“Nate?” Dade questioned.
The captain mumbled another “yes.” Then, he paused again. “The bullet is a perfect match to the one that killed Nate’s wife.”
TO KAYLA IT FELT AS IF everything was moving in slow motion and spinning out of control at the same time.
She’d watched from the hall as Dade told his brothers about the bullet. She saw the pain register on their faces—an old wound opened up again—and she felt that same pain deep within her.
The Rylands had suspected all along that Charles had been behind Ellie’s murder, and they’d apparently been right.
Well, maybe.
“Only Salvetti’s prints were on the gun,” Dade explained, relaying what the captain had told him just minutes earlier during their phone conversation. “And there’s nothing to indicate it’s been tampered with. The prints are clean, in places they should be on a gun, so they haven’t been planted. This gun is the real deal.”
No one said anything right away. All stood there, obviously trying to absorb the horrible news they’d just learned. “The gun can’t be linked to Brennan,” Mason concluded, and he punctuated that with some raw profanity.
“Not directly,” Dade agreed. “But we all know that Ellie’s last assignment as a cop was to investigate one of Brennan’s drug-pushing henchmen. And she was killed carrying out that investigation. Captain Tolbert said he was personally going to take another look at the case and see if he can make a strong enough connection between Salvetti and Brennan.”
Because Salvetti was dead, that might be harder to do, but there was a bottom line here: Salvetti had been the one to kill Nate’s wife, and the man had almost certainly been taking orders from Charles. Now, Nate had the gun that might eventually point to Charles, but Kayla didn’t think it was going to make it easier for him to accept his wife’s murder.
As if he knew what she was thinking, Nate looked up, snared her attention. “I’m sorry,” Kayla said because she didn’t know what else to say.
He nodded, mumbled something under his breath, and much to Kayla’s surprise, Nate walked toward her. He closed his eyes a moment, but when he opened them, his attention was focused fully on her.
“I know Brennan is making it hard for you to testify, but please don’t back down,” Nate told her. “You might be the only person who can get him to pay for what he’s done.”
“I won’t back down,” Kayla promised. She repeated it so the others would hear. “One way or another, I’m putting Charles Brennan behind bars. Or better yet, in the grave. I want him on death row.”
Mason nodded. So did Nate. Dade lowered his head, shook it, and mumbled something she couldn’t hear.
Nate glanced back at his brothers. “We’ll keep your son safe, no matter what. You have my word on that.” When his eyes started to water, Nate quickly turned and moved away. “I have to get out of here for a while.”
No one questioned that, and Kayla totally understood. She hated being this close to Charles, but now she had just one more reason to hate him—he’d hurt Dade and his family by taking the life of one of their own.
Dade glanced around as if trying to figure out where to start. He finally hitched his thumb toward the interrogation room. “I’ll start with Winston and Alan,” he told Mason. “I’ll talk to them together. Why don’t you deal with Carrie?”
“I’d rather deal with a PMS-ing diamondback.”
Mason’s mumble was drenched in sarcasm. “What about Brennan?”
“Let him and his lawyer stew for a while.” Dade caught onto Kayla’s arm. “You can watch from the observation room while I chat with Winston and Alan.”
“Remember to breathe, Kayla,” Mason said when she walked past him.
She whirled in his direction, expecting to see Mason’s usual scary glare, but the corner of his mouth hitched. It wasn’t full-fledged, but it was a smile. He gave a half shrug as if he didn’t want to expend too much energy for either gesture.
“I should probably tell you that you could do better than my little brother,” Mason added. “But it sounds as if this is out of your control.”
It was. She had already fallen hard for Dade, and nothing was going to change that. Unfortunately. That meant there were hard times ahead for her because this relationship with Dade wasn’t just complicated. It was a potential powder keg.
Kayla brushed her hand against Mason’s arm to thank him. She figured the subtle approach was better with this particular Ryland. He made a sound that could have meant anything and strolled away.
