“One more detail then I’m home free,” he told himself.
* * * *
“Sadie,” Tag choked out. His fingers trembled as he reached for her carotid artery. He closed his eyes as he touched her paper-thin skin. Her poor neck looked bruised and ragged. “Thank God,” he murmured.
“Is she all right?” Rebecca asked.
He looked up at her. “I have a pulse but it’s faint. Is the ambulance on the way?”
“Yes.” Rebecca’s eyes were wide and filled with fright.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Doc Mayers. “Doc? I need you at Sadie’s apartment. Now.”
“I’m on my way.”
Tag reholstered his phone. “Hang on, Sadie.”
The old woman gasped and arched a little. Her eyes fluttered then she frowned. “Tag?”
His heart skipped a beat and he inched around so he was able to see her face. “Don’t try to move, Sadie. The ambulance is on its way and Doc Mayers will be here soon.”
Her eyes swam for a moment then cleared as they widened. “He hit me.”
Tag tensed. He wanted to question her but he didn’t want to upset her and push her back to unconsciousness. He had a feeling he knew who the “he” was but feelings didn’t make arrests.
“Shhh,” he soothed.
“Don’t…shush…me,” she said haltingly.
Her arms moved and she tried to raise up but Tag placed a tender hand on her shoulder. “Be still. Bex, grab a pillow from the bed, please.” To hell with the crime scene, Sadie needed the comfort.
“Here you go.”
A fuzzy red pair of lips appeared in his vision. His own mouth twitched in response to the god-awful thing. He tucked it under Sadie’s head. “Better?”
“Yes.”
Her reed-thin voice quavered. It was a far cry from the robust and self-assured tone he was accustomed to hearing from her.
“Tag, listen.” She breathed heavily and her eyes fluttered down. “Charles Reynolds did this to me.”
The long sentence was clear and strong. But she didn’t open her eyes again. Her skin was pale, though her jet-black hair could have contributed to the wan look.
Rebecca grabbed his shoulder and he covered her fingers. “She’s still breathing,” he whispered.
“’Course I am,” Sadie muttered. “I’m a Texas woman from a long line of strong Texas women. No two-bit foreigner is gonna get the best of me.”
She was beginning to sound like her old self.
“I was just resting my eyes. I’ve been through a trial. Oh, yes, I have.”
Tag heard the wail of sirens seconds before footsteps pounded up the stairs. He rose. “Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”
“Not going anywhere,” Sadie muttered.
“Tag?”
He squeezed Rebecca’s shoulder as he passed. “Just making sure it’s Mayers and not Reynolds coming back to finish the job.”
Doc Mayers filled Sadie’s open doorway a moment later. His black hair was askew, as were his gold-rimmed glasses. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the throat and his sleeves were rolled up. He carried a brown and beat-up leather satchel. “Where is she?”
“Back here.”
Tag turned and led the way to Sadie’s bedroom. Rebecca had taken his place at the old woman’s head and was stroking her hair. He cringed at the evidence being lost but a warmth blossomed in him at her kindness.
Rebecca stood to let Doc Mayers tend to Sadie. Tag was glad when Bex nestled into his arm. She was shaking and her fingers were cold when she clasped his middle.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“Just got here, Tag. Give me a minute to do an initial exam,” Mayers said.
“I’m fine except my back is killing me from lying on this hard floor. Be a good boy and help me up, Calhoun.”
“No, ma’am,” Mayers replied absently. “We’ll wait for the ambulance to move you.” He looked into her eyes with a penlight then had her follow his finger.
Tag nudged Rebecca as the sirens pulled up. “Will you go downstairs and bring them up here? Tell them they’ll need a gurney and backboard.”
“Okay,” she whispered. She kissed him then took off for the front door.
“Can you tell me your name and date of birth?” Mayers asked Sadie.
“Sadie Lee Rose and none of your durn business.”
Tag chuckled. Yep, she’s well on her way to recovery. I hope.
The clatter and rattle of metal on wood came from downstairs.
“They’re on the way up,” he told Calhoun Mayers.
