Maverick Detective Dad
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Delores Fossen
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18
Chapter One
The moment Everly Monroe pulled her SUV to a stop in front of her house, she spotted the bloodstained box sitting on her porch.
Her breath stalled in her throat.
Even though she was a good fifteen feet away from the box, she could see the smears of the rusty-colored blood on the side of it. Well, maybe that was what it was. It certainly looked like it anyway.
Forcing herself to breathe, Everly called 9-1-1. Since she lived in the small ranching town of Silver Creek, Texas, it wouldn’t take long for the sheriff, Grayson Ryland, to send out a deputy. Probably only a couple of minutes considering her house was less than a half mile from the Silver Creek Sheriff’s Office, but she figured those minutes were going to feel like an eternity.
What the heck was going on?
Who’d put that box there?
Everly kept the SUV’s engine running, and she glanced around to see if she could spot who’d left the box. She had neighbors on both sides of her and across the street, but no one was out and about. Most had no doubt already left for work. Her, included. And she likely wouldn’t have found the box for hours if she hadn’t forgotten her lunch. After she’d dropped her daughter Ainsley off at day care, she had decided to swing back by the house and pick it up before going into her law office on Main Street.
At the reminder of her two-year-old daughter, Everly’s heartbeat kicked up, and she quickly pressed in the number for the day care. The owner, Sara Cordova, answered on the second ring.
“It’s Everly,” she said, well aware that there was too much breath in her voice. “I, uh...” And Everly trailed off while she tried to figure out how to say this.
“Ainsley is fine,” Sara assured her. The woman had obviously picked up on the concern. “She’s in playgroup right now.”
“Good,” Everly muttered, and she repeated it while she tried to steady herself. “This could turn out to be nothing, but someone might have left me...” She trailed off again. “...a possible threat or something. It’s probably nothing,” she emphasized.
“Oh.” There was concern in Sara’s voice now, too. “Should I do a lockdown of the building?”
Everly hated to overreact, but she didn’t want to regret underreacting either. After all, she’d been a defense attorney for six years now. She was certain that she’d managed to rile certain people who’d been involved in some of her cases. People who might want to scare her.
Or worse.
The handful of threats she’d gotten over the years had never extended to her child or to anyone except her, but Everly didn’t want to take the risk that it was different this time.
“Yes, please,” Everly told the woman. “Do the lockdown, and as soon as I’ve talked to the sheriff, I’ll let you know what’s going on,” she added right before she ended the call.
It was only a couple of minutes later when Everly saw the Silver Creek cruiser turn into her driveway. Still clutching her phone, she got out of her SUV just as Grayson exited the cruiser. He was tall and lanky, and even though he was in his late fifties now, he still managed to look in charge merely by stepping onto the scene.
He also wasn’t alone.
Everly required a deep breath of a different sort when Detective Noah Ryland got out from the passenger’s side. Since Grayson was Noah’s uncle and they both lived in Silver Creek, it wasn’t unusual to see them together. But because Noah was a homicide detective in nearby San Antonio, she doubted it was customary for Grayson to bring his nephew to respond to a 9-1-1 call.
Especially this 9-1-1.
After all, Noah and she had spent more than a decade just avoiding each other. Wide berths were their norm. Him showing up at her house wasn’t something he’d ever done before.
Like his uncle, Noah was a Ryland through and through. Black hair, sizzling gray eyes and the handsome face that always sent a jolt of alarm, and heat, through her. She figured no man could actually be too good-looking, but Noah always seemed to put that theory to the test.
Thankfully today, it was easy for her to push aside his looks and the inevitable attraction he stirred inside her. A pull that she figured would always be there since he’d been her first lover, way back when they’d been sixteen. A lifetime ago.
And he hadn’t been her lover since.
Not after what’d happened that night.
Nothing to do with the actual sex. No. It was the aftermath that had led to a horrible nightmare that still haunted her. Always would. And she doubted Noah had been able to put it to rest either.
Since Noah had on well-worn jeans, a gray shirt and Stetson, she guessed that he wasn’t on his way to or from work. She’d caught glimpses of him in the homicide detective mode, and when he was on the job, he wore what would be called business casual. But even when he was in a suit jacket, Noah had always somehow managed to look just as much cowboy as cop.
Clearing her throat and attempting to do the same with her head, Everly motioned toward the porch. “That wasn’t there when I left to take Ainsley to day care about thirty minutes ago. I dropped her off, stopped at the café to get a to-go cup of coffee and then drove back here to pick up something I’d forgotten. That’s when I saw it on the porch. I didn’t touch it,” she added, well aware it’d be something they’d want to know.