“Let’s get something straight,” Dade said to her on the trek to the observation room. “You won’t take any unnecessary chances when it comes to Brennan. We’ll get him behind bars.”
“And my testimony will do that,” she reminded him.
Dade had the same reaction as he’d had in the hall. A head shake and an under-the-breath mumble. “Just don’t do anything stupid.”
That didn’t sound like his first choice of words for a warning, but Kayla couldn’t ask for clarification. That’s because Carrie came out of the reception area and walked directly toward them.
“Mason will interview you,” Dade let her know.
Of course that earned Kayla a glare. She was tired of this woman’s reaction and decided to go petty. Kayla leaned over, brushed a kiss on Dade’s mouth. “I’ll watch from here.” Something he already knew of course, and she stepped into the observation room.
“Do I have to remind you that Brennan and she are family?” Carrie said to Dade.
“No, you don’t have to remind me.”
And much to Kayla shock, Dade leaned into the observation room and kissed her right back. He added a delicious little smile that Carrie couldn’t see because his back was to the woman. Then, he turned, caught onto Carrie’s arm and ushered her down the hall where Mason was waiting for her. However, Dade didn’t even make it back to the interrogation room before Darcy Burkhart rounded the corner.
“You have a problem,” Darcy announced, zooming in on Dade. She glanced in the room at Winston and Alan. Winston was seated, reading something on his phone. Alan was pacing.
“What now?” Dade asked, sounding as frustrated as Kayla felt.
“I’m requesting a trial delay because there’s a conflict of interest.” She slapped some papers in Dade’s hand. “That’s the statement I just took from my client. I’ve already called the judge and the county D.A. I suggest you bring in the Rangers or some other impartial agency to handle the investigation.”
Oh, mercy. Had something truly gone wrong, or was this another legal ploy?
Kayla stepped out in the hall to see if she could get a glimpse of the paper that Dade was reading. But he lifted his finger in a wait-a-minute gesture.
“What the hell is this?” Dade demanded, though he’d only had time to skim the page.
“Ask him.” Ms. Burkhart pointed directly at Alan.
Alan sank down in the chair, head dropped into his hands, and he groaned. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry?” Dade demanded. “Is it true? Tell me the hell it’s not true.” Dade was practically shouting by the time he got to the last word.
“It’s true,” Alan admitted.
“What’s true?” Winston asked, getting to his feet.
Dade handed him the paper, and Kayla held her breath as the D.A.’s eyes skirted across the lines.
The color drained from Winston’s face. “Oh, God.”
Kayla repeated that and was about to ask what the heck was going on, but Winston glanced at her, then Dade.
“Does Kayla know?” Winston asked.
“No.” And Dade said that with too much regret for this not to be really bad news.
“What is it? What don’t I know?” she managed to ask.
But Dade didn’t answer. He motioned for Mason who was still in the hall with Carrie. “I need to get Kayla away from this and upstairs. It’s late, and she’s been through more than enough today.”
Maso
n nodded. “What do you need me to do?”
“Have Mel interview Carrie,” Dade instructed. “You need to take Alan’s statement. After that, he’ll resign as the A.D.A., and then you can arrest him and have both Alan and Brennan moved to the jail. I want both in lockup for the night. Call Nate. He can help with that.”
“Arrest Alan?” Kayla repeated, but she was the only one of the four who seemed surprised with Dade’s order. “Did he do anything to Robbie? Did he hurt my baby?”
“Nothing like that,” Dade assured her.
That didn’t ease the knot in her stomach.
“We have to talk,” Dade said to her. No longer a shout. Practically a whisper.
He caught onto her hand and started walking.
Chapter Thirteen
Kayla didn’t ask Dade what he’d just learned, which meant she no doubt knew this was not going to be news she wanted to hear.
Still, Dade would tell her.
