by Rita Herron
“Thanks, I will.” Jessie hung up, feeling defeated, her heart heavy. She’d come home to reconnect with her father and now might lose him to prison, or possibly some physical disease. Life so wasn’t fair.
Cabe pulled in front of Charla’s sprawling ranch house, and she frowned as they made their way up the limestone walkway. Had Charla and Billy both known the truth about the burial grounds and tricked her father?
It was common knowledge that Charla collected Native American artifacts—had she sold them knowing they belonged to the Comanche Nation?
If so, she understood why the Comanche faction was so upset.
“What will happen to the artifacts you recover?” Jessie asked.
Cabe cleared his throat, then pressed the doorbell. “They’ll be returned to the Comanche Nation.”
Dark storm clouds hovered above, casting a gray to the sky, and the wind sent the mesquite beside the house bristling. A second later, Charla opened the door, clad in a bright purple gauzy blouse with Indian beading, a denim skirt and dozens of silver bracelets.
“We need to talk,” Cabe said without preamble.
Charla’s laser-sharp eyes cut over them, but she stepped sideways and gestured for them to enter. Jessie had never been in Charla’s house and was surprised to find eclectic furnishings mixed with Native American blankets, leather containers and conches. Several shadowboxes contained handmade Native American jewelry, arrowheads, and one held an elaborate feather chest plate.
“I need those documents that we discussed and the name of the person or persons who bought the artifacts from you,” Cabe said.
Charla sauntered over to an oak desk, removed a folder and handed it to Cabe. “As you requested, Ranger Navarro.”
Cabe accepted the folder with a scrutinizing look. “We found more artifacts and bodies on the land,” Cabe said. “Did you know about them, Charla?”
For a brief second, interest flickered in her eyes, before she masked it. “No.”
“You’re lying. I think you and Billy both knew,” Cabe said. “And when Marcie realized what you planned to do, that you’d found a gold mine, you killed her and that broker to keep the artifacts to yourself. And everyone knows you hated Daniel Taabe.” His voice hardened in disgust. “I just can’t believe that you let Billy take the fall.”
“You’re wrong,” Charla screeched. “And unless you have proof, which you obviously don’t,” Charla snapped, “get out.”
“I’ll get proof,” Cabe warned. “And when I do, Charla, you’re going to jail.”
Fear flashed in Charla’s eyes along with hatred. Cabe ignored her mutinous expression, then pivoted to leave.
Jessie followed, her heart thumping wildly. She’d never cared for Charla, but she’d also never thought her capable of murder. But today she’d witnessed a different side of the woman.
A dangerous side that made her wonder if Cabe was right. If Charla was a killer.
CABE REVIEWED THE documents Charla had given him, then the address for the buyer of the artifacts.
“What does it say?” Jessie asked.
“Charla sold them to a man named Mauri McLandon. He lives in Austin.” He started the engine and veered onto the highway. “We’ll pay him a visit, then I’ll drop the evidence in my crime kit at the lab.”
Jessie’s expression grew pinched, and he knew she was worried about the blood and DNA from her father. The urge to soothe her hit him, but he kept his hands firmly clamped around the steering wheel.
Still, for her sake, he hoped that the evidence exonerated the man.
Forty minutes later, he steered the SUV onto a sprawling piece of property outside of Austin, not a working ranch but a mansion set on fifty acres of prime real estate. Cabe made a quick mental assessment.
McLandon must have a fortune, and was a perfect buyer for Charla. She’d probably expected a hefty cash flow rolling in from the man.
Did McLandon know the artifacts belonged to the Comanches? Did he know about the murders, and if so, had he taken part?
He stopped at the security gate, and punched the button. “Ranger Sergeant Cabe Navarro,” he said into the speaker. “I’m here to see Mr. McLandon.”
A male voice answered. “Mr. McLandon isn’t here right now.”
Cabe hissed in frustration. “Can you tell me where he is? It’s important I speak with him.”
