Weston jumped right on that. “Any idea who that mother is?”
“No. Her DNA’s not in the system.”
Which meant she didn’t have a criminal record. It was also possible that she was still alive.
Unlike Addie’s own birth mother.
If she was to believe the killer, then her birth mother had been one of his victims. But maybe not Ogden’s mother. And if the woman was alive, she might be able to give them the identity of the Moonlight Strangler. Of course, that would mean finding her, but maybe Ogden could help with that.
“Thanks,” Weston told Jenkins. “If Ogden shows up or if you find anything else, let me know. Addie Crockett’s life could depend on it.”
The detective assured him that he would, and they ended the call.
“He’s really my brother,” Addie managed to say.
Weston stared at her. “No. Don’t go there. Ogden’s DNA didn’t make him the way he is. You heard what the detective said about the abuse.”
She had, and Addie had no choice but to latch on to it. But there was something else bothering her about this.
“Ogden’s thirty-one. Cord and I are thirty-three,” she explained. “Jenkins said Ogden wasn’t adopted until he was three, and that means he was a year old when Cord and I were abandoned. So where was Ogden during those two years before he was adopted? With his birth mother or with our sick excuse for a father?”
Weston shook his head and took out his phone again. “I don’t know, but I’ll see what I can find out. If the adoption was legal, then maybe I can get the records unsealed and go from there.”
However, Weston didn’t get a chance to make the call because another one came in, and Addie saw Jericho’s name on the screen.
“I just heard about Ogden’s test results,” Jericho said the moment Weston answered the phone. “Is Addie okay?”
She opened her mouth to tell him yes, but the lie stuck in her throat. “I’m dealing with it,” she settled for saying.
Jericho cursed. “I’m sorry. If there’s anything I could do to make this go away, I’d do it.”
“I know you would.” Weston would, too. The only bright spot in all of this was the lawmen who would protect both her baby and her with their lives.
But Addie prayed it didn’t come down to that.
“I just got off the phone with the FBI,” Jericho continued a moment later. “I’m not sure I like their idea, but they’re insisting this is the best way to try to recover your lost memories.”
“The best way?” she asked at the same moment that Weston said, “What are you talking about?”
“More hypnosis,” Jericho said after taking a long breath. “But this time, they want to do the session at Daisy’s house. Addie, they want you there tomorrow.”
Chapter Fifteen
A dead woman’s house was one of the last places Weston wanted Addie to be.
But he could see the rationale behind bringing her here. The place had triggered the memory of the swing set, and maybe it would trigger something else.
Especially since they were practically at a dead end in the investigation.
Ogden was still on the loose, and there were no adoption records for him. No birth certificate, either. Added to that, there was no concrete evidence to get search warrants for Canales and Boggs. In fact, Boggs was still fighting the request for his DNA on the grounds that he didn’t want to be any part of the investigation into the Moonlight Strangler.
Of course, Boggs was also claiming that he was still looking for the killer, but Weston wasn’t buying Boggs’s claim that it was all to avenge a childhood friend’s murder. There was something else going on.
Something Addie might remember.
However, at the moment she didn’t look any more comfortable with this than Weston was. Her nerves had been sky-high on the drive over, and seeing the house hadn’t helped, either. Probably because someone had tried to murder her there just the day before.
Weston had to make sure that didn’t happen again.
There were five lawmen at Daisy’s house—including her brother Jericho the two marshals and Appaloosa Pass deputy Dexter Conway. Addie had been escorted in while wearing a Kevlar vest, and she’d leave the same way.
But it was this middle part of the visit that was no doubt causing the most alarm in her eyes.
“It’ll be okay,” Weston tried to assure her.
The assurance sucked, and the kiss he brushed on her forehead earned him a glare from Jericho. Weston ignored him and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth before stepping away so the therapist, Dr. Melissa Grinstead, could get to work.
Since the pregnancy prevented the doctor from administering any drugs, she had Addie lying on the bed in the guest room. The door, both windows and the blinds were closed, and while the room wasn’t exactly pitch-dark, it was close thanks to the room being on the east side of the house. The late afternoon sun wasn’t threading much light inside.
Dr. Grinstead had already warned Jericho and Weston that while they could remain in the room, they weren’t allowed to say anything.
No matter what.
Weston figured that meant Addie might remember some things she didn’t exactly want to remember. The stuff of nightmares.
The doctor’s voice was soft and soothing, and for several minutes she just talked to Addie, telling her how to breathe and to think of relaxing things, like a running creek and warm sunlight.
Addie’s eyes drifted down, and Weston finally saw the tension ease from her body. Surprisingly, it stayed that way even though the therapist began to ask her questions about her childhood, and she didn’t use Addie’s name but rather called her Gabrielle.
“Think back,” the therapist prompted. “Do you remember being in this house when you were a little girl?”
“There’s a swing set outside,” Addie readily answered.
“Did you play on it?”
Addie smiled. A child’s smile. “Lots.”
“Were you alone?” the doctor asked.
