Safeguarding the Surrogate

by Delores Fossen

  Kara shuddered. “Someone broke into my house and took that picture of me when I was sleeping,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “God, when I was in bed and sleeping.”

  “Maybe. Or it could be Photoshopped.” But Daniel didn’t really believe that.

  Judging from the way she frantically shook her head, neither did Kara. For a good reason. The killer had gotten into her house to leave Mandy’s body so it wasn’t much of a stretch for him to have broken in another time.

  Hell.

  He thought of all the times Sadie had been there with Kara. The killer could have gone after them then. He could have taken them both. Hurt them. Or worse.

  “This note was clipped to Kara’s picture,” Eldon went on. He held that up, too, for them, and Daniel had no trouble reading the two words that someone had scrawled on the paper.

  She’s next.

  “The next to die,” Kara muttered, dragging in a long breath.

  “I’m turning off our audio,” Daniel told his brother, and he hit the button to mute the sound from their side. He definitely didn’t want Eldon listening in case Kara fell apart. And he thought she might do just that.

  Daniel pulled her into his arms and would have kissed her if he thought it would help. It wouldn’t. Even the scalding heat between them wasn’t going to fix this. The killer—and Eldon—had just shaken her to the core.

  “I can’t go back to that house,” she said, her voice as shaky as the rest of her. “I can’t go back home.”

  That wasn’t a surprise. The creep factor was high on this. Especially high, considering that the killer could have murdered her in her sleep.

  So, why hadn’t he?

  If Kara was the target, why hadn’t he ended her life then and there?

  It was definitely something that Daniel needed to give more thought to, and he could talk that through with Kara. Not now, though. Not while she was trembling in his arms. But soon, the same question would come to her, too. So would the full impact that she’d essentially lost her home. She loved that placed, loved raising and training her horses. It wasn’t going to be an easy gap to fill, and while she might change her mind about returning, that would take some time.

  “I’m okay,” she said several moments later.

  It was a Texas-sized lie, but Daniel didn’t call her on it. He just kept holding her while he kept watch on the screen as his brother bagged the photos that he took from Eldon.

  Eldon looked straight into the camera again. “I figure this sort of thing can mess with a person’s head. Of course, I’m figuring her head was already messed up for her to do what she did. Being a surrogate, I mean. People pay in all kinds of ways for the mistakes they make.”

  That sounded like a veiled threat, but Daniel had to concede that almost anything the man said could be taken that way. After all, Eldon was a suspect, and his showing Kara the pictures could be just part of his cat-and-mouse game.

  “I’m having Mr. Shroud wait in my office so I can bag and tag these pictures,” Barrett said for Daniel and Kara’s benefit. His brother probably didn’t want Eldon to have any other chances to take a poke at Kara. “I’ll have Esther do the interview with him while I talk to Rizzo. Give me a minute and I’ll call to explain what’s going on.”

  Daniel knew it was going to take more than a minute to soothe Kara’s jangled nerves. If Eldon had set out to torment her with what he’d shown them, then he’d done a damn good job of it.

  “I didn’t see any signs of a break-in at my house,” she went on, her words and breath hitting against his shoulder and neck. “But it must have happened.” He felt her muscles go stiff. “Why?”

  He didn’t have the answer to that, and Daniel was worried that he might not have it soon enough. As long as the killer was out there, Kara and he wouldn’t have any peace. And the child they both loved wouldn’t be safe.

  Daniel had to put that thought aside when his phone rang. He shifted a little, just enough to answer it, but he kept his arm around Kara. As expected, it was Barrett, and since she was close enough to hear, he didn’t put the call on speaker.

  “I’ll have the photos that I got from Eldon sent to the crime lab,” Barrett explained. “He claims he has no idea who sent them.”

  Daniel jumped right on that. “You believe him?”

  His brother sighed. “I just don’t know. He’s angry all the way to the marrow about his daughter’s death so some of that comes through with everything he says. Maybe that’s coloring the way I see him.”

  Daniel was worried the same thing was happening to him. He needed to stay objective because that was the only way to get to the truth.