“He left a while ago.”
“Does he have an office?”
“Yes, but he’s not at the office. I believe he had a business lunch meeting.”
“Then give me his cell phone number.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not at liberty—”
“This is a police matter, sir,” Cabe cut in bluntly. “Either give it to me, or I’ll park myself in the house until he returns.”
The security guard sighed loudly, then recited the number. Cabe punched it into his cell phone, but the phone clicked over to voice mail, so he left a message.
“Let’s drop by the crime lab, then grab something to eat,” Cabe suggested. “Maybe by then, McLandon will have returned my call.”
Jessie nodded, and he swung the SUV around and headed back toward Austin. The land was isolated, flat, prime pastureland. In the distance, he spotted some wild mustangs racing across the prairie.
They were beautiful. Big, black horses galloping across the land—free.
He understood that need for freedom.
So why was the woman sitting next to him tempting him to throw aside his own freedom, drag her in his arms and bond with her?
Dark clouds opened up to dump rain on them, and he turned on the wipers and defroster and slowed.
But a truck raced up on his tail, forcing him to speed up. He squinted through the rain to discern the make and color, but only a small swatch of white flashed through the downpour.
Suddenly the trucker behind him gunned the engine, sped up and rammed into him.
Jessie screamed, her hand hitting the dashboard as the impact bounced her forward.
“Son of a bitch.” Cabe clenched the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip in an attempt to keep the SUV on the road.
But a gunshot pinged the back windshield, then the truck slammed into his bumper again, and sent them careening off the embankment into the ditch.
Chapter Ten
Jessie screamed as the SUV bounced over the ruts and nosedived into a ditch. Tires screeched, metal crunched, and glass shattered.
She covered her head with her arms as the air bag exploded.
Cabe cursed, slashed his air bag, then hers, deflating them. “Are you okay, Jessie?”
“Yes…I think so.”
A gunshot pinged off the vehicle from the bank above, and Cabe shoved his door open. “Stay down!”
He vaulted from the driver’s seat, crouched down and circled behind the vehicle heading up the rugged slope. Jessie’s pulse raced. Once again, she felt like a sitting duck with her life in Cabe’s hands.
But another shot shattered the front windshield, and Jessie plastered herself on the seat face down.
Good heavens. Who was shooting at them?
Not her father—he’d never do anything to endanger her life. Besides, since his illness, he’d barely left the house.
But Charla had been irate and belligerent when they’d left her place. Had she followed them and tried to kill them?
CABE WAS SICK OF THIS cat-and-mouse game. He yanked his gun from inside his jacket, jogged up the hill and spotted the tail of a white truck roaring away. He fired at the tires, but the truck was too fast. It disappeared around the curve and into the distance spewing dust and rocks.
Dammit.
His mind ticked back to the details Wyatt and Reed and Livvy had gathered so far. Three people in Comanche Creek owned white pickups. Jonah, Ellie and Charla.
Considering the fact that they’d just left Charla’s, she jumped to the top of his suspect list.
Remembering Jessie and the evidence he’d stored in his SUV, he
jogged back down the hill. Rocks skidded beneath his rawhide boots as he approached the vehicle. If Charla had fired at them and run them off the road, she wouldn’t get away with it.
His front bumper was jammed into the ditch, the rear end crunched from the impact of the truck. A small streak of white paint marred the back bumper.
Relief surged through him.
He’d have forensics process the paint sample—then he’d know who’d been driving that damn truck.
Heaving a breath, he spotted Jessie hunched over in the front seat. The air bag lay in shambles, glass littering the seat and floor. Jessie must have heard him because she jerked up her head.
Her beautiful eyes were wide and frightened, and a sliver of glass had caught in her hair.
Furious that she might have been injured, he stowed his weapon in his holster, then opened the door, knelt and plucked the glass fragment from her hair.
“Are you okay?” he asked gruffly.
She nodded. “Yes.”