Both Noah and Grayson looked at the white cardboard, bloodstained box that was the size of a container usually meant to store files. But neither man seemed surprised it was there. However, there was deep concern in both sets of those cowboy cops’ eyes.
“I got a box, too,” Noah said, his gaze connecting with hers again. “It was delivered to the ranch this morning. That’s why I was at the sheriff’s office when Grayson got your 9-1-1 call.”
The ranch, as in the Rylands’ sprawling Silver Creek Ranch where Noah, Grayson and many other members of their family lived. Now her own concern went up another significant notch. Not because it’d been delivered to the ranch but because it’d been delivered at all.
“Who left it and what was in it?” she managed to ask.
Noah dragged in a long breath, and he glanced around. Another cop move. Both Grayson and he were keeping up a steady surveillance of the area.
“A courier from San Antonio delivered it,” Noah explained. “He’s being held at the sheriff’s office, but it appears he was just doing his job, that he didn’t have any part of what was inside.”
The icy chill sparked. And spread. “What was inside?” she muttered.
“You should get Everly into the cruiser,” Grayson insisted before Noah could answer. He took out his phone and fired off a text. “The county bomb squad is still here in town, and I’ll have them come over and take a look.”
“A bomb?” Everly blurted out. That icy chill got even colder and went straight through her entire body.
“There wasn’t any kind of explosive in the box left for Noah,” Grayson quickly assured her. “But we should check, especially since it appears yours was delivered more than an hour after his.”
Even though her mind was still whirling and she was close to panicking, Everly had no trouble following that. The person who’d sent these boxes would have had plenty of time to add a bomb to hers as a way to escalate this.
Whatever this was.
She was about to press Grayson on what was in the box, but he glanced at Noah and then tipped his head to the cruiser again. Everly also had no trouble interpretating that. The person behind this could still be around, and they were all standing out in the open.
“Maybe you should get inside, too,” she murmured to Grayson as Noah and she headed to the cruiser.
“In a minute,” the sheriff said, and he started walking closer to the porch.
“Sara Cordova from the day care called Grayson just as we were pulling into your driveway, and she said you’d asked them to go on lockdown.” Noah threw that out there. He opened the back door of the cruiser, got her in and followed, dropping down on the seat next to her. “Is Ainsley all right?”
That got her attention off Grayson and back on to Noah. It shouldn’t surprise her that he knew her daughter’s name. In a small town, everybody knew pretty much everything, but the fact he’d brought it up made her wonder if there was something more she should do to make sure her baby stayed safe.
“Sara said Ainsley was okay. Why?” Everly pressed, and her heartbeat was starting to thud in her ears. “Did something bad happen at the day care?”
“No.” He was quick to answer, but his forehead bunched up. “But when Grayson learned your daughter was there, he sent a deputy just in case. Just in case,” he repeated when he no doubt saw the panic in her eyes. “The day care is locked down, and once the bomb squad arrives and has a look at that box on your porch, I can drive you over to see your daughter. I can’t do it now because I don’t want to leave Grayson here without backup.”
“Because backup might be needed,” she stated, letting the full effect of that sink in. Still, she had to make sure her baby was okay. “I need to see my daughter.”
“And you will. Soon,” he assured her. His voice was calm, cop-like, but she could see the emotion stirring in his eyes. “Is there anyone else Sara will contact about the lockdown? Ainsley’s father, I mean,” he clarified a heartbeat later.
Going back to that small-town deal again, Noah likely knew the answer to that was a Texas-sized no. Ainsley’s father and her ex, Philip, had left Silver Creek, and Everly, shortly after she’d told him she was pregnant. He’d moved in with a girlfriend Everly hadn’t known about, and Philip had then filed for a divorce that’d been finalized while Everly was still weeks away from delivering their daughter.
“I just figured Ainsley’s father might be alarmed if he gets a call from Sara,” Noah added.
“Philip’s not in the picture,” Everly settled for saying. “And there’s no one else for Sara to call. As you know, I don’t have any family other than Ainsley.” She paused and tried to prepare herself for any answer she might hear to her question. “What was in the box delivered to you?”
Noah hesitated a moment. “Bloody clothes. Specifically, a dress and women’s shoes. They’re on the way to the crime lab, but they seem to match missing items from a murder I’m investigating.”
Everly hadn’t been able to stop herself from coming up with a mental list of what might have been the contents of the box, but her first guess sure wouldn’t have been bloody clothes. In some ways it was a relief since she’d imagined all sorts of things, including a dead animal.
“A murder that happened in San Antonio?” she asked.
