A Promise to Protect (Logan Point Book #2): A Novel

by Patricia Bradley

  Gabby Jordan. His heart winced. What a mistake that’d been. “Rebound. Then she lied to me about something insignificant, and we broke up. I can’t deal with lies.” He looked into her green eyes, and it was like gazing into her soul. “You were always truthful with me.”

  Leigh fanned herself furiously with her hand. “It’s hot. I think it’s time to go back.”

  “So you’re not going to tell me what happened to us?”

  She stilled her hand. “We were in different places in our lives. I still had a lot of years of school. You needed a wife who would be an asset in your life, not someone who had been hauled into the county jail with a bunch of strippers. How would that look on an election poster?”

  “Leigh, that was when you were seventeen and look at you now. You’re a doctor. And totally an asset.”

  She turned her gaze toward the lake. “It was a summer romance.”

  “I didn’t think of it that way. I wanted to marry you.”

  “But you never told me that.”

  “Then I’m telling you now. I wanted to marry you then . . . and . . . and I want to marry you now. Or at least explore the idea, see if what we had is still there.”

  Her mouth dropped open. She clamped it shut. “Everything is different now. I have a child, and you don’t want the responsibility of children.”

  A band constricted his heart. Tommy Ray’s face flashed in his memory. Could he take that responsibility? Suddenly, TJ’s sooty face overrode the memory of the drowned boy, and the band loosened. “I know you and TJ come as a package deal.”

  “Well, don’t get too excited about it.”

  “You know I like being around TJ.” He gazed into her green eyes. Just being around Leigh calmed him.

  “Ben, I don’t think—”

  “I care about you, Leigh. I’ll care about your son.” He took her hand and ran his thumb over her palm, not expecting the tremor that raced through his heart.

  Her pupils widened, and a look he couldn’t discern flashed across her face.

  Leigh bit her bottom lip. “There are some things we need to talk about first.”

  She looked so kissable. He was done with talking. “Mmm-hmm.” He leaned toward her, and her lips parted as he cupped her face in his hands and drew her to him. He kissed her gently, and electricity charged through him. “I need you in my life,” he murmured.

  “Oh, Ben . . .”

  She closed her eyes, and he kissed them as well. When he trailed his finger down her neck, she opened her eyes, and he lost himself in a sea of green. With a groan, he wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close, capturing her lips once again. Leigh’s arms slid around his neck, and she pressed against him, returning his kiss with a passion that surprised him.

  When they parted, he brushed a strand of chestnut hair from her cheek. She stared at the top button on his shirt, and he lifted her chin. “You look mighty serious.”

  A soft sigh escaped her lips. “There are still things I need to tell you, but not today.”

  Lightning zigzagged across the lake followed by a clap of thunder, and he stood and grabbed her by the hand, pulling her up. “Good. We have to get out of here,” he said, pointing toward the building thunderheads. They would be lucky if they made it back to the house without getting drenched.

  The frown faded, replaced by wide eyes. “Oh, my!”

  Hand in hand, they raced for the house. Whatever she wanted to tell him would never change the way he felt about her.

  Two hours later at the house on Webster, Leigh tossed the wet clothes Emily had loaned her into the washer and turned it on. Part of her wished she’d gotten it over with and told Ben the truth. If Tom knew, it was just a matter of time before he would be able to speak well enough to tell the whole family what he suspected. Ben needed to hear it from her first.

  Wait . . . maybe she could talk to Tom, convince him to keep quiet. Or maybe she was imagining he knew. Besides, Ben wasn’t ready to be a father. That was evident. He wanted her, but he’d been less than enthusiastic about a relationship with TJ.

  Hadn’t he said he couldn’t deal with lies? His actual words echoed in her heart. Once he discovered she’d lied to him all these years, he would reject her. Which meant he would reject TJ as well. That was not happening. No one was rejecting her son.

  And how about TJ? Didn’t her son deserve to know the truth? Pain gripped her stomach, and she doubled over and sank to the floor. Tell him or don’t tell him? The decision went back and forth.

