Savior in the Saddle

by Delores Fossen

  “You got more than one person trying to kill you?” Brandon asked.

  “Maybe,” Dean repeated and shook his head. “Look, someone’s been trying to kill me, and I think it might be the same person who’s after Willa Marks. There was a story in the newspaper about someone blowing up her house.”

  Brandon tried not to curse but failed. He was all for freedom of the press, but the less printed about Willa, the safer she might be.

  “Who’s trying to kill us?” Brandon heard someone ask. He groaned because it was Willa’s voice and he heard her making her way toward them. He shot her a look, warning to go back to his office.

  She ignored him and kept her attention pinned to Dean.

  Dean studied her a moment and then handed Brandon the envelope. Brandon didn’t put away his weapon, and he handed the envelope to Willa so she could open it.

  There was a single black-and-white picture inside.

  It was a grainy photo taken in what appeared to be a parking lot, and it took Brandon a moment to figure out that he was looking at a picture of three people.

  Wes Dunbar, Dr. Lenora Farris.

  And Cash.

  Ironically, it was the face of his old friend that was the clearest.

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on Cash and Wes,” Dean explained. “I thought one or both of them might be trying to set me up to take the fall for that hostage situation.”

  “Why would they do that?” Brandon wanted to know.

  “Because I think Wes did kill Jessie Beecham, and I think that DNA sample in the lab would have proven it.”

  Brandon couldn’t argue with that. “But why would Cash want to frame you?” He handed the picture to Willa so she could see it as well.

  Dean gave Brandon another are-you-out-of-your-mind look. “I’ve checked on you, and I know you and Cash are old friends. But Cash isn’t the man you knew way back when. He’s friends with Wes now—did he tell you that?”

  No. Cash hadn’t. And Brandon wasn’t sure he believed Dean. Still, there was the photo.

  “That picture proves nothing,” Willa said, probably sensing Brandon’s conflicting emotions.

  “It proves the three of them were together,” Dean countered. “And I think they were together for one reason—to figure out how they could cover up the fact that Wes killed his old rival.”

  Brandon could see one huge flaw in that theory. “Then why involve Dr. Farris? If Wes wanted someone to cover up his crime, he would go to Cash or some other dirty cop.”

  “You don’t know?” But it wasn’t really a question, and Dean seemed more than eager to dole out this tidbit. “Dr. Farris and Wes are old friends. But she was also friends with Jessie Beecham. She was having an affair with Jessie around the time he was murdered.”

  Brandon wanted to kick himself. He’d been so involved in keeping Willa safe that he hadn’t given this case the time and work it needed. Hell. Even though this wasn’t his specific case, he was a lawman, and he should have done better. If he had, this investigation might already be over and the danger gone.

  He glanced at Willa to let her know he was sorry, but he only saw skepticism in her eyes. Brandon had that same skepticism, but what he couldn’t doubt was that Dean appeared completely confident that he was telling the truth.

  Brandon would check every detail to make sure he was.

  “If Dr. Farris was having an affair with Jessie as you say, then why would she want to help the person who possibly murdered him?” Brandon challenged.

  “Hey, I didn’t say she was in love with the man. She’s been going back and forth between Wes and Jessie for years. She might not have been sleeping with Wes at the time of Jessie’s death, but from what I’ve learned about her, she wouldn’t want him to be arrested for a murder rap.”

  Dean wasn’t painting a very good picture of Dr. Farris. And Cash must have known her background. Yet he’d brought her to that hotel suite to “help” Willa. Maybe the doctor had really come to see just how much Willa remembered. If so, that meant Dr. Farris could have been the one to alert Martin Shore.

  “So, will you help me?” Dean asked. But he wasn’t looking at Brandon, he was looking at Willa.

  “Help you how?” she asked, wanting to know.

  “Tell the cops that I had nothing to do with the hostage situation.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t do that. The gunman—”

  Brandon caught her arm to stop her from finishing. He didn’t want Dean to know Willa had remembered the gunman trying to call him.