He nodded. “Five days ago. Her name was Jill Ritter, age forty-two, and she had a sheet for child neglect and drug-related charges. She went missing shortly after finishing up a shift at a diner in San Antonio where she worked, and her body was found yesterday on the side of a rural road miles away from where she lived.”
Everly’s stomach jolted at hearing those details, but she needed to know more. Because it would help her understand why a box had been left for her.
“Jill Ritter’s cause of death?” she asked.
“She bled out from a gash to her femoral artery.” He motioned to his thigh to show her the location of that particular wound. “She’d been drugged and her clothes removed, but there were no signs of sexual assault.” He stopped, sighed. “No evidence left at the scene. No suspects. No contact from the killer. Until now, that is.”
Yes, because leaving a box with the victim’s bloody clothes was definitely contact. But why? And why draw her into it since she had no involvement whatsoever in Noah’s investigation?
She watched Grayson as he used his phone to take pictures of the box on her porch. Meanwhile, Everly tested out the dead woman’s name by repeating it aloud to see if it spurred any connections. It didn’t.
“So, what does Jill Ritter’s murder have to do with someone sending me a bloody box?” she pressed.
“That’s what I’m here to find out. I haven’t had the case long, and I need to learn everything I can about her and what’s going on.” He opened his mouth but stopped when a van turned into her driveway. “Bomb squad,” Noah explained.
Three men hurried out of the vehicle. Emphasis on hurried. One of them headed toward Grayson while another began to take out equipment. The third pulled on a blast suit made of heavy body armor. Obviously, he was assuming the worst, that they were dealing with explosives.
Again, Everly tried to rein in her too-fast breathing and heartbeat. Tried to rein in her fear as well, and while she watched the bomb squad spring into action, she tried to focus on the murdered woman, Jill Ritter. If the box on her porch had a connection to Jill, then there was likely also a connection to her. One that involved Noah and perhaps some past legal case.
Everly had most of her work files stored in a secure online account, and while she volleyed glances at the bomb squad, she used her phone to log into it. There was a search function so she typed in the woman’s name. And came up with nothing.
“Did Jill Ritter use any aliases in the past six years?” she asked.
“Not that I’ve found. She had a brother, a couple of exes and two kids who are now teenagers.” Noah rattled off those names, one by one, and Everly searched for each of them.
Still nothing.
She was about to ask for the names of anyone associated with the woman’s criminal past, but she stopped when the now fully armored bomb squad member approached her porch. He had a shield in one hand and a small device in the other.
“He’s got a portable scanner,” Noah said with his gaze fixed on the man. “It’ll x-ray the contents of the box to see if it’s safe.”
Grayson and the other two members of the squad moved back behind some shields while the one lumbered his way up the porch steps. Once he reached the box, he moved the scanner over it while he peered at the screen. Everly was too far away to see exactly what was on that screen, but several moments later the man gave a nod before he stepped back.
“All clear,” he shouted.
Everly automatically moved closer to the cruiser window, waiting to hear what was inside the box, but the man didn’t say anything about that. Instead, he lowered his shield and stepped aside when his comrades and Grayson moved in, going onto the porch with him. Since the four were now huddled around the box, Everly couldn’t tell what they were doing.
Shaking her head in frustration, she reached to open the cruiser door, but Noah put his hand over hers to stop her. “Wait,” he insisted, and the glance he made around the yard reminded her that while the box might be all clear, their surroundings might not be.
She looked down at Noah’s hand that was still over hers and silently cursed that his mere touch could trigger so many memories. Both really good ones, and really bad ones, too.
While he locked his gaze on hers, he drew back his hand. No cop’s poker face for him now, and in that instant she knew that she wasn’t the only one in a battle to forget they’d once ever been involved. But it was only for an instant before Noah pulled it all back in.
When she caught some movement from the corner of her eye, Everly’s attention snapped back to the window, and she saw Grayson approaching. He opened the door a couple of inches and peered in at them.
“No bloody clothing,” he said, looking at Noah. “There’s only an envelope. I’m leaving it in place so the CSIs can photograph it and process it. They’re on their way.”
“An envelope?” Everly questioned.
Grayson nodded and turned his phone so she could see the screen. “I took a picture of it. I don’t know if there’s anything inside the envelope, but there was a message handwritten on the outside.”
There was something in his tone, in his eyes, that had Everly bracing herself for the worst. Good thing, too, because she soon discovered that some bracing was definitely needed.
She saw the photo of the envelope. Saw the smears of blood on it. And the message that tightened every single muscle in her chest.
Everly, you’re next.
