Cowboy Behind the Badge (13 page)

Shots.

Not just a couple of them, but enough to make an all-out gunfight. And they were close. Maybe just yards away.

She put her hands over her ears to muffle the noise, but she kept watch of Tucker. “Stay put!” she yelled, though she doubted he even heard her.

He certainly didn't listen if he did, because he took aim again and fired off another shot.

This time she saw something. A man staggering out from the alley between two buildings. He was dressed all in black and was carrying some kind of rifle. Definitely not someone from the diner. No, this was almost certainly one of their attackers.

“He's headed right for you!” someone shouted, and it took her a second to realize it was Reed's voice coming from the phone.

“The gunman's coming your way,” she warned Tucker.

Again, he took aim, but before Tucker could even pull the trigger, someone else fired.

The shot blasted through the air.

 

Chapter Thirteen

Tucker heard the shot, and for a split second, he thought he was a dead man.

No pain, no feeling of having a bullet blasting through him. It took him another split second to figure out what the heck was going on.

Ahead of him, he spotted Darren, his gun still drawn, and he had his attention nailed to the man on the ground to the right of him.

The second shooter.

And someone that Tucker might not have spotted in time before he got off a shot. But Darren had obviously seen and shot him.

“Don't get out of the car yet,” Tucker said to Laine. “And call the ranch to make sure everything's okay there.”

Tucker spared her a glance from over his shoulder to make sure she'd heard him. She had. But she was ghostly pale and shaking. Laine had come way too close to dying—again—and while Tucker needed to make sure she was all right, he first had to be certain that the threat had been neutralized.

And that the threat wasn't still standing directly in front of him.

Darren moved toward the man on the ground. Tucker made his way to the gunman he'd shot, keeping his eye on Darren.

When Tucker reached the gunman, he knew he was dead.

Tucker didn't even have to check for a pulse to know that, or to notice that it was the same man who'd tried to kidnap Laine back at his place. After what the moron had done to her, it was hard to wish this had turned out differently, but a dead man couldn't tell them why he'd done it.

Or who'd hired him.

Even though on the surface, it appeared that Darren had helped him, had maybe even saved his life, Tucker wasn't about to dismiss him as a suspect just yet. Once the two jail guards had made it to the diner, it was highly likely that the gunmen would either be killed or taken captive.

Their boss definitely wouldn't have wanted the latter. Better dead than talking and naming names.

“How bad is Laine hurt?” Darren asked.

The question threw Tucker for a moment. Her ex's concern could have been real or faked—that wasn't what threw Tucker. It was the tone that Darren used, like that of a man who was certain she'd been injured. Or worse.

Tucker reeled around and looked past the lack of color in her face to the blood on the sleeve of her pale blue blouse.

“Call an ambulance,” he shouted to Reed.

Hopefully, the deputy could hear Tucker's order. And hopefully, an ambulance was already on the way. Surely someone in that diner had called 911.

Despite the fact he had an armed suspect nearby, Tucker ran back to Laine and crawled into the shot-out cruiser with her.

“I'm fine,” she insisted, probably because he looked ready to lose it. “So is everyone at the ranch. I just talked to Colt, and he said there's been no sign of attackers.”

That was good, but it was the only good thing about this mess.

“You're not fine. You're bleeding.” It turned his stomach to see that blood, and he ripped open her sleeve so he could see just how bad it was.

“It's a scratch. The bullet just grazed me.”

“And you didn't say anything.” Yeah, he definitely sounded like a man on the verge of losing it.

Tucker forced himself to take a deep breath. Forced himself to look at this like a lawman and not like some guy who'd, well, kissed her. The wound didn't appear to be serious. It was a graze, as she'd said. But she still needed to see a doctor.

“I'm sorry,” Tucker managed to say.

“Sorry for saving my life?” Laine huffed, and in an instant her color got a whole lot better. “
Right.
Don't you dare apologize for what just happened. There's no way you could have stopped this.”

Not true. If he could just get to the bottom of this investigation and arrest the idiot who'd put her life in danger yet again. It would happen. He would find this piece of dirt and make him, or her, pay hard.

Tucker heard the wail of the ambulance. Not just one from the sound of it, but several. Good. He had no idea if anyone else was hurt, but there was plenty of potential for civilian injuries with all those shots that'd been fired.