It just wouldn’t happen in front of Alan or any of the others. She’d had her heart bared enough today without having to go through a semipublic ordeal of hearing Brennan’s latest. And there was no mistaking it.
This would be an ordeal.
With his hand still holding hers, Dade led her up the back stairs to the studio-style apartment. Once it’d been part of the jail, but when a new facility had been built five years ago, Grayson had converted it to a place where they could crash when the workload was too much for them to go home to the ranch. Basically, it was one massive area with a kitchen, sitting space, desk, bed and bathroom, but for tonight, it would be a safe haven where Kayla could hopefully get some rest.
Well, after she fell apart, that is.
Dade led her inside, locked the door and had her sit on the well-worn leather sofa that had once belonged to his grandfather. In fact, pretty much everything in the room was a family hand-me-down moved from the attic at the ranch.
“Tell me,” Kayla said, and there was pure dread in her voice.
First, Dade poured her a shot of whiskey from the stash Mason kept in one of the cabinets. He handed it to her and motioned for her to drink.
She did. Kayla took it in one gulp. “Tell me,” she repeated. “Was Alan working for Charles?”
“Not exactly.” Dade took a deep breath and sat on the coffee table in front of her so they’d be eye to eye. “Alan committed a crime and covered it up, but Brennan found out what he’d done. Brennan insists he hasn’t been blackmailing Alan, but it might take a while to prove if that’s true or false.”
Kayla swallowed hard. “And the crime? Alan’s too young to have murdered your grandfather.” She paused. Her eyes widened. “He didn’t have something to do with Ellie’s death?”
Because she was going to need it, Dade inched closer and pulled her deep into his arms. “According to Brennan, a little over a year ago Alan was drunk, and he was involved in a car accident. He hit and killed your husband, and then he fled the scene.”
She pulled in her breath and didn’t release it. Kayla held it so long that Dade eased back to make sure she wasn’t about to pass out. “Alan killed Preston?”
“Afraid so.” He waited for her to cry, but the tears didn’t come. “Preston had a security camera in his car that activated during the crash, but when Brennan came upon the scene just minutes after it happened, he took the camera before the cops got there.”
“So he knew all along how Preston died.” Still no tears. She shook her head. “Honestly, I thought Charles had murdered him. They clashed more often than not, and I figured Charles got fed up and killed him or had him killed. This sounds horrible, but Preston’s death was a relief to me. As far as I was concerned, he was no longer my husband. No longer anything to me.”
He touched her cheek. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” But then just like that, something flashed through her eyes. “Oh, God. Charles will try to use this to throw out the case against him. That’s why he told his attorney about it after all these months.”
Dade wished he could disagree with that, but she was right. “Mason and Nate will be all over this. The Texas Rangers, too. Brennan will go to trial.”
Now the tears came. “He can’t get away with this. He can’t.”
Dade pulled her back in his arms. “He won’t. It’s true—the only reason he spilled all of this now was to call Alan’s integrity into question.”
“And it will,” she insisted.
“It might. But I read through the case against Brennan, and I don’t remember Alan’s name appearing anywhere in the motion documents. This is Winston’s case.”
And while Dade might have some suspicions about the D.A., he wouldn’t borrow trouble. Eventually Brennan had to run out of luck and dirty little secrets that had so far kept him from doing any serious jail time.
Plus, there was something else. “Brennan implicated himself today when he gave that statement to his attorney about Alan. Brennan obstructed justice by removing that camera from his son’s car. That’s another charge we can tack on to the others, and we can use that to revoke his bond and put his sorry butt back in jail. Well, for tonight anyway.”
Kayla groaned softly. “That’s something, I guess.” She eased back a few inches and faced him again. “You’ve been good to me through all of this. I won’t forget it.”
Dade stared at her. “That sounds like some kind of goodbye.”
She looked ready to say yes, it was. But Dade wasn’t about to accept a goodbye. So, he kissed her. Yeah, it wasn’t fair. It was ill-timed. But it was also what he needed. Hopefully it was what Kayla needed, too.
