A Promise to Protect (Logan Point Book #2): A Novel (32 page)

Leigh and Sarah paused just outside TJ’s room. Sarah squeezed her hand, and then together they entered the room. TJ’s leg was splinted and elevated, but at least he had a little color in his cheeks. She glanced at the overhead monitor, relieved that his blood pressure was normal for a nine-year-old boy. Heart rate was still a little fast, but that was to be expected.
Ben.
If only he were standing here with her.

Leigh smiled as Sarah brushed TJ’s hair back. She’d been with
them since the very beginning, and there was no way Leigh could be angry because Ben had overheard her words. Words spoken in truth and love. And now she had to tell her son the truth. Leigh just hoped TJ would be more forgiving than Ben.

“Ben, you’re white as a sheet,” his mother said as she set a glass on the kitchen counter. “Sarah called me. Is TJ all right?”

“He’s in surgery.”

“Did you know TJ was my son?” His voice broke. His son. And he hadn’t even known. But his mother had. It showed on her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Leigh told you?”

“No. I had to overhear it. When did you know? Does Dad know?”

“You mean, did she tell me? No. I’ve suspected for a few weeks now, but I didn’t know for sure. And your dad? I don’t know. It’s hard to tell what he knows.”

“I asked Leigh why she didn’t tell me. She said to ask Dad. Why would she say that?”

“Ben!” His father’s voice came from the den, and his mother hurried past him. A minute later she wheeled him into the kitchen.

“Rrhay mrie goah.”

Garbled words, words Ben couldn’t understand, and his father pounded his wheelchair.

“S-s-sor-ree.”

That he understood. He turned to his mother. “Why is he sorry?”

She wiped her hands with a towel. “Sit down. It’s a long story.”

“You know?”

“Just sit down.”

He pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and straddled it. His father rolled to the end of the table. Outside the window, darkness closed out the day. Ben crossed his arms over the back of the chair and waited.

“First,” his mother began, “I didn’t know about this when it happened—it was only later I found out, and your father made me promise not to tell you. By then, so many years had passed, and I didn’t think it would help, so I honored my promise.”

Ben started to say something, but his mother cut him off.

“This isn’t easy, so bear with me.” She glanced at Tom, and when he nodded, she continued. “When your father discovered you were getting serious about Leigh, he wasn’t happy. He—”

“I don’t understand. What did he have against her?”

“She and her brother both had questionable reputations. Neither ran with the best people. It hadn’t been that long since your dad brought her in with the strippers at the local—”

“She was a hostess, that was all.”

“I know that, but there was Tony. He was involved with drugs.”

“Tony? I don’t remember—”

“Think back, Ben. That summer when you and Leigh were dating, Tony was sitting in a cell at the jail for possession of marijuana.”

A vague recollection of Tony in jail floated through his memory. But what did that have to do with his relationship with Leigh?

“I don’t see what Leigh’s past has to do with this.”

“It has everything. You know your father always had aspirations of you following in his footsteps, being elected sheriff. He wanted you to marry someone who would help you attain that dream.”

Ben rubbed his forehead. This was all about him becoming sheriff? Suddenly the memory of Tony became stronger. He’d heard that the drugs had been planted on Tony and questioned his dad about dropping the charges against Leigh’s brother, and when Tony was released, he’d thought that was the reason why. He stared at his dad. “He offered Leigh a deal,” he said softly.

His mother nodded. “Quit seeing you, and Tony would be released and Tom would get a judge to expunge his previous records.”

Leigh loved her brother, and it’d been an offer she couldn’t
refuse. But why hadn’t she told him after she discovered she was pregnant?

Because he was engaged when she returned for her grandmother’s funeral. A funeral he hadn’t bothered to attend. Leigh had thought he’d moved on.

“Your father realized he made a mistake when he saw how miserable you were that fall, but then Leigh married so quickly, he convinced himself he’d done the right thing. It wasn’t until she returned to Logan Point that we both realized what a terrible mistake he’d made.”

Ben stood. He had to go to Leigh. They had to talk this out.

As he passed the wheelchair, his dad grabbed his arm with his left hand. “Rerrreo.”

Ben flinched. He swallowed his anger and knelt beside the wheelchair. Tom slid his hand to Ben’s holstered gun. What was it about the gun that agitated his father so?

His dad worked his mouth, producing babble. Ben looked around the kitchen. “Where’s the iPad?”

“In the den.” His mom hurried to get it.

She handed it to him, and he powered it on. Once again Ben knelt beside the wheelchair. “Can you show me?”

Tom pressed his lips together and lifted his left hand. With a shaky finger, he touched the alphabet app then very slowly touched letters.
M-a-x-w
—

“Maxwell?” Ben asked and received a short nod. His dad’s finger touched the
g
. “Guns?”

Again a short nod.

“They make guns.”

“Naa! E-ma . . . ma.” Tom’s face twisted. His breath came short. He focused on the iPad.
M-e-x
—

Ben’s cell rang one short note. He took his eyes off the iPad long enough to see who’d called. Wade? He stood. “I need to take care of this. Keep working with Dad.”