“Good.” The doctor looked up and for the first time Tag saw the worry in his blue eyes. “She’s got one hell of a goose egg on the back of her head, probably a broken rib and it’s possible that rib punctured a lung. She’s having difficulty breathing and her temperature is too damn low for my liking.”
“Hey,” Sadie groused. “What about my HIPPA rights? You can’t just be telling anyone all that.”
“I’m telling the sheriff, who will have to investigate.”
Tag chuckled. “She’s just being ornery.”
Sadie sighed. “Yes, I am. Sheriff, you going to go get him for me? I want that man locked up something fierce.”
The anger he’d forced back to a simmer roared into a full boil once more. “Oh, yes, Miss Sadie. When I find Charles Reynolds, he’s going to wish he’d never stepped foot in my county.”
She tsked at him. “Mind your temper, Tag. Don’t forget the fuss it caused you with that Fischer idiot.”
Calhoun laughed. “She’s got you there.”
“Doc? Can we take over?” one of the EMTs asked from the doorway.
Calhoun stood and nodded. “Be careful. She’s got head trauma for sure.”
“You’ll have to step out of the way, please,” the EMT said. “It’s crowded in there.
Tag clenched his teeth as more of his crime scene got trampled on, but he was pacified by the fact that Sadie could provide a positive identification on her attacker. “I want around-the-clock protection on Miss Rose,” he told the EMTs. “I’ll have Deputy Carson meet you at the hospital.”
The man nodded and Tag reluctantly pulled Rebecca down the hallway and into the living room. Moments later the two men appeared with Sadie strapped down and covered in a white sheet. His throat tightened. She looked so frail and tiny. She didn’t resemble the dynamo he knew her to be in any way.
As they passed the living room, she called his name. He lifted his hand and stepped forward. “What is it, Sadie?”
Worry made her eyes huge. “Where’s Wade?”
He wasn’t expecting that question. “At my house, why?”
Her face wrinkled a bit more and she licked her lips. “I don’t know exactly. After I shooed Alcott from my office, Reynolds showed up. He was asking me all sorts of questions about computers and who would be the best person in town to talk to about fixing his. I mentioned Wade.”
“Why was Alcott in your office?”
“Tag,” Rebecca said. “She needs to get to the hospital.”
“No,” Sadie countermanded. “I want to tell you now. I’m stable and I’m strapped down. Unless these boys drop me on the way down, I’ll be fit as a fiddle in no time.”
Tag looked at Calhoun and he nodded.
“Go ahead, Sadie.”
Her eyes narrowed as if she were looking inward. “Alcott is a true newspaperman,” she said. Her tone held a flint of admiration. “He did his research on you and the Hellfire Battalion. Knew all about you guys. He even had some photos of your units from some of your deployments. He brought them to me to see if I recognized some of the other people in them. I suspect he was just trying to get more dirt on you for his article but I didn’t give him any.”
“Thank you,” Tag said softly.
“One of the pictures had Fischer in it but he wasn’t with the rest of y’all. I don’t know where it was taken but it was in the desert somewhere. He was with a few othe
r men, some sheiks and whatnot and another man.” Her face went pale and she shuddered. A tear slid down her wrinkled cheek.
Tag leaned over her and patted her shoulder. “You don’t have to say anymore, Miss Sadie.”
She sniffed hard and her eyelids flew open. “To hell with that. I thought I recognized the other man but I wasn’t sure. It was really just a feeling. So, when Alcott wasn’t looking, I made a copy of the photo so I could investigate further. I may have also accidentally forgotten to put a couple of papers back in the folder he’d shown me.”
“Accidentally, huh?”
She didn’t look the least bit embarrassed. “He came back for them when I wasn’t there. I caught him and made him feel bad enough for snooping that he left without too much of a stink. But he took his papers with him.”
“And the photo?” Tag asked.
Her eyes gleamed. “Nope. That’s still in my copier. Plus I scanned it, so it’s on my computer.”
“When did Reynolds come in?” Just saying the bastard’s name made him want to punch something. Preferably the man himself.