“Just wait until the ambulance gets here,” Tucker told Laine when she started to get out. “I need to make sure this is finished.”

And
finishing
it started with Darren.

“What the heck were you doing out here?” Tucker demanded, his narrowed gaze zooming right in on the man.

“I got a text saying there was trouble going down, and that you were going to use that trouble to set me up.”

Tucker wasn't sure whether to curse or laugh. “Who sent that?”

Darren shook his head. “The name and number were blocked.”

Now Tucker did curse. “And you believed anything an anonymous source had to say after your girlfriend was murdered and her body was dumped on your ranch?”

Tucker let his question hang in the air and thought about just how stupid—or calculating—Darren had been. For now, he motioned for Darren to hand over his gun.

“Really, we're gonna do this?” Darren challenged.

“Yeah,” Tucker said with attitude, tapping the badge on his shirt.

One way or another, Darren was handing over that gun. No way did Tucker want an armed suspect wandering around to pick off him and Laine.

“I'll want it back when you're finished playing lawman.” Scowling and cursing, Darren handed him the gun, and Tucker put it in the back waist of his jeans.

The two ambulances pulled to a stop, and the medics darted out. So did Laine, and despite Tucker warning her to stay put, she walked toward them.

“I'm okay,” she insisted again. She held up his phone. “But Reed's not. There's a problem in the sheriff's office.”

Of course there was. Nothing about this day was going to be easy.

“Don't go far,” Tucker ordered Darren, and he gently looped his arm around Laine's waist so he could get her moving toward the ambulance.

“This can wait,” Laine said, leading him toward the sheriff's office instead. “Reed needs you now.”

“Is someone hurt or dead?” he snarled. The moment he asked the question, Tucker knew exactly what'd happened. “Buford escaped.”

She nodded. “And Hague ran out, too, supposedly to chase after him.”

Great. Just what he didn't need. A suspect trying to help round up a fugitive.

Tucker hoped Laine was right about being able to wait to get to the hospital, because he didn't take her directly to the ambulance. However, he did motion for one of the medics to follow them into the sheriff's office.

Yeah, it was chaos inside, all right. Reed was on the phone, yelling for someone to send out a search crew. Rhonda was sitting in the chair next to his desk, sobbing. Twin steaks of mascara tears streaked down her cheeks. The gun cabinet was open, and papers were scattered on the floor.

Another dark-haired man dressed in a suit paced the floor. Hague's lawyer, no doubt. His cold, gray eyes landed on them as if he blamed them for the shooting and his client's hasty departure. Tucker glared back. He wasn't in the mood to take anyone else's mess off their hands. Especially someone who had Hague for a client.

“What happened?” Tucker asked Reed the moment he finished his call. He holstered his gun, eased Laine into one of the other chairs and again motioned to the medic to tend to her. The guy hurried right over.

“I was at the window, trying to get a clean shot at the gunman on the roof when she came running in.” Reed tipped his head to Rhonda. “Then she started screaming.”

“That prisoner came out of the room,” Rhonda said through a sob, “and he worked his hands around his lawyer's neck so that his chains and cuffs were choking her. He dragged her out the back door like she was a rag doll.”

Hell. He should have seen this coming. In fact, this entire attack could have been designed just to free Buford. Now Buford had a hostage.

Maybe.

And maybe the lawyer had been in on this, too, and had just been pretending to be his captive so she could get him out of there.

“Did Buford manage to get a gun?” Tucker asked.

Reed shook his head. “But Hague grabbed one. He said he wasn't going to let that innocent woman get hurt.”

That was admirable, if it was the truth. With all the other insanity going on, it was possible that Hague took the gun so he could give it to Buford.

“I tried to talk my client out of this,” the pacing suit said.

“And you are?” Tucker snapped.

“Steve Wilkey,” he spat out, as if it wasn't any of Tucker's business.

“Well, Mr. Wilkey, your client has earned you a little stay here until we can get all of this sorted out.”

As expected, that didn't put a pleasant expression on the man's sour face. His expression got significantly worse when Tucker led him down the hall and locked him in one of the interview rooms. He couldn't hold him for long, and the guy was already making a call before Tucker stepped away. Still, it would get Hague's eyes and ears away from Rhonda in case the woman had anything else to tell them.