Stepping away from the table, Ben speed-dialed his chief deputy. It went to voice mail. Odd. Too odd. He activated the microphone on Wade’s phone and heard Wade speaking.

“But I might need my phone.”

“No cell phones tonight. Not if you’re going with me.” Ben was certain that was Lester Cummings’s voice.

“I’m going. Can I drop my truck off at the jail?”

“Ain’t nobody gonna bother that piece of junk. If you’re going, let’s go.”

A door slammed, and then silence. Ben’s heart dropped into his stomach. He’d known this sting would go bad. He should’ve stopped it before it went this far. He punched in the FBI agent’s number. Eric answered on the first ring.

“The dogfight is tonight.” Ben flexed his hand into a fist and released it. “And Wade is with Cummings without his cell.”

“How about the GPS? See if he’s moving?”

Ben pulled up his screen and clicked on the GPS app. After what seemed like hours, it started beeping.
It’s moving!
“Yes, it’s on.”

“Yeah, I see it on my end. Luke is here with me and everyone else is sitting on ready, so I’ll send out the word to move. Let me know if you recognize the location they’re headed to, and we’ll close in. When we get close enough, the pen should let us listen to the conversation around him.”

“If he has the pen.”

A
rmero eased the forklift under the second crate of rifles. Adrenaline pumped through his body. Carefully turning the forklift, he lumbered toward the truck heading to Mexico tonight. Once he slid the crate into the truck, he slapped a Blue Dog sticker on the end.

Done.

Now for the other task at hand. He walked to his office, his mind whirling with solutions to the problem that had cropped up at the hospital. He checked his phone. One solution hadn’t returned his call.

Leigh Somerall had Tony’s flash drive. The one she’d dropped looked just like the one in the company surveillance video. He ought to know. He’d stared at it in the video enough. Small, squarish, and blue.

He needed one more incentive for Leigh to give him the drive. And Gresham was it. He redialed Gresham’s number. One, two, three rings . . .

“Hello!” Gresham’s gravelly voice echoed in his ear.

Dogs barked in the background. “Why didn’t you answer earlier?” Armero slipped a small recorder from his pocket and put the phone on speaker. He needed to record only one part of the conversation—if he could get Gresham to say what he wanted.

“I’m busy,” Gresham snapped. “What do you want?”

“I need your help tonight.”

“Sorry, I’m busy taking care of me a chief deputy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Wade Hatcher thinks I’m a fool. Like I don’t know he’s trying to infiltrate my inner circle so he can arrest me.”

“Leave the deputy alone. You’re going to get us both caught with your stupid schemes.” Armero hovered his finger over the record button. “How did you get near enough to the doctor’s car to blow it up, anyway?” He pressed record and waited.

Gresham was quiet, then he laughed. “Nobody pays any attention to those cars behind the clinic. Just slid underneath the one nearest the road and worked my way to her Avenger. And didn’t take ten minutes to hook the bomb up.”

Armero paused the recording. “You must’ve used plastic explosive, as big as the explosion was.” He hit record again.

“Nah. I would’ve had to buy that, and too easy to trace back to me. The box of dynamite I have can’t be traced to me since I never bought it, and this time I used a real blasting cap.”

Perfect.
And Gresham’s voice held exactly the right tone of pride he’d hoped for.

“Just didn’t figure on a remote start button. Otherwise the doc and boy would be history. I won’t miss the next time.”

Even better.
He paused the recorder. “Blowing up her car and hurting her son was the stupidest thing you’ve done so far. Do you know how much attention that’s going to bring to Logan Point? Don’t do anything else stupid, you got it?”

Dead silence answered him. Gresham had hung up. But he’d gotten what he needed. Something the doctor would trade that flash drive for.

“It was nice of Ian to stop by,” Sarah said.

“Yes, he’s thoughtful that way.” Leigh assessed TJ’s vitals as
the heart monitor beat a steady rhythm. Everything looked good. The 99.1 temperature concerned her only slightly. Close enough to normal, but bore watching. Which she was certain Dr. Gordon would do. She adjusted TJ’s pillow, and his eyes fluttered open. “Hey there,” she whispered.

“My leg hurts.” His eyes closed then fluttered open. “I’m thirsty.”

“How about ice chips?”

“Hmm,” he murmured.

“I’ll get them,” Sarah said as she rose. Using a plastic spoon, she scooped up a few chips and put them against TJ’s lips. With his eyes closed, he ran his tongue over his lips before dozing off.

“He’ll probably sleep most of the night,” Leigh said as she sank into one of the two chairs in the room. At least if he was sleeping, he wasn’t hurting. That would come tomorrow. Her jaw tightened. If she could get her hands on the man who did this to her son . . . well, she might not kill him, but she wanted justice.

“Why don’t you try and get some shut-eye? If he wakes up, I’ll take care of anything he needs,” Sarah said.

“I have something I need to do.” Leigh slipped her phone from her pocket. She wasn’t thinking straight. She should have called Ben again.