“Right as Alcott was leaving. He asked what had him in such a lather. Oh, Tag, I trusted him. We shared a passion for research and history. Or so I thought.” More tears trickled down her face. “I’m just a foolish old woman.”
“No,” Tag snapped.
Sadie’s eyes widened again and Rebecca gasped.
Tag leaned closer and stroked Sadie’s small face. “You are kind and giving and a wonderful, generous woman. Not foolish and certainly not old. He knew what he was doing, Sadie. He played us all.”
Her tremulous smile made him feel better but he still wanted to gut Charles Reynolds aka Allen Van Sisk. If he had his druthers, he’d stake the man naked to a fire ant hill and pour syrup all over him. It really was too bad Texas justice had to move into the twenty-first century.
Sadie drew in a breath. “I wanted to see what he thought of my detective work and sticky fingers. I showed him the picture. Tag, he went white as Clint Howard’s apron. Then he shrugged and said he didn’t know who they were. But something told me he did. I set the picture aside and he asked me about a book I was getting for him on the train robbery. The one Alfons Huber died in.” She blushed again and cleared her throat. “I told him it was up here and invited him to join me for some tea while we went through the book. I had it on my bedside table.” Her brow knitted and her throat worked but she didn’t stop talking. “I didn’t know he followed me until it was too late. He hit me on the back of the head and I fell down. He kicked me in the ribs several times then put his hands around my throat and…”
“No more, Sadie,” Tag murmured when she shivered. “You don’t have to tell me any more right now.”
“Why didn’t he kill me?” she asked.
Tag grimaced. “He probably thought he did.”
“Might have been better.”
“Sadie!” Both he and Rebecca admonished the older woman at the same time.
Rebecca moved to his side and slapped her hands on her hips while she glared down at the gurney. “Are you telling me the infamous Sadie Rose, great-great-great-granddaughter of General Milo Fox, would prefer to die instead of surviving a little embarrassment?”
Sadie and the rest of the men gaped at her. Tag closed his mouth so he didn’t look like a damn fool fish caught on a line.
“Oh, I know all about your family line, Miss Rose. I did some research on my own when I got down here. Why, I’d be willing to bet General Fox would have your hide if he even heard such a thing from one of his descendants. As I recall, the general was overfond of Scotch and women and both got him plenty of unwelcome public attention. Isn’t that true?”
“Well, yes.” The old woman sounded like a contrite second grader.
“And what was his favorite saying?”
Sadie’s mouth quirked up and she gave a surprisingly girlish laugh. “I would rather live gloriously and foolishly than fade away with an unnoticed whimper.” She smiled wistfully. “Thank you, my dear. I needed that kick in the pants.”
Rebecca smiled. “You’re welcome. Sadie, is there anyone we can call to come stay with you for a while? Family or someone?”
The old woman’s brow knitted. “I figured Hank would do that.”
Tag caught the tightening of Doc’s lips. He quirked a brow at Calhoun, who shook his head slightly.
“Anyone else?” Tag asked. “Hank’s got her business to run but we all know she’d shut down if you needed her.”
Sadie sighed. “You’re right. Didn’t even cross my old mind. I do have someone. Tag, will you call my great-niece Alaska and ask her to come.”
“She lives in Alaska? What’s her name?”
Sadie tsked. “Who got hit on the head? Her name is Alaska. Alaska Blu. Her mother was a strange bird. She lives in North Carolina and works on the marine base Cherry Point. Her number is in my address book.”
Tag grinned. “She’s a marine?”
“No,” Sadie said, her voice growing to a tired rasp. “She works in a logistics center. They take in stuff that comes back from overseas deployments and then set it up for disposal or reassignment.”
“Tag, you have enough?” Calhoun asked impatiently.
“Yeah, go ahead and take her. Be careful on the way down.”
He saw one of the EMTs roll his eyes but he responded with a carefully modulated affirmative.
Calhoun, Rebecca, and Tag followed them down the stairs. Only when Sadie, accompanied by Calhoun, was safely on her way to the hospital did Tag head for his office.
