Security Blanket (13 page)

“Next time, I’ll remember to count to ten,” he said.

She laughed. A very short-lived moment. She knew he was right—they should have backed off. But she refused to regret this. Especially since this might be the only time they would be together like this.

Lucky moved off her, dropping on the mattress next to her and staring up at the ceiling. Silent. Thankfully, he didn’t remind her that this probably hadn’t been a good idea.

His phone rang, the sound slicing through the room. Lucky snapped up his jeans, dug his cell from the pocket and glanced at the screen. “The caller’s ID is blocked.”

The last time that’d happened, the call had been from his sister. Lucky hurriedly answered it and put it on speaker.

But it wasn’t his sister this time.

“It’s Grady Duran,” the caller said. “There’s been a murder.”

“Who’s been murdered?” Lucky asked. And he held his breath and prayed it wasn’t his sister.

“I don’t know,” Duran insisted. “The sheriff just found a body in the drive-in debris.”

Lucky pressed harder for information he wasn’t sure he wanted. “Is it Kinley?”

“They haven’t identified the body, but it’s definitely not Kinley. She’s with me.”

He felt the relief, followed by a slam of new concern. “How’d that happen?”

“I’d put a GPS device on Brenna’s car this afternoon before I ever walked into that drive-in and encountered your PI. I knew Brenna would run if things didn’t go her way in this meeting, and she did. When I caught up with them, she pushed Kinley out of the car. I nearly ran over her. And when I stopped to make sure she was okay, Brenna got away.”

Oh, man. Lucky did not want to hear this. “Bring Kinley to the ranch,” he demanded.

“She’s already here. All you have to do is come out and get her.”

Marin shook her head and mouthed, “No.”

But as dangerous as Duran’s offer sounded, Lucky couldn’t just dismiss it. “Where are you?”

“In the hay barn on the east side of the pasture. I want you to come here and get your sister.”

Lucky cursed. “You mean the same barn where someone nearly ran over Marin and me with a truck?”

“The very one.” There was ton of cockiness and danger in his tone.

Before Lucky could even respond, there was another voice. One he recognized. “Duran says to tell you this isn’t a trick,” Kinley said. “All he wants in exchange for me is information.” She hesitated. “Don’t come, Lucky.” Her voice was frantic, and it sounded as if she were crying. “I don’t know if this is a trap—”

There was a shuffling sound. Definitely some frenzied movement. “It’s not a trap,” Duran said, coming back on the line. “And I’m not giving you a choice. Come now, or I’ll make sure you don’t see your sister again.”

That punched Lucky hard, and he had to force himself not to panic. “What, are you going to kill her?” he calmly asked.

“No, but she’ll make a good bargaining chip. You heard what she said. She had Dexter’s kid. Dexter hasn’t shown any interest in contacting her or the baby, but you never know. He might cave, especially if I remind him how his parents would feel about him casting off his own son. It might shame Dexter into cooperating and coughing up what he owes me.”

That would put his sister right in the line of fire. “Kinley’s not responsible for what Dexter did.”

He hoped.

“Just come,” Duran demanded. “We need to get to the bottom of all of this.”

Lucky couldn’t agree more. “Why should I trust you?”

“For the same reason I have to trust you. Because we have to learn the truth.”

He couldn’t disagree with that, either. “How will meeting with you accomplish that? According to you, you don’t know the truth. Neither do I, and that means this little get-together wouldn’t accomplish much.”

“There has to be something, some bit of information that we’re overlooking. And I’m tired of waiting for it,” Duran snapped. “You’ve got ten minutes. If you’re not here, I’m leaving. Oh, and Lucky? Don’t alert the deputy or the ranch hands patrolling the place. Because if you do, this
little get-together
will be over before it even starts.”

Before Lucky could bargain for more time so he could set up a plan, Duran hung up.

“You’re not thinking about going,” Marin said. She hurriedly put on her clothes.