“Remember,” he said against her mouth, “I’m the guy that makes you forget to breathe.” He meant to make it sound light, but it sure didn’t come out that way.
Her eyes came to his again, but there was no humor, no teasing. “That’s true. And if you don’t think that scares me, think again.”
He brushed his mouth against hers. “Fear is the last thing I want you to feel when it comes to me.”
“Too late.” Her words ended in a kiss. A kiss that melted right through him.
Dade returned the favor. “Funny, you don’t sound afraid.” She sounded aroused, and looked it, too, with her heavy eyelids and flushed cheeks.
He felt her muscles go slack, and she slipped her hands around the back of his neck. “I’m afraid you might stop,” she whispered.
Oh, man.
That did it. He was a goner. He hadn’t brought Kayla up here to have sex with her, but that was an invitation he couldn’t resist.
Dade could think of at least a dozen reasons to quit doing this. Damn good reasons, too. But he couldn’t come up with any reason that was stronger than the simple truth. He was burning alive, and Kayla wasn’t just the source of the fire, she was the cure.
“Dade,” she said, her voice mostly breath, barely a whisper.
But he heard her loud and clear. “Kayla,” he managed to say, even though it seemed too much to have the sound of her name leave his mouth.
“Your arm,” she reminded him and eased back a little. “Be careful.”
Careful and his arm were the last things on his mind right now. Dade didn’t think he could keep this together very long. He’d never been a patient, gentle lover. Never had a partner who was interested in anything but hard and fast. He didn’t think that was true of Kayla, though.
Restraint, he reminded himself in the same motion that he reached for her.
His hand slid around the back of her neck, and he dragged her to him. His mouth went straight to hers, and in that one touch, that one breath, he took in her scent and taste.
So much for restraint.
“Sorry,” he said, taking her mouth the way he wanted to take the rest of her.
“Sorry for what?” she snapped back and stared at him. Her mouth was already swollen from their kisses. Her face was flushed. And her heavy breathing pushed her breasts against his chest.
The sight of her melted him. “Sorry for no
t giving you an out, for not seducing you the old-fashioned way.”
Dade kissed her again. Too hard. And yet it wasn’t hard enough. He pressed against her, snaring her in his arms, and dragging her even tighter against him.
“I don’t want an out,” she mumbled through the kiss. “Old-fashioned is overrated. And I just want you.”
He didn’t have much breath left, but that pretty much robbed him of the little bit in his lungs. So did the maneuver she made by brushing her sex against his. Hell.
The bed wasn’t far, just a few yards away, but the desk was closer. Grappling for position, they landed against it, the edge ramming into Dade’s lower back.
The kisses got crazy hot. Dade couldn’t figure out where he wanted to kiss her most, so he settled for any part of her he could reach. Which wasn’t easy. Kayla was doing some crazy kisses, too, and she was trying to rid him of his shirt. Dade helped. He ripped it open.
She made a sound of relief and lowered her head to plant some kisses on his chest. It was torture. Her hot, wet mouth moving over his body as if she knew exactly what turned him on.
And she obviously did.
Because she made it all the way to his stomach. And lower. Especially lower. When she dropped one of those fire kisses on the front of his jeans, Dade figured this was about to get crazier.
He caught onto her, dragging her back up and turning her so that she was pinned against the desk.
“I want you naked now,” he guttered out.
Kayla apparently agreed because she started to do battle with her top. Dade did more than battle. He jerked it over her head and discovered a woman with a flimsy lacy bra. It was barely there, but he removed it anyway.
Kayla was beautiful everywhere. Certain that his theory was correct, he shoved down her pants and pulled them off her. Then, her panties.
Yeah. Beautiful everywhere.
He leaned in, slowly, and touched his mouth to the pink heart tattoo on her breast. She sucked in her breath and froze. She had that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. She was waiting. And Dade made sure the wait was worth it.
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