In spite of her reply, her voice quivered, and she was trembling. Needing to know she was safe as badly as she needed comfort, he pulled her into his arms. A sigh of relief gushed from her, and she fell against him. Breathing in the scent of her hair calmed him slightly, and she clung to him and buried her head against his chest as he stroked her back.
They held each other for what seemed like hours, him simply drinking in her sweetness. When she finally lifted her chin and looked into his eyes, the fear and vulnerability in her expression twisted his stomach into a fisted knot.
Adrenaline still churned through him, but hunger for her erupted like a flame that had just been lit.
To hell with keeping his distance. They’d damn near been killed. His control snapped, and he lowered his mouth and fused his lips with hers.
The low throaty moan she emitted sent a surge of raw need through him, and he deepened the kiss. She tasted delicious, like sweet tenderness and tenacity and a breath of sensuality. Her tongue reached out to tease him, and his chest heaved as he plunged into her mouth and made love to her with his tongue.
His hands dove into her hair, her hands clawing at his arms, and his jacket as if she wanted to strip him. He’d known she’d be a tigress in bed, and the thought of taking her right here in the car made his sex throb and harden.
But the sound of traffic above echoed. For God’s sake, he was a law officer, and anyone who noticed that they’d crashed might see them. He couldn’t do that to Jessie.
Forcing himself to end the kiss, he pulled away slightly and cupped her face between his hands. They were both breathing raggedly. “We need to go.”
She nodded against him. “I know.” Yet she didn’t release him. Instead she tightened her hands on his chest. “Cabe, my father didn’t run us off the road.”
His dark eyes studied her. “How can you be sure?”
“Because he wouldn’t shoot at me or a cop. He’s too smart for that.”
“Trace could have taken his truck,” Cabe suggested.
“That’s possible, but we just left Charla’s. She probably called McLandon and warned him we were coming, then she chased us down.”
“That’s logical,” Cabe said. “The truck left paint on my bumper. The lab should be able to identify the make and model. Then we’ll pinpoint exactly whose truck hit us.”
She slowly dropped her hands from his shirt, although an instant of regret flickered in her eyes. That made him want her even more.
“Then let’s go,” Jessie said, her voice stronger now. “Whoever murdered those people and cheated my father needs to pay.”
CABE RAKED GLASS from his seat, then started the engine. It took several tries before he managed to extract the SUV from the ditch, but finally they bounced back onto the road. While he headed toward Austin, he phoned the sheriff and relayed the situation. “A white pickup truck slammed into us, ran us off the road and shot at us,” he told Hardin. “We had just left Charla’s. Check and see if she’s home. If she is, look for evidence on her truck, maybe a dent or paint scratches.”
Hardin mumbled agreement. “I’ll drive to her place right now.”
“Thanks.” Cabe snapped his phone closed and glanced at Jessie. She sat huddled in the seat, her hair blowing from the wind flowing through the shattered window. Still, she didn’t complain.
“What are you going to do about your SUV?” Jessie asked.
“While the lab processes it, I’ll arrange for a rental.”
She shivered and picked another piece of glass from the seat. “I still can’t believe Charla tried to kill us.”
Cabe had seen worse, but refrained from sharing. “Greed drives people to do unspeakable things.”
Jessie lapsed into silence again, and when they arrived at the crime lab, he left her in the front office while he carried the evidence inside.
Gary Levinson, one of the CSI techs, took Jonah Becker’s blood and DNA sample, while another tech rushed outside to the SUV to collect the paint sample.
Levinson led Cabe back to his workstation. “I analyzed those two black hairs you brought in from the burial sites.”
“Did they match Ellie Penateka’s?”
“No. As a matter of fact, the hair was naturally blond, but had been dyed.”
Cabe considered that information, but no one specific came to mind.
“The DNA will take time to run, but the preliminary blood test will only take a few minutes.”
“Good,” Cabe said. Then he’d know if the blood used in the ritual burials matched Jonah’s.