  “It’s time for you to leave,” Brandon told the man.

  “No.” Dean volleyed glances between the two of them. “Not until she agrees to help me.”

  “She’s not agreeing to anything.” Brandon didn’t wait for the man to concur. He let go of Willa so he could usher Dean out of the building. Brandon used more force than necessary, and he slammed the door in Dean’s face and locked it.

  Dean shouted out some profanity and threats, but he must have quickly remembered that only minutes earlier, Wes had been in the area. Brandon watched through the sidelight window as Dean scurried across the back parking lot and climbed into a white compact car.

  Brandon turned to Willa to tell her they shouldn’t stay put much longer, but she spoke before he could.

  “I need access to a computer and the internet,” she told him. “I want to search some files and see what I can learn about all the things Dean just told us.”

  Brandon had a laptop at his house, but now that Wes and God knows who else knew they were in the area, it might not be safe to stay there. At least at the station, he had the two deputies who could back him up in case something went wrong.

  “How long will you need?” Brandon asked, checking his watch.

  She shook her head. “I’m not sure. I think I remember how to hack into files.”

  Brandon knew this was illegal, but he didn’t care. Right now, he only wanted to get to the truth, and he wanted that truth in the shortest time possible so he could get Willa out of there.

  “You can use my office,” Brandon told her. “And while you’re doing that, I need to make some calls.” He had to do some checking on Cash so he could make sure his old friend hadn’t betrayed him.

  But first things first, he wanted to call the Texas Ranger crime lab in Austin.

  After Willa dropped the photo Dean had given them on Brandon’s desk, she sat at his computer and started to tap away on the keys. Brandon worked his way through the Ranger organization and contacted Sergeant Egan Caldwell, a Ranger he’d worked with on several cases. It took Brandon nearly fifteen minutes to get through the explanation and his request. He believed there to be a leak in SAPD and he was asking the Rangers to conduct an impartial investigation into the DNA results from Jessie Beecham’s murder.

  The request and Sergeant Caldwell’s agreement would no doubt cause waves. Now, the trick was to prevent those waves from placing Willa in any more danger.

  Brandon made several more calls, searching for someplace to take her. He couldn’t very well ask SAPD to provide a safe house, but he didn’t have many options.

  “I think I might have found something,” Willa announced.

  Brandon was about to hurry to the computer when he heard the knock at the front door.

  “We’re sure popular today,” Sheila called back to Brandon a moment later. “Got two more visitors. Strangers at that. Should I let them in?”

  “Not yet.” Brandon drew his gun and started for the front, but he soon saw the two people standing on the other side of the reinforced glass door.

  It was Cash and Dr. Farris.

  Chapter Twelve

  Willa was now certain of one thing. Nearly every one of their suspects knew where Brandon and she were. Martin Shore was the only one yet to make an appearance at Brandon’s office, and she prayed he was far away from them.

  She watched from the doorway of his office as Brandon “greeted” their latest visitors. Both Dr. Farris and Cash
were visibly angry, but so was Brandon. Heck, so was she.

  Especially after what she’d just learned about Dr. Farris.

  Thank goodness her hacking skills were as sharp as ever. Willa might not remember key incidents of the past two months, but she obviously recalled how to worm her way into someone’s personal information.

  Now what she needed was some time to dig into the other suspects’ computer files. So far they hadn’t had much time to do that.

  There hadn’t been time for much of anything.

  They had both showered and changed their clothes before Pete had arrived to pick them up at Brandon’s house. Brandon had replaced his jeans with a clean pair and put on a black shirt and leather jacket. Hardly Christmas colors but neither was Willa’s cream-colored sweater. She hadn’t had anything else clean to wear, which meant she was either going to have to do laundry soon or buy something new. Heaven knows when she would get the chance to do either.

  “Let us in,” Cash demanded. “It’s freezing out here.”

  It was, and that probably explained why Cash and the doctor were huddled together. Both had their heads lowered, but the sleet was starting to come down.