While Lucky dressed, he went through his options and realized he didn’t have any. Ten minutes wasn’t enough time to get the sheriff out there. Of course, he could take the deputy with him, or the ranch hands, but that would leave the house itself vulnerable.

And that might be the real trap.

Duran could be using this meeting to lure Lucky out of the house so that he could get inside.

“If you leave, I’ll go with you,” Marin insisted. “I can be your backup.”

Lucky shook his head, zipped up his jeans and put on his shirt. “You can’t. For one thing, it’s too dangerous. For another, you just took that sedative, and you’re sleepy.”

“Not so sleepy that I can’t help you.”

“You can help me by staying here.” Then, he played dirty because the stakes were too high to take her with him. “Think of Noah. You need to be here in case Duran tries to get in the house.”

Her breath froze. But there were no more head shakes. She knew he was right.

“I have to hurry,” Lucky said, putting on his boots. “I don’t think Duran will wait around past that ten-minute time limit he set.”

“Then at least let me call the sheriff,” Marin pleaded.

“He wouldn’t be able to get here in time. Besides, I don’t want him to do anything that might spook Duran. Okay?”

She nodded, eventually, though she didn’t seem sure of any of this. Neither was Lucky. “I’ll be careful,” he promised. “I’ll approach the barn from behind. I won’t let Duran get the drop on me.”

Another nod as tears watered her eyes.

“I’m going out the front door,” he explained. “So the deputy can reset the security system.”

Lucky wanted to give Marin more reassurance, but there wasn’t time. The seconds were literally ticking away. So, he kissed her and hoped this wasn’t the last time she’d ever see him alive.

M
ARIN WATCHED FROM
the window of the sitting room.

With the curtain lifted just a fraction and with the lights off so that no one could see her, she waited and finally spotted Lucky. He glanced in the direction of the window and hurried toward the meeting with Duran.

She had a very bad feeling about this.

They couldn’t trust Duran—this might all be a trap. Even Kinley had thought so. But Marin also understood Lucky’s need to try to save his sister. If their positions had been reversed, she would have done the same. She just wished she could have gone with him.

Yawning, she leaned against the window frame and kept her gaze on Lucky until he disappeared into the night. Mercy, why had she taken that stupid sedative? It was clouding her mind at a time when she needed to think clearly about this meeting and the body that’d been found at the drive-in.

Should she call the sheriff?

Lucky had insisted that she not do that, but what if he was ambushed?

He’d need help.

She reached for the phone. Stopped. Rethought the whole argument. And while she was arguing with herself, she saw movement. It was a person walking along the fence, headed in the same direction that Lucky had just gone.

She froze. God, was someone trying to follow him?

Marin searched through the darkness, and when the silhouette stepped from the shadows of some mountain laurels, she saw who it was.

Her mother.

Marin blinked. At first she was certain she was seeing things. But it was indeed her mother. Lois was looking around as if she expected someone to jump out of those bushes.

What the heck was going on?

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning, and it was bitterly cold—hardly the time or the weather for her mother to take a stroll. That meant she was up to something.

But what?

Marin grabbed her coat and the gun she’d taken earlier to the drive-in, and she hurried out of her room toward the front door. “My mother’s out there,” she said to the deputy. “I need to see what she’s doing.”

Deputy Medina hesitated. “Lucky said I wasn’t to let you leave.”

Of course he had. Because he would have suspected that she might try to follow him.

Marin silently cursed. If she didn’t get out there, her mother might already be gone, and Marin knew instinctively that something critical was going on. Her mother wouldn’t be out there unless it involved her father or Dexter.

“I’ll only be a minute, and I won’t go far,” Marin bargained with the deputy.

He frowned and mumbled his displeasure under his breath. “I’ll go with you.”

“No.” To save further argument, she disarmed the security system. “Stay here. I don’t want my son and grandmother left alone.”

