A Rancher's Dangerous Affair

by Jennifer Morey

  “Because I couldn’t!” His voice was raised.

  “You still blame me.”

  “You went after your dream no matter the cost to anyone else. Now you have your dream. What you don’t have is love.”

  “That’s not because I walked away from you.”

  Ryker laughed cynically. “You’re still walking away, Eliza. From everybody!” He stormed out of the house.

  Laden with dejection, Eliza followed him to the door and watched him go, restraining herself from calling him back. Nothing had changed between them.

  Then why did she feel so different?

  As she contemplated that, she lowered her head and caught sight of an envelope lying on the stone porch. Her name was written on it. Shock cauterized her for a second. She quickly searched the property and the road, where she saw Ryker’s Charger vanish over the hill.

  She didn’t see anyone else. Crouching, she picked up the envelope and opened the unsealed top. Slipping out another card that was blank on the inside, she read, “Go back to Hollywood while you still can.”

  “Something wrong?”

  She jumped and spun around to see Brandon standing there. She was startled that she hadn’t heard him approach. Wordlessly, she handed him the card. He read it and lifted his head grimly.

  “Ryker was just here,” he said.

  Did he suspect her brother had left the card? “Yes, but he wouldn’t have—”

  He took her hand and pulled her inside, closing and locking the door.

  “He resents you for leaving him here.”

  “Were you listening to us?”

  “I only caught the last part.”

  He must have come in from the pasture and she hadn’t heard him.

  “He didn’t leave the note. My brother may resent me, but he would never do something like that.” Besides, Ryker wouldn’t write a note encouraging her to go back to Hollywood, would he?

  “He’s having marital problems that he blames you for.”

  Was he suggesting her brother had killed David? “A card was left on all the bodies. Whoever wrote this note and the one before this could be David’s killer. Do you really think Ryker would kill three people over his animosity toward me?”

  Brandon tapped the card against his hand, thinking. “No.”

  Who could it be? And were the notes connected to the murders? They had no way of knowing. Not without more leads in the case.

  * * *

  The next morning, Eliza drove to her brother’s house. She wanted to talk to him about his issue with her leaving Vengeance. After that, she was going to stop by the police station to give Zimmerman the cards she’d received. When she parked, she noticed another car park behind her. Had it been following her and she hadn’t noticed? It wasn’t tan in color and there were two men inside.

  As fear reared up and sent her pulse racing faster, she got out of her car and recognized the detectives who’d questioned her before. Zimmerman and Kelly.

  What were they doing here?

  Ryker appeared outside his front door, looking curiously at the two men as he approached her car.

  “Mrs. Reed?” Zimmerman said, stopping in front of her, Kelly beside him.

  “Everything okay?” Ryker asked.

  “I’m not sure.” She waited for Zimmerman to explain himself.

  “Would you mind coming with us? We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Then ask me.” She’d answer any questions they had.

  “We’d like an official statement from you.”

  An official statement...

  Ryker glanced at her with surprise and alarm.

  “Am I being arrested?”

  “Right now, we’d just like to talk to you.”

  He had that funny, bored way about him again. He must have been trying to hide what he really thought and ended up looking that way. He thought she was his number one suspect and was trying to avoid antagonizing her with his opinion.

  “You don’t have to go with him,” Ryker said.

  “If you’d like a lawyer present you may,” Zimmerman said.

  Could she refuse to go with him? Then she berated herself for being so paranoid. She had nothing to hide! Besides, she didn’t want to make matters worse by being uncooperative.

  “It will be all right. I was going to stop by the station after I talked to you anyway,” she said to Ryker.

  “What’s going on, Eliza?”

  “They think I may have killed David.”

  He smothered a few guffawing laughs. “Seriously?”

  Zimmerman didn’t crack a smile.

  Ryker sobered. “Call a lawyer, Eliza.”

  “No. It’s all right. I didn’t kill David.” She started for Zimmerman’s car. “Will you call Brandon for me?”

  * * *

  Brandon was wedged between two reporters shoving microphones at him. After Ryker had called him, he’d felt a shot of alarm and then worry for Eliza that transcended that for a sister-in-law.

  “The whole town is going crazy with this,” Ryker had said.

  No kidding. Now he wished he would have accepted Ryker’s offer to go get Eliza. Instead, his protectiveness overruled.

  “Did Eliza Harvey kill her husband?” a reporter shouted.

  “Is it true she slept with both you and your brother?”

  How the hell did they know that? It had to be speculation. Rumor that had traveled around town after the murders were broadcast.

  “What was her relationship with Senator Merris?”

  “No comment.” He pushed by the last of them and entered the police station.

  Eliza had called him, breathless with fear even though she probably thought she was in control of it. The police had brought her to the station for formal questioning.

  Inside, he gave his name to the woman behind the counter and told her he was there to pick up Eliza. The police had driven her here.

  To make matters worse, Melinda Grayson’s kidnapping and a triple homicide had attracted national attention. The media had flocked to Vengeance, Texas. He wished he could go back to his ranch and stay there until all of this blew over. Dealing with David’s death was bad enough.