  “The envelopes with the pictures have a San Antonio postmark,” Barrett went on. “Eldon admits he’s had them in his pocket since they arrived so I suspect any trace will be compromised.”

  Yeah, so did Daniel, and he was betting that if Eldon wasn’t the killer, then the real killer’s prints wouldn’t be on the envelopes. But that led to an interesting thought.

  “Both Sean and Eldon got some kind of correspondence from the killer,” Daniel pointed out. “Rizzo didn’t.”

  Of course, that didn’t mean Rizzo was guilty. It was just puzzling why he was the only one of their suspects who hadn’t gotten that. Then again, the killer might not be either of the three. All three men could be innocent, and if so, that meant Daniel had no idea who was behind these murders and attacks.

  “Is Sean still there?” Daniel asked his brother. He might not be able to pin anything on Sean, but he still wanted to keep tabs on him.

  “No. He left with his lawyer about ten minutes ago. I got a court order on the financials for all three men, and the files just came through. I’ll be looking through those and will go over the interview statements once they’re done. I’ll send those to you so you can do the same.”

  Daniel would indeed look over them. Heck, he’d dig through them, looking for any inconsistencies. Since Barrett would be tied up with the interviews and the aftermath of paperwork that would follow those, Daniel appreciated the tasks. It might help him keep his mind off Sadie. Off Kara, too.

  Though that’d be harder to do since she was right next to him.

  “How’d you manage to get financials on Rizzo?” Daniel asked.

  “Leo. He’s been working on that from the safe house, and he cited the latest murder and the attack on Kara and you to expedite us getting the files. He’ll also deal with putting some pressure on the crime lab and the ME reports. We need to find out if the killer left any piece of himself at Kara’s or the clinic when he killed Loretta.”

  That would be a break if they did find something, but Daniel figured this killer was too smart for that. Still, mistakes happened, and all it took was one hair or one print to blow this investigation wide open.

  Barrett didn’t waste any time. Within seconds after he ended the call, the financial files on all three suspects came through. Daniel considered going downstairs to the office to print out copies for Kara to read through, but there was a huge window in there, and it was on the ground floor. He preferred to keep her upstairs. Not that a gunman couldn’t fire into this room, too, but Daniel had purposely kept her angled away from the single window so as to not give an attacker a direct shot.

  He opened the files on his phone, motioning for Kara to take the laptop so she could start reading. “You take Sean’s,” he said. “I’ll start with Rizzo’s. Look for any lump sum withdrawals or checks that could have been used to hire a gunman.”

  She nodded in agreement and got started. Daniel pulled up a chair across from her, and he dug in. He immediately noticed that this was not just Rizzo’s financials, but the file also included the notes from the investigation that the Texas Rangers were conducting. The Rangers had highlighted several large online deposits that had been followed with equal withdrawals less than twenty-four hours later.
>
  None in the past couple of days, though.

  These were from at least three months ago, shortly before Daniel had gotten that anonymous tip about Rizzo being part of the militia. There wasn’t a large withdrawal or deposit after that.

  Did that mean Rizzo had just gotten more careful?

  Maybe, but he sure as heck hadn’t been before then, and Daniel zoomed in on the pattern that the Rangers were obviously trying to establish. Rizzo was getting deposits from a dummy company. Or rather dummy companies. Ones that existed only long enough to make the deposits to Rizzo. Then Rizzo was withdrawing the funds, which would have given him cash.

  What Daniel was seeing was a way for Rizzo to launder money or to feed that cash from suspicious sources into the militia—maybe for purchasing those weapons they were stockpiling. It wasn’t absolute proof that Rizzo was involved in the militia, but it was grounds to hold the man until Daniel and Barrett could take a harder look.

  Daniel took out his phone to call his brother, but it rang before he even had a chance to press the number. And it was Barrett.

  “You need to hold Rizzo,” Daniel immediately told him. “There are red flags in his financials.”

  Barrett paused as if he were rethinking what he’d been about to say. “I will, but for now I have a problem. I need someone to get to the hospital.”

