Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Mason
“ Y ou had something to do with this!” I shouted at Graham, who was staring at me with wide eyes.
“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, Sheriff Hewitt. I was just throwing my gala, like we do every year.” His voice was calm and cool, his hands up in a little surrender pose.
“That’s the biggest load of bullshit, I’ve ever heard,” I growled, lunging toward him just as Jackson got in the way.
“You gotta quit this shit, Mason,” he warned me, his blue eyes sharp as a knife. “I get that you’re pissed—and you have every right to be—but we don’t know that they had anything to do with this.”
I shook my head at him, clenching my fists to keep from punching him right in the face. “You’re being an idiot, Jackson. You know they had something to do with it.”
“I don’t know,” he lowered his voice as Graham stalked away, accompanied by Ron. We didn’t have enough units and had to call in for backup, but they haven’t responded yet. “We don’t know anything other than the fact that you got a phone call saying she had been kidnapped. We’re taking it seriously, obviously, but we can’t point the finger… Not until we have the right amount of evidence. You taught me that.”
Seething, I backed away from him, shaking my head. “I just don’t fucking understand why anyone would wanna take her. Nothing is accomplished by kidnapping her.”
“Well, you’ve been the sheriff a long time. Easily could be anyone that you rubbed wrong over the years,” Ron spoke up, appearing from the crowd of pissed off attendees. They’d been gathered in the main area, forced to wait while we got our shit together to start interviewing them one by one. A few of the deputies and town police had already started searching the grounds—and the canine was on the way.
“We gotta find her,” I urged, panic surging through my chest as the seconds kept ticking by. I knew the clock we were on, and it made me sick to think of poor Emma dragged into this mess—my mess.
“We can’t trace the call, Mason,” he said, his voice flat. “It wasn’t long enough, and we’re still waiting to see if we can locate her cell phone. You’re gonna have to take a deep breath. We don’t even know exactly what’s going on right now.”
“I know the Hudsons are behind it—and so do you.”
“Damnit, Hewitt,” Ron barked at me. “We don’t know what they are. Even if you got your suspicions, it doesn’t help to go pointing fingers. They are some wealthy people with a lot of connections in places that we could only dream of—you gotta shut your fuckin’ mouth before it gets us a lawsuit. I don’t wanna get sued.”
I snapped my jaw shut at that comment, suddenly more than aware of the eyes looking on at us. “Right, I know, sorry. Just give me a minute.”
Jackson let out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “You want me to start interviews? Because I don’t like sitting here and waiting any more than Mason does. It feels like we’re stalling.”
“Yeah, ought to just go ahead and start them,” Ron said, his voice staying flat and indifferent. “I don’t know what we’re up against with these people. The rest of the team should be done searching the area before too long though.”
I nodded, trying to get my brain in the right order to follow procedure with everything… But the migraine was nearly crippling now, and my thoughts plagued me with regret.
If I’d not left her…
If I hadn’t told her to go in without me…
If I hadn’t dragged her into this…
“Sir,” one of the uniformed town cops called out, waving his hand. “We found a purse with her cell phone in it. We got pictures of it and bagged it.”
I shut my eyes, knowing now that the trace I had already contacted the phone company for wouldn’t lead to anything.
“Where was it?” Ron asked, placing a hand on my shoulder as he spoke.
“Right out the back door. There’re some tire tracks there. We’re calling in the crime scene people. I think this might be above our pay grade.”
I groaned, running my hands down my face—of course, it was above our pay grade. Anything that wasn’t just small-town shit was above our pay grade. We could barely handle ranchers getting their cattle stolen, and now we had a missing woman …
My woman.
A lump threatened to form in my throat. I hadn’t called Lily or Drew yet. Jess had no idea. I would have to tell them all that this happened while she was with me—in my care. I was the sheriff. I shouldn’t have let anything happen to her…
And our baby.
“It’s gonna be fine,” Jackson said in a low voice beside me as Ron went off to guide officers to start interviewing the gala attendees. “If it is the Hudsons, I don’t see them killing her. I don’t know why they would wanna take her—other than to keep you from making the proposal tonight. For all you know, she’s gonna show up somewhere, and this was all just a ruse to make you look bad.”
“That’s not making me feel the slightest bit better,” I grunted, though that was partially a lie. It did make me feel better to think that whoever had taken her was just going to drop her off somewhere else, and that the whole thing was a distraction…
As for the other, I didn’t give a shit about what people thought of me.
But it still didn’t change the fact that it was all my fault—and that if we didn’t find her, I might never get to tell her how sorry I was…
And how excited I was to have a baby with her.