  Eliza emerged. The police were letting her go. He had suspected that’s what would happen. David had affairs and that might give her motive to kill him, but where was the motive to kill the sheriff or the senator? Eliza didn’t have the makings of a killer. She did, however, have what it took to drive his brother to his grave.

  Her skin was pale, and her blue eyes were stark and weary. When she saw him, relief washed away her strain.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “Ryker called.” He’d rather not analyze why she preferred him over her brother. Taking her arm, he guided her to the door. “There’s a throng outside.”

  “Mrs. Reed?”

  He and Eliza turned as Zimmerman called to her.

  “Don’t make any plans to leave town.”

  In other words, they still hadn’t eliminated her as a suspect. They didn’t have enough evidence to hold her, but she was still a person of interest.

  Brandon glanced down at Eliza, who met the look nervously. He’d talk to her later.

  “Let’s get out of here. Don’t answer any of the reporters’ questions.”

  “They were here when I arrived.”

  Outside, reporters shouted questions in the late-afternoon sun. Brandon shoved a microphone away from Eliza’s face. He’d parked his car in a handicap space to stay close. At the passenger door, he pushed an overzealous reporter.

  “Hey!” He stumbled backward.

  Eliza climbed into the cab of the truck, and he shut the door, herding another reporter out of his way on the other side. His height and size helped to deter the others. He shoved another reporter away from his truck so he could get in. Then he backed from the parking space slowly, not stopping as reporters knocked on Eliza’s window, still yelling questions.

  Brandon tapped the gas to sca
tter the roaches.

  “Brandon, be careful.”

  “They’ll get out of the way or get run over.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  He didn’t, but the reporters were getting out of the way.

  As they left the police station, he heard a sigh of tense breath leave her and she leaned her head back against the headrest.

  “Why did they bring you in?” he asked.

  “They found some unexplained deposits to Peter Burris’s account, and some pictures of Senator Merris with an arms dealer who was caught trading with an embargoed country. The pictures came from the sheriff’s safe-deposit box.”

  The sheriff was blackmailing the senator? “Where’s the connection to David?”

  “That’s why they needed to question me. They think the senator may have been funding his gambling habit.”

  What about the sheriff? “I still don’t see the connection.”

  “I introduced David to the senator. I did parties for all three of them. They kept asking about my relationship with the sheriff. Did I ever talk to him about David’s gambling problem? Did I know the senator was involved with arms dealers? Things like that.”

  “They think the sheriff may have been working with you?” Why? To get money from the senator? Money David had lost and couldn’t pay back?

  “I guess so.”

  “It’s weak.”

  “Tell Zimmerman that.”

  “I hear he’s not even the lead on the murder investigation.”

  “I hope I never meet the lead. Isn’t the FBI working the case now?”

  “Yes. Did you give Zimmerman the cards you received?” She’d told him she would after she’d talked to Ryker.

  “Yes. And he treated me as though I wrote them to take suspicion off me. Add confusion to the investigation. He doesn’t think they’re related to the cards left on the bodies because the ones I received are threatening. The ones on the bodies are more like a piece to a puzzle.”

  “If he thought you were the killer, he’d have arrested you by now.”

  “That’s encouraging. Why do I still feel so violated?”

  He smiled. “He might be a little crusty around the edges, but once he’s sure he’s got the right suspect you’ll see a new side to him.”

  “You know him?”

  “Not personally.” He stopped at a stoplight, and a man knocked on his window.

  “Damn reporters are everywhere. Can’t even go into town anymore.” He blew the light and drove out of town.

  “My car is still at Ryker’s.”

  “I’ll send a couple of ranch hands to go get it.”

  He hated the spotlight, especially when it was exaggerated. Like gossip and Eliza’s Friday Parties. It was all about sensationalism and the attention that brought.

  “What was David doing with the sheriff and the senator? And who would want them dead?”

  Brandon didn’t know, but there sure was a lot of hype going on in a town that otherwise never had it. Melinda had been kidnapped and now this. Two serious crimes all at once.

  “If I’d never introduced David to the senator, he’d probably still be alive.”

  He noticed how her head had bowed, torn with guilt. “His gambling did get worse after he married you.”

  “Do we have to do that again? Kick me while I’m down, why don’t you.”

  She was the one who’d brought it up. Did she think he’d disagree with her? “I could have saved him if he hadn’t married you.” May as well get it all out in the open.

  “That’s just plain cruel.”

  It was how he felt. It’s what he’d thought from the day he had discovered they’d married. David’s wild ways, perpetuated by Eliza’s, had driven him to the end.

  “I didn’t enable his gambling,” she argued. “Just because I plan parties for a living doesn’t mean I enabled him.”

  She might have a point. Eliza had changed. She’d matured. He could no longer deny that. Her parties were elegant, and she didn’t dance on bars and get drunk anymore. She was professional. A good influence for someone who did drink and had a gambling problem.

  Something in him resisted. Thinking that way would get him in trouble again. No more flirting with a disaster in the making.

  Reaching the ranch entrance, Brandon drove up the driveway and stopped. Eliza hopped out. He followed her inside.

  When she went for the big-screen television, he said, “Don’t turn that on.”

