Lone Star Justice

by Tori Scott

  He caught his breath when Rand and Brandy came into view, walking with their heads close together. Well, look at the big, bad sheriff, pretending to be a daddy. Isn't that sweet?

  The sight made him want to puke.

  When Rand stopped and scanned the tree line, he pulled back, hiding behind the trunk of a large oak. Wouldn't do for the sheriff to see him just yet.

  Not until he'd finished what he'd started.

  ***

  There it was again. That feeling that something was wrong, that someone was watching or listening. Aaron.

  Rand looked at the trees, the most obvious hiding place. If Aaron was in there, they wouldn't see him, but he could easily see when someone left the house or returned. He placed a hand on Brandy's back to hurry her along. He kept his body between her and the road, aware that if Aaron used the right gun and ammunition, the bullet would travel right through him and hit her anyway.

  "Want to race to the house?" A moving target was much harder to hit, and it was the best he could come up with to get her inside quickly without alarming her. Thankfully, she fell for it and took off running.

  It was all he could do to keep up with her. The high school would love to get her on the track team.

  The two deputies raced down the steps at the sight of them running. They immediately surrounded Brandy and escorted her up the steps and into the house.

  "Hey, we were just racing! Let me go!" she demanded before they closed the door behind her and came back out to where Rand was bent over, hands on his knees.

  "Did something happen, sir?"

  Rand struggled to catch his breath. "I am way too out of shape. I think I may order everyone to take daily two mile runs from here on out." He took a deep breath and straightened. "I'm not sure what it was, but I had the feeling someone was watching us from across the road. Racing was the best idea I could come up with to get her out of sight quickly."

  "Do you want us to go check it out?"

  "No." Rand shook his head. "If it's Aaron, you won't find him. He'll be back, though, you can count on it. Just keep an eye out, and pass the word to the next shift."

  He left them on the porch and went inside. He soon returned, carrying plates of fried chicken with home made biscuits and mashed potatoes with gravy. The men sat on the porch steps and ate, their gazes still watchful and wary.

  From that point on, he doubled the protection detail; two deputies stayed with Brandy and two with Maddie whenever they left the house.

  There was no way one man could outsmart four deputies and one sheriff.

  When Brandy and Maddie begged to get out of the house for a while, he wanted to tell them no. It wasn't safe. But they'd been cooped up for more than a week without complaining, so he finally gave in and agreed to let them go into town for the Memorial Day festivities. He should be there, anyway, and the townspeople could help keep an eye on them.

  He left a deputy to guard the house and they left in a caravan. A squad car in front and behind them, Rand's pickup in the middle.

  They watched the parade, the flag raising and twenty-one gun salute ceremonies, ate hot dogs from a street vendor, and wandered through the booths that lined Main Street. Brandy had her face painted and got a temporary tattoo on her arm that said "Mom". When Rand raised an eyebrow, she went back and had "Dad" tattooed on the other arm. He bought them all cotton candy, then drove them to the rodeo arena to watch Missy compete in the barrel races.

  Maddie looked cute in her big, floppy hat, and she smelled like sunshine and roses as he scooted close beside her and inhaled her scent. With Brandy sitting on the front row with Linda and two deputies, Rand felt free to hold Maddie's hand and whisper an occasional temptation in her ear.

  "Stop that," she hissed, slapping at his roaming hand.

  "Hmm? Did you say something? He ran a finger under the edge of her shorts.

  She shivered. "Don't start something you aren't ready to finish."

  "Who said I wasn't ready to finish what I start?" His finger dipped under the bottom edge of her T-shirt and he traced a line across her belly."

  "Rand, seriously, someone will see you."

  "That never stopped us before."

  She squirmed as his finger hit a sensitive spot. "We were kids. Now we're responsible adults with a child of our own.

  He leaned over to nuzzle her neck, keeping one eye on Brandy to make sure she didn't see what he was doing with her mom. No sense getting her hopes up just yet. "I do like the sound of that. The 'child of our own' part anyway."