No smile this time. “Sometimes. Davy’s not with me.”
The therapist glanced back at Weston and Jericho to see if they knew who that was, but they shook their heads.
“Who’s Davy?” Dr. Grinstead continued.
“My brother. He didn’t come to the lady’s house with me. I wanted him to come so he could push me in the swing.”
Addie was likely talking about Cord since Ogden would have been too young.
“Do you remember your whole name?” the doctor continued.
“Gabby-elle.” She said it the way a child might, and that was it. No surname. Of course, these were the memories of a three-year-old.
“What about your parents? Do you know their names?” The therapist was obviously trying a different angle.
One that didn’t work. “Mama and Daddy,” Addie answered. “But Mama’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
Good question. Especially since the person claiming to be the Moonlight Strangler had said he’d killed her birth mother.
“Don’t know,” Addie finally said, and Weston didn’t think it was his imagination that there was sadness in her voice. Maybe that meant she’d loved her mother. Didn’t all kids?
Well, except for him.
“Where’s your daddy?” the doctor tried again.
“Don’t know. The man brought me to the lady and said I was to stay until Daddy came back.”
“And did he come back?”
Addie squeezed her eyes shut even tighter. Hell, Weston hoped she wasn’t remembering something god-awful.
“Don’t know,” she repeated.
It was both a relief and frustrating. If she had remembered her father returning, then she might have been able to give them a description, but she might have also remembered a murder or two.
“Tell me about the lady you stayed with,” Dr. Grinstead continued. “Was she here alone with you, or were there other people in the house?”
“Some
times, we were alone.” Addie’s forehead bunched up again. “Sometimes, the man who stayed with the lady was there.”
The man who stayed with the lady. Likely Daisy’s husband since he was still alive then.
“But sometimes,” Addie said, her voice small now, “there were other men. They didn’t come when the lady was there. Only when she was gone.”
“Did you know them?” the doctor asked.
Addie frantically shook her head and pulled her hands in a tight pose against her chest. “They were scary. They had guns.”
All right. That hit Weston like a punch to the gut, and it darn sure didn’t help when Addie’s mouth started to tremble. “I don’t like those men. They yell at the lady’s man.”
And Addie started to cry.
Not an ordinary cry. Sobs of a terrified little girl. It cut Weston to the core, and if Jericho hadn’t caught onto him, he might have bolted forward to pull her into his arms. Weston soon realized, however, that Jericho had likely grabbed him to stop himself from doing the same thing.
“Did those men hurt you?” the doctor pressed.
“No. Just scary.”
The relief hit Weston almost as hard as the anger. He hated that Addie had been through this, but he also knew it could have been a heck of a lot worse.
“I don’t want to think about them anymore,” Addie murmured.
“Okay. Then, let’s talk about the other man, the one that brought you to the lady. Was he nice to you?”
Addie lifted her shoulder. “He gave me a donut. With sprinkles.”
“Do you remember anything else about him? Like maybe his name? Or what he looked like?”
Another shake of her head. “No. Don’t remember. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go home.” The sobs returned. “Please, let me go home. Please.”
The doctor looked back at them, not exactly asking permission to stop the session, because that’s exactly what she did a few seconds later.
The moment Addie opened her eyes, her gaze went straight to Weston. And he went straight to her. He didn’t even attempt to comfort her with words. Because there weren’t any that’d help. But getting her out of there just might.
“I remember everything I said,” she whispered to him.
A good lawman would have pressed to learn if there was something else. Something she hadn’t talked about remembering. But Weston decided this wasn’t the time to be a good lawman.
“Let’s get her back to the safe house,” he told Jericho, and her brother certainly didn’t argue with that.
Since she didn’t look too steady on her feet, Weston put the Kevlar vest back on her and scooped her up in his arms. There was no need to tell Jericho they were moving fast once they were outside. Jericho knew the possible dangers out there as well as Weston did.
“I’m okay, really,” Addie said, not convincing him in the least.
Weston put her in the backseat of the marshals’ car. Jericho, the doctor and the deputy followed along behind them as they drove away from the house and back onto the road. Eventually, when they were sure it was safe, Jericho would head back to the sheriff’s office so that the doctor could write up her report. Addie, Weston and the marshals would spend yet another night in the safe house.
Addie looked up at Weston. “I didn’t give you or the FBI anything you can use to find the killer.”
“Not true. Thanks to you, we know several other men visited Daisy’s house. We can question everyone in the area to see if they remember them.”
Yes, it was a long shot, but that was true of this entire investigation.
“I kept thinking there was something else,” she continued. “Something right at the edge of my memory.”
“It might come to you.” And if it did, Weston hoped like the devil that it didn’t make her cry.
“Hell,” Daniel snapped.
Weston looked up, following Daniel’s gaze. There, ahead of them was a herd of cows ambling across the road. It wasn’t that rare of a sight in rural Texas, but there was something about it that put Weston on full alert.
He soon figured out what.
When there was a break in the herd, he got a glimpse of a car on the other side of the cows. A black limo.
