Her Child to Protect
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Delores Fossen
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Chapter One
Sheriff Barrett Logan aimed his flashlight in the ditch and looked for a dead man.
There were no signs of him, but then Barrett hadn’t believed there would be. That was the problem with getting an anonymous tip. It could be a hoax. However, since he was the sheriff of Mercy Ridge, Texas, checking out hoaxes was part of his job description.
Especially this one, which had come in the text he’d gotten from an unknown number.
There’s blood near the county marker. She finally did it. She murdered him.
Barrett didn’t know who this she was, but that wasn’t the only word that had stood out for him. Blood, finally and murdered had also grabbed his attention. If this was indeed some kind of prank, then the person who’d sent the text had clearly wanted to embellish the details in such a way to make him jump right in and investigate.
Keeping watch around him, Barrett moved away from his truck that he’d left parked on the road. He’d put on his emergency flashers and kept on his high beams in case someone was out this time of night. Not likely, though. This was a rural road with a mile or more separating the sprawling ranches that dotted the area. Plus, it was nearly one in the morning, and most folks had long gone to bed. Mercy Ridge wasn’t exactly a hotbed of partying and such.
Barrett fanned the flashlight over the sign that the texter had mentioned. The sign wasn’t just to let drivers know they were entering another county but also to mark the lines of jurisdiction. Barrett and his deputies policed this side, but if the supposed body was beyond the sign, then that would fall under the jurisdiction of the Culver Crossing PD.
The cool spring rain spat at him, soaking the back of his shirt and his jeans. Thankfully, though, his Stetson was keeping the water out of his eyes, making it easier for him to see a long stretch of the ditch. Definitely no body and no blood in there, but he did see something else.
Footprints, maybe.
Someone or something had trampled down the weeds on the other side of the ditch. Weeds that practically arrowed toward a thick cluster of trees and underbrush.
Avoiding the trampled down parts, Barrett jumped across the ditch, his boots sinking into the wet ground, and he adjusted his flashlight again. However, before he could follow the trail, he heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. One that braked to a screeching stop right behind his truck. It was a Culver Crossing cruiser, and Barrett started muttering some profanity before the deputy stepped out.
Della Howell.
She was definitely someone he hadn’t wanted to see tonight. Or any other night for that matter. The last time they’d spoken nearly two months ago, she had made it crystal clear that she hadn’t wanted to see him, either. Yet, here she was.
Barrett hadn’t expected her to have changed much in these two months, and she hadn’t. Well, except for that troubled look she was giving him. Then again, Della often looked troubled, and there was often plenty of wariness in her crystal blue eyes.
The rain had already gotten to her, he noticed. There were strands of her shoulder-length dark brown hair clinging to the sides of her face and neck. Her shirt was doing some clinging, too. Definitely something he hadn’t wanted to notice.
Della pulled in her breath and released it slowly, the kind of thing someone would do when steeling themselves up. It didn’t seem to help, though, because at the end of it, there wasn’t much change in her expression.
“Did you get a text telling you that a body was out here?” she asked.
Her voice and expression were as cool as the night rain, and it reminded Barrett that it hadn’t always been that way. Of course, the noncool times had happened when she’d been in his bed. Since that was another reminder he didn’t want or need, he pushed the thought aside.
“Yeah,” he verified, and purposely turned back to his search.
He tried to look unruffled by all of this, but his thoughts were going a mile a minute. Why had someone texted both of them? Was this some kind of sick ploy to get them back together? If so, heads were going to roll. Of course, he couldn’t actually come up with anyone who’d want that. Certainly not his brothers, because they knew he was still stinging from having Della put an end to their relationship.
As Barrett had done, Della fanned her flashlight over the ditch and surrounding area, and she stopped on the trampled down weeds. She hopped over the ditch, moving right behind Barrett. Too close to him, but then she was likely trying not to disturb the area that had alerted both of them.
“If an animal did that, it would have to be a big one,” Della muttered.
Yep, but there were some bears in this area, or it could have been deer. However, it didn’t seem like that, and an uneasy feeling settled in Barrett’s gut. Since he’d been a lawman for over a decade, he’d learned not to dismiss that feeling, and that’s why he rested his right hand over his sidearm.
With Della right on his heels, Barrett continued walking, moving slowly along beside the trail that something or someone had left. He still couldn’t pick out actual tracks or footprints, but then the rain could have washed them away.
And then something caught his eye.
Barrett kept the flashlight on the object for a few seconds, making sure he was seeing what he thought he was. It was a woman’s purse.
Della obviously saw it, too, because she stepped around him, going closer. She stooped down to examine it, and even though she didn’t ask any questions, Barrett could practically feel them going through her mind.
Who did this belong to, and how’d it get here?
