Ashlee bristled at his harsh tone. “It doesn’t sound like you like her very much.”
“Like I said, I haven’t seen her in years. I just hope what’s happening isn’t because of her—that she hasn’t pulled you into another one of her messes.”
She hadn’t even considered that this might be her sister’s mess that she was caught up in. If that was the case, then perhaps Bree was in serious trouble. If Ashlee had escaped with bullets being fired at her car, what was Bree having to endure? But surely Ashlee wouldn’t have left Bree behind. That didn’t make sense to her, either.
She noticed Lawson tense and speed up. “What’s the matter?”
“A car’s approaching from behind us.”
She glanced back and spotted a car closing in on them. Please just let it pass by. But it didn’t. It slowed and someone leaned out from the window with a gun aimed at them.
“Hang on,” Lawson said, hitting the accelerator and speeding away.
The man in the car started firing and Ashlee screamed.
“Get down,” he said, pushing her head toward her knees.
Another shot rang out. Lawson reached for his cell phone and hit a button. It started ringing and moments later, Josh’s voice came on the line.
“We’re on the highway just outside of town. Someone in a car is shooting at us. It’s a blue sedan, maybe a Taurus or similar make. One driver. One shooter—”
Another shot rang out and the truck veered. “He hit the tire,” Lawson said as he fought for control. “I can’t hold it on the road.”
Ashlee screamed as the truck flipped and rolled down the ravine, each tumble jolting her as glass broke and metal crunched. They hit the bottom and the air bag deployed, forcing her head to slam against the seat. Stars played against her eyes and her whole world went topsy-turvy before the spinning turned to nothingness and she blacked out.
* * *
Lawson groaned as something wet and sticky dripped down his face. He touched his head and felt blood against his fingers. He started to check his head in the mirror, then realized the mirror wasn’t there any longer. The truck was on its side and he was only staying in position because of his seat belt.
He clicked it off, then struggled to regain his bearings.
Ashlee.
He looked over and found her unconscious, slumped against her seat. He unbuckled the seat belt and let her fall into his arms. She seemed uninjured, but he couldn’t be sure until she awoke. He gently patted her cheeks. “Ashlee. Ashlee, can you hear me?”
Her eyes began to flutter and she opened one, then the other. “What happened?”
“We ran off the road and flipped. Are you okay?”
“I think so.” She touched her forehead, then glanced at him and gasped. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s only a gash, I think. It won’t kill me.” But whoever had shot out his tires would be more than happy to finish the job if they came looking. “We need to get out of here.” He searched the debris for his cell phone and found the screen busted. He tried to bring it to life, but it was dead. At least he’d been on the line with his brother when the men had attacked, and he’d been able to give their location. He knew Josh would send help. They just had to survive until the cavalry arrived.
He helped Ashlee crawl out from the truck. They were both rattled from the shock of the crash, but they didn’t have time to stop and process—they had to take cover in case those men came to make certain they’d died.
He pushed her into the woods and took cover behind a tree. His head was pounding and blood was sliding into his field of vision. Head wounds were notorious for bleeding, so he wasn’t worried about the injury, but he would have to see about it soon.
If he was still alive to do so.
He heard rustling in the distance and motioned for Ashlee to be quiet. He glanced out and heard voices and movement as someone came down the embankment. Two figures appeared, guns in hand, and approached the truck, searching inside.
“They’re gone,” one of them said.
The other noticed the blood. “They can’t have gotten far. Let’s finish this.”
Lawson flinched as the gunmen headed toward them, but then stopped as sirens wailed in the distance.
“Let’s get out of here,” one man shouted. The other man agreed and followed him up the embankment.
Lawson heard the squeal of tires as they roared away. He hurried to the edge of the embankment and spotted two cruisers screech to a halt. Thank You, Lord, for Josh’s quick response.
He owed his brother for arriving in the nick of time.
Josh appeared at the top of the embankment, obviously surveying the overturned truck. “Is either of you injured?”
“We’re okay,” Lawson shouted up to him. “Just shaken up.”
Josh and another deputy helped them up the hill and into a waiting ambulance. As expected, his gash wasn’t deep, but did need a few stitches. He watched as a paramedic checked Ashlee over. He knew she wasn’t injured from the crash. They’d both been fortunate. The accident could have been much worse.
But his concern for her was heightened. Men out there still wanted her dead. But who and why?
FOUR
Every inch of her body ached after the crash, but Ashlee refused to go back to the hospital. She sat in the waiting area of the sheriff’s office, a blanket draped over her shoulders, nursing a cup of water as Lawson, Josh and Cecile went over the details of the accident in the conference room behind her.
Terror shuddered through her at how close they’d been to another deadly confrontation with the men who’d run them off the road. Their demeanors had been cold and emotionless as they’d spoken about finishing this. Finishing her, they’d meant.
The sheriff’s office door opened and a man entered, whistling an easygoing tune. It struck Ashlee as odd in the tension-filled office. He glanced into the conference room, then stopped at Deputy Deaver’s desk. “I’m supposed to have a meeting with the sheriff, but he looks engaged in something else.”