  She pulled herself up from the floor. Why did truth have to be so hard? And what good would it do to tell the truth? Why stir up trouble when in six weeks she and TJ would be out of Logan Point? They could start over, but not if she told the truth and they had to take all that baggage with them.

  No. This truth would only hurt those she loved. She squared her shoulders. She would not tell Ben or TJ. And maybe, someday, there would be a man in her life who could love her and her son. Actually, Ian already seemed to enjoy TJ, and that was at least a start.

  She padded into the kitchen to search for the Earl Grey she’d bought and almost bumped into Sarah putting on the teakettle. The box of tea bags sat on the counter.

  “You need a cup of Earl too?” Leigh asked.

  Sarah nodded, then handed her several pieces of mail. “These came to the Logans this past week.”

  Leigh had requested the post office forward any mail sent to the house that burned to the Logans’. She sorted through the letters as Sarah set a plate of cookies on the counter. “I found the neatest bakery in town. Thought we’d try their homemade biscotti.”

  “That sounds good.” Leigh’s hand stilled at a notice from the post office. Seems Tony’s box payment was due. She didn’t even know he had a PO box. She’d bet it was full to overflowing. She’d check on it in the morning. No, she had to be at the clinic by seven-thirty. “Would you mind taking care of this?” she asked, handing Sarah the card.

  “Be happy to. But how about TJ? Do you want me to call Ben so he can send a deputy over to stay with him while I go out?”

  “He’ll be with me.”

  Sarah jerked her head up. “What?”

  “He’s going to the clinic with me this week. I don’t think I could concentrate on treating patients if I’m worrying about where TJ is.”

  “That’s going to be awful boring for him.”

  “The twins will be there when Emily comes. And I’ll let him use my netbook to play games on.”

  “Why not let him stay with Marisa? That place is a virtual fortress.”

  “No.” She softened her tone. “He’ll be fine at the clinic. And maybe by the time school starts next week, Ben will have caught that madman.”

  Her friend started to say something more, but Leigh’s cell phone rang. Ian. He’d had to go out of town after the meeting with his uncle, although he’d called as soon as he heard about the kidnapping. “I probably need to take this,” she said and walked to the lanai just outside the back door. “Hello. Are you back in town?”

  “No. I have to stay over until tomorrow afternoon. Just wanted to check on you and TJ.”

  “We’re fine.” Leigh suppressed a sigh. If only she had the same feelings toward Ian that she had for Ben, life would be so much simpler.

  “I miss you. Can we have dinner tomorrow night?”

  She really needed to tell Ian that if he wanted something other than friendship, he was wasting his time with her. “Tomorrow night would be nice.” She would tell him then.

  21

  Thanks for taking time to do this before you leave,” Ben said as Taylor Martin handed him a folder. She had an early Tuesday morning flight to Seattle, and he imagined she could have used her Monday afternoon getting ready instead of briefing him and Wade.

  Taylor handed Wade a file as well. “I want to help get this guy, and after Saturday’s kidnapping, I didn’t figure we had any time to waste.”

  Ben scanned the folder. “So you still agree these attac
ks are directed at me?”

  “My gut says Tony’s death and the ransacking of his house are separate crimes. That said, profiling is not an exact science, and anything is possible. The rest, definitely directed at you.”

  Ben doodled on the pad in front of him. “You don’t think the guy Leigh reported to Child Services committed any of them?”

  She shook her head. “He’s a heavy drinker, and his profile doesn’t indicate the level of intelligence it would take to pull off these crimes. I keep coming back to one person. Jonas Gresham. I think it’s twofold with him. He believes you’re responsible for two of his sons’ deaths, and he’s attacking you where it will hurt the most—your competency and the people you care about.”

  Wade closed the file. “There may be another reason Gresham is pulling these stunts,” he said. “The dogfighting ring. He probably figures if we’re busy investigating all these other crimes, you won’t notice new traffic in and out of the county.”