Marin hurried out before the deputy could stop her, and ran across the front lawn to get to the side of the house. Thankfully, the moonlight cooperated. She saw her mother on the trail just ahead.

Marin shook her head to fight off the dizziness from the sedative. Just in case, she kept her gun ready.

“Mother?” she called out, trying to keep her voice low. They were still far enough away from the barn that Duran shouldn’t be able to hear them, but Marin didn’t want to take any chances.

Her mother stopped and turned. “No,” she whispered. Her warm breath blended with the frigid air and created a wispy surreal haze around her. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you. What are you doing out here anyway?” Marin asked.

“Taking a walk.”

It wasn’t a convincing lie, and coupled with the troubled look on her mother’s face, Marin knew that something was terribly wrong.

“Why don’t you come back inside,” Marin suggested. “I’ll make you a cup of tea. We can talk.”

Lois frantically shook her head. “I’m too antsy for tea. I need to walk. But you look exhausted. Go back to your room, Marin. I meant what I said—you shouldn’t be out here.”

That sounded like a warning.

Marin didn’t want to bring up Lucky and the meeting with Duran, so she took a different approach in the hope of learning what was going on. “Mother, is Dexter alive? Are you about to meet with him?”

She dodged Marin’s stare. “I don’t know if he’s alive.”

“You’re lying again.”

Lois looked around. Her breath was too fast. Her eyes, almost wild now. “You’ll turn him in to the police.”

Marin felt everything inside her go still. “Dexter’s really alive?”

Her mother nodded and then groaned. “He didn’t want you to know. He said you’d go to the police.”

And she would have. Marin couldn’t deny that. Her brother had put her son in danger, and Noah’s safety came ahead of her brother’s desire to go unpunished for the things he’d done wrong.

“He faked his death?” Marin asked.

Lois hesitated so long that Marin wasn’t sure the woman would answer. But she finally did. “He faked his death, Brenna’s and Kinley’s.”

“Kinley had his child.”

Her mother’s eyes widened. Her reaction was too genuine for it to be fake. “He didn’t tell me that. He’s been in Mexico. The people who invested in his project wanted to kill him.”

That was not good to hear. Marin glanced back at the house to make sure it looked safe and secure. Thankfully, it did.

“But the investors are dead now,” Lois continued. “Dexter took care of them.”

Oh, mercy. “He killed them?”

“He had to. Don’t you see? If he hadn’t, they would have killed him. And he could have never come home.”

That tightened the knot in her stomach. “But he’s home now?”

Lois smiled and touched Marin’s arm. “He’s home,” she said with all the joy of a mother who was about to see her son. Marin could understand that on some level—she had a son. But unlike her son, Dexter was a killer. “He called this afternoon to tell us that he was back. Soon, we’ll all be a family again.”

Not a chance. Dexter would know that she wouldn’t want him anywhere near Noah.

Then, it hit her. “Lucky,” Marin whispered under her breath.

God, was Dexter going after him? Did he plan to eliminate Lucky, too?

Blinking back another wave of dizziness, Marin considered running toward the barn. Maybe Dexter was there, waiting to ambush Lucky.

Her mother stiffened and whirled around to face the other direction. The direction of the barn. Her gaze flew to her watch and the lighted dial. “I have to go. It’s time.”

Marin caught on to her arm. “Time for what?”

“To meet Dexter. He should be waiting in the truck that I left for him at the hay barn. But you can’t come. If he sees you, he’ll leave.” Lois began to run, staying on the trail.

Marin considered following her directly. But that would be a dangerous move, especially if Dexter wanted her dead. Instead, she waited several seconds until her mother had a head start, then went off the trail, using the mountain laurels for cover. She slapped aside the low hanging branches and began to run. She’d get to the barn taking the same path that Lucky had likely taken.

She prayed she wasn’t too late to save him from her brother.

Lucky eased his way through the darkness and the meager shrubs. There wasn’t a lot of cover once he got close to the barn.