Deaver leaned back in his seat. “He sure is, Mr. Mayor. His brother was just run off the road and nearly killed.”
“Really? Which brother?”
“Lawson.”
“I hope he wasn’t injured too badly.”
“No, sir. Just shook up as far as I can tell.”
The mayor turned and looked at Ashlee. She squirmed under his gaze, but he pasted a big smile on his face as he approached her. Before he could speak, the conference room door opened and Josh, Lawson and Cecile exited.
Josh approached the man. “I haven’t forgotten about our meeting, Don, but we’ve got an urgent situation here. Can we reschedule?”
The mayor gave him a broad smile. “Of course. I hope everything is okay. Deputy Deaver told me about you being run off the road, Lawson. You’re not hurt, I hope.”
“No, Mayor. We’re both fine.”
“Both? There were two of you?”
“This is Ashlee Taylor. She’s an old friend of mine.” Lawson pointed to Ashlee and the mayor turned his gaze back to her.
He extended his hand. “Mayor Don Baxter. Nice to meet you.”
She shook his hand. “Ashlee Taylor.”
“Are you from these parts, Miss Taylor?”
“Yes, but I...” She was afraid the mayor would ask something about where she’d gone to school, or if she knew various people in town—questions she wouldn’t be able to answer.
“It seems she’s suffering from a bout of amnesia,” Cecile interjected.
The mayor’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really? I’ve never met anyone with amnesia. How much of your memory is missing?”
“All of it. I can’t remember anything from before Lawson found me in my car. I didn’t even know my name until he told me.”
“That must be quite disconcer
ting for you.”
Ashlee nodded. “Yes, it is. I wish I understood what was going on.”
“The men who ran us off the road, they were after her,” Lawson explained.
“That’s terrible. Any leads as to who is behind these attacks?”
Lawson answered. “Nothing yet, but we’re still gathering information. We’ll figure it out.”
“Well, I’ll let you all get back to work. I hope everything turns out well for you, Miss Taylor.”
“Thank you,” Ashlee said.
He started to walk out, then turned back to Josh. “Oh, there was one thing I wanted to alert you about. I’m sure you’ve heard about that biker gang that has taken up residence at the Waveland Motel on the outskirts of town?”
Josh nodded. “We’ve received a few noise complaints about them, but no behavior that’s reached a criminal level.”
“Yes, well, I heard from a friend at Dallas PD that the feds are opening an investigation into the group for operating a counterfeiting ring. We can probably expect some federal agents to arrive in town any day now.”
“Thanks for the heads-up. We’ll keep an eye on them until they do.”
When the mayor left, Josh looked at Cecile. “Get in touch with the Secret Service and double-check the serial numbers on the bills we found in Ashlee’s car.”
Lawson turned to face him. “You think Ashlee is involved with this gang?”
Cecile answered instead. “She does work for an accounting firm, and I’ve heard these groups often hire companies to manage their money. Apparently, it’s a very lucrative lifestyle. I’m only speculating, but if she handled their accounts, she could have found evidence of counterfeiting and possibly taken the money to prove it.”
“If they are counterfeit,” Josh interjected, “at least we’ll know we’re looking in the right direction. If not, then we’ll move on to other leads. For now, we’ve posted a BOLO on the car that ran you off the road and I’ve got deputies canvasing the area looking for any witnesses. Your truck is pretty banged up, Lawson. I’m having it towed to Mike Morgan’s place.” He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and tossed them to Lawson. “You can use mine until it’s fixed.”
“Thank you.”
Cecile held out a tablet to Ashlee. “I compiled a list of photos while Lawson was giving his statement. It’s of known offenders in the system. I’d like for you both to go through them to see if you can identify the two men who ran you off the road and also the man who attacked you at the hospital and hotel. Do you think you can do that?”
“I’ll never forget those men’s faces,” Ashlee said. She hadn’t recognized the men who had run them off the road, but neither had been the man who’d previously attacked her. Both she and Lawson had gotten a good look at the ones from the car when they’d hidden from them in the woods. They hadn’t bothered to disguise their faces, either, obviously unafraid of being recognized because they’d had no intention of leaving any witnesses alive.
So far, these men plus the man from the hotel and hospital were the only connections she had to whatever had happened to her. It was obvious this wasn’t merely a case where she’d wronged one man. She’d come afoul of a group...possibly the biker gang the mayor had just warned them about.
Josh and Cecile left them alone and Ashlee turned to Lawson. “You don’t really believe I’m involved with a biker gang, do you?” She shuddered at the thought of associating with a gang of any kind.
“I don’t want to, but it’s a lead we need to check out. Cecile told me and Josh earlier in the conference room that she’s been through your financials and hasn’t found anything out of the ordinary. That money didn’t come from your accounts, which means you got it from somewhere else.”
She sighed and rubbed a sore muscle on her neck. “I wish I could remember.”