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand—why would Gresham call Leigh and demand the flash drive?” Ben didn’t believe Leigh had told him the entire conversation. He’d asked about it again this morning after he escorted her and TJ to the clinic, and even though they’d been out of TJ’s hearing, she clammed up, claimed she’d told him everything. She was so frightened for TJ, he was afraid that if she found the flash drive, she might think she could trade it for his safety.

  “What if Tony was Gresham’s partner?” Wade asked.

  Ben didn’t want to believe Tony would be involved in dogfighting. But what if he was? He nodded. “If they were partners, Tony could have created a file with the names of all the people involved and put it on a flash drive. That could explain how Gresham knew about the drive, and give us only one perpetrator for all the crimes.” Which was a whole lot easier to deal with than two. “But he wouldn’t try to frame his own son for Tony’s death. Family is too important to him.”

  “Ben, we’re talking about Jonas Gresham—you know, the guy who hates your guts.” Wade leaned forward. “But would he torch Tony’s house with no way of knowing for sure the flash drive was in there?”

  Ben wanted to throw up his hands. This was like being in a maze.

  “Let’s look at each of these crimes and see how many of them we can link to Gresham.” Taylor walked to the whiteboard. She wrote Gresham’s name in the middle and drew a circle around it then drew lines and wrote Tony’s name, the house ransacking and shooting the following morning. In parentheses she wrote Billy Wayne. Then, one by one, she listed the other crimes—Leigh’s fire, the snakes, the fire at the jail, kidnapping, phone calls. By those crimes, she wrote circumstantial. Last of all she listed dogfighting.

  She turned to Ben. “A steel-tipped arrowhead was found at the scenes of both fires? Is Gresham proficient with a bow?”

  Ben riffled through the papers on his desk until he found the report from the game warden. “In this county, only fifty-three people applied for a permit to hunt with a bow and arrow this year. Jonas Gresham and two of his sons’ names are on here.”

  Taylor wrote means by the fires. She put a question mark by the phone calls. “I wish we could get his cell phone records,” she said.

  Ben shook his head. “I looked at Leigh’s cell phone. The number was blocked. Besides, whoever made the calls probably used a disposable phone.”

  “How about Tony’s? Do you have his?”

  Wade leaned forward. “His phone records came in last week. Nothing important . . . business calls, calls to Leigh and Ben.”

  As Ben stared at the board, the puzzle pieces began to click in place. Taylor was right. Every crime on the board pointed to him personally. But unless he caught Gresham in the act of committing another crime or found the disguise he used when he kidnapped the boys, Jonas Gresham would get away with his crimes. “Gresham has an alibi for Saturday night.”

  Taylor turned to him. “Really?”

  “I’m not sure how solid it is. Andre and I drove out to the Gresham house, and his wife more or less alibied him. I figure she was afraid not to.” He turned to Wade. “Why don’t you follow up? Maybe Mrs. Gresham will tell you something she won’t tell me.”

  “You might want to put Andre on this. I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to nose into Jonas’s business this close to the big dogfight. Figure it’ll be one night this week, maybe even tonight.”

  The dogfight. Another thing Ben didn’t feel good about. “I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t like letting him get away with what he’s doing, either. And don’t tell me you wouldn’t jump at the chance to take my place if you could,” Wade said then pointed to the whiteboard. “We can’t prove he did anything up there but dogfighting, and we saw that with our own eyes. It’s a felony in Mississippi, and when he crossed over into Tennessee it became a federal crime. I heard he has at least four dogs in the fights, and that would put him away a few years. If we can find out when the next fight is, we can catch him in the act.”

  “Wade has a point,” Taylor said. “Think back to the 1930s and Al Capone. The feds couldn’t get anything on him for murder, drug dealing, or prostitution, but they finally put him away for tax evasion, and he died in prison.”

  Ben sighed. Sometimes you had to take what you could get. He glanced at his watch. Almost five. The clinic closed soon and he didn’t want to delegate someone else to be there. “It’s time to escort Leigh and TJ home,” he said and stood.

  “You could let Andre go.” Wade grinned as he took out his cell phone and checked his messages.

  He narrowed his eyes at his chief deputy. “I’ll do it.”

  “I saw you two at church Sunday,” Taylor said. She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

  He ducked his head, grinning.