He was a sitting duck.

And there wasn’t much he could do about it.

He kept telling himself that if Duran wanted to kill Kinley, he would have already done it. So, now the trick was to get to this meeting and come up with some kind of resolution that would set his sister free.

A twig snapped beneath his boot, spiking his heartbeat and causing his finger to tense on the trigger of his gun. Lucky paused, waiting to make sure the twig hadn’t alerted anyone. It apparently hadn’t. He continued forward one cautious step at a time.

There was no light on in the barn, but the entire structure was visible because of the watery white moonlight. The wind was still stirring and that made it next to impossible to know if he was about to be ambushed.

He saw a truck parked at the back of the barn. It wasn’t the same one that’d been used to try to kill him, but he was certain he’d seen the vehicle on the ranch.

Lucky walked toward it, keeping vigilant. He wanted to be sure he was mentally and physically ready for whatever was about to happen.

When he was within twenty feet of the barn, he picked up the pace. He practically ran until he got to the north side of the structure, and then to the passenger’s side of the truck. He paused there and listened for any sound to indicate something was wrong.

Everything was quiet.

Too quiet.

He glanced inside the truck. It was empty. No keys in the ignition. There was no one in the back, either. Which meant the person who’d driven it, Grady Duran probably, was already inside the barn. If Duran had truly been the one who’d tried to run them down, then Lucky intended to make the man pay.

Trying not to make his presence known, he maneuvered his way to the back entrance, a double set of high wooden doors, one of which was slightly ajar. He peeked in, but it was too dark to see anything.

He stepped inside.

The toe of his left boot rammed into something soft and pliable that didn’t budge when Lucky gave it a light shove with his foot.

He waited a moment, until his eyes could adjust to the darkness. Lucky saw the bales of hay stacked on both sides of the barn in staggered piles. They seemed to extend to the ceiling, and there was only a narrow path that cut through the middle of the barn.

And then he looked down.

What he’d walked into was no bale of hay.

It was a body.

“Hell,” he cursed.

Without taking his attention off his surroundings, he stooped and fumbled around until he located the person’s neck. He shoved his fingers against the carotid artery.

Nothing.

Not even the hint of a pulse.

Frantic now, he prayed this wasn’t his sister. He turned over the body. Not Kinley.

Grady Duran.

There was blood. Lots of it. It spread out across the entire front of Duran’s shirt.

Both the blood and the body were still warm.

That just had time to register in his head when he heard a muffled scream. But it wasn’t so muffled that he couldn’t figure out who’d made that blood-chilling sound. Kinley. He was certain of it.

With his gun ready and aimed, he stepped over Duran and began to make his way through the maze of hay bales. He had to find his sister. She was in trouble. The person who’d killed Duran might have already gotten to her.

There was another sound.

Lois Sheppard.

And Marin.

He couldn’t understand exactly what Marin was saying, but she sounded close, probably just outside the barn. His first instinct was to shout for her to stay back. To tell her to run. To get away. But he didn’t have time for that.

Then pain exploded in his head.

Lucky felt himself falling, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. He hit the hay-strewn floor of the barn hard just as the world went blank.

His last coherent thought was that he wouldn’t be able to save Marin.

“D
EXTER
?” L
OIS CALLED
out again.

Marin caught up with her mother just outside the barn and tried to stop her from shouting Dexter’s name.

“This could be dangerous,” Marin warned. There were no signs of Lucky. Nor his sister or Grady Duran.

Not Dexter, either.

No signs of anyone. A meeting should be taking place, but where were all the parties? Where was Lucky?

“Dexter’s in there,” her mother said, and she bolted for the barn.

Since it was obvious her mother wasn’t going to stop her quest to see Dexter, Marin got her gun ready and followed her through the front entrance. The place was pitch-black. She reached for the overhead light, only to realize that wasn’t a good idea. She grabbed a flashlight from the tack shelf instead and turned it on.