There hadn’t been anyone I had cared about since my ex-wife, and no one I’d been with since then had even had a pregnancy scare. I hadn’t thought about having another kid—and I hadn’t even thought that I wanted one…
But damn, the more I had thought about it at the edge of the clearing, the more I really started to like the idea of having a baby with Emma. Maybe it would be the perfect missing piece in our lives. I already knew I was serious about Emma—even if I was slow to admit it. That was my fear of heartbreak, not my lack of feelings…
And Jess? She would probably be elated to have a sibling. She’d always bugged me for one when she was little—even after her mom left us…
And all that made me feel so much worse about it all.
“You okay?” Jackson asked me, giving me a nudge as I had zoned out, staring at the floor between my shined up black boots.
“I don’t know,” I answered him honestly.
“You need your meds?” He kept his voice at a near whisper.
I let out a sigh. “You know, I probably do. The moment I took off to go look for her, my head started pounding. I don’t know why it does that.”
“It’s the anxiety,” Jackson said with a sigh. “And I’m worried it’s all only going to get worse from here.”
I didn’t understand him until my eyes drifted toward the two large front doors of the mansion, where two Texas Rangers were walking in. I took one long look at them, and the familiarity set in…
Shit.
“Why are they here?” I turned to Jackson, who let out a sigh—and then never got the chance to answer.
“Sheriff Hewitt,” Ranger Nick Matthews said to me, extending his large, heavy hand for me to shake.
I reluctantly took it, noting that his six-feet-three frame seemed a little wider and his dark hair a little grayer. “It’s good to see you, Nick.” My eyes bounced to the other, younger, man beside him. He was about the same height with bright blonde hair and blue eyes.
“This is Newman,” Nick said, letting out a sigh. “I was hoping that we would be here under better circumstances, but at least you’re not the one in trouble this time.” He laughed, though Jackson and I didn’t budge from our straight faces. Nothing about that past event was a pleasant memory…
And it had left me with nothing but a bad fucking headache.
“Anyway,” Jackson cleared his throat. “We don’t know much about the current situation. We assume she was taken, and that’s solely because of the phone call that Mason received. Officers found a purse with her phone and tire tracks out near the back door.”
Nick nodded, looking perplexed as he glanced around us. “Where the hell are we? What kind of place is this, anyway? Odd for out here.”
“It’s a gala for charity,” I choked out, though I was starting to wonder if it was all just some kind of front.
“Right,” Newman, the younger ranger, quipped, a weird look on his face.
“Well, I guess we have to get started on interviews. I’ve got a team searching for her, and the description has been released statewide. I don’t know what we can do beyond that. Phone tracing won’t work if her phone was left here. How long until the dog shows up?” Nick adjusted his cowboy hat, his voice sounding monotone like he’d given a similar spiel a million times…
Probably because he had.
“They’re on their way,” I answered, my shoulders sagging. “But the trail will end if she was put in a vehicle.”
“Yeah, usually does,” Nick agreed, deep lines forming around his eyes. “And you’ve been having a lot of cattle go missing around town, too?”
I nodded. “I don’t think that has anything to do with this though. ”
“And who are these people?” Nick eyed the group as the interviews had started. However, before anyone could say anything, he answered his own question. “Graham Hudson. Guess he’s moved towns.” Something in his tone made my stomach flip.
“You know him?”
“Oh yeah, we know him,” Nick said through gritted teeth, his eyes laser focused. “And I have a damn good idea what’s going on here with this kidnapping.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded, my eyes narrowing.
“We’ve been trying to nail the asshole for years, and a couple years ago, there was a similar incident to this that took place. Never could place the blame on him because the woman showed up just fine a couple of hours into the search. She never saw who picked her up or took her.”
“And… why did it happen?” Jackson looked more confused than ever.
“Well, that’s a great fucking question,” Nick chuckled, shaking his head. “Seems like it was an intimidation factor maybe. He apparently wanted to buy the property that the woman and her husband owned, and that was the sole motive… But we could never prove he had a hand in it. We couldn’t prove shit, to be honest.”
“And what about the property? Did they sell it?” Jackson asked, his face deeply concerned.
Newman nodded. “For half price. His scare tactic worked, and ever since then, we’ve been watching him. His greed outweighs his sense, and eventually he’s going to trip up—and we’ll be there when he does.”
“You think he’s behind the missing cattle?” I asked, the wheels in my head turning a hundred miles an hour.
“Probably,” Nick said with a shrug. “I mean, he’d have someone else getting their hands dirty, but I bet if we nail him, the cattle will stop going missing.”
“Then let’s nail him,” I said, just as my phone began to ring in my pocket. I pulled it out, my eyes focused on Graham, who was staring at the four of us. He looked… pissed. “Hello?” I said into the receiver, not even paying attention to who had called.
“Call them off, and you can have your girl.”