Her cell phone rang, and caller ID registered “unknown caller.” Probably the caller from Saturday night. She stood and walked outside TJ’s room before she stabbed the answer button. “I don’t know who you are,” she said, keeping her voice low. “But I will see to it you pay for what you’ve done.”

“Whoa . . .” Again the voice sounded like something out of a horror movie. “I didn’t have anything to do with that bomb. But I’ll trade you his identity for Tony’s flash drive.”

She frowned as she concentrated on the caller’s slurred voice. “You want the flash drive?”

“Yes.”

Her stomach clenched, and heat flamed her cheeks. “You’ll never
get it. I’m giving it to the sheriff. You will rot in jail.” She jerked her hand over her mouth. She just admitted she had the USB drive.

“Then you don’t value your son’s life. Your sheriff hasn’t protected you yet. Your house burned down, your car blew up.”

“What proof can you give me that you have this information?”

“I have it recorded. Listen.”

Suddenly a cackle came through the line then a clear voice.
“Dynamite, with a real blasting cap
this time. Just didn’t figure on a remote start
button. Or the doc and boy would be history. I
won’t miss the next time.”

Ice water pumped through her veins. She didn’t recognize the voice, but Ben might. “How do I know you’ll give it to me? Or that you won’t kill me?”

“Because I keep my word.”

Hearing the person on the other line talk about honor in that horrible voice scared her almost as much as anything.

“And I don’t hurt women and children.”

“Let’s say I agree. How would we make the exchange?”

“At Friar’s Point on the lake. There’s a box where campers leave the keys to the cabins. Put it in there. Once I see you do that, I’ll call you and tell you where the recorder is.”

“No. I get it first.”

Silence.

“This is what we’re going to do,” Leigh said. “You put the recorder in the box. I’ll listen to it to make sure it has the evidence on it. Then, and only then, will I drop the flash drive into the box.”

“Be at Friar’s Point in thirty minutes. And I’ll be watching you . . . the hospital parking lot, the lights behind you . . . you won’t know where I am. Don’t bring anyone else into this.”

She glanced over her shoulder. Could he be here? “Thirty minutes? Did you forget my car was blown up? I have to find transportation.”

“Then you better get on it. And, Dr. Somerall, if you copy the
information on that flash drive, my aversion to harming women and children will change. There will be no place you can hide. That’s a promise.”

Leigh shivered as his eerie words hit their mark. Whoever this person was, he would do exactly what he promised. She licked her dry lips. She had to have a car. Sarah. Somehow she had to convince her friend to hand over the keys to her car without asking any questions.

Don’t do this alone. Call Ben
.

The voice spoke softly in her head. She flexed her fingers on her left hand and stared at her phone. She scrolled to her contacts, and her finger hovered over his number. With a quick breath, she punched it and waited.

It went straight to voice mail.

What did she expect? She quickly dialed Wade’s number, but it went to voice mail as well. It was up to her. She summoned a reassuring smile and stepped back into TJ’s room. “Can I borrow your car to run an errand?” she asked Sarah.

“What?” Sarah’s jaw dropped open. “You’re going to leave TJ?”

“I won’t be gone long. An hour max.”

“The only way you get my keys is to tell me what’s going on.”

Leigh rubbed her forehead. “Please, Sarah. It’s a matter of life and death that I run this errand.”

“Then you better start explaining.”

Her heart pounded, and she swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “I had another call from—I don’t know who it is, but he said he had evidence on who bombed the car. I heard the man’s voice myself. He’ll give me the recording if I give him Tony’s files. The flash drive was in Tony’s mail, and I’m taking it to Friar’s Point to trade. Satisfied? Now give me your keys. Please.”

Reluctantly, Sarah fished her keys from her purse and handed them to Leigh. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit.”

“Neither do I, but I don’t see that I have much choice. He threatened to kill TJ if I didn’t.”

“Call Ben first.”

“I did, but it went to his voice mail. Wade’s too.” She remembered the letter with Ben’s name on it and fished it out of her pocket. “Give this to Ben if he comes by here.” She hugged her friend and grabbed her purse. “Hopefully, I’ll be back in an hour and a half. If I’m not, you call Ben. Maybe he’ll take your call. And Sarah, if anything happens to me . . .” She squared her shoulders. “If I don’t come back, help Ben raise TJ.”

In the car, she tried Ben’s number once more, but he still didn’t answer. She slipped the flash drive from her pocket. Her netbook was in her purse. She could download the contents of the flash drive and email it to Ben.
But he said he would be watching and he’d
kill TJ.
Ben had not protected them so far. It was just as well she couldn’t reach him because he certainly would not allow her to do what she was about to do.

Maybe she could download the drive as she drove. She jerked the netbook from her purse that TJ had been using all day as she scanned the parking lot. Even if he was here, it was too dark for him to see what she was doing. As long as she kept moving. She eased the car from the parking space as the computer booted up.
Yes
!
She was still in range of the hospital Wi-Fi. With one hand, she inserted the drive in the netbook, but just as the download started, the screen went dark. No! Her heart crashed to her stomach. The battery was dead.