She fanned the circle of light over the darkness, and the first thing she saw was Kinley.

Lucky’s sister was tied to a post, gagged and blindfolded with rags. She was struggling to get free and mumbling something.

And that’s when Marin noticed Lucky.

Lying on the floor.

“Lucky?” Even though it occurred to her head that it might be a trap, she couldn’t stop herself from running to him. God, he couldn’t be dead.

He wasn’t moving.

Her panic soared when she saw blood on his head. Not a gunshot wound. At least she didn’t think it was. The wound was small, and he wasn’t gushing blood. It looked as if someone had clubbed him across the back on the head.

“Lucky?” she repeated.

With the gun in her right hand and the flashlight in her left, she stooped down, rolled him onto his side and made sure he was breathing.

He was.

Thank God. But he still needed medical attention. She reached for her cell phone, only to realize she’d left it in her room.

“Mother, do you have your phone with you? I need you to call for help.”

Her mother didn’t answer. She looked behind her, turned the flashlight in that direction and saw nothing.

Her mother was gone.

Marin got up to run to Kinley, to see if the woman had a phone, but then she felt something.

Lucky gripped on to her arm. “You need to get out of here,” he warned, forcing his eyes to open. He winced in pain and touched his fingers to his injured head.

Despite his weak voice, she felt relief. He could speak. However that didn’t mean he didn’t have serious injuries. “I need to get you to the hospital. You’re hurt.”

Lucky shook his head. “You have to leave.
Now.
Duran’s dead.”

An icy chill went through her. “Dead, how?”

“Shot.”

Mercy. Was Dexter responsible? Probably. But she didn’t have time to point fingers now. “Can you stand up? I have to get you to the hospital. Kinley, too.”

“Where’s Kinley?” He sat up and wobbled, so Marin helped him to his feet. Somehow. She cursed her own dizziness and weak legs.

“She’s here in the barn. Alive.” Marin hadn’t seen any obvious injuries, but that didn’t mean there weren’t some.

And where the heck was her mother?

With Lucky leaning against her and with her gun clutched in a death grip, they made it through the hay bales to the front of the barn.

The moment Lucky saw his sister, he reached for her, and though he was clumsy from his injury, he pulled the gag from her mouth.

“Watch out!” Kinley immediately shouted.

From the corner of her eye, Marin saw the movement. And the gun. It was aimed right at Lucky.

“No!” she yelled and automatically turned the flashlight and her gun in the direction of the shooter.

White light slashed across the barn like a razor, blinding the shooter. That didn’t stop him from shooting.

Kinley screamed.

But it took Marin a second to realize the bullet had missed her and that it had smacked into a hay bale on the other side of the barn. Bits of dried grass burst into the air.

Praying that the dizziness from the sedative would go away, Marin readjusted her aim and braced herself to return fire. And then she saw the shooter.

Her father.

He re-aimed and pointed his gun right at Lucky.

Marin didn’t think about the situation or anything else. She just reacted. She dove in front of Lucky, just as he tried to pull her behind him. They collided, both ending up right in the line of fire.

“Get out of the way, Marin!” her father ordered.

There was no chance of that. In fact, she moved back in front of Lucky. Well, as much as Lucky would allow her to do.

“Dad, what are you doing?” she shouted.

“Saving you. You need to get out of here.” His gaze was frozen on Lucky. And Marin knew in that moment what her father was doing.

He intended to kill Lucky.

“Did you murder Duran?” Lucky asked her father.

Howard moved to the side, obviously trying to position himself for a better shot. He had a set of keys hooked to his belt that jangled when he moved.

Marin didn’t believe her father would kill her to get to Lucky. But she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t be sure of anything right now. Her world had just tipped upside down.

“I had to get rid of him. He got in the way.”

Oh, God.

Her father was a killer.

“You’ve gotten in the way, too,” Howard continued, aiming his comments and his gun at Lucky. “And like Duran, you’re getting too close to finding out the truth about Dexter.”