  "Look, there's Missy!" Maddie pointed to the ring.

  Rand sighed and gave up. For now.

  Brandy clapped and yelled as Missy raced against the clock, then jumped to her feet and hooted when Missy placed second overall in her division.

  People left and more people filed in to watch the next round of competition. Rand leaned over to Maddie. "We should go."

  They joined Brandy and Linda at the bottom of the bleachers to wait for Missy.

  Brandy's phone beeped.

  She opened it, expecting the text to be from Missy. Then her face paled and her hand shook.

  "What is it? What's happened? Maddie asked.

  Brandy handed the phone to Rand. "It's from Sam."

  ***

  Brandy went straight to her room and shut the door when they got back to the ranch , claiming she was tired and wanted to rest.

  Maddie dropped onto the couch in the living room. Why? Why couldn't this psycho leave her and her daughter alone? What had she done that was so awful he wanted to kill her?

  Rand finished the telephone call he'd made to the FBI behaviorist, asking how best to respond to Aaron's text message. He sat down beside her and pulled her into his arms. She didn't protest. She was so tired. Tired of being scared, tired of feeling vulnerable, tired of acting like a weak, purposeless female. Where was her strength? Her backbone? What happened to Mad Maddie? Castrating Cooper? She felt like poor little Maddie Cooper again, afraid of her own shadow.

  Being in Rand's arms gave her strength, just as it had back then. He'd built her self-esteem and strengthened her resolve until she could finally stand up to her father, and to Aaron.

  She sat up. Was that what this was all about? That she'd stood up to Aaron, refusing to back down in the face of his threats? Was he unable to tolerate a female giving as good as she got?

  She looked up at Rand. "Tell me what you remember about Aaron."

  "Why? What are you thinking?"

  "I'll tell you in a minute. Just tell me everything you remember."

  Rand rubbed his chin, thinking for a moment. "I remember him as a scrawny kid, always in trouble for one reason or another. He never seemed to go home. He hung around the drug store, the dry goods store, the café. Whenever a pet went missing, someone blamed him. And you know, I never asked why they did that. I never saw him with anyone's pet."

  Maddie nodded. "That's what I remember, too. I also remember him stealing lunches, pencils, erasers. Just about anything he could. Now why would a doctor's kid do that? Doc had more money than most of the men in town. And they had that big, beautiful house, so why didn't Aaron spend any time there?"

  "I have no idea."

  "Okay, then tell me this." Maddie's theory was coming together. She just needed a little more information to figure it all out. "Did Doc's wife ever come to your house, for dinner or a social call?"

  Rand turned toward her. "No. Never. Doc came over many times, and brought Aaron once or twice, but his wife never came. And now that you mention it, I don't remember seeing her at all after Aaron started school."

  "So what happened to her? Why did she suddenly stop leaving the house?"

  "Agoraphobia? Depression?" Rand shrugged. "Who knows?"

  "That's a very good question. Who would know?" Maddie felt a tingle of excitement. They were going to figure out why Aaron was killing women, and use that to stop him.

  "Gertie, maybe. If I remember right, she used to clean for them."

>   "Can you call her and find out what she knows?"

  Rand pulled the phone out of his pocket and dialed. "Be prepared for a long conversation. Gertie does like to talk."

  He put it on speaker once Gertie was on the line. Maddie took notes while Rand asked her questions. When he was satisfied he'd learned all he could, he politely ended the conversation and hung up. "Well, what do you think?"

  Maddie fiddled with the pen, doodling in the top corner of the notepad. "I think you might have another murder charge for Doc. Proving it might be difficult, though. It happened so long ago."

  "I'd thought maybe the psychopathic genes might have come from his mother's side of the family, but it looks like Doc has been hiding those same tendencies for a long time. He got his thrills from doing autopsies, I guess."

  "We're pretty sure he killed at least two people, so who knows how many more there might have been? But it still doesn't explain why Aaron focused on me. What is it about me, specifically, that made him kill nearly a dozen women to get back at me?"