He pushed through the curious crowd and ignored the questions thrown at him. He made sure Rebecca stayed by his side as they reached the Hitching Post. He caught sight of Donald Alcott sitting with one of the bridesmaids and made a beeline for the reporter.
“Alcott,” he shouted.
The man leaped to his feet. Alarm coated his features.
“Sheriff.” His gaze flicked to The Page Turner and he had the sense to look abashed. “Is there a problem?”
“Yeah,” Tag said in a low voice. “Sadie was attacked yesterday and I need information only you have.”
“Me?” His face turned ruddy. “What do I know? Is she all right?”
“I need you to bring all of the files you showed to Sadie to my office right now.” Tag didn’t wait for him to respond but continued across the Hex.
“Think he’ll come?” Rebecca asked.
She’d loped effortlessly by his side as they sprinted across town. The fact just now struck him and made him think of her beautiful, toned legs. He didn’t know why the thought popped in his head but he was grateful for the momentary distraction.
“He’d damn well better or I’ll haul his ass in as a material witness.”
They reached the sheriff’s office and he pulled the door open for her. “Samantha, Boone,” he yelled as he walked in.
They were huddled over some papers on Samantha’s desk and jerked like guilty puppets.
“Sheriff, we were—”
“Not important right now,” he said. “Sadie Rose was attacked last night by Charles Reynolds. She’s in transit to Methodist Hospital right now. I want you over there ASAP. No one gets in or out except us. Got it?”
She jumped up and grabbed her hat and service belt. She was out the door in thirty seconds. Boone stared after her with openmouthed surprise.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Tag gave Boone the rundown. With each word the agent’s eyes grew darker and harder until they resembled a chunk of black granite. If Tag didn’t know Boone better, even he would have stepped back from that lethal stare.
“I don’t like it when women get hurt.”
“Me, either,” Tag agreed. “Especially good women like Sadie Rose.”
The door banged open and Donald Alcott stumbled through. “I can’t find my backpack,” he cried out. Anxiety etched his face. “It’s got everything in there. All my notes and files and folders. Everyt
hing!”
Boone’s obsidian stare slid to the young reporter, who shrank back against the door.
“Boone, quit trying to scare the kid. He didn’t have anything to do with it.”
She walked forward and reached around the agent. Tag saw her arm brush his lean waist and that he didn’t do a thing to get out of her way. He was shocked to find himself not in the least bit perturbed. He trusted Rebecca implicitly. She’d told him there was nothing between her and Boone and he believed her.
His heart tripped over itself.
“Is this it?” she asked as she turned. She held up the brown knapsack that had been on the desk next to Charles Reynolds’s earlier in the day.
“Yes,” Alcott crowed. “Thank you.”
He took it from her and opened the flap. He started pulling stuff out left and right until Doreen’s desk looked like an avalanche of paper. Then the reporter dug through the piles, pulling out a few pieces. He turned and thrust them at Tag. “Here. This is everything I showed her.”
Tag took the stack and riffled through it. He found the picture Sadie told him about. “Is this what you left behind?”
Alcott squinted then nodded. “Don’t know why she kept that one.”
Tag did. He handed it to Boone. “Change the color of the hair, give him a bowl cut, and who do you have?”
Boone whistled.
“Yep,” Tag concurred. “Charles Reynolds.”
“Better than that,” Boone said. “You didn’t check your messages I sent, did you?”
“No. The network wouldn’t download them.”
Boone flipped open a folder and handed it over. “Taggart Cain, meet Allen Van Sisk.”
“Son of a bitch,” Tag said. He inhaled sharply as something Sadie said raced through his mind. “Wade!”
“What about him?” Boone asked.
“Oh my God,” Rebecca cried. She pulled her phone from her purse and started dialing.
Tag watched tensely. Pick up, Wade. Pick up the phone.
The color drained from her face and she shook her head.
Tag pulled his out and dialed.
“What’s going on?” Boone demanded.
“Sadie said Reynolds or this Van Sisk guy was asking questions about computers and she sent him to Wade. If Van Sisk knows anything about the investigation, he could be headed there now.”
Her Heart-Stealing Cowboys [Hellfire Ranch 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 27