Blinking back tears and trying to deal with the horrific image of her father as a cold-blooded murderer, Marin moved, intending to use herself as a shield.

“And what truth would that be?” she asked.

“That Dexter’s alive,” Kinley provided. That hung in the air for several seconds. “Howard helped him fake our deaths that night in the research lab because Dexter took money from the wrong people. Not just from Duran, but from other investors. Dexter promised both he’d deliver a weapon I learned that we couldn’t deliver. We only had the technology for components of the weapon, not the entire package.”

“So, Duran and the other investor were going to get their money back any way they could,” Howard supplied. “One of them put a contract on Dexter’s life. That’s when I knew I had to help my son.”

“You helped him by blackmailing me into staying quiet,” Kinley fired back. She looked at Lucky. “I’m so sorry.”

Lucky glanced at her, but like Marin, he kept his attention on Howard.

And on his trigger finger.

“Now that Duran’s dead and I’ve discovered the identity of the other investor who’s after Dexter,” Howard continued, “the only thing I need to clear up is this mess.” He tipped his head first to Kinley and then to Lucky.

“You aren’t going to try to kill them,” Marin insisted.

“I won’t try. I’ll
succeed.
I have to, for Dexter’s sake.” Turning to the side so he could still keep an eye on them, her father pulled the barn door shut and, with his left hand, used the key on his belt to lock them in. Of course, the back entrance was still open. If possible, they could use that way to escape.

Because she had no choice, Marin tried again. She had to make her father see that what he was doing was crazy. “You’ll be arrested. You’ll go to jail for murder.”

“No. Brenna will take the blame for this. She has to be eliminated, too. After I’m done here, I’ll find her and plant this gun on her.”

Lucky inched closer to her father. “The deputy’s at the house. You plan to kill him, too?”

“No. He won’t hear a thing,” he said, waving the silencer at Lucky. “Neither will the ranch hands that I asked to patrol the place. I told them to stick to the front of the ranch. They won’t come back here.”

Mercy. He had planned all of this. She had to do something to stop him. It would have been easier if he were ranting and out of control. Then, maybe she wouldn’t have seen the small part of her father that still remained.

“Why would you risk killing your own daughter?” Marin asked.

He looked genuinely insulted. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m only doing what I have to do to save your brother.”

“But you nearly killed Marin and Noah on the train and then again at the drive-in,” Lucky pointed out. He took another step closer.

“I didn’t set those explosives. Dexter did. And even though I was furious when I learned what he did, I forgave him because he was desperate.
I’m desperate.
”

Marin didn’t doubt that. She could see the pain etched in his face. That meant she might be able to talk him out of this insanity.

“And what about Mother? Is she in on this with you, too?” Marin asked, wondering if her entire family had gone stark raving mad. She also wanted to keep her father occupied so that maybe he wouldn’t notice that Lucky was maneuvering himself closer.

“Not a chance. Your mother has no idea. That’s why I sent her back to the house. I told her that Dexter would meet her there. That’s the plan, anyway.”

With his gun still aimed right at Lucky, her father walked closer and latched on to her arm. “I don’t want you to see this. It might trigger a seizure.”

She wanted to laugh at the irony. Her father didn’t want to trigger a seizure, but he was willing to kill the man she loved.

In that moment, Marin realized that she loved Lucky. Talk about lousy timing.

“I can’t let you do this,” Marin said.

But before the last word left her mouth, her father reached out, lightning fast. With a fierce grip, he knocked the gun from her hand. Lucky bolted forward, but her father turned his gun in Kinley’s direction.

“Back off,” Howard warned.

Lucky froze and stared at Marin. She could see him process their situation. He couldn’t risk killing his sister, or getting himself killed. Because every minute he stayed alive was another minute he had to get them all out of there.

Only then her father latched on to her and started dragging her toward the back exit of the barn, away from Lucky.