatically amended. He tipped his head to Karina. “And Willie Lee has worked for Karina for years.”
“He’s a friend,” Karina said. An automatic correction for her as well that had the doctor staring at them and then clearing her throat.
“Well, I have good news and bad,” the doctor continued. “Yes, Willie Lee is awake, and he’s nearly healed from the gunshot wounds to his chest.”
Wounds that Cord had given him. The doctor didn’t mention that, but she likely knew. If they wanted to swap stories, Cord could have shown her his own scars from that day.
“And the bad news?” Karina prompted when the doctor paused.
“His blood pressure is way too high, and his memory is all muddled. The medical term for it is dissociative amnesia, probably brought on by the trauma of being shot.”
Cord cursed. “Or he could be faking it.”
The doctor didn’t hesitate before she nodded. “And it’s also possible the medications he’s been receiving are contributing to the problem. We’re weaning him off the meds now so we might see an improvement in a day or two.”
Cord could see the frustration in Karina’s eyes. “Please tell me we don’t have to wait that long to see him,” Karina said.
“No. You can see him. This way.” The doctor began to lead them down yet another corridor. “Just don’t expect too much. And you can always come back later this week.”
Cord didn’t want to wait another second, much less days. Willie Lee had to give them something to stop these attacks. They might not get so lucky if there was another one.
“Has Willie Lee said anything to you?” Karina asked the doctor.
“Nothing about his arrest if that’s what you want to know. But then he just started talking right before you got here. He’s had a tube down his throat so he might be still experiencing some pain when he moves any of the muscles required for speech.”
Cord felt the anger swell inside him. Each thing the doctor said sounded like some kind of excuse. Of course, his anger was mixed with a whole laundry list of other things that Cord wished he didn’t feel.
The doctor took them into a large room. Not a usual hospital room, either. This one had multiple beds, all empty, and along with some cameras, there was also a guard. Standing right over the sole prisoner in the room.
Willie Lee.
“I’ll wait here,” the doctor said, motioning for them to go closer. “Don’t touch him and keep at least two feet away from the bed.”
Rules. But Willie Lee didn’t look in any shape to attack anyone. Of course, maybe the doctor was worried about Cord doing the attacking.
Willie Lee was in the bed, machines all around him, covered from neck to toes in bleached white sheets. The man didn’t have much more color in his face, either.
Cord had never actually gotten a good look at him. When he’d shot Willie Lee a month ago, it had been from a distance while Cord had been drugged and bleeding. After the shooting, Cord had been whisked away in one ambulance, Willie Lee in another.
But Cord sure saw him now when he went closer to the bed.
His first thought was the man looked a lot older than fifty-nine. His hair was threaded with gray, and his face was hollow. Cord couldn’t see a bit of himself in the man.
Until Willie Lee opened his eyes.
Ah, hell. There it was—that punch of recognition. Because both Addie’s and his eyes were a genetic copy of Willie Lee’s.
Willie Lee blinked several times as if trying to focus, and his attention landed on Karina. He smiled. Tried to speak. But it was definitely recognition that Cord saw in those troublesome eyes. If Willie Lee did indeed have amnesia, then it was pretty darn selective.
“Karina,” the man finally said. He winced, maybe in pain. Maybe pretending.
Cord wasn’t giving him the benefit of the doubt just yet, though there were times when Cord’s wounds still gave him more than a twinge or two.
Willie Lee’s wincing turned to a frown, and he reached out toward her as if to touch her cheek. He didn’t make it far because his hands were in restraints. Puzzled, he looked at those, too.
“What happened to you?” Willie Lee asked. “Who hurt you?”
“I’m fine. It’s just a scratch. How are you?”
That last part was the usual question someone would ask when visiting a friend in the hospital, but she was blinking, too. Not to get her focus but to fight back the tears.
Willie Lee shook his head. “Why am I here?”
“You were shot. Do you remember?”
“No,” he answered after a long pause. “Are the horses okay? Did something happen to them? You look really sad.”
Karina moistened her lips before she said anything. “I’m sad because you were hurt. And because you’re here. You’re in a prison hospital,” she added a heartbeat later.
His forehead bunched up. Willie Lee glanced around the room as if seeing it for the first time, and then his gaze finally settled on Cord. “Who are you?”
Easy question. Tough answer. Especially now that Cord had a blasted lump in his throat. Best not to sugarcoat this. Cord just put it out there. “According to a DNA test, you’re my biological father.”
Willie Lee shook his head again, his stare never leaving Cord. Then, the head shaking stopped. Like Karina, his eyes filled with tears. “You’re actually my son?”
Best to add this, as well. “Yeah, and you have a daughter. Her name is Addie, and someone—probably you—abandoned us when we were only three years old. But I guess you’re going to say you don’t remember her, either?”
Willie Lee didn’t jump to respond, but he did close his eyes, and he groaned. Even Cord had to admit it was a pitiful sound. However, he didn’t let it get to him. He needed to ask some questions.
Well, one big question anyway, but Willie Lee spoke before Cord could even continue.