“I’m going to arrange for a rental truck while you run the test.”
Levinson agreed, and Cabe stepped back into the front lobby and phoned Wyatt to give him an update. “The hairs I found at the burial site don’t match Ellie Penateka’s. In fact, the strands were naturally blond.”
“Hmm, that could be helpful.”
“Maybe. See what you can dig up on a man named Mauri McLandon,” Cabe said. “According to the papers Charla gave me, he purchased the illegal artifacts from her.”
“Hang on and I’ll run him through the system,” Wyatt said.
Cabe glanced around for Jessie and noticed her deep in conversation on the phone, her brows furrowed with worry.
“Listen, Dad, we’ll talk about it when I get home,” she said softly. “Please don’t upset yourself.”
She cast Cabe a wary look, then walked to the corner to speak in private.
“Navarro,” Wyatt said, jerking him back to the conversation. “I found McLandon. He’s five-eleven, has short brown hair, hazel eyes, weighs about 180. He’s an independent dealer with a long line of family money, and lives in Austin.”
“Yeah, I know. I went to his house but he wasn’t home, and I’ve left a message on his cell. Does he have a record?”
“He was arrested a couple of years ago for selling a fake painting, but he beat the charges. Claimed he had no idea the painting was a forgery, that someone must have replaced the one he bought with a forged one.”
“Call the Austin police and see if they can pick him up for questioning. We need to get the artifacts he bought from Charla back.”
“Will do.” He ended the call and approached Jessie. She looked exhausted, her hair disheveled, her face showing signs of strain. Judging from the fact that she’d been attacked the night before, suffered a head injury and had nearly died today, she had a right to look frayed.
But he sensed something else was bothering her. Something to do with her father. What was she hiding?
She ran a hand through her hair, then tucked a strand behind her ear. She looked so damn vulnerable that he wanted to drag her in his arms and comfort her again.
Considering they were in the lab and the CSI was processing her father’s blood, though, he resisted.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Let’s pick up the rental and grab something to eat while CSI processes my truck and the evidence I brought in.”
“They’
re testing my father’s blood?”
He met her gaze, his chest tightening slightly at the apprehension in her eyes. “Yes.”
Her face paled slightly, but she pasted on a forced smile of bravado, then followed him outside. They took a cab to the rental agency, rented a Jeep, then found a Mexican cantina in downtown Austin. Jessie nibbled at her burrito while he inhaled a platter of fajitas. He knew she was worried about the test results and couldn’t blame her.
If the blood matched Jonah’s, he’d have proof that her father was a cold-blooded killer. And he’d have to arrest him.
JESSIE PUSHED AWAY from the table, unable to eat for her churning stomach. Her father had been irate about undergoing more tests.
There had also been trouble on the ranch. Some fencing had been intentionally cut, allowing several head of cattle to escape. The stream in the north pasture had completely dried up, so they needed to move the cattle to another pasture, or reroute water, which would be costly.
The waitress brought the bill, and she reached for it, but Cabe snatched it. “I’ll pay.”
“We can split it,” Jessie offered.
Cabe glared at her. “I said I’d take care of it.”
“Fine.” Needing a reprieve from him before she broke down, she excused herself and went to the ladies’ room while he paid the bill. Nerves knotted her muscles as they drove back to the crime lab.
The CSI tech Cabe introduced as Levinson met them in the front office.
“What are the results?” Cabe asked.
The CSI tech flipped open the folder in his hands. “The blood type did not match Jonah Becker’s. He’s O negative, the blood from the clay is A positive.”
Jessie nearly staggered with relief. “I knew it wouldn’t.”
“How about the paint sample?” Cabe asked.
“My guy is still working on that. He’s running a program to trace the type of paint with the make and model of the vehicle now. I’ll call you when he pinpoints the information.”
Cabe thanked him, then they walked back outside to the Jeep. The earlier downpour had dwindled to a light rain, the sound almost calming as it drummed on the roof of the car.