The cream-colored leather handbag was lying on its side and was wet with rain, but it wasn’t damaged. Nor did it look as if it’d been there for a while. In fact, it looked as if someone had dropped it there very recently.
“It’s open,” Della said, angling her head so that she could see the contents. “There’s a wallet.”
Good. Because once they knew the owner, they could figure out how it got here. And why.
Della looked up at him, his flashlight spotlighting her expression. It was a mix of dread and Texas-size concern. “I recognize it.” She swallowed hard. “It belongs to your mother.”
That took Barrett’s uneasy feeling to a full gut punch. Hell. This wasn’t going to be good. He hadn’t seen or spoken to his mother in years, and to the best of his knowledge, she didn’t stray this close to Mercy Ridge.
“No,” Della said, as if reading his mind. “Alice wouldn’t have come here.”
And Della would know that about her. Unlike Barrett and his brothers, Della was close to Alice. Or rather she had been when Della and he had still been together. He figured that hadn’t changed because, unlike him, there wasn’t bad blood between Della and his mother.
Bad blood.
It was an expression that people threw around a lot when it came to estrangement, family feuds and such, but it was deeply personal for Barrett. Even after all this time—over two decades—he could still see his father lying on the floor of his office. Could still feel the vicious punch of grief and the instant realization that nothing would ever be the same again.
And his mother had been the one who’d caused that.
“Alice wouldn’t have had a reason to come here,” Della added.
Barrett welcomed the sound of her voice. It drew him back to the only place his thoughts should be right now and that was figuring out what had gone on here. Bad blood, old memories and an attraction for Della shouldn’t be playing into this.
“No, but someone could have stolen the purse and ditched it here,” he argued.
It was the most logical theory he could come up with, but it still didn’t make sense. If someone wanted to toss away a stolen purse, there were a heck of a lot of easier ways to do it. Just throwing it into the ditch would be faster than coming into these woods.
Barrett glanced around them again, looking for any signs of the person who might have left the purse. Nothing. No sounds, either. Just the steady rain and the pulsing of his own heartbeat in his ears.
Della slipped a thin plastic glove from the back pocket of her jeans, and once she had it on, she looked at the wallet. When she had it open, Barrett had no trouble seeing his mother’s driver’s license.
Muttering some profanity, Della put the wallet back in the purse and took out her phone. Of course, his mother’s number was there in her contacts. Had been for as long as Barrett could remember. It had been one of the many sticking points between Della and him when they’d been together.
Even though Della didn’t put the call on speaker, Barrett had no trouble hearing it go straight to voice mail, and he got a jolt of memories when he heard the recording of his mother’s voice. Bad memories. As he’d done with his body’s reaction to Della, he pushed that aside.
“I’ll text Jace and ask him to go out to Alice’s house ASAP to check on her,” Della said as she did just that.
Jace was Della’s boss, Jace Castillo, the sheriff of Culver Crossing. Since that was also where Alice lived and Jace and Alice were friends, it was a logical request. But the ASAP also let Barrett know that Della was plenty worried. So was Barrett. Just because he didn’t care much for the woman who’d given birth to him, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t do his job. If something had happened to her, he wanted to find out.
“Jace will head over to Alice’s place now,” Della relayed when she got a response from him.
Good, but Barrett didn’t intend to just wait around. He turned his flashlight to the ground around the purse. The weeds and grass had been trampled here, too, and that continued, the trail leading deeper into the darkness and toward that thick clump of oaks.
He started walking again but then stopped when he heard a sound. Maybe a moan, and it was coming from that area by the trees. Della must have heard it, too, because she hurried after him when he picked up the pace of his steps. And despite the rain and darkness, Barrett spotted her.
The woman lying in a heap on the ground.
It was his mother, all right.
That got both Della and him moving faster. It also got Barrett glancing around to see if anyone else was there. He wasn’t sure what they were dealing with, and he didn’t want to be ambushed.
As far as he knew, he didn’t have anyone gunning for him, but as a lawman, that was always a possibility. Some people just stayed riled to the core even when they’d gotten what they deserved, and someone could have used this to lure him out here.
His mother was lying on her side, her legs drawn up into a fetal position, and her arms and hands were pressed over her chest like a shield. She made another moan, the sound of pain, and that’s when Barrett saw the gash on her forehead. It was still bleeding, but the rain was washing it away.
Other than that wound, he didn’t see any more injuries. However, she was soaked to the bone, her yellow dress clinging to her.
“Alice,” Della called out on a rise of breath, hurrying to her. She didn’t try to pick Alice up but did lift an eyelid, causing his mother to moan in pain again.
“I’ll get an ambulance,” Barrett said, making the call.
He estimated that it would take the EMTs about fifteen minutes to get there, and during that time he hoped he’d have answers as to what had happened to her. Hoped, too, that he could tamp down the worst-case scenarios going through his head.