  Rand shook his head. "I don't know, but I'll run this by the FBI experts and see if they have a theory." He stood up, pulling Maddie up off the couch with him. "Let's go talk to Brandy. She's been talking to him for six months. Maybe he said something to her that will shed some light on all this." He stopped at Brandy's door and opened it quietly. "She's asleep. I hate to wake her up." He closed the door and they started back down the stairs.

  "We could wake her up. I know she'd want to help if she could," Maddie said.

  "No. I just remembered that Cody printed out transcripts of all the chats he found between Brandy and Aaron. We can go over those and not bother Brandy with it right now." He grabbed his cell phone and called the station. "Linda, fax me a copy of those chat transcripts please."

  A few minutes later, transcripts in hand, they sat at the dining room table and started reading.

  "Dragon? I've been called a lot of things, but never a dragon." Maddie sighed and flipped to the next page.

  "You find anything yet?" Rand scanned through the pages a lot faster than Maddie did.

  She couldn't resist reading what Brandy wrote about her. At least there wasn't anything too bad in there. Her daughter voiced the usual complaints about her limited computer time, not being allowed to date or wear makeup, her mom working too much.

  Then she saw Brandy's posts about Matt. He reminded her too much of that creepy math teacher who hurt her friend. She told Sam that Matt looked just like Mr. Matthews.

  Matthews. Matt. Coincidence?

  "What is it? Rand asked when she frowned.

  "I’m not sure, but I may have figured out who came in my house, left the dummy and the knives, and ransacked my house." How could he! She'd trusted him. He even had a key to her house.

  And how could she have been so stupid? All of Matt's "bumbling" attempts to help her that destroyed evidence made a lot more sense now. She should have known, dammit! But how? She'd never seen Matthews. She'd just told the police what she knew and they'd taken it from there.

  But she was supposed to testify about what Brandy and Caroline had told her about the assaults.

  She looked at Rand. "And now I not only know who, but why. He didn't want me around to testify against his brother."

  ***

  Though they'd solved one mystery, they still had no answer as to why Aaron had focused on Maddie. Rand didn't know that it really made any difference at this point. Time was running out, and Aaron was still on the loose.

  Brandy finally woke up and wandered downstairs to find something to eat. Maddie fixed tacos with guacamole and chips while Brandy flopped onto the couch and turned on the television.

  "Mom, when can I have my computer and phone back? I'm bored!"

  "Not until Aaron is caught."

  "But…"

  "I'm sorry. The computer is what got us into this mess in the first place. You're going to have to earn the privilege of getting it back." She filled plates for the deputies outside and gave them to Rand, then fixed a plate for Brandy. "As for the phone, I'm going to have your number changed as soon as this is all over. Until then, your father has it in custody."

  That made Brandy smile. "You arrested my phone?

  Rand caught the slight nod Maddie gave him and played along. "I sure did. And if doesn't confess, and soon, it will be doing twenty-five to life."

  Brandy laughed. "What do you want it to confess to?"

  "Well, I heard you two were very close. I suppose you tell it all your secrets?"

  She put a finger on her chin and thought for a moment. "I might."

  "And it refuses to give them up. I may have to torture it to learn those secrets."

  "What kind of secrets do you want to know?"

  Rand pretended to think a moment. "The password?"

  "Is that all? I can probably help you with that." She gave him the password, then tackled the tacos like she hadn't eaten in days.

  After dinner, Rand went into his office and Maddie and Brandy settled in to watch a movie. He took advantage of the privacy to put the plan in action that he'd been thinking about ever since Brandy got the text message from Sam. Now that he had her password, he could make this work.

  He called the FBI and told them everything they'd learned about Aaron, his mother, his father, and his online relationship with Brandy. They promised to call back the next morning with their analysis of how he should respond back to the text message. Next he called Detective Thacker and brought him up to date, including Maddie's suspicions about Matt.