  “Are you two friends again?” Brandon asked Cash and the doctor, not keeping the sarcasm from his voice. “Because just a few hours ago, you thought Dr. Farris here might be supplying bad guys with information about Willa.”

  The doctor turned that frosty look at Cash. “No. We’re not friends. And we didn’t arrive together. I had no idea he was coming here until I saw him pull into the parking lot.”

  “I’m a cop,” Cash reminded her. “I have a right to be here.” He aimed his attention at Brandon. “Any reason you wouldn’t tell me where you were?”

  “Yeah. The reason is Martin Shore and his repeated attempts to kill Willa.” Brandon kept a tight grip on his weapon, and he didn’t move out of the doorway so the pair could fully enter the station.

  “I’m trying to stop another attack,” Cash insisted. “That’s why I’ve spent the past few hours looking for you. I got your address from the state database, but it wasn’t in the GPS. I found the farm road and stopped and asked someone where your place was, but the person wouldn’t tell me. He said it would be dangerous for me to try to get to your house anyway because you keep attack dogs.”

  Good. Brandon would thank all his neighbors first chance he got for keeping the location of his house a secret.

  “It’s cold,” the doctor reminded Brandon. She shoved her hands in her pockets and bobbed on her tiptoes in an attempt to keep warm.

  “Then if you want to get warm, my suggestion is talk fast so you can leave fast,” Brandon told them, and it earned him more glares from the pair.

  Dr. Farris looked past Brandon, and the doctor’s gaze met Willa’s. She grabbed the photo Dean had given them and walked closer. She kept the picture facing toward her in case Brandon wanted to withhold it for some reason. But she wanted them to see, and more than that, Willa wanted an explanation about why the three had been together.

  “You shouldn’t have left without speaking to me,” Dr. Farris warned her. “The therapy session wasn’t over, and I needed to debrief you so you could put all that you remembered in perspective.”

  Willa stopped next to Brandon. “I’d had all the perspective I could handle for one day. Plus, Shore was in the lobby waiting for us when we left. I don’t suppose either of you would know why he was there?”

  The doctor and Cash exchanged glances again and then shook their heads. “I have no idea why he was there,” Cash insisted. “But maybe it’s like Brandon suggested on the phone—Shore could have been following your PDA.”

  “My PDA was several buildings away in a parked car.”

  Cash shrugged. “Maybe Shore had already followed you by then. Maybe he saw you go into the hotel.”

  Willa couldn’t totally discount that, but she didn’t intend to trust Cash, either.

  “You need to come back with me,” the doctor insisted. “Or at least let me finish the session.”

  “Willa’s not going anywhere with you,” Brandon informed her. He took the photo from Willa and put it right in Cash and the doctor’s faces. “Got an explanation for this?”

  Well, that got a reaction. The color drained from Dr. Farris’s cheeks, and Cash cursed.

  “Where did you get that?” Cash demanded.

  “A concerned citizen. Now, would you like to tell me what was going on in this meeting?”

  “Nothing,” the doctor volunteered. “I was duped into being there.”

  “But Wes and you are old friends,” Willa pointed out.

  “Former friends,” the doctor corrected. “I got a call from someone claiming to be Wes’s assistant. The person—a man—told me that Wes had proof of who’d killed Jessie Beecham. I went, of course, because I wanted to know who was responsible so I could have the police arrest him. And when I arrived, Cash was there.”

  “I got a similar call,” Cash continued. He stared at the photo. “So did Wes. It didn’t take us long to figure out that we’d all been brought there under false pretenses. But we didn’t know why someone would want to bring the three of us together.” He paused. “Now, we know. It was to get this incriminating photo.”

  Again, that could be the truth, but Willa was glad Brandon wasn’t letting them inside. It did make her wonder, though, if Dean Quinlan had set up the incriminating photo to throw blame off himself.

  “Are you sure this meeting wasn’t to figure out how to place the blame on the homeless man who’s in jail for the murder?” Brandon asked.

  Cash opened his mouth to speak, but it took him a few seconds to form the words. The anger tightened and twisted his face. “Brandon, you’ve got the wrong idea about me. I’m one of the good guys.”