God, his mother looked so weak. And hurt. While Barrett wanted to be immune to the feelings that caused inside him, he wasn’t.
“Why are you out here?” Barrett asked her. His lawman’s tone came through loud and clear, and it caused his mother to open her eyes again. She looked in his direction, her gaze spearing his.
“Barrett,” Alice muttered. Her voice was watery and weak, just like the rest of her.
“Why are you here?” he repeated, his snap earning him narrowed eyes from Della.
His mother shook her head, groaning at the movement, and she glanced around as if seeing her surroundings for the first time. “I don’t know.”
Hell. That wasn’t the answer he wanted, and he moved in closer to get a whiff of her breath. No scent of alcohol, but her eyes looked a little glazed. He’d never heard rumors of his mother being a drug user, but maybe that’s what was going on. Of course, that still didn’t explain squat.
“You think she was in a car accident?” Della asked him.
Maybe. But there’d been no other vehicles on the road, and Barrett was pretty sure he would have seen a car that’d crashed into a tree or a pasture fence.
“Oh, God.” Della practically gasped that out, and it definitely got Barrett’s attention. However, it took him a moment to realize why Della had said it.
The blood.
She had eased back his mother’s arms, no doubt to see if there were any other injuries, and there apparently were. The front of her dress had blood on it, and probably because of the way she’d been holding her hands, the rain hadn’t washed it away.
Della kept her movements gentle, but she continued to move Alice’s arms and leaned in to examine her. When Della looked back up at him, there was a whole new wave of concern in her eyes.
“Her dress isn’t cut,” Della said, her voice shaky now. “I don’t think it’s her blood.”
Barrett cursed before he could stop himself, and the words from the text came back to him. There’s blood near the county marker. Yeah, there was. What the person who’d sent that text hadn’t mentioned was that it was on his mother.
But why?
How?
Getting those answers was a high priority. So was the ambulance. Once it arrived, then he could collect Alice’s clothes and have them processed at the lab. For now, though, maybe the woman herself could give them some info.
“Think hard. Did someone bring you out here?” Barrett asked.
Alice just gave him a blank look. Not Della, though. Barrett thought there was a different kind of alarm on her face.
“Did, uh, Robert have anything to do with this?” Della whispered to his mother.
Barrett didn’t ask who this Robert was. He knew it was likely Robert Casto, a rich rancher from Culver Crossing. Along with having a reputation for being a heavy-handed jerk, Robert was also his mother’s lover. Or rather he had been last Barrett had heard, but then he didn’t keep his ear to the ground for gossip about Alice.
“Robert,” Alice repeated, but she didn’t add any more to that. Her eyelids fluttered back down.
“Keep questioning her,” Barrett told Della, and he took off his hat to hand it to her. “And hold this over the blood.” The rain was already washing away enough of it, and he wanted to preserve the scene—even if he didn’t know exactly what this scene was.
“Where are you going?” Della asked when he started to step away.
“I want to have a look around,” he mumbled, and then added, “Keep watch.”
That brusque order had likely offended Della. After all, she was a cop just as he was, but at the moment she was a distracted one. A woman she considered a friend was wounded, in a place she shouldn’t be, and she had blood on her.
Yeah, they needed to keep watch.
In the distance Barrett heard the sirens. They’d made good time, but he still had a couple of minutes before the EMTs would arrive on scene and reach his mother. Della would no doubt take care of that, too, and could guide them to their position by using her flashlight.
Barrett used his own flashlight to look at the ground beyond the trees. There were more trampled weeds, and the sight of them put a harder twist to the knot in his gut. What the hell had gone on here? He’d assumed his mother had come here from the road, but maybe she’d come through the woods. But that didn’t make sense, either. The nearest house was a good mile away, and there was no trail or back road that led from Culver Crossing to here.
Behind him, he could hear Della continue to ask his mother questions. Could hear the sirens getting closer, too. But Barrett kept moving, kept fanning the light over the rain-soaked ground.
And then he saw it.
Another person. A man this time, and like Alice, he was lying on the ground in a crumpled heap. He was beneath a thick oak and was on his side, his face turned down so that Barrett couldn’t tell who it was.
Barrett didn’t run to him. His lawman’s training kicked in, and he approached from the side so as not to disturb the trail that led directly to him. There could be prints or trace on that trail, things that he might need later when this turned to a full scale investigation. There was no if about that. There would be an investigation.
The man was wearing dark pants, cowboy boots and a white shirt. Or rather some of it was still white. The thick oak had done a decent job of sheltering him like an umbrella, and because of that, Barrett could see what was all over the man’s clothes.
Blood. And lots of it.
Barrett could also see the gleaming silver handle of the knife that someone had plunged into the man’s chest.