  “The hospital?” Kara and Daniel said in unison. Obviously, she’d heard what his brother had said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Sean’s in the ER,” Barrett answered. Then he paused and cursed. “Sean claims that you just tried to kill him.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kara wasn’t sure who looked more stunned about what Barrett had just told them. Daniel or her. Judging from his tone, Barrett was experiencing the same thing.

  “Someone tried to kill Sean,” Daniel repeated. “How? When? How bad is he hurt?”

  “Not sure of any of that yet,” Barrett answered. “But he must not be hurt too bad because he just phoned from the ER and wanted me to get there ASAP.”

  Daniel grumbled some profanity. “Well, it sure as hell wasn’t me who tried to kill him. I’ve been here in the inn with Kara.”

  “I know that, but I don’t know why he said you did. That’s why he wanted me up there right now. But I can’t go. I have both Rizzo and Eldon in the building, and I don’t want to leave Esther here without backup. At the moment, there’s no one else I can call in so I’ll reschedule the interviews—”

  “No.” Daniel drew in a long breath and looked at her as if apologizing.

  But it wasn’t necessary. Kara knew what had to be done. “The hospital is two blocks from here,” she reminded Daniel and Barrett. “We can drive there in the cruiser and talk to Sean. We’ll try to get to the bottom of what happened.”

  “I hate to ask,” Barrett said a moment later. “But if someone really did try to kill him, we need to know.”

  “Agreed,” Daniel said. “Kara and I will be at the hospital in a couple of minutes.”

  However, Daniel didn’t budge when he ended the call and put away his phone. He did curse some more. And she saw the apology in his eyes as he looked down at her.

  “Don’t.” She pressed a quick kiss on his mouth and holstered her weapon in the back of her jeans. “We’ll be careful.”

  Of course, being careful was no guarantee that they’d be safe since the killer could have set all of this up as a way of luring them out. But the alternative was leaving a deputy alone with two suspects, and Kara didn’t want Esther being put at undue risk or having the investigation stall because Barrett couldn’t finish the interviews.

  “Besides,” she added, “both Eldon and Rizzo are in the sheriff’s office. Neither of them will be able to fire shots at us.”

  After several long moments, Daniel finally nodded, and he got them started out of the room and down the stairs. He had to temporarily disengage the security system to get them out the back door, but once they were on the porch, they hurried.

  And held their breaths.

  Because they both knew that while their suspects wouldn’t be able to shoot them at this exact moment, it didn’t mean that one of them hadn’t hired a henchman or two to do that job.

  Kara’s heart was pounding by the time they made it into the cruiser. She still held her breath until the doors were shut and Daniel was driving away from the inn. They both fired glances around them, but Kara didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She hoped it stayed that way.

  It took less than a minute for them to pull into the hospital parking lot, and Daniel stopped the cruiser as close to the ER doors as he could get. With their hands on their weapons, they hurried inside. A nurse, Gayla Hayward, was right there waiting for them, and she motioned for them to follow her.

  “Barrett called me and said you were on your way,” Gayla explained. “We have Sean back here in the examining room.”

  So he wasn’t in surgery or intensive care. That was good because he might be able to answer some questions. Especially one question—why he’d accused Daniel of trying to kill him.

  “What’s Sean’s condition?” Daniel asked.

  “He has a gunshot wound to the shoulder. Dr. Tipton is with him now.”

  Kara knew Dr. Norris Tipton since he’d lived in Mercy Ridge his entire life. It was the same for Gayla.

  Gayla threaded them through the ER waiting area and down the hall. The moment they stepped into the examination room, Kara spotted Sean. He was lying on the table, and the right side of his shirt was soaked with blood. He immediately sat up, practically snapping to attention, and he aimed fiery narrowed eyes at Daniel.

  “You stay the hell away from me,” Sean snarled, practically pushing the doctor away so he could try to stand. “I won’t let you shoot me again.”

  “I didn’t shoot you,” Daniel snarled right back, and he went closer. Like Kara, he examined the wound that Dr. Tipton was cleaning. “How bad is it?”