  “Maybe,” Brandon mumbled.

  “There’s more,” Willa started and she glanced at Brandon to make sure it was okay to reveal what she had learned on her computer search. He had no idea what she knew, of course, since there hadn’t been time to tell him, but Willa hoped that he would trust her not to spill anything that would only make this worse.

  Brandon nodded.

  And Willa met the doctor eye to eye. “Dr. Farris, you’ve come into a rather large sum of money recently.”

  The doctor placed her hand on her chest, and her mouth dropped open. “How would you know that?” But she shook her head and didn’t wait for Willa to answer. “You invaded my privacy. You snooped on me. Well, it doesn’t matter. The money was a gift from my grandfather.”

  “Really?” Willa questioned. “It came in seven different deposits, all just small enough not to alert the IRS. That’s not usually the way people give gifts.”

  Cash and Brandon both gave the doctor a suspicious stare.

  Dr. Farris huffed and made an adjustment to the collar of her coat so that it covered the back of her neck. “What? You think that money was some kind of payoff?”

  “Was it?” Brandon asked. “Maybe Wes paid you off to keep quiet about him murdering your lover, Jessie Beecham?”

  The doctor made a sound of outrage. “I don’t have to listen to this. This conversation is over.” And with that, she turned and started toward a sleek silver sports car that was parked just up the street.

  One down, one to go.

  But Cash didn’t leave. Instead, his phone rang, and after glancing at the caller ID screen, he took the call. Brandon started to shut the door, but Cash held up his index finger in a wait-a-second gesture. Brandon did wait, but he leaned over and put his mouth to Willa’s ear.

  “We’ll be leaving as soon as I’m done with Cash,” he told her.

  That didn’t surprise Willa, but she had to wonder—where would they go now? Would it be safe enough to return to Brandon’s house? Probably not. But then, she wasn’t sure it was safe anywhere.

  The baby kicked, as if in protest.

  Cash ended his call and slapped his phone shut. “You called the Texas Rangers,” he said
to Brandon in an accusing tone.

  “Yeah, I did,” Brandon readily admitted. “I want them to review Jessie Beecham’s murder investigation, including the DNA samples.”

  “Those samples were tested after the hostage incident. They’re clean.”

  “Then you should have no problem with them being tested again.”

  “You know I do.” Cash’s jaw was clenched so tightly that Willa was surprised he could manage to speak. “It’ll make me look bad in the eyes of my superior officers.” He cursed. “Hell, Brandon, you know how this works. Even if those tests hold up—and they will—there’ll be questions about how I’ve handled this case.”

  Brandon took a step closer. “I need those questions answered. Willa and the baby are in danger, and I thought this was the fastest way to get to the truth.”

  “You could have come to me!” Cash practically shouted.

  Brandon shook his head. “I’m not even sure I can trust you.” He held up the picture to remind him of why. “Someone has been leaking info at SAPD, and I want to know who.”

  “Well, it sure as hell isn’t me.” Cash groaned and scrubbed his hand over his face. “Come on, we fought together side by side. I deserve the benefit of the doubt.”

  “No. I can’t give you that. Not with Willa’s safety at stake. And not until I know for sure who told Martin Shore the location of the safe house where Willa and I were nearly killed.”

  Cash’s gaze flew to Brandon’s. “Dr. Farris. She could be the leak.”

  Willa didn’t intend to look so skeptical, but it certainly seemed as if Cash was saying anything to try to save his own skin. “How would Dr. Farris have had access to the information about the safe house?” she asked.

  Cash pulled in a hard breath. “She might have gotten it from my computer.”

  “What?” Brandon snapped.

  “I didn’t give her the information,” Cash quickly defended himself. “But it’s possible she got it when I was away from my desk. She showed up about the time we were making the arrangements for the safe house. She said she had the DVD for the therapy and she wanted to get in touch with Willa. I had to leave my desk for a couple of minutes to see someone, and when I came back, Dr. Farris was in my chair, waiting.”