  "Well I'll be damned," the detective said. "I thought the guy was weird, but Judge Cooper seemed to trust him so I didn't check him out. Guess I should have. I'll let you know what I find out."

  Once that was done, he called Cody and told him about his conversation with Gertie. "You need to get an official statement from her," Rand told him. "And re-interview Doc, get his side of the story. Get a warrant and search his house, office, and car from top to bottom."

  "You got it, Sheriff. What am I looking for?"

  "See if his wife left a diary or letters, if Doc kept any kind of records or notes about her death, and find out who signed the death certificate. See what kinds of medications he keeps around the house, too. Look for a safe. Hell, just bag anything you find interesting."

  ***

  Maddie lay in the unfamiliar bed, unable to turn her thoughts off long enough to sleep. She didn't know why it seemed so important for her to know why Aaron had fixated on her. The knowledge wasn't likely to change the outcome, but it bothered her to know something she might have innocently said or done had resulted in the deaths of her friends and all those other women.

  Would Aaron have killed at all if not for her actions? Or was she somehow responsible for creating a murderer?

  She tossed the covers back and padded across the hall to check on Brandy. Sound asleep. The poor kid had been under a lot of stress lately. They all had. Maybe her daughter handled it by sleeping more than usual. It had the opposite effect on Maddie. She was keyed up and restless. And if she'd admit it to herself, still a little turned on by Rand's actions earlier in the day.

  Was Rand serious about finishing what he'd started?

  She stopped by his door and listened. No sound came from inside the room. She quietly opened the door and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. This might be a mistake, but ever since the rodeo she'd thought about being with him. It might be her last chance. Who knew what tomorrow would bring? She might not even survive the day.

  Before she'd taken more than two steps, Rand came off the bed, gun in hand.

  "Maddie? What the hell? I nearly shot you!"

  Maddie pressed her hand over her racing heart. "I--I…"

  Rand put the gun on the nightstand and reached her in two strides, pulling her into his arms. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

  "It's okay." Maddie gulped. "My fault."

  He leaned over and flipped on the light. "What is it? Is someth
ing wrong? Is Brandy okay?"

  Maddie shook her head. "No, nothing's wrong. Brandy's fine. She's sleeping."

  Rand breathed a sigh of relief and tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at him. "Then why are you here?"

  Maddie felt the blush rising up her throat to spread across her cheeks. "I, um. Ah. Oh, never mind. This was a bad idea." She tried to pull away, but Rand kept his arms locked around her waist.

  He searched her face and she could tell when he noted the blush, her rapid breathing.

  One eyebrow went up. "I think it's a damned fine idea, Maddie. "

  He kissed her, gently at first, then with almost a touch of desperation as she responded. This was what she wanted, to be loved again, to be the most important person in his life--if only for the moment. For the past to fall away until it was just the two of them, together again.

  His hands moved from her waist to cup her bottom and pull her flush against his erection. She moved closer, wanting him to skip the romance and get straight to the action. Who knew how much time they had. Brandy could wake up. One of the deputies could call.

  "Easy. Don't want this over before we start," he whispered against her cheek. His breath was warm and moist and sent a shiver through her.

  His hands roamed over her back as he kissed her, hard and deep. He nudged her toward the bed, pulling her pajama top over her head as they moved. The back of her knees hit the mattress and she fell backward, Rand following her down.

  "You wear too many clothes to bed," he said, tugging the pajama bottoms down her legs.

  "I live with a teenager. I have to."

  Her panties followed the pajamas, landing on the floor. "If you lived with me, I'd make you sleep naked."

  "Oh, you think so? No one makes me do anything."

  "Okay, I'll rephrase that. I'd make you want to sleep naked."

  Maddie'd had enough of small talk. She pulled his head to her breast. "Just make me want."

  He needed no more urging. Using his hands and mouth, he took her to the brink before backing away to pay attention to her feet, the backs of her knees, the pulse point at her neck. Maddie thought she would explode from sheer frustration before he finally slid inside with one smooth stroke.