“Maybe we’ll catch a break with these pictures.” Lawson switched on the tablet and began scrolling through photos. He positioned the screen where they could both see the images, but by the time he’d reached the end, Ashlee hadn’t recognized a single face. The men who had attacked her, including the man at the hospital and hotel, hadn’t been among the photos Cecile had pulled.
“What do you think that means?” she asked Lawson.
He shrugged. “Only that they haven’t been booked by this department. I’ll ask her to expand the search parameters to include other jurisdictions within a hundred-mile radius.”
She nodded. Looking at more pictures wasn’t exactly how she wanted to spend her day, but she would do whatever it took to find out who was behind these attacks.
Her mouth went dry and she guzzled down the last of her water. “Is there somewhere I can get some more?”
He took her cup and stood. “I’ll get it for you. This courthouse is over a hundred and fifty years old and offices have been added piecemeal through the years. It’s like a maze if you don’t know your way around. You’ll have to go through three doorways just to reach the kitchen. I’d hate for you to make a wrong turn and end up in lockup.” She smiled at his lighthearted tone, but she expected there was some truth wrapped up in his joking manner. “You wait here. I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared through a doorway.
Ashlee leaned back in her seat and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, already missing Lawson’s presence. Something about the handsome deputy made her feel safer whenever he was around—and more exposed without him by her side.
Stop it, she told herself. She had to stop being so reliant on Lawson. After the way she’d treated him, he owed her nothing. And after today’s near-death experience, he could decide at any moment that protecting her was too risky—and then he’d vanish from her life the way she had from his.
She thought about her apartment and how it had been ransacked. Whoever was after her was dangerous. She would gladly return the money to them if it meant these threats against her disappearing. But yesterday she’d told the man she didn’t have the money...and today she’d been attacked anyway.
Why?
She pressed her hands to her forehead and willed herself to remember. It did no good except to give her a slight headache to go with the rest of her aching body.
Lawson returned with another cup of water and she drank it up.
“Why don’t we head back to Silver Star,” he suggested. “You look like you could use some rest.”
“What about the photos?”
“I’ll have Cecile email them to me. We can always look through them back at the ranch.”
She was glad to leave. As much as she wanted to help track down these men, she was worn out from the afternoon’s events and could use some time to work out the kinks in her aching muscles. “Okay.”
Lawson told Cecile about their plans, then led Ashlee outside to his brother’s truck. She crawled inside and buckled up and they headed out of town and toward Silver Star Ranch. But as she glanced at the people coming and going through town, she couldn’t help wondering... Who was out there that wanted her dead?
* * *
Once Ashlee was settled upstairs to rest, Lawson headed outside to the barn. Ranch chores were never done and he needed the physical exercise of work, even if it was only cleaning out the stalls, to help him wrap his mind around the attempts on Ashlee’s life. And the fact that the shooters hadn’t seemed to be bothered by him being in the line of fire, either. No, these men, whoever they were, were dangerous and Ashlee had managed to do something to get into their crosshairs.
His brother Paul appeared in the doorway and hung some tack on a hook. “Josh told me what happened today. Are you okay?”
Lawson nodded. “We’re both okay. Shook up, but that’s about it.”
“You need to be more careful, little brother.”
“I’m being careful, but it’s difficult with Ashlee in danger.”
“Yeah, I guess
I understand that.”
“How are you doing?” Paul wasn’t always willing to talk about his recovery process from his injury, but Lawson felt it was important to keep asking, to let his brother know that he cared.
“I’m getting there, but I’m sure ready to be back in the action.”
Lawson couldn’t possibly understand all that Paul was going through. His injuries had been severe and his healing time was taking longer than he wanted. Ranch work was hard, but Lawson imagined it was nothing compared to the training Paul had endured as a Navy SEAL. He had to have lightning-quick reflexes before he could return to active service, and he just wasn’t there yet.
Paul left and Lawson returned to the stalls. He was nearly done when Miles appeared in the doorway, his suit bag hanging over his shoulder. “I’m heading back to Dallas,” he said. “My boss wants me for an assignment tomorrow. Are you going to be okay with this thing with Ashlee? Because I can probably stall him if you need me here.”
He would have liked to have Miles around for support, but his brother had a life to get back to. “We’ll be fine. Besides, I’ve got Paul and Colby and Josh here to help.”
He nodded. “Yes, Colby said he could stick around for a few more days.” He turned to leave, then stopped. “This thing with Ashlee... Lawson, be careful. And I’m not just referring to the danger she’s in.”
He nodded, his brother’s intentions coming through loud and clear. They were all worried about him and how close he was getting to Ashlee, how attached he was finding himself to having her here. He had to keep reminding himself that she didn’t belong at Silver Star. She didn’t want to be here. She’d made that perfectly clear six years ago when she’d walked out—stomping on his heart along the way.
Lawson watched as Miles climbed into his car and drove away, then returned to his chores. He was finishing up with the stalls when he heard the whinny of the horses in the pen outside the barn and a soft voice. Lawson walked out to find Ashlee at the split-rail fence, stroking the nose of one of the horses and talking to them. The sight of her took his breath away. She looked so natural, so at home with the animals and her surroundings. Like she belonged at Silver Star.
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