  “Ben and Leigh, sittin’ in a tree, k-i-s-s-i—”

  “Shut up, Wade.” But he couldn’t stop the heat rising to his face. “We’re friends.”

  “I wish I had—” Wade’s phone rang.

  “It’s Cummings.” Wade answered the call. “Hatcher.” A few seconds later he said, “Of course I am.” When he hung up, the chief deputy took a deep breath and let it out. “The fight is tonight.”

  “What time?” Ben was already dialing the U.S. Marshal.

  “He didn’t actually say it was tonight, just told me to be ready for a call.”

  “Oh.” Ben’s thumb hovered over the disconnect button. No, he better put their backup on alert. When Luke answered, Ben filled him in.

  “I’ll notify the FBI, and you can call the different sheriffs who wanted to be in on this,” said the marshal.

  “Good deal.” After he hung up, he turned to Wade. “Start calling the Tennessee sheriffs and advise them to be on alert. I’ll notify the Mississippi Highway Patrol and TBI when I return.”

  A grin stretched across Wade’s face. “Yes, sir!”

  Ben groaned. “You do have your key ring with the GPS in it? And the microphone pen?”

  His chief deputy showed him both.

  “Be careful, you hear?”

  “Ben, this is going like clockwork. I feel it in my bones.”

  Ben’s bones told a different story.

  “Breathe deeply for me,” Leigh said and repositioned the stethoscope on the veined chest of her last patient for the day, a seventy-five-year-old grandmother. She didn’t like the crackling she heard. She lifted the chest piece. “How long have you had trouble breathing?”

  The woman’s daughter answered for her. “She’s been like this for a week now. Wouldn’t let me bring her in until today.”

  “Is that right, Mrs. Smith?” Leigh ducked her head so she could look the older woman in the eye.

  “Don’t like taking medicine.” Mrs. Smith’s voice quivered.

  “So what made you decide to come?”

  “I couldn’t breathe. Figure I have pneumonia again.”

  “You would’ve made a good doctor,” Leigh said with a smile. “I’m going to take a couple of X-
rays, and then I’ll decide if you need to go to the hospital.”

  “I ain’t goin’ to no hospital. Doc Hazelit always treated me here, and you can too.”

  “Oh, Mama, if you need to be in the hospital, you’re going.”

  Leigh kept a straight face until she was out of the room. Her older patients were most determined to stay out of the hospital. The sight of Ben and TJ talking in the waiting room startled her as she turned to the X-ray tech. She didn’t know Ben had arrived. “Beth, I know it’s after hours, but Mrs. Smith needs a chest X-ray—PA and lateral. If you need to leave, I can take care of it.”

  Beth’s eyes widened. “Emily would have my hide if I left a patient. I have it covered, Dr. Somerall, but thank you for offering.”

  It was such a joy to work with people who went the extra mile. Leigh thanked her then stopped by the waiting room. “I won’t be much longer,” she said. She looked closer at what TJ held in his hands. “Is that a Rubik’s Cube?”

  TJ looked up and grinned while Ben’s face turned red. “I’m showing Ben how to do it.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks, I’ll need it,” Ben replied.

  Leigh laughed. “I was talking to TJ.”

  Twenty minutes later, Leigh handed Mrs. Smith a prescription. Even though her X-ray was inconclusive, everything else pointed to pneumonia. “With the shot today, this antibiotic should clear up your infection. I want to see you again Friday.” She turned to the daughter. “If her symptoms worsen, take her to the ER and call me.”

  Leigh finished her notes then shrugged out of her white coat and slipped the netbook she’d brought for TJ into her purse. TJ was probably getting antsy. But he’d handled being at the clinic better than she’d expected. Of course, it helped that the twins were here most of the day.

  Dark shadows filled the empty waiting room. Maybe they’d gone outside. Her heart in overdrive, she hurried out the back door. Even though he was with Ben, she didn’t like TJ not being where she thought he was. She calmed down when she spied them near the monkey bars. The clinic had been a daycare at one time with swings and other playground articles.