“Your mother,” Willie Lee said. Not a question. And the tears weren’t just in his eyes now. They were streaming down his cheeks. “She’s dead?”
Now, that last part was definitely a question.
“I believe she could be,” Cord answered. If those photos weren’t fake, that is. “Did you kill her?”
“No.” Willie Lee’s chest dropped with a heavy sigh, and he repeated, “No.”
He made another sound. Pain mixed with grief. Maybe the real deal since it seemed like something too intense to be faked. Of course, the grief could be there because Willie Lee regretted murdering her.
“I loved her,” Willie Lee said a moment later. “She was a good woman. Her name was Sarah.”
Cord latched on to the name as if it was a lifeline. He knew so little about her, and other than her name and those two pictures, he still didn’t know much. Later, there’d be time to question the man about that.
“Are you the Moonlight Strangler?” Cord asked.
Willie Lee’s eyes widened. “I don’t think so. Am I?”
“I’m the one asking you,” Cord returned.
But if the comment even got through to him, Willie Lee showed no signs of it. “Your mother was murdered, wasn’t she?” he went on. A sob tore from his mouth, and he broke down, crying.
Since the man’s memory seemed to be pretty good on the subject of his dead wife, Cord figured it was time to repeat the real question.
Are you the Moonlight Strangler?
The words seemed to freeze in his mind, though, when Willie Lee opened his eyes and looked at him. “You’re the one who shot me,” he said. “I remember that now. But why?”
Cord decided to show him. He unbuttoned his shirt but didn’t need to look down to know what Willie Lee—and K
arina—was seeing. The two scars. Nowhere near healed, but they weren’t the raw mess they had been. Still, he’d carry them for life.
“Mercy,” Karina whispered, and she’d gone almost as pale as Willie Lee.
Cord hadn’t intended to shock her like that. Heck, he hadn’t intended for her to see them, period, and he gave her a whispered apology.
However, he had no apology for Willie Lee.
“You did that to me,” Cord snapped, yanking the sides of his shirt back together with far more force than necessary. “And now you say you don’t remember cutting me and tying my leg with a rope?”
“I don’t think he’s lying about that,” the doctor interrupted. She walked toward them. “According to the tox screen sent from the Appaloosa Pass Hospital, Willie Lee had been pumped full of barbiturates when he was admitted.”
Cord dropped back a mental step. He hadn’t known that about Willie Lee. Hadn’t bothered to ask once he found out that the man hadn’t regained consciousness before he was taken into custody.
“That could affect his memory?” Karina asked.
The doctor nodded. “Especially with the large amount he had in his system.”
Yeah, it could. And Cord knew that firsthand because his captor had dosed him with barbiturates, too. A boatload of them. It’d been a miracle that Cord had managed to take aim at, much less shoot Willie Lee.
Karina looked at Cord. “You said you had broken memories of that day, too.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “There aren’t many details between being hit with a stun gun and then turning up by the old church where I shot Willie Lee.”
“And you don’t think it’s strange that both of you were drugged?” Karina queried.
“Of course I do, but Willie Lee could have drugged himself when he realized he was about to be captured.”
Or maybe someone else had done that to him. There was only one way to find out.
Cord didn’t hesitate with the question this time. “Are you the Moonlight Strangler?”
It was as if the world exploded. The machines started beeping like crazy, and Willie Lee threw back his head, his body going stiff and his face stretching like some kind of sick death mask.
“He’s having a seizure,” the doctor said, urgency in her voice and movements. She shoved Cord and Karina to the side so she could get to her patient. “You two need to wait in the hall. Go, now!”
But Cord’s feet seemed glued to the floor. Was Willie Lee faking this? If so, it looked darn real.
“Come on.” Karina took his hand and got them moving out of there.
They went back into the hall, and Cord hoped he didn’t do something wussy, like lose his lunch. He could feel every nerve inside him, and even though he’d never remembered having his mother in his life, her loss had hit him hard. Much as it had done to Willie Lee.
Cord hadn’t forgotten that all of this had to be affecting Karina, but he didn’t realize just how much until their gazes met. Hell. She was crying and no doubt on the verge of losing more than her lunch. She loved Willie Lee, and it must have cut her to the core to see, and hear, all of that.
“I’m sorry,” Cord said, pulling her into his arms.
She didn’t break down exactly, but she made some hiccupping sounds when she tried to gather her breath. “If he’s the one who cut you like that...”
Karina didn’t finish. No need. But it did let him know just how much his scars had affected her. He’d curse himself for that later, but for now he just held her and tried to undo the damage.
“I’m fine,” he assured her. And that was only a partial lie. “I’ll be returning to duty in a week.” Once he cleared the Justice Department shrink who’d be assigned to evaluate him. “They wouldn’t let me go back to work if I wasn’t a hundred percent.”
She pulled back, looked at him again. There was a new set of trouble in her eyes. “I didn’t realize you’d be leaving so soon.”
Ah, that. And here just minutes earlier they’d discussed having sex. Judging from that look in her eyes, she was thinking he’d meant for their theoretical lovemaking to be a one-night stand.
And hell, it might be.