  She did anyway, flipping to the news. The film of Melinda played, followed by all the drama of the triple homicide. An FBI agent was questioned and gave vague responses.

  David had been upset when he’d heard of Melinda’s kidnapping. How was he acquainted with the professor? Personally or had her popularity reached him? Maybe his reaction to the news hadn’t been significant. Even if it had and Melinda was a friend, Brandon didn’t see how that would be related to the murders.

  A car appeared on the winding dirt road leading to his ranch. He spotted it through one of the big front windows. It wasn’t the same car as the one he and Eliza had seen. He’d still be cautious, though.

  Going to the entry table, he opened its single drawer and retrieved the pistol he’d put there after David and Eliza had arrived. Eliza stopped at the threshold of the hallway leading to the guest room.

  “Since when do you own a gun?”

  He decided no response was better than explaining he felt the danger justifiable. Not only had David been murdered, but Jillian was unpredictable. Had he been alone, he may not have dug it out of his gun case, but Eliza was here, and hadn’t she always brought out the defender in him?

  He pulled the slide, familiar with the weapon after consistent practice, then moved to the door beneath Eliza’s raised brow. He didn’t shoot guns when he was eighteen. He’d learned how to use them when he bought the ranch.

  As the vehicle came to a halt in his circular driveway, he recognized the driver. While that surprise took some grappling with, he stepped out onto the front porch as Derek Jenson started toward him.

  The prosecutor smiled and pointed toward the gun Brandon held at his side. “Expecting company?”

  “Not you.” Brandon stopped before him.

  Derek scrutinized his face as he’d done to the witnesses during Jack Reed’s trial. “So, you haven’t heard.”

  “Heard what?” He had a hunch, though, and foreboding expanded. There was only one reason Derek would go out of his way for a personal visit.

  “Your dad escaped from prison a few days ago.”

  Brandon stiffened even though he’d expected as much, glancing back to see Eliza nearly beside him. He wished she wasn’t here to listen to this.

  “He took a guard hostage and made it to the gate, where a car was waiting for him. We traced the car, and it’s been reported stolen. I got a call this morning from a friend who’s working the homicide case. He says the federal marshal leading the search is on his way here. He thinks Jack is here in Vengeance.”

  Unbelievable. Brandon cursed. His father had promised he’d escape. He’d probably spent every waking moment locked in his cell dreaming of the day he’d break out and come after his sons.

  “What makes the marshal think he’s here?”

  “The stolen car was reported at a gas station just outside of town. They’re checking hotels in the area now.”

  “Why would he risk coming back here?” Eliza said.

  Ordinarily that would be a stupid move on a fugitive’s part, unless that fugitive had a compelling reason to come back, and Jack Reed certainly did. He hated his two sons. Hated Brandon the most. He’d threatened more than once to come back and kill him. In the courtroom just after sentencing, he’d spat his threats to Brandon.

  “I’ll get out,” he’d hissed. “I’ll get out and when I do, I’m going to do what I should have done when you were a worthless little boy....”

  Nothing like unconditional love from a father. Brandon often wondered what it would
be like to have a normal father.

  “You should keep your eye out for him, testifying the way you did at his trial,” Derek said.

  Brandon nodded. “Thanks for coming out to warn me.”

  “I told you I would.”

  Derek was a family man and a good prosecutor. Bad guys didn’t get away from him, and he’d always been sensitive to the price of a son testifying against a father. What he didn’t get was that Brandon had taken great pleasure in sending his father to prison.

  Brandon had been nineteen when he’d testified. Derek had been the closest thing to a father figure to him. Looking back, that was so sad. A prosecutor he hadn’t known a year had been more of a father to him than his own had.

  “When did he escape?” Eliza asked.

  “Last week.”

  Before David’s murder. Brandon shared a look with Eliza before turning to Derek. “Are the police looking into whether he had anything to do with the murders?”

  “Actually, that’s another reason my friend called. They don’t have anything to go on, but they aren’t discounting the possibility he went after David.”

  He’d told Derek all about Jack’s abuse. He was a predator who was capable of killing his young. Just another dinner.

  “If you see anything, be sure and call Detective Zimmerman. He’s been briefed on the matter.”

  Eliza didn’t appear happy to hear that bit of news. But Zimmerman knew about the car that had followed David here and that someone had been following him. Had it been Jack Reed or someone else?

  “Will do. Thanks again for coming out,” Brandon said.

  Derek went back to his car. As Brandon watched him drive away, he braced himself for Eliza.

  “That man thinks your dad will come after you, doesn’t he?”

  Brandon moved by her and went inside to put his gun away. He wasn’t in the mood to talk about his father.

  “Is he that dangerous?”

  “He killed someone after drinking too much and trying to drive home.”

  “And you helped lock him up.”

  Was this her way of manipulating him into talking? She’d attempted to broach this subject before.

  “What was it like after your mother died?”

  At least she hadn’t phrased it the other way...suicide. The wall he’d erected to block attacks like this rose up. The promise he and his brother had made still stood strong. Never talk about what happened after their mother died. Their father’s alcoholism and their mother’s suicide were unavoidable. Both were common knowledge around town.