  Dr. Tipton gave Daniel a somewhat annoyed glance, probably because he didn’t appreciate being interrupted during an exam. “He’ll live,” the doctor said. “But he’ll need stitches, and I want an X-ray just to be sure.”

  “Could he have done this to himself?” Daniel pressed, causing a howl of outrage from Sean.

  “You tried to kill me,” Sean insisted.

  Daniel shifted his hard gaze to Sean. “No, I didn’t. Tell me what makes you think I did.”

  “Because I saw your badge. The sun glinted off it just as you shot me.”

  “You claim you actually saw me pull the trigger?” Daniel snarled. “Or did you just see someone with a badge?”

  Sean opened his mouth, closed it, and he cursed before he lay back on the examining table. “I saw the badge. But the shooter was about your size and was wearing a black Stetson like you always do.”

  She heard Daniel release his breath. “So it could have been someone hired to make you believe it was me.”

  It seemed to be the last thing Sean wanted to do, but he finally gave a conceding nod that it could have happened that way. “Someone shot me,” he growled. “Someone tried to kill me.”

  Daniel shifted back to the doctor. “Could this wound have been self-inflicted?” he repeated, causing Sean to snarl out another protest.

  “Not likely,” the doctor commented. “The angle’s wrong, and there’s no stippling. Have a look for yourself.” He moved back so that Daniel could see Sean’s injured shoulder.

  Stippling was gunshot residue that showed on the skin when the bullet was fired at close range. Which a self-inflicted wound would have been. Kara had a look for herself, and she didn’t see any gunshot residue on Sean.

  “Satisfied?” Dr. Tipton asked, but he didn’t wait for Daniel to answer before he added, “Because I need to finish cleaning this wound, and it’s best if Kara and you aren’t in here for that.”<
br />
  Daniel volleyed glances between the doctor and Sean, but he didn’t budge.

  Dr. Tipton sighed. “You can wait in my office. We can chat after I’m finished here.”

  Daniel finally nodded and tipped his head to Sean. “He doesn’t leave this area until after we’ve spoken, understand?”

  Both the nurse and doctor made sounds of agreement, and Daniel took Kara out of the room and down the hall to Dr. Tipton’s office. It wasn’t big, just a cluttered desk with two visitors’ chairs. And a large window. Daniel immediately went to it and lowered the blinds after he checked to make sure no one was lurking around outside. He took up guard duty at the door that he partially closed but motioned for her to stay back.

  “You think Sean had something to do with his own attack?” Kara asked. “That maybe he set this up to make himself look innocent?”

  “Maybe.” But there was plenty of room for doubt in his tone.

  It did seem extreme since Sean had indeed been shot. A shoulder wound could have been serious had the gunman missed just a little, and the bullet could have gone into Sean’s neck. So if Sean had hired this guy, he must have had plenty of faith in his abilities.

  Since there was no way Kara could sit, she started to pace. Not easy to do in the small space, and of course, she ended up near Daniel. She placed a hand on his arm, causing him to look at her. Their gazes locked. And held. Until Daniel cursed under his breath.

  “I’d hoped this would be over,” he said.

  She thought he was talking about the danger and not the sizzle of attraction that she felt slide between them. Despite their situation, she smiled. “As long as we keep kissing, I don’t think it’ll be over.”

  He sure didn’t smile. Daniel looked as if he wanted to glare or curse some more. However, he let out a long sigh, and as if resigned to whatever he was feeling for her, he brushed a kiss on her cheek.

  Then her mouth.

  It might have been barely a touch, but she felt it all right. Mercy, did she. The heat went all the way to her toes, and her body started to rev up for something it wasn’t going to get. At least not right now. She couldn’t have Daniel, but Kara had no doubts that soon they’d be lovers. They’d no longer be able to resist this hard pull between them, and they’d land in bed. Maybe whatever happened wouldn’t destroy the fragile friendship they’d built for Sadie’s sake. Maybe they wouldn’t ruin everything.