But Cord wasn’t even ready to go there yet.
“I won’t be leaving the area,” he explained. “Well, I will be given a desk job somewhere, but I won’t be going back in the field.”
Karina stared at him, probably waiting for more. Or maybe she just wanted something else to fill her mind so she wouldn’t have to think about what was going on in the room behind them.
Willie Lee could be dying. Or already dead.
“I was a Joe,” Cord went on. “A deep cover operative. Once I stayed undercover on the same assignment for two years.” A drug-dealing operation that he wouldn’t discuss with her. Not with anyone. He’d been lucky not to get PTSD, but those were memories he didn’t want to poke, either.
“I just thought, well, I thought you’d want to be closer to Addie.”
“I do.” And he did. Close to his nephew, too. Heck, after this ordeal, he was starting to feel as if Jericho and he had forged some kind of peace treaty.
The door behind them opened, and after Cord got one glimpse of the doctor’s face, he figured it was time for him to put his arm around Karina again.
“This could take a while,” Dr. Kenney said, making some notes in a chart. “He had a grand mal seizure, and his blood pressure hasn’t stabilized. There’s a café just up the road next to a big gas station,” she added. “If you don’t want to drive home, you can wait there for a while, and I’ll call you if there’s any news. The guards have your cell phone number, I’m sure.”
Karina caught on to the doctor’s arm before she could leave. “How bad is it?” she asked.
“Bad,” Dr. Kenney admitted. “I hope you got everything you needed from him because Willie Lee might not make it.”
Chapter Thirteen
The chicken club sandwich tasted like dust, but Karina forced herself to eat it anyway. She couldn’t make herself sick with worry over Willie Lee. Even though that’s exactly what she was doing.
Cord wasn’t faring so well, either.
He was on the phone again, something he’d been doing practically since they’d left the jail and had driven to the diner the doctor had recommended. He had hardly more than a bite of his cheeseburger and fries before sliding his plate to Mack. The deputy had his own meal but had mumbled something about getting a to-go box.
Karina thought maybe Cord’s latest call was to Jericho, though she couldn’t tell much of what was going on since Cord was doing a lot more listening than talking. Of course, he had already told Jericho about the prison visit. Had then called Addie and told her what was going on. That had required him to talk his sister out of making a trip there.
Karina was glad he’d managed to do that.
Even though Addie wanted to see Willie Lee, that wasn’t going to happen until the doctor called them. It was best if Addie was at the ranch, safe with her son and husband. Karina had known from the start that just being out on the road had been a risk, and she didn’t want Addie taking that risk, too.
Cord was already dealing with enough without adding his sister’s safety to his worries.
“So, Willie Lee never made an actual confession?” Mack asked.
Mack didn’t just blurt it out, though. He sounded as if he’d chosen his words carefully and probably had. Had no doubt even debated asking it since they’d been at the diner for nearly a half hour, and he’d only listened to the summary she’d given him of their visit with Willie Lee.
“No confession about the Moonlight Strangler,” she confirmed. “But he did admit to being Cord and Addie’s father.”
Karina had purposely kept her voice to a whisper because the three of them were all together in a
booth, but Cord likely heard her because he looked up from his phone conversation and caught her gaze.
“Biological father,” Karina amended as Cord had done at the hospital.
In her fantasy world, she’d hoped that Willie Lee could resolve everything for all of them. She’d hoped that he could somehow clear his name. Give them the identity of the real killer. And that the real killer could already be behind bars.
But it’d been just that—a fantasy.
Now, Willie Lee could be dead, and any information could die with him. Along with her losing a friend. A man she loved and thought of as family.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Mack patted her hand. “We’re going to work all of this out somehow.”
It took a moment for Karina to realize why Mack had done that. It was because she was crying. Again. She wiped away the tears, cursing them, and told herself that they wouldn’t return. Tears wouldn’t help Willie Lee.
Prayers might, though, and that’s why she’d said a few for him.
The fresh round of tears seemed to do the trick for getting Cord off the phone, and he handed her a paper napkin from the metal dispenser.
“No sign of Rocky yet,” Cord said right away, and while he kept his attention on her, he gulped down some more coffee. “Two of the reserve deputies are still looking, though.”
So, he had been talking to Jericho. “Anything on Taryn’s murder?”
He shook his head. “But there’s a connection between Rocky and DeWayne. Rocky’s father, Frank, and DeWayne were once in business together, and Frank apparently doesn’t have good things to say about DeWayne. He said DeWayne got drunk one night and rattled on about an old business deal gone bad with Willie Lee.” Cord lifted his shoulder. “It could mean nothing.”
And it could be connected to that money-laundering scheme. In fact, Karina wondered if they’d all been involved in some way—DeWayne, Harley. Heck, even Willie Lee. Maybe that’s what’d prompted Harley to break into Willie Lee’s cabin.
Cord drank some more coffee and downed a couple of ibuprofen that he’d bought at the counter.
Karina wanted to ask if it was his chest or head hurting. Maybe both. But she doubted he’d tell her the truth. Doubted even more that he’d want to discuss those scars on his chest.
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