“Right after the attack started, I called the sheriff from Appaloosa Pass,” Reed continued. “He's sending over all his available deputies. The Rangers are sending someone, too. They should be here soon.”

Good. That was a start, and Tucker hoped that
soon
would be soon enough. “Buford shouldn't be hard to find. He's wearing an orange jumpsuit and is cuffed at the hands and feet. He can't get far like that.”

Well, unless someone had a vehicle waiting nearby to whisk him away. Which was entirely possible.

Tucker took out his phone and called the Ranger crime lab to make sure they were on their way. They were. And with that taken care of, he turned his attention back to Laine.

She was making a face, and it took him a moment to realize it was because the medic was dabbing her arm with antiseptic. She softened her expression when she caught him looking at her.

“I'm fine,” she repeated.

“She is,” the medic agreed. He took out a bandage strip and pressed it to the wound on her arm. “It's just a deep scratch, but as a precaution, she should drop by her doctor's office and get a tetanus shot.”

“I will,” Laine mumbled. She pointed to the diner. “Now, go take care of the people who really might be hurt.”

The medic waited for Tucker to give him the nod before he rushed out. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any injuries, but at the very least, some folks would be in shock.

Maybe Laine was, too.

She suddenly looked very calm for a woman who'd come close to dying. It wouldn't last. Tucker figured she was holding herself together for his sake, so he wouldn't feel like kicking himself for allowing something like this to happen again.

“You want me to go out there and check on things?” Reed asked, volleying glances between Rhonda and Laine.

Tucker nodded. “Just make sure the back door and windows are locked.” Buford likely wouldn't come back, but Tucker didn't want to risk him, or anyone else for that matter, having another go at trying to kill Laine. “And get Darren's phone. I need to check something on it.”

Once Reed was outside, Laine stood and pushed her hair from her face. “I'll get you out of here as soon as possible,” he promised.

“And I'll leave, too,” Rhonda insisted. “As soon as it's safe.”

Heaven knew when that would be.

“Why'd you come back to the sheriff's office?” Tucker asked her.

“My car wouldn't start.” Rhonda's breath broke and she wiped away more tears. “I'd parked up the street in the grocery store lot, and I got worried that maybe someone had tampered with the engine. I came back so I could ask you to check it for me.”

Either it was another bad coincidence, or Rhonda had come back to watch her hired guns in action. Of course, that would pretty much make her a psycho.

Something he couldn't completely rule out.

“I didn't know my cousin would be here,” Rhonda went on, “or I wouldn't have come. I don't like the things Martin's been saying about me.”

Tucker figured Hague felt the same way about her. But which one of them had reason for concern?

Maybe neither.

Tucker glanced out the window at their third suspect, Darren, who was handing over his phone to Reed. Darren clearly wasn't happy about that, and as soon as he slapped it in Reed's hand, he started to pace on the sidewalk.

“By any chance, did you call Darren earlier?” he asked Rhonda.

“No.” Her forehead bunched up. “Why, did he say I did?”

“No. Just wondering.”

She stared at him, the tears welling up in her eyes again. “Darren did say that I had. I don't know why people always accuse me of things I didn't do.”

Her hands were shaking like crazy, but she clutched her purse against her chest like a shield. Tucker nearly drew his gun again when she reached inside. But instead of a weapon, she pulled out a bottle of firecracker-red polish and proceeded to give her nails another coat.

Rhonda followed Laine's gaze to her hands. “I saw you looking at my nails when I was in here earlier. Couldn't figure out why at first, but it was because of the manicure, wasn't it?” She didn't wait for an answer. “It's just something I do when I'm stressed. It's like you looking at Sergeant McKinnon.”

Tucker blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Laine always looks at you when she's stressed. Like the conversation we had with Darren—whenever something hit a nerve with her, she'd look at you. You're like her security blanket or something.”

He glanced at Laine to see if this made a lick of sense. Tucker didn't get much of an answer. Just a deer-caught-in-headlights look from Laine, and even that vanished when two people approached the door.

Reed and Darren.

Since Tucker didn't trust Darren any farther than he could throw him, he stepped in front of Laine and put his hand on the butt of his gun. He'd already taken Darren's gun, but that didn't mean the man didn't have a backup.