One that Weston instantly recognized.
Hell.
* * *
IT TOOK ADDIE a moment to realize why Daniel had cursed. And why Weston had drawn his gun.
Canales and Boggs. Again.
This couldn’t be a coincidence, and she was certain it was their limo since she’d caught a glimpse of the front license plate with the AGB.
“Get down,” Weston told her, and he made sure she did just that by pushing her onto the seat.
The fear came, churning and twisting inside her. So did the anger. She was so tired of feeling this way.
“You see anything?” Weston asked the marshals.
“Just the limo and the cows,” Daniel grumbled. “No one’s getting out of the limo.”
Addie could no longer see the limo. Just the cows that were meandering past the marshals’ car. The cows were taking their time even though Kirk was honking the horn at them. Because of the noise from that and the cows themselves, it took her a moment to hear another sound.
One she definitely didn’t want to hear.
A gunshot.
Addie wasn’t sure where the bullet landed, but it caused Weston to push her even farther down on the seat.
“The windows are bullet resistant,” Daniel reminded them. “But I don’t want to test that. Put the car in Reverse,” he told Kirk, and he motioned out the back window, no doubt at Jericho.
Because of her position on the seat, she couldn’t see Jericho’s cruiser behind them, but Addie heard the squeal of the tires. Her brother was no doubt doing the same thing, trying to get the heck out of there.
“Hell,” Kirk spat out. “An SUV just came up behind Jericho, and it’s blocking the road.”
And that meant they were trapped.
More shots came.
This time, Addie had no trouble figuring out where they landed because they smashed into the window right next to where Weston was seated.
Oh, mercy.
Someone was trying to kill them again. And it wasn’t just a few shots. The barrage came, one bullet after another until the sound was deafening, and the windows on the right side of the car were webbed with the direct hits.
She tried to pull Weston down with her, but he stayed put, his gaze firing all around them. He couldn’t lower what was left of the window to return fire, but if the shooters kept up, they’d have to figure out a way to return fire.
“You see the shooter?” Daniel asked.
“No,” Kirk and Weston answered in unison. “The shots are coming from both sides.”
That stopped her breath for a moment.
Addie wasn’t familiar with this part of the county, but she remembered there were a lot of patches of thick trees and underbrush along the country road. Not many houses, either. Gunmen could have taken up position in those trees and then used the cows to stop them so they’d be easier targets.
And they’d succeeded.
“They’re shooting at the limo, too,” Kirk volunteered. “Their windows aren’t stopping the bullets. And there’s an SUV behind them as well, pinning them in.”
Addie certainly hadn’t expected that. Did it mean that Canales and Boggs weren’t behind this attack? If they were, they were taking a huge chance with all those shots being fired.
“Can you see who’s in the limo?” Weston asked him.
“No,” Kirk readily answered.
So, maybe it wasn’t Boggs and Canales inside, after all. But if they weren’t there, then who was?
Behind them, Addie heard a horrible crash, the sound of metal ripping into metal. “Jericho,” she said on a rise of breath.
Had he been hurt?
Addie lifted her head and managed to get a glimpse of her brother’s cruiser crashing into the SUV that’
d trapped them. But only a glimpse before Weston cursed and pushed her right back down.
“Don’t get up again,” Weston ordered her. He moved sideways in the seat, his attention volleying between the front and rear of the car. “Jericho’s using his cruiser as a battering ram to get the SUV out of the way.”
Addie wasn’t sure if that would work. Or if it was the safe thing to do. But at this point, nothing was safe.
And it got worse.
She heard the shift in the direction of the gunfire. The shots no longer seemed to be aimed at the limo but rather at Jericho’s cruiser. Whoever was out there had now made her brother a target.
“Hold on,” Kirk warned them a split second before he gunned the engine.
Kirk didn’t go straight ahead, however. He jerked the steering wheel to the right, and that’s when Addie realized he was darting around what remained of the herd of cows still on the road. There had finally been a big enough opening for them to try to escape.
Good thing, too, because the bullets were coming even faster.
Almost immediately, Kirk jerked the car to the right. No doubt so that he wouldn’t crash right into the limo.
“My brother,” she said. “We can’t leave him here.”
“Jericho’s right behind us,” Weston told her.
Addie believed him, but she lifted her head just a fraction to make sure Jericho was okay. She tried to take in everything at once.
Jericho’s cruiser was there.
Just as Weston had said, it was behind them, weaving around the handful of cows still on the road. The limo was on the move, too, but it wasn’t coming after them. It was speeding away in the opposite direction.
And then Addie saw something else.
A blur of motion at first.
A man.
And even though Weston tried to push her back down, Addie stayed put and motioned toward the person who was ducking behind one of the trees. The man didn’t duck nearly fast enough, though, because Addie got a good look at his face.
Oh, God.
What was he doing there?
Chapter Sixteen
Ogden.
Weston didn’t like that the man kept turning up in bad situations. Like the latest